Christmastime

This was our first Christmas spent without any extended family. Russ and I were a little bummed about being by ourselves, but we tried to do a lot of fun holiday activities in December and we tried to plan for some good new family traditions. Unfortunately, nothing really went as planned.

Our Christmas Eve started around 2:00 AM when Kaylee woke us up to let us know Brenna had thrown up in her bed. All sorts of fun. She was sick and ornery and whiny and tired all day long. She just wanted her Mommy to hold her, but that's tricky when you've got a 4-month-old baby. And it becomes really hard for Mommy to get anything done. At the end of the day Brenna and Ashlyn went to bed early while Kaylee and Russ went out to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We didn't make any cookies for Santa. We didn't even act out the story of the nativity.

Christmas day began much the same as Christmas Eve - Brenna throwing up in her bed at 4:00 AM. We had told the girls they couldn't wake up to open presents until 6:00 AM, but at 5:00 AM they were all awake (except McKell) so we decided to just go ahead and let them come out. A day that begins so early for everyone is bound to bring on exhaustion and general crankiness later in the day. Brenna was basically the same as she had been the day before. McKell decided to have a particularly fussy day. It was super.

After dinner that night Russ and I were discussing the misery that was our holiday celebration. But then I thought about families in Connecticut whose Christmas was certainly much less enjoyable than mine. And I instantly felt thankful, rather than miserable. Even after a rather awful day, I am so thankful for our four little girls, and thankful that our family was all together to celebrate Christmas this year.

Here are a few pictures we managed to take:

Sick Brenna 

New Christmas Pajamas 

Opening Presents 

Playing with the phone she asked Santa for 

Finally exploring the unopened gifts she had dumped in her new shopping cart that morning 

Russ and Brenna trying out our new piano 

 Kaylee and Ashlyn playing on their new Barbie tablets

FOUR Months!

Can you believe this sweet little girl is 4 months old already?!

Here are her updated stats:

BIRTH              7 lbs 7 oz          20 in

2 MONTHS     11 lbs 2 oz          23 in

4 MONTHS     13 lbs 9 oz          24.75 in

She's doing great and we all adore her!

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

 Here is our assortment of Santa Claus photos for the season:

At one of the Christmas parties we attended there was a table set up for face painting. Ashlyn was the first to run over and she came back with a candy cane on one cheek and Santa's face on the other.

When it was Brenna's turn she also requested Santa on her cheek, and ended up with this impressive artwork (different painter).

And here's the whole gang. (Do you like Kaylee's glowstick-turned-headband, and my fashionable camera string-hanging-out-of-the-pocket look?)

Smartypants

Kaylee (2nd grade) has a spelling pre-test each Monday. The deal is that if a student aces the pre-test they are not required to take the post-test on Friday. Kaylee often does this, but I thought her accomplishment was particularly notable today. Here's the list of words she spelled correctly (without having seen them ahead of time):

basketball
someone
weekend
something
birthday
riverbank
bathtub
backyard
driveway
bedtime
mailbox
raindrop

I've a feeling we're not in Kansas (Delaware) any more.

Last night we headed out to visit "Christmas at the Creek" - an outdoor holiday event hosted by the city of College Station and held at a local park area .

When you live in Texas you can enjoy an outdoor holiday event on December 1st and not have to worry about your kids getting cold. You don't even have to bring jackets. If they happen to wear long sleeves, they'll probably roll them up before long.

When you live in Texas, things are more family-friendly. The fact that you have three or four children does not make you an anomaly. You're just part of the crowd.

When you live in Texas, people are openly and happily religious. The event we attended last night, which was hosted by the CITY (as opposed to some church group), included a live nativity. I love that the city did not shy away from including something so openly Christian in their holiday celebration.

And apparently when you live in Texas, the petting zoo adjacent to the live nativity includes crazy things like donkeys and camels.

So, I should qualify all of my "when you live in Texas" statements, because our experience is limited to living here in the Bryan/College Station area. But I have a feeling much of Texas would be the same.