Myrnie's Brood

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Mimi in 2010

Little Meemers isn'tso little any more....and she has HAIR now!

Ernie in 2010

One picture a month for 2010...look how this girl is growing!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas Day and Beyond

Daddy loved the card E made for him

M and the hat Mommy made for her

Mommy remembered to pass the camera off for a minute

Ernie LOOOVED the magnifying glass she got!! She actually sleeps with it. Score one for Mommy, eh? Now maybe she'll stop trying to drag my OTT-lite to the dinner table to use the magnifying glass.

After stockings and breakfast, we all got dressed and ready for the day. We had a nice Skype with Nana and Grandpa, and they watched us open their presents. We opened the rest of our presents after the call, and drove over to my husband's grandparents to open presents with them (half the fun of Christmas is watching little kids open their presents, right??) We came home, ate lunch, and went down for NAPS.

At 3:15 my sister called to say she was putting her kids in the car- would I be at Mom and Dad's soon? Umm...no. Daddy and Ernie were still asleep. They STAYED asleep till almost 4! (Mimi and I read a huge stack of books while we waited, and ate our way through most of a bag of caramel corn. Yum.) We bustled up to Mom and Dad's to open presents from them, loaded everything in the car, and went over to my sister's to open presents from them (see where this is going??). Wonder Daddy and Grandma walked with the big girls, it was nice to see a spring in their step and blush in their little cheeks when they came in the door. After my sister's, we loaded everyone in the cars once again and came back to our house for the last round of presents, and leftovers from the night before. It was nice having the presents spread out (because there was not even CLOSE to an order or rhythm of the opening with two toddlers and lots of people). I guess the only hard part was that when the kids were at their own house, there was nothing for them to open.

We had a wonderful, BUSY, Christmas day, and I felt so blessed to have so much family around (here and online!)

The day after Christmas was church and family dinner to send my brother off in style- he left this morning for grad school in Utah. *sniff*

Today (Monday), Daddy got started on projects around the house, the kids and I went through their clothes to weed out everything too small and too summery, and E took a four hour nap. (M and I watched "Rudolph", "Frosty the Snowman," and most of "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" waiting for her!) We had to wake her up at 4:15 so we could leave for the outlet malls! Daddy scored some shirts, we found our favorite pants for E at a bargain price and snapped up every color we could find in her (new) size, and ate hamburgers for dinner. A very, VERY good Monday!

Christmas Stockings

Waiting for Daddy to see if Santa came

Brushing teeth before checking to see if Santa came

THE BONGO DRUMS!! It's all she asked Santa for :)

A real Wonka bar. She was floored :)

Christmas morning we set E's alarm for 7:30, and made her promise not to turn her light on before 6:30. Turns out, we were worried for nothing! Both girls slept past 7, and I was a happy camper.

After we congregated in our bedroom, Daddy went down the hall (through the curtain we'd hung up the night before) to check and see if Santa made it to our house, and he DID! We all held hands and walked down the hall, and then kept holding hands in a circle and sang "Jingle Bells" while walking around the coffee table- it was pretty funny to see E's head whipping around trying to spy out what was in her stocking as she kept passing it. (As I understand it, this is tradition in my husband's family? Because Christmas morning in my house normally involved my brother's getting up around 4 or 5, rifling through everyone's stockings, and then jumping on our bed around 6 to say "GUESS WHAT SANTA BROUGHT YOU!!!!" I don't remember when we actually went downstairs :)

Santa brought each girl a drum and a little recorder (junky, so sad), and some candy and oranges. (Well, M got a banana. Santa knows her well.) Daddy got a big world globe, and Mommy totally must have been a good girl this year because I got Godiva chocolate-covered caramels and both of Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" cookbooks (the original, plus the vegetarian edition.) Everyone got cereal too- the kids love getting sugar cereal, and I love not needing to cook breakfast on Christmas. It's perfect!!

Christmas Eve

We hosted Christmas Eve this year- good GRIEF there was a lot of food! For posterity:

Appetizers: baked parmesan puff pastry twists, baked brie with meyer lemon marmalade, carrots and Uncle Dan's, chips and Lipton dip (standard for family functions!), a veggie and olive tray, and a platter of sliced grapefruit and clementines drizzled in simple syrup and topped with pomegranate seeds, and sugared cranberries.

Main Dish: baked salmon with meyer lemon, red onion, and dill

Side Dishes: Jell-O, baked potatoes with toppings (butter, sour cream, green onions, bacon, cheddar), green salad

Drinks: sparkling and hot ciders

Dessert: pie and Grandma's raspberry Jell-o/sweetened cream cheese/pretzel dessert.

The kids mostly ate Ruffles for dinner, and everyone enjoyed themselves! We had my family, my sister's family, my parents and siblings (all but one sister who was traveling for the holidays), my Aunt and Uncle's family, my cousin's family, my grandpa, and my husband's grand parents. All told, we were four kids and 16 adults, and paper plates saved the day :)

As you can see, the evening ended with most kids being read to in various rooms of the house- it was fantastic! We sent each other home with gifts to open the next morning.

My little family read Luke 2 that night for scripture study, and talked about the shepherds and how they must have felt, and talked about the Wise Men and what they brought, and we let the girls unwrap their Christmas Eve present (pajamas!)

OK, I had 2 very nice Christmas books lined up for the evening. A few days before Christmas, my little brother asked what the girls would be opening, and ribbed me. "Everyone needs Christmas jammies! It's not Christmas morning without Christmas jammies!" Oh no- my girls HAVE pajamas, why would they need more? I realized a few hours later that E's pajama pants showed a lot of shin, and M's weren't all that warm, and went straight to Target. I got home around 9:30 exhausted and pleased with myself, and my husband daringly pointed out I'd purchased the wrong sizes- they would have fit perfectly a few months ago! He went out Christmas Eve day and found adorable pj's for them, and they love them, and I love him, and all is good and right in the pajama world now.