Christmas at our House

This year was Christmas with my mother and family. We invited everyone over to our house for dinner Christmas Eve, and Grant made prime rib for the first time. It was delicious. After that, Grant built a fire in the living room, and we sang Christmas songs and read the Christmas story from the scriptures before playing our traditional present game.

My mother explaining the rules to Eleanor. I love the anticipation on Eleanor’s face.

Here’s our  group. Uncle Father Bill is in the corner, my mother, the girls, Mike, and Grandpa Gary (Grant is sitting by the fire).

We had a good time. Eleanor didn’t even mind the “stealing” part of the present game. She did end up trading Grandpa once the presents were opened. She thought his fishing game (the one from the dollar store that we intended for her in the first place) looked better than her lilac scented body soap.

We spent Christmas morning at home. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep, but we didn’t wake the girls up early this year since they were both sick. I eventually was able to doze off again around 6 or 7, and the girls woke up between 7:30 and 8.  Grant had us wait in our bedroom until he could get a fire going and breakfast started. Eleanor was about to come unglued, but we read Christmas books and watched Charlie Brown Christmas on the laptop. We let the girls open their stockings and Santa presents before we had breakfast. Eleanor got her rake from Santa, and Phaedra got a shopping cart.

All Phaedra really cared about were the treats in her stocking. You can see how sore her nose was from having been wiped so many times. The skin actually cracked in one place. Poor girl.

We called Laughing Grandma as soon as the girls got up, and she came over to watch the girls open presents. This is the first year we’ve done this, and it was really special to me because we used to have my grandparents and my aunt come watch us on Christmas morning. I think it was probably nice for her, too, since she got to see how excited the kids were.

Phaedra has her cheeks stuffed with crackers from her stocking.

I love the excitement of Phaedra’s audience in this one. She was opening the pink stuffed dog Eleanor got her. It was a hit. Phaedra has always coveted Eleanor’s dog, Spot, and she loves this one.

Mommy and Daddy gave Eleanor her own digital camera, and it could have been a hit, but it turned out to be a miss. She was really excited, but when we opened it and she tried to use it, we found out that it was such poor quality it just wasn’t even worth it. We’re going to take it back. We let her choose if she wants a different camera, a Shaun the Sheep movie, or a different toy. She’ll probably end up with the movie. The camera was a disappointment.

We gave Phaedra twin babies, her first baby dolls of her very own. Upon seeing them, she hollered, “Babies! Babies!” and tried to yank them out of the box (which was, of course, impossible due to all the packaging these days).

She decided she needed to sit in the baby spot.

The next few pictures were taken on the same day, same lighting, same camera . . . new lens! I got a tripod for Christmas, and Grant had me open my birthday present before the official party –a new 35mm lens. It takes in so much light! I rarely have to use flash indoors anymore. Hooray!

Christmas evening, we went to my mother’s for dinner and some more presents. The girls got cute tutus.

Uncle Father Bill gave them these way cute stuffed animals. As soon as Phaedra opened her panda, she immediately gave it a kiss.

As soon as Eleanor opened her lion, she thrust it at us with a great big “Roar!” Needless to say, they were a hit.

Even more fun, the animals flatten out to serve as pillows. Eleanor slept on top of her lion in her bed last night.

And here is my very first use of my tripod for our group shot. Practice makes perfect, and as I said, this was my first. At least I will know what I looked like the day I turned 29.

Zoo Lights

Since we had a zoo membership this year, we decided to head up to see the zoo lights. Instead of going on a rainy day, we settled for freezing cold. We almost didn’t go because today was the day Phaedra decided to start showing symptoms of a nasty cold, but Eleanor overheard us discussing it and got her hopes up. I asked Grant if he wanted to go see the lights at the Z-O-O, and Eleanor perked up, “Are we going to the zoo?” Apparently, spelling doesn’t always work anymore.

Eleanor was excited and impatient the whole time we were gathering warm clothing, packing a sack-lunch dinner, and getting ready to go. After all that, we put her in the (eventually) warm car, took a long drive, and even got a little lost.

It was no surprise that this is how excited she looked in the car.

Phaedra was bundled up as could be.

They had a marching band just past the entrance playing Christmas songs. Listening to them really got the blood pumping on a cold winter’s night. Eleanor seemed impressed by the band, but none of us could stand still for too long in that cold.

Grant wore his headlamp with the red light on so he wouldn’t shine it in people’s eyes. We didn’t see the sea lion at first, but it was attracted to Grant’s light. It kept swimming past to try to get a better look at it. Then it put its face right on the other side of the glass, and would follow Grant as he moved back and forth. It was really cool but also quite humbling standing so close to such a large creature. Grant said that alone made the trip worthwhile.

This spot had lit up fish swimming by in the air.

Anaconda in the trees.

This chomping crocodile was just off the path.

Munching hippos and a few crocodiles lurking in a pool of lights.

When we were stopped at one point, I looked along the side of the stroller to see Phaedra’s curious little mitten reaching out to touch the Christmas lights. It was so cute. Eleanor, of course, joined in when I pointed it out. The picture doesn’t do the moment justice, but I want to remember it.

It just isn’t a trip to the zoo without visiting the (closed) petting zoo. Eleanor wishes she could pet EVERY animal in the zoo.

All the trees below us were lit up, and it was a beautiful sight. The pictures don’t show it as well. Oh well. We had a lot of fun. We promised Eleanor we would ride the train the next time. It had lights all over it, and it would have been fun. We were about to go until we saw the huge, long line. Since we were already heading back towards the car, we couldn’t convince ourselves to wait in that line. I’m glad we went when we had a zoo membership. I don’t think I would have liked to pay the entrance fee just for zoo lights, considering how they had a large part of the zoo closed off. We enjoyed it, though. It was a fun alternative for those who aren’t near temple square.

Our Giving Tree

No, this is not a new form of group time-out.

What are they looking at, you ask? What could be so interesting?

We were getting ready to go somewhere. We pried them away long enough to get their jackets on, and then they were back to putting their heads in the corner.

This is what they found so interesting. A ladybug.

She has a little friend on her shoulder.

Before opening presents of any kind this year, our kids have been able to enjoy a very special gift from our Christmas tree, the gift of ladybugs. I don’t know if any wrapped gift under the tree will be able to compare. Who needs an advent calendar when you can search the house each day and find a new ladybug? Eleanor likes to hold them when we find one, but then she quickly decides she wants it off of her. She doesn’t have the patience to ask me to help her get it off, and plucking it off with her other hand must be out of the question, because she usually just shakes her hand as hard and fast as she can. After several times, I have to tell her she can’t hold the ladybugs anymore if she does that. I just feet too bad for the poor little buggers.

Phaedra isn’t much better. As she musically squeals the word “Buuhhhh!” she jabs and pokes at it with her finger. She squeezes too hard when she tries to pick it up between her finger and thumb, and if we’re being honest, I have had to tell her to spit one out a time or two. After a few times finding a ladybug, Phaedra got comfortable with holding one in her hand and letting it crawl on her. Even when she holds one, she still pokes at it and squeezes it too tight. I try not to let too much torture happen while still letting the girls explore.

I can always tell when one of the girls comes across a ladybug on her own. It isn’t long before they are both crouching in one spot, and I occasionally hear Eleanor’s nervous voice admonishing Phaedra, “Gentle, gentle! Gentle, gentle!”

Each time we have found a ladybug, I let the girls watch it and play with it for a while before I explain to them that we need to let it go live outside where it can find food (and hopefully not freeze to death). The first morning after we brought the tree in and got it set up, as I released our first ladybug, I opened the front door to a scene reminiscent of Hitchcock’s The Birds. I hope all the birds weren’t there feasting on all the ladybugs that might have dropped off the tree as we brought it into the house the night before. I wished my ladybug luck as I flicked him off my hand to what I hope was not certain doom.

I hope our ladybugs make it, and I hope they can recover from their curious observers.

Fuzzy Navel

Tonight, as we were getting the girls ready for bed, Grant was reading scriptures out loud while I changed Phaedra’s diaper one last time for the night. Eleanor was sitting on the couch. When Grant looked up from reading scriptures, he asked Eleanor, “Why do you have your toe out of your jammies?” I looked up to see that Eleanor had unzipped her jammies, pulled out one foot, and was holding on to one of her toes.

“I’m putting lint in my belly,” was her matter-of-fact reply. One look at her belly button showed that she had been taking the lint from her toes (there was plenty of it from her fleece-footed jammies) and putting it in her belly button.

Realization came to me. “She’s trying to be just like you!” I said to Grant. Then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Gooney Bird

This is my gooney bird husband pretending to ice skate on our frozen pond.

~sigh~

I love that man.