Merry Christmas 2010!

It has been quite the year... we decided early to stay at home (Victoria) for Christmas and it has been an easy going day so far. It is 12:34pm and Finn still has two packages to open... Finn was up at 7am.. and wanted to watch "Pablo"... I found a Christmas recording of Backyardiagans and then I set up for the morning.. Zoe didn't' wake up until 8:30.. her light was on in the middle of the night.. she must have woke up and not gone back to sleep for a while. She did have Rapunzel and Flynn (barbie size dolls) in bed to play with, which she opened Christmas Eve afternoon.

Speaking of Christmas Eve.. the day started with Zoe wanting to open a present..We said at Dinner.. she negotiated to after lunch.. but spent every hour asking to open the gift. Opening the last Advent bag didn't help much (but she did like the wind up jumping toy). Finally at 11am we went swimming... then lunch at A&W (Zoe's favorite).. then Finn was asleep by 2 and Zoe opened her gift. Much to say, with her insistence, I did not put any gifts out until after the kids were in bed. I had planned for the kids to open new Toy Story PJs (Jessie for Zoe and Buzz for Finn) at night, but at some point I was upstairs and hear (oh.. look Toy story!!) and feared that Zoe found my present stash.. but really she had just opened Finn's PJs.

but back to this morning.. we Skyped with my mom and dad.. so they watched the festivities... the kids went relatively slow.. I guess the average was slow.. Finn opened one an hour.. Zoe opened everything else. It was a Toy Story theme.. Jessie and Woody dolls, Rex and Buzz. Lots of barbie and princess dolls. Finn received a Rocking Horse from Grandpa and Nana.. and that will be a lasting hit. He loves the cars from Auntie Carrie and Uncle Scott. He has already put new socks on his hands. They received a lot of art supplies, including dry erase/magnetics boards which I think they will really like.

Zoe is a little crushed that her princess dolls look "prettier" than her.. she didn't get enough dress clothes (things were hard to find.. she really wants a dressy ballet outfit.. and I think if it was the same as her Princess dolls, that would thrill her.) I bought her a Chinese silk dress, but she said it was "too slippy".

The best part of this Christmas though is the interaction between Zoe and Finn.. I heard countless times last night and this morning Zoe saying things like "We'll always be friends. We'll play together. We'll sleep together.. Finn lets go sleep " and then they snuggle together.. it was so cute.

gingerbread houses

christmas is hard for a four year old

Zoe has been having a hard time with the Christmas waiting... she and her brother found a package my mom sent to me.. one of three under the tree.. and she and her brother made off with it while I was busy cleaning or some such silliness.. I heard from a far: "Dad... can we have a pair of scissors".. I hoped with all my soul that he would say no.. 5 minutes later Dad presented me with a unwrapped box.. and showed me where they tried to open it with a comb (it was rather taped up).

In the stores yesterday, Zoe threw a fit because I wouldn't buy Rex (from Toy Story).

I have yet to put more presents under the tree... but plan to on Friday.. (and stay vigilant)... plus they do get to open one on Friday.

My plan for the Advent Calendar (24 brown bags filled with things to do.. art projects.. mostly making ornaments.. gotta love Michaels!)... has helped. Her favorite seems to be anything with pipe cleaners.. today she must have made 50 projects.. I just picked them all up.. what a variation in fun... and the fact that Leo the cat loves them doesn't hurt either.

visit to Santa

hair cut!

websurfing

Daddy: "Look at that.. in mom's tummy is Zoe"

Zoe: "And in your tummy is Finneas!"

(Quote overhead while the two of them were web surfing for images)

Picture in question to be posted soon

concoction

Zoe was up to mixing tonight. She had some lemon juice in a cup (which she likes to drink straight...usually out of the bottle)... then she added water.. then an icecube.. then requested some maple syrup.. then some honey... then some icing (one color at a time)... then some egg shell, then it needed grass.. and was declared monster juice!

(at some point Finn almost drank it..) we finally fed it to the hungry monster in the kitchen sink.

all better..

After our bit of excitement on Sunday.. we had lots more fun coming. Turns out Grandma had a minor heart attack.. and the next day she was quite wacky.. with a 3 minute window of memory. The next day a little better.. more like 5 minutes (and thrashing around, pinched a nurse.. called someone names..) they put her on some things to relax her anxiety.. then Wednesday she was nearly normal.. only confused our house and the other Gooch household, but was otherwise conversational. On Thursday she was up and moving and they released her. Bruce took her on the plane back to SLC.. they arrived without incident (well, except he forgot his own contacts and meds; and I forgot to tell the Gooches which flight they were on and Bruce and Gran took a taxi because I was running around trying to FedEx his contacts and meds)

The only nightmare I foresaw for my time as a single parent was bedtime.. Zoe goes down at 7:30 and Finn at 9pm... but
I arranged for the girl down the street to come watch Finn while I put Zoe to sleep on Thursday night.. that worked out. Friday Zoe went to school, Finn and I ran errands... then picked up Zoe.. went to the mall, ate dinner, went to the bookstore, and then since Finneas didn't nap, all went well at night time, both kids down by 8. Then Saturday was great.. we stayed busy... truck parade to end the night... no naps, bed by 8:30. Sunday we made waffles, quiche, gingerbread cookies with great colored icing (green, violet, yellow, red).. played at Liam's.. he had a new 8' x 8' bouncy castle in his basement... picked up Dad... what a day.

Gran is doing much better... at familiar territory, walking around; turns out that the drugs the Canadian doctor put her on has her doing much better and the US doctor switched her to them.

painting