Christmas

This was an exciting Christmas. Both kids were super excited all month. Lily made so many Christmas crafts and drawings our house was swamped with them. As mentioned in the last post, Jack's been talking about Baby Jesus all month and all of us have been singing Rudolph and Jingle Bells pretty much constantly. This was one of my favorites. It's reindeer and says "Twas the Night Before Christmas". I helped her with the spelling.Christmas morning was fun as ever, although it took way too long to open presents since we have to open and play with each toy as it gets opened. (Note to future Jenny, I mean Santa- scale it back a little. You only need a few things each, don't get so excited. Also, take some pictures. I take pictures of everything but Christmas morning. Pfff)

Jack got various vehicles, garbage truck, fire truck, monster truck, tractor, car track. He loves them all. Jack has this amazing talent of recognizing cars. When we're out he spots Jeeps (any type of Jeep), V-Dubs (Volkswagen's, any type), Dodge Stratus (Grandma's car), slightly older Honda Civics (Sunny's Car), and even Subaru Wagon's (Hannah's car, which he's only seen twice, a long time ago). What's wacky is that he doesn't see the emblem and recognize it, he'll see it from far away and yell it out. He'll see a VW Jetta from the side all the way across the parking lot and point it out. It's truly amazing and he almost never gets one wrong, it doesn't even matter what color it is. Once we were driving behind a Cadillac Escalade, it was white, and he said "My Taxi", because he has a bright yellow Escalade Taxi matchbox car. There was nothing that would have tipped him off that it was the same car except just recognizing the shape, and we really only saw it from behind. It's really uncanny. How can we market or exploit this skill?

Lily's focus this Christmas was horses and every single present she got was horse related. A horse truck/trailer set, horse clothes, a stick unicorn to ride, stuffed horse, and probably her favorite, her palomino, Butterscotch. She has a lot of accessories and can play out different scenarios with her horses for hours. Her love of horses has become an all out obsession. She dresses up like a horse, practices chewing like a horse, draws horses, etc. From the various books and movies we've gotten from the library, she's been learning a lot about them, too. She has learned many different horse breeds, her favorites being Thoroughbreds, Lipizzaners, Belgians, etc. She knows all the technical terms for different colors and prints, gaits, etc. She asks a lot of questions that I don't know the answer too, like about farriers and how fast each breed can run and stuff. I've been working on how I can get her a real horse ride, not just in a circle at the fair. Let me know if you have any ideas. I'm hoping to have a horse birthday party for her if she's still into it in two months.

Jared got his usual funny T-shirts for Christmas, as well as a meat smoker. He tried it out a few weeks ago and we had a meat party. We had chicken quarters, pork ribs, a beef roast and a pork butt. It was pretty tasty, although because of the cold he did the smoking on the front deck and our whole house smelled smoky for a couple days. Being pregnant, I have a super-smeller and it made me a little sick.

My main present was super awesome and thoughtful from Jared. He got me cowboy boots which I've been saying I wanted for years. While he was at it, he got the kids both cowboy boots and himself. The kids love theirs (Jack's light up!) and it's fun to all wear them together.

Christmas day was nice and relaxing and we finally got dressed around 6pm when we decided to go out to dinner for the second year in a row. We went for a drive through a Christmas light park then found somewhere to eat. Last year was a Chinese restaurant, but they were closed this year so we went to the only other place we could find, IHOP. Apparently other people do the same thing because it was packed and we had to wait an hour for our cold food. (Note to future Jenny- plan ahead and make dinner on Christmas. Eating out on Christmas isn't fun, it's depressing.)

We tried to take full advantage of the rest of the Christmas vacation Jared had, so did lots of stuff. One day we went to the lake and threw rocks through the ice.

We went sledding.

We ate lots of treats. (Not a good idea when you have to weigh yourself every month at the Doctor. My post-Christmas appointment was embarrassing.)

We ate a giant burrito.

We had our traditional family pig-out Christmas eve dinner with my family. We get together and everyone draws what part of the meal they will make, ie: appetizer, side, drink, etc. Then we all go to the store together, then cook and eat. It's a fun time because you get lots of weird choices. My mom always goes for meatballs. One year when I was a little kid I chose fish sticks for the main dish. We had a good time. This is my mom with both kids in a tiny shopping cart. She would push them away from her really fast while they screamed and laughed. It was really top heavy. Safe? No. Fun? Very!

Our cats got some cat grass in their stockings. (Ya, our cats have stockings, shut it.) We grew it and here we are giving some to Ruby. Jack loves her so much he has to put her in a head-lock.