New Christmas Traditions

Christmas has always been a big tradition in my house. My grandmother's birthday is Christmas Day, and Christmas Eve has always been about family, food & traditions.

This was the first year that we decided to stay up in Boston for Christmas proper. But we still did our fair share of traveling...more on that later!

For Christmas, Dave was very involved in planning the traditions. We integrated a few from my family and a few from his with some additions of our own!
We got the tree early in December for maximum enjoyment. Here's Dave lugging it up the stairs.

For decorations, we put on lights (and by we, I mean Dave) and then each night the kids would pick out an ornament and hang it. Mostly, Sophia picked out two and for about 20 minutes we had to convince her they needed to be hung and weren't toys. Theo got to "hang" a few of them. 

The end goal was that Santa finishes all the decorations on Christmas Eve. 

Next, we did our letter writing to Santa. Santa brings 3 gifts to each child. All Sophia wanted from Santa were new bunnies for her barn. The rest are Mom & Dad gifts. Sophia had a lot of fun writing her letter. We hung it on the door for Santa to see (after all, he's knows when you're sleeping...) Next year, I'll probably get my stuff together to actually "mail" it. 

Then came Christmas Eve. With my parents up here, we had the morning to run around doing errands and such. It was weird, because for my entire life, my Dad and I would wait in line at Lucibello's pastry shop in New Haven - we usually got there at 7am for an 8:30am opening. I didn't have that kind of go-to place this year and I was afraid, even if I did frequent one of the local pastry places, the experience would be distorted and not match up to my childhood memories. 

I did, however, go at 3pm with my Dad to Modern Pastry in Medford (after calling/visiting 3-4 other places in search of our beloved Sfogliatelle pastry. Sadly, everyone was sold out. We waited in line for two so-so cannoli's. But it was still good father-daughter bonding time. 

Next came the viewing of the Christmas lights. (Sorry, it's a shot from the Boston Herald and I don't know those people.) The street behind our house has amazing lights, so we took Nana & PopPop up there for the full experience. 

These amazing people at this house actually put up Mickey & Minnie lights just for Sophia, because she got to know them through their Halloween decorations. They're awesome.  

 Now came the most important - the food portion of the evening. Tradition was always to eat the "7 fishes" - My mom was a master at getting them all (or variations of) into the meal. Over the years, it got trimmed down to not quite 7. But this year, I did my best. The menu included:

• Scallops (wrapped in Bacon - a tribute to my Grams, who let this be the only meat on this evening because she really liked bacon)
• Shrimp Cocktail
• Clams on a half shell
• Baked Stuffed Lobster (with shrimp stuffing) 
• Grilled Sesame Tuna
• Champagne - not a fish, but a great tradition

Not bad. We were too tired for dessert and had too much decorating left.

But first, we had to write our note to Santa and leave cookies & carrots:

After the notes were written, food was eaten and little ones sleeping, the four of us (My parents, Dave & I) finished decorating the tree and then hung a "magical fireplace" (courtesy of Dave printing at work which adhered to the wall for Santa to come out of to leave presents) and put out all the presents (which we had also just finished wrapping) 

Couldn't wait to see Sophia's eyes Christmas morning. We stumbled into bed before midnight. 

Thankfully, they all slept in (as did we) for a late start on Christmas morning. Here's Theo: 

And here's the Christmas morning scene:

 The newspaper is for Santa's boot tracks, complete with fireplace ash. It was even a bit of a white Christmas too!

Sophia was so overwhelmed she could barely comprehend what was going on. I have a video of the whole thing, but sadly, way too big for the site.

Finally, present opening commenced.

We opened, ate a brunch and stayed in our jammies for the rest of the day. Not a bad start for a tradition-ful day at all.

Merry Christmas!! Can't wait to build on the traditions each year.

Christmas at Nana & Pop Pop's

The start of the present opening at Nana & Pop Pop's house

Christmas 2012

Moments of adoration

Sophia knows how to press my buttons - whether they are all intentional or just a fact of being 3 years old - is besides the point. 

The good news is, the frustrations are far outweighed by the tender, sentimental moments of watching her grow, learn and blossom into a little girl. 

Top 5 things currently that make me smile: 

5) Watching her comb her dad's hair tonight and telling him that "he looks beautiful now" in a very serious voice. 

4) How she won't let Dave or I leave the house without taking our "ice cream" with us to work.

3) How she lines up her animals in different formation surrounding her barn. (note: these are not all traditional farm animals, so seeing who gets to hang with who is rather Noah's Ark-ish)

2) Having her help me make salad with me and actually learning how to properly (with my hand guiding) use a knife. (and testing out the different veggies we put in!)

1) Reading with her. A favorite book is "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. Tonight, she was able to identify almost all the letters in the title & author's name. Absolutely amazing and fascinating to watch the cognitive development. And it just makes me so proud. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep

A quick video from Sophia - her rendition of "Baa Baa Black Sheep"

My amazing three year old

Some how, some way, my amazing, incredible, sweet (and sometimes patience-trying) Sophia has turned 3 years. 1,096 days old. I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. Maybe a lot of the stuff in between has faded a little, but every day we are making new memories.

We celebrated the big day with friends and family, and of course, a fabulous Mickey Mouse cake (and Mickey's clubhouse themed birthday!)

The day started off with our yearly tradition of hanging and examining the banner of the year's pictures.

Nana & Pop Pop came up for reading and playtime before the party began. 

Then, the party started. Here's Sophia& Frances - both born on November 7th. 

Wow - have they grown from last year. 

And of course, the customary shake down from Dad.

 Snuggle time from Grandma:

A little dance party!

And finally - birthday cake time.

Happy Birthday my big girl!!

8 months of Theo

Hard to believe that the little guy has been around for 8 months (more now that I actually write this.)
Theo is rapidly becoming "not so little" each and every day.

His helmet is really helping round out his head - at his last check up, he's around 95% (he started at 102% and the goal is 92%). Hoping we'll be at our mark around the new year. Recent growth spurts have really helped the cause.

He and Sophia have been interacting even more. It's generally around him go after some of her toys on the floor, which displeases her greatly, but we're working on the sharing thing.
In terms of his mobility, he is fully locked crawling in reverse. He can pitch himself forward from a sitting position to all fours, but isn't quite sure what to do from that point. He also quite enjoys sitting and pulling up on things, so we'll see.

Food wise, he's eating like a champ. Still doing 5 feedings, plus 3 solid meals a day. We do a mix of purees (I gave up the notion of making all his food. He gets much better variety and tastier stuff thanks to my new best friends at Plum Organics!) He also love eating cooked egg yolks, advocado, yogurt and eyeballs anything and everything we're eating. Pieces of bread and cheese are making their way on his list. Not quite there with the pincer grasp yet.

Sleep is still going well. He's such an all around happy baby - nap times (2 naps each day usually) are easy and bed time is a solid routine, which includes a bath every night because of the helmet. I couldn't ask for anything more in that department. Well, maybe if he slept in until 6 more regularly. The 5:30/5:45 is rough some days.

I'm so lucky to have this wonderful, amazing son. His personality is really starting to show - he's thoughtful, smiley when you give him just a little attention, but completely content in his own land. He adores his sister and thumps happily when I walk into his room to get him up from sleeping or when I come home from work. The joy on his face is priceless and unconditional love. He's my happy little man.

Next check up is in December with the pediatrician, but he is clearly a happy, healthy, growing little boy!

Hurricane Potty Training

I've always envied those moms who said "Oh, potty training took us the weekend" or "She just 'Got' it" or, as some of my more militant friends went the "He's 2. We trained. That's what we do" route.
For Sophia, I knew it would come. I wanted it to happen. We had the seat, bought the M&Ms but couldn't really connect all the pieces.

Admittedly, some parts of parental laziness clearly played a role - I had no desire to sit inside all day on a perfectly gorgeous Saturday to train when we could be outside running around.  At the end of the summer, I signed her up for a town program that required kids to be potty trained, with the hair brained idea I could make it happen in 2 weeks.  Ha...good thing they gave a refund.

So around came Hurricane Sandy. Stuck inside all day. What a better time to give it a go. And magically (and I choose that word precisely because that's what I attribute all the stars aligning) it worked. After running around for an hour or two with no pants, out came the "Mama, I have to go potty." To the potty she went and it worked. So she got a load of praise, two M&Ms - red & brown, and stamps for her "Potty Chart" (aka a lame piece of paper with a grid drawn on it taped to the wall). Bam, another time before bed. This is pretty cool.

It's been a week now, with only 1 accident (completely attributable to parental rushing out the door) and even managed to get comfy with #2. We've switched to pull ups for sleeping times. Hopefully, this continues as well as it is going.
I'm so proud of my little girl - of the smile on her face after success.

Hooray and sigh... My toddler is officially a little girl.