A White Christmas

It snowed most all of Christmas day and we were loving it!  Our neighbor, who has lived here her whole life, said she never remembered it snowing on Christmas day.  It felt like a true Christmas miracle, and funny enough it started snowing right as "White Christmas" came on the stereo. 

Watching the kids' faces light up as they opened their gifts was so much fun for Mike and I.  Mike and I bit off a little more than we could chew with making Christmas dinner.  We spent most of the day in the kitchen and as much as we love to cook we were worn out by the end.  The good news is that we have had leftovers for two days. 

New Christmas Eve pj's

Amelia ate more than she put on the gingerbread house.

I'm so happy Noah still believes in Santa!

After dinner entertainment!

 

 

Holiday Cheer

I once again have fallen behind on updating my blog… so I mostly going to update with pictures.  Especially since my Christmas present from Mike was a new SLR camera, I’ve been like the paparazzi since he gave it to me.  We’ve had a fun few weeks full of Christmas activities including Mike’s work holiday party, Noah’s class party, Santa pictures, a ride on the North Pole Express and a visit from Ray and Nancy.

Taking pictures with Santa the second time around was a COMPLETELY different experience; Amelia was a little Angel and posed perfectly!  I asked Amelia what she wanted from Santa and she said, “Pink Presents!”  I said, “What kind of pink presents?”, and she emphatically replied, “PINK, PINK, PINK!” 

Ray, Mike's dad was a huge help around the house.  He built Noah an awesome workbench in the garage for Christmas, Noah has been out there constantly!  The kids loved having their grandparents here; I feel lucky to have such amazing in-laws, they are wonderful with the kids and were both so helpful all week!

Amelia opening a crib for her baby doll from Grandma and Grandpa.

She absolutely LOVES playing guitar with her Daddy!

I bought tickets for the six of us to ride the Polar Express in Grapevine, the city next to ours.  It's a 100 year old train that they transform for Christmas time for families to take a trip to the "North Pole" and see Santa.  It was such a neat experience, and I definitely think it will become a family tradition for us.

Dallas Christmas Parade

This past weekend we went to the Dallas Children’s Christmas Parade.  None of us had ever been to a big parade before . . . it was such a neat experience, especially for the kids!  It was about 45 minutes long, with short performances that would stop in front of us along the way.  

These ladies were so impressive, the youngest one was probably 65!

After the parade we went to brunch at the Adolphus Hotel; it’s one of the oldest hotels in Dallas, and it was beautiful inside.  The brunch was put on by Mike’s work, and they had a balloon guy come in with a pet rabbit.  Amelia was infatuated with the bunny, so much so that Mike was like, “Maybe we should get her a bunny for Christmas!”  I told him I cared for a friend’s rabbit once when I was younger and that there is no way I’m getting our two-year-old a bunny.  Noah was equally infatuated with the balloons but was sweet enough to make sure to get one for his sister.

Santa was also there, and we weren’t sure how Amelia would take to sitting in his lap.  She is VERY into “all things Christmas” this year, with no thanks to her brother and me.  Well, no surprise . . . she was horrified when Mike tried to set her in Santa’s lap.  Her whole body froze up and a look of terror came over her face, followed by intense crying.  I’m not sure if all parents think this response is as funny as Mike and I did.

Thanks to Pinterest, I started a tradition of wrapping 24 Christmas books and letting the kids open one each night.  They have loved it so far, and I really enjoyed shopping for the books (I am huge fan of children’s books, just like my mom).

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving, although it got off to a rough start!  We were supposed to have our neighbors and some other friends over for Thanksgiving dinner but had to cancel at the last minute.

Amelia had one of the roughest weeks of her life; the Sunday before, she fell and hit her nose so hard that we thought for sure it was broken.  She literally looked like she had been in a boxing match!  We took her to Urgent Care; unfortunately, there were about 30 other people there as well.  It was the sickest-looking group of kids I have ever seen!  We were super nervous about Noah and Amelia being around all the sick kids, but the staff at the front desk refused to hand out masks or call our cell phone when it was our turn.  The wait was clearly going to be over two hours; we spent a good amount of our waiting time in the car but obviously had to spend some of the time in the waiting room.  We would have just left if we weren’t so worried about Amelia’s nose.  Anyway, turns out it is almost impossible for a two-year-old to break their nose, since its mostly cartilage.  However, the doctor said it was very good that we brought her in, since there is always a risk of internal bleeding from the swelling.  So, no broken nose but we did find out that both kids had pretty severe ear infections.

Lo and behold, the next afternoon, Amelia starts showing signs of pink eye!  I had made an appointment with her ENT because she shouldn’t be having ear infections with the tubes in her ears.  A few days prior, I had seen a little blood draining from one of her ears and had taken her to her pediatrician who said they didn’t have the proper tools to see if the tube was still in place, because they couldn’t see past the dried blood.  The ENT was able to give her medicine for the pink eye but couldn’t tell if the tubes were still in place without “vacuuming” out her ear.  It is as painful as it sounds, and a team of nurses and I had to hold her down while the doctor vacuumed out her ear.  Afterwards, he still wasn’t sure it the tube was out, so we were instructed to come back in a week to check again.

I thought the worst was over, since they were both on medication for their ear infections and she had medication for pinkeye.  However, late Tuesday night Amelia started having difficulty breathing and her temperature started rising.  We checked on her all night and made an appointment first thing in the morning with her pediatrician (NO MORE URGENT CARE!!!).  Thankfully, Mike had the day off and was able to take her to the doctor.  I was worn out from taking her to so many different doctor appointments in the past three days and from getting my house ready for my mom, brother and two nephews to come, and I was happy to stay home with Noah.  Mike ended up at the doctor’s office with Amelia for over three hours.  By this point, her temperature was 103 degrees, she wasn’t breathing well, and had developed a nasty cough.  Poor baby had to get a chest x-ray and had to have a tube inserted down her nose to check for RSV.  This was especially painful because her little nose was still so swollen and black and blue from her fall.  After being checked out thoroughly, they ruled out RSV and the flu . . . but her doctor was really nervous about how bad this virus was and not being able to pin down what was making her so sick.  She prescribed a Z-pack and breathing treatments and said if her fever didn’t go down in 24 hours to take her to the ER.

By this point, it was clear we couldn’t have anyone over to our house since Amelia was so sick.  Noah was so bummed, and I felt badly about calling our neighbors to tell them we couldn’t have it here.  Well, everything worked out!  Amelia started doing better the next day (thank goodness for modern medicine!).  My neighbors had Thanksgiving dinner at their house, and we were able to go over for a little while, thanks to a video monitor on Amelia while she slept (they literally live across the street).  It was great to spend time with my mom, brother Jason and nephews.  Amelia had a hard time resting as much as she should have, because she was having so much fun with her cousins.

The kids had a blast playing out in the leaves in our backyard!  Amazing that we had a Thanksgiving where it was almost 80 degrees outside!

Amelia had already had a bath but couldn't resist jumping in when she saw Nana giving Preston a one.  My mom was soaked by the end!

Mike made an amazing Turkey and my mom helped with all the side dishes and desserts, I am so thankful for them both!

Noah set up a kids table next to the adult table; we had a second Thanksgiving meal on Friday after Jason and the boys got there.

I love my husband and I love how much he loves to cook!  He spent ALL DAY in the kitchen on Thanksgiving!

Twister Treat

This year Amelia dressed up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, we taught her to say “Twister Treat” instead if Trick-or-Treat.  I’m pretty sure most people couldn’t hear what she said, but I thought it was funny.  I’m not even sure what to call Noah’s costume, all I can say it was very hard to look at when he had his mask on.  The kids got to go trick or treating at Mike’s office, some of the really little kids started crying hysterically when they saw Noah’s costume…thankfully their parents thought this was a funny reaction.

We went trick-or-treating with our next door neighbors, who have a little girl in second grade.  Amelia was so excited to be going out with the bigger kids; she was literally running as fast her legs would carry her, it was nearly impossible to get a picture of her.  Noah stayed out with them until close to 9:30pm and came back with a TON of candy!

This past weekend, we went camping with my good friends, Melinda, Dean and their two-year-old Clara, who happens to be Amelia’s best friend.  It was a first for both girls and overall it went really well!  We were only about ten minutes away from our house in case Amelia wasn’t going to be able to sleep in the tent but she finally went to sleep around 11pm.  The highlight of camping for all of us would probably be making s’mores, I hadn’t had one in years and boy are they delicious!

Two extra pictures I had to include, Noah reading Amelia her bedtime story and Amelia waiting for her dance class to start.