Our Christmas in Wisconsin

Another post:) Our final Christmas celebration - our little one with Dave, Kate, Collin and I at home. We weren't sure how to fit it in and when to open our own gifts. We really liked being at our home for Christmas Eve/Morning the last two years as the kids came down our stairs for the stockings, etc. But we managed to fit it in on Christmas Day this year, just much later. 

When we arrived home on Christmas Day from Burr Oak, we unloaded the car and then sat down to open our gifts, there was no way we were keeping them up super late two nights in a row. Dave and I hadn't really bought much for each other (our new furniture we got a couple months ago!), so most of the gifts were for the kids/from the kids. It was super fun to watch them open and my highlight was watching Kate get excited for the gifts she gave us. From "Collin" I received some yoga supplies - much appreciated as it is about the only exercise I do now and one I hope to really dive into full-speed as soon as I can, post-partum. From Kate, I received a beautiful snowflake necklace and some stunning earrings. I had lost my special earrings from Dave recently and these are to replace them (though not diamonds) and I was so touched. It also reminded me of getting my Mom jewelry each Christmas (or was it Tony?) we would go to the jewelry counter and pick out a necklace.., I can still picture them...a moment that felt very full circle to me! Dave gave me an incredible gift - a gift certificate to the most amazing spa in the Dells! 

Little wooden Tonka trucks! Yes!

Sooooo....pregnant:)

Ballerina Belle Barbie

Tearing into a double gift - Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head

Putting popcorn in his new dump truck

Socks! :)

Teamwork:)

Kate gave Dave some slippers (he had also lost his - geez, we are worse than the kids!:) and a hat with the earflaps, like Collin has:) Collin gave Dave an Adidas sweatshirt and I gave him a coffee travel mug he had been admiring and told him I was thinking of getting him a helicopter, but that I wasn't confident picking it out and had no time to get anyway! 

The kids were able to play with just a couple things and then had to go to bed - so cruel! After they were asleep, Dave and I cleaned up and were able to sit and decompress a bit after the whirlwind couple of weeks. It was a really nice hour or two together and we reflected on a beautiful Christmas season. 

Here are some other highlights of our house, our kids during the holidays (that haven't yet been mentioned in a post)...

Our tree!

Ballerina Kate checking out the new train upstairs

Love this pic

Both trees!

Collin running the train. From a safe distance, it is actually quite loud!

Kate and her buddy Gracie

Elsa sitting on top of the coffee table and playing with Collin's new farm set

Incidentally, her new Elsa dress made it exactly one day before she spilled pizza sauce on it. I got most of it out, but can't seem to get the sleeve clean yet. Awesome.

Kate painting Mommy's toenails for Christmas

Our little man all dressed up:)

Conversation on Dec. 27
Dave: Kate, do you know that the baby is coming soon?
Kate: Yes.
Dave: when do you think the baby will be here
Kate: January
Dave: did you know that January starts on Thursday?
Kate: Yes!
Dave: Collin, did you know there is a baby coming
Collin: No.
Me: Collin, where is the baby?
Kate: Mom, stand up!
Me: pointing to my belly, "what is in here?"
Collin: Ho, Ho, Ho!

Collin's vocabulary continues to expand. I wish I had written down all the new words. If you ask him a question, you will often hear an emphatic, "I don't know!" Mama and Dada are now sometimes "Mommy" and "Daddy" which seems so much different to me, so grown up! 

It is hitting me that we will have two in diapers. I hadn't really given it too much thought, good or bad. I started to ask some moms, all said - do not try and potty train when you have a newborn. Got it. Sounds awful. I remember all the time spent in the bathroom, dropping what one is doing to take them, etc. And with Kate, the process was very long. I can't imagine doing that while nursing a newborn. So, of course, I came out of the laundry room one day to Dave holding Collin on the toilet. He was just grinning from ear to ear. He has started to sometimes take his pants down and we wondered if it meant he had to go. Kate usually has the door open when she goes to the bathroom and Collin has definitely seen the process in action. So Dave tried it and he went a little! We were yelling and praising him. He loved it. He has made us take him a few more times, once we were unsure if he went, but he definitely did another time. They say to wait until they are ready and I vowed to go with it as soon as he showed interest but....really!?! We'll see. We've had a lull now, so it could have just been a fluke, I guess:)

We don't have a potty seat or anything for him yet!

Kate seems to have perfected the eye roll and an even sassier attitude lately. She will jump to point out when we are not giving her our full attention or interrupt her - anything we ask of her, she is demanding right back from us!  She also can/will cry at the drop of a hat. I'm an emotional person, but she will probably take the cake in our family! Uff da. She continues to be an incredible helper to me, able to now make PB&J sandwiches for her and her brother if she can get the ingredients, feed Abby, load quite a few things in/out of the dishwasher... though of course there is still some fighting and bickering between her and Collin, she continues to be very good at responding to his needs and distracting him when I need her to.

Collin adores his sister, does everything that she does, including singing, dancing, repeating what she says, he is like her little parrot. He loves when Dave and Kate come home from work/school..he goes nuts screaming their names and running to them as soon as they come in the door. If you mention going somewhere or outside or a car, he starts saying,"hat!" "shoes!" and will go get them. And...he is still very obsessed with football and trains. When he is done with his food and we aren't paying attention, he will start playing with it. Really not paying attention?? He will start throwing it on the floor. Kate never did this, so fun to have these new traits show up:)

We had to take the car seats out of my van for awhile and when we put them back in, we added the base for the infant seat! So, Kate is now in the far back of each vehicle and Collin and Baby will be right behind the front. She doesn't mind it but we are still needing to help her reach and get buckled - hope that gets better soon! Three car seats is....interesting! I already can't wait until warmer weather to help with that whole process:) 

Oh - I need to mention briefly that we had no snow for this Christmas! We love the snow and having fun outside in the winter and we have honestly been pretty bummed that we haven't been able to play outside at all. I cannot believe that southern California has more snow than we do - this world is upside down!  I know it will come and I have tried to remember to be grateful when traveling and moving around outside more easily without it, but we are pretty anxious to get our snowshoes and skiis out! I guess it will work for me, I'll be much smaller and have my balance back by the time we get out there:) 

Well, that concludes our Christmas celebrations:) Time to really wind down, relax, settle into some sort of winter routine and catch up on sleep..riiiight.