Monkeying Around

We were fortunate enough to have Jason home from December 23 all the way until January 5.  For the most part, that was a good thing and I can tell you a couple of people that got a little spoiled from that set up!  We decided to head to the zoo to enjoy some unseasonably warm December weather we were having last Tuesday.  

Checking out the hippos--one of our favorites!  Seems like they are always easy to find and doing something cool.

I take a picture of Amelia in this pose EVERY time we go to the zoo.  Its fun to see how she has grown!

See what I mean??

Amelia monkeying around.  Its kind of hard to see from the picture, but she and the monkey were "playing" through the glass.

After visiting all of the animals we checked out the zoomagination area.  We've been once before and interestingly enough the stations she couldn't get enough of last time, she barely visited this time.  Playing doctor with the animals was popular this trip!

Our little stinker showing daddy the skunk she found!

Christmas Wrap Up

We were so blessed this Christmas to have such a wonderful time with all of our family (and even some friends!).  Last year, we thought Christmas with Amelia was great, but watching the season through her eyes this year was exponentially better and I'm sure that will be true for years to come.  

For whatever reason, though, I was ready to get the Christmas decorations down and put away this year only a few days after the festivities had ended.  It seems like every year the time between opening gifts and finding a spot for all of them makes me a little crazy.  I can't stand to see bags and boxes of stuff laying around everywhere and I think I was hoping to simplify things by taking down the decorations and getting them put away.  

So, late one night after dinner and putting Amelia to bed, I started to slowly take down the ornaments from the tree and put them away.  As I moved down near the bottom of the tree, I glanced at my nativity scene.  Despite the fact that the set is over 35 years old, highly breakable, and is missing one of the wise men, I love it.  Maybe its because the set is not at all flashy or maybe its because my mom made the set herself many years ago. 

Amelia loves to look at all of the pieces, especially baby Jesus.  She likes to hear the "Away in a Manger" song and hear about how baby Jesus doesn't cry.  Sometimes I would find her in there playing with the nativity pieces, but amazingly, she has yet to break one.  She is so gentle with them.

So, as I glanced down at the nativity scene, I noticed something beautiful.  Amelia, I assume, had taken all of the pieces of the scene and positioned them so that each one could be as close to baby Jesus as possible.  Its a great reminder to me about the true meaning of Christmas.  

When I display the nativity scene, I usually have the wise men and the animals far away from Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  But, I think next year I will have Amelia set it up--I like her way much better.

Week in Review: Thursday

Whew, what a day!  It honestly makes me tired just thinking about it!

Jason and I were up, showered, and breakfasted before Amelia even made a peep.  When she finally awoke and was coming down the stairs she got her first glimpse of the things Santa brought.  Her first comment was, "Oh!  What happened here??" Followed by, "What is all of the stuff?".

She received a new baby that came with a stroller, pack-n-play, and high chair.  There was also a Belle pillow waiting for her under the tree.  She hardly knew what to do with herself!  Excitedly, she said, "Santa was here!" and then went over to check out the dish where she had left his cookies and carrots (I was surprised she remembered!).  It took her a good 15 minutes to realize there were other gifts to open from Santa.  But eventually, she figured it out and also received a few new books, a doctor's kit, and a new instrument set.  

I think Truman would be upset if I didn't mention how nice she looked on Christmas this year!  She decided to get into the Christmas spirit by sporting her Santa hat and festive Christmas sweater!

Since Jason and I were already ready to go, she got some time to play with her things before we loaded everyone (including the new baby) into the car and headed to house #1 for the day--GG and Papa's.  I could tell Amelia was already exhausted given our super busy schedule as of late.  And although she may have refused proper "thank you's", she got lots of great stuff over there.

 However, once she opened up a set of all of the disney princesses from Andrew & Jacob, she really wasn't interested in opening much else!

Here's Jacob looking thoroughly interested in his new book!

Hey look!  A picture of me!

Yep, lots of happy kids on Christmas morning!

After speeding through all of the gifts (we were already running late!), back in the car we went to house #2--Jason's grandparents.  Amelia scored some other great gifts there too including the Little People castle she has had her eye on for awhile!  After visiting and eating some lunch, it was on to house number 3 where we stayed until late into the evening.  After more presents and more eating, we finally returned home!   I was shocked that Amelia lasted the whole day and never once fell asleep!  

It was a great day and everyone was so generous but, I am so glad that there is only one day a year that is as crazy as this!

Week in Review: Wednesday

Well, with Wednesday being Christmas Eve and all, I figured I had no more time to put off the baking that needed to get done.  It certainly wasn't for a lack of baked goods in the house, but more for Amelia to have cookies to put out for Santa.  So, the day started with making a batch of chocolate chip cookies!

Since I asked for a set of assorted cookie cutters as well as an alphabet/number set, I decided to wait on the sugar cookies until we had lots more options. Currently I have one gingerbread man, one snowflake, and one Christmas tree--not too exciting!

We did a bunch of other last minute tasks like grocery shopping, preparing a dessert for my family's celebration, wrapping, etc.  Amelia was fighting a nap like a true warrior, so when she finally lost the battle around 4, we opted out of Christmas Eve mass.  We finally woke her up around 6:30 (my family's celebration started at 7:00) and got her ready to go. Before we took off, we all opened one Christmas present.  Following a tradition my friend, Kristina, does with her family, everyone gets new pajamas on Christmas Eve.  Amelia picked out a lovely snowman set for me, I bought Jason some new sweatpants in the hopes that he would get rid of his old maroon Desmet basketball ones (no luck, the pants I bought were too short), and Amelia got a super cute Nick and Nora set that she has requested to wear every night since she opened them.

Amelia was pretty excited about her Christmas outfit.  She kept saying, "Look at my fancy dress and my fancy shoes and my fancy purse!".  I asked her if I should take her picture before we left and she said, "YES!".  So, I said, "Let's take it in front of the Christmas tree".  She said, "No, how about by my cart".  

Christmas Eve was really nice .  I certainly do not see the Banocy family enough and Amelia and Andrew had a blast together! 

Amelia particularly enjoyed telling everyone about her fancy clothes (I think this may be associated with her growing love of Fancy Nancy) and running around on the hardwood floor, as her patent leather shoes made a fun noise!  She carried her purse around all night!

Here are some great family shots, although as usual, I didn't give the camera up, so there are none of me, but I swear I was there!

When we got home around 11:00, Amelia was still pretty wound up.  So, we let her open the last book under the advent tree which was, "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  We read it through and then, put out some cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer.  (Check out the new jammies).  After we laid her down though, we didn't hear a peep!

Week in Review: Tuesday PM

I know, I know!  It seems a bit ridiculous to not only have a separate post for each day of the week, but then to take it one step further and have two separate posts for the SAME day?!?  The nerve!

But, rest assured it is necessary.  Less because of the content and more because of the ghettoness that is blogger.  I have to manually move each picture to the appropriate location on the blog and because I did not have the forethought to add the last pictures first, it would take a very long time to move the pictures associated with Tuesday evening past all of the Tuesday morning information.

So, please bear with me.  I'm tired, feeling lazy, and am already quite a bit behind on my posts as it is.

So, after a long day at the Magic House we returned home to find Jason already there.  He had completed the grocery shopping and was geared up to make a dessert we traditionally take to his family's house on Christmas.  My mom had been bothering me nearly all day to join them for dinner that evening to use some buy one, get one free coupons that apparently expired on Christmas.  I had been both politely and eventually impolitely declining her invitation (after all, I had wrapping and baking and resting to do!).  The weather was super crummy and the thought of heading out (again) and toddler wrangling all through dinner did not appeal to me in the least.

It was after my mom's final high pressure attempt that I began to get a bit suspicious.  She is not one to lay down a guilt trip and she was so doing that!  "You don't get to see your brother that much!" and then she dropped the "Its good to support local businesses" line and I almost laughed at her out loud.  When I brought it up to Jason, he was all for going despite my pleas to skip (also unlike him as he is very go with the flow and if I wouldn't have wanted to go that strongly, he would have said, "Then let's not go!")  Hmmmm...the pieces were starting to fit together.  Coupons expiring on Christmas??  High pressure tactics??  Jason in favor of attending even though I obviously was not??  My big 3-0 a mere two weeks away??

And sure enough upon my arrival at the local bar and grill where we were supposedly using some great coupons (like BOGO is even that great!), there was a surprise party waiting for me!  Now, I would be rich if I had a dime for every time I warned Jason to NOT THROW ME A PARTY FOR MY 30TH.  But, he quickly stated his case that he has known me for 15 years and during that time, I had never had a surprise party.

It was super laid back, happy hour style which I totally dug.  Although the weather was total crap and people were canceling left and right, there were some brave soles who came out and celebrated despite the nasty weather.  It was a great mix of family and friends and I was not the one who had to deal with all of the toddler-wrangling that was oh-so-necessary!

Since I wasn't 100% sure about the party, but only had a sneaking suspicion, I didn't bring my camera.  I swiped some of my brothers pictures that seem to be kind of "kid" heavy.  There is one or two of the cake too which affectionately said, "WTF?  Where did Jodi's twenties go?".  Ouch.

Week in Review: Tuesday AM

My Tuesday started out about as great as my Monday did.  Amelia slept in, but I was up, showered, and dressed by 8 AM to meet the plumber who was supposedly going to be at my house at that time.  Turns out he was just joking and didn't actually show up to begin assessing the problem until after 9 AM.  Not only that, but he didn't seem to find any sort of problem or clog, but recommended a drain cleaning anyway.  Soooooooo, 1 hour and $149 later, we were finally headed out the door to meet Derek, Amy, Andrew, and Jacob at the Magic House.

I figured it would be packed given our not-so-early arrival and the fact that all of the schools had already begun holiday break.  It was busy, but not too bad and luckily I have a friend who works there who hooked us up with a couple of free passes.  We only checked out part of the new renovation, but the part we happened to check out was the "Once Upon A Time" section and you know little Princess Amelia was totally into that!

But that wasn't it!  She loved the TWO different pianos she discovered while playing at the Magic House.

She also thought it was super fun to peddle some ice cream to Uncle D.

Andrew got in some water time and checked out the new alphabet display.

However, I think Andrew and Amelia will agree that the best part was the chance to be mechanics for the day.

Even Aunt Amy got in on the action!

And the whole time, Mr. Laid Back just went with the flow!  (Jacob, not Derek--he got a little testy).

The Week in Review: Monday

I only remember two things about Monday's events and unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of either.

First, Amelia slept in super late so I took advantage of the extra free time and tried to get some things done around the house, like the laundry and dishes.  When I heard her awake around 10 AM, I headed upstairs to get her up.  We talked and played for about 20 minutes before coming downstairs for breakfast.  As I stepped into the kitchen, my sock were immediately soaked, as were the bottoms of my pants.  Upon further investigation, I came to realize the washing machine had backed up and the entire laundry room and kitchen resembled a very shallow lake.  With Jason unable to leave work, I called (who else?) my dad to come and check it out.  He concluded that there was probably a clog in one of the pipes and suggested calling a plumber to come investigate.  This was NOT the way I was looking to start my Monday morning, ugh.

Luckily, the other thing I remember about Monday was the delicious Hanukkah meal my sister-in-law, Amy, prepared for the family.  We watched as she lit the menorah and said the special Hanukkah prayers.  I love that as Amelia gets older, she will be able to witness and learn about a religion outside of her own firsthand from her aunt and cousin.  

Although Monday was hard blog-worthy, watch out because Tuesday definitely was!