Christmas 2010

I haven't been very good about keeping up with this blog since Andrew was born. To be honest, I just don't have the time! I'm back at work part-time and taking care of two little boys and a household the rest of the time.  By the time I get Andrew to sleep at night (and he's just now starting to fall asleep at a predictable time and stay asleep once I lay him down in his bed) all I want to do is mindlessly surf the web and hang out with Phil. So it's not that there's nothing going on or that I have nothing to say, it's just that there's not enough time to talk about everything that's going on!

December was a super busy month. Normally I love Christmas and the anticipation and business of the days leading up to it, but this year I could really take it or leave it. Not sure why. Blame it on the sleep deprivation! However, this year we have a two year old who was very into this thing called Christmas and you couldn't help but get excited too when you saw it through the eyes of a little one just big enough to get excited himself!

So despite constantly feeling like there wasn't enough time to get everything done, we managed to pull off a great first Christmas as a family of four. We put up lights. We saw Santa. We baked cookies. We had pictures taken of the boys in their holiday clothes and sent out Christmas cards. We bought we may more presents than originally planned!

Christmas morning was so fun. We got the boys up and dressed, and I went downstairs and put cinnamon rolls in the oven, made coffee, lit the tree, and turned on Christmas music. Phil brought Philip and Andrew downstairs where I was waiting, video camera in hand, to catch Philip's reaction when he saw that Santa Claus did indeed come, just as we had been telling him for the past few weeks. It was so fun to watch him opening his gifts!

Once the gifts were all open Phil made us a basil and potato frittata and we spent the rest of the day enjoying our new presents and each other's company. As a child of divorced parents, I spent almost every Christmas of my childhood traveling in between houses on Christmas day. I made a promise to myself back then that when I had a family of my own, I wouldn't make my kids leave their new toys behind and pack us all into the car to go visit relatives. Visiting with family is done on Christmas Eve and the days after Christmas, but Christmas day is reserved for us. So far, I absolutely love it! 

After all, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy this peaceful moment in quite the same way had we not been in the comfort of our own home. ♥

Santa

Yesterday we took the boys to see Santa. Philip lead us to believe he was excited about this, after weeks of us giving him prep talks about the big day. We were hopeful that he would surprise us and actually sit on  Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas (Bigfoot and a Woody doll), as he had been saying just that since we told him he was going to get to see Santa.

Ummm.... not so much.

And that was the best shot.

On the plus side, Andrew did great!

You've gotta love this age. He had no idea he was even sitting on someone's lap. All he knew was mommy was off to his right making big goofy faces at him. I only regret not taking Philip when he was Andrew's age for his first Christmas (I had all of these silly first time mom worries about germs--ha!)--that might have been our only shot at a picture of  a smiling Philip sitting on Santa's lap! ;-)