Christmas 2010

It's a little late to be blogging about Christmas, but I wanted to have a record of my favorite moments this year.  Noel and the boys spend Christmas Eve day with Nana and Granddad, and I joined them after a blood transfusion.  We spent some time Christmas morning opening gifts and stockings as a family.  Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to spend Christmas with them, Uncle Jamie and Eva.  We had a bonus Christmas a few days later when Aunt Amanda, Uncle Brian and Asher came to town.  It was a great week!  Here are some of my favorite memories:

• Will sang "Joy to the World" incessantly through all of December.  Christopher loved singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" in Latin, which he learned at school.  Sarah Kate was listening all month and sang the tune of the first line of "Joy to the World" and also the glorias from "Angels We Have Heard on High."
• When Sarah Kate opened gifts, she had a blast pulling out the tissue paper and saying, "Wow!"  A couple of times, she put the tissue paper back in the bag without getting the gift out.  (She's great at cleaning up her messes.)  
• Sarah Kate got a baby doll bed from Grandma and Grandpa.  When Grandma brought it out in the midst of opening gifts, Sarah Kate immediately grabbed her baby doll and went to put her in the bed and cover her up for a nap.  There was no doubt in her mind who that was for and what it was for. 
• I also loved Christopher's ecstatic response to his gifts.  He would yell the name of whatever it was and lift it over head in jubilant triumph.  There was also a sweet moment after the boys opened their gifts to each other--a big hug and sincere thank-yous to each other.  
• When we opened gifts with Aunt Amanda, Uncle Brian and Asher, Sarah Kate took charge of opening all of Asher's gifts.  I guess she thought she was an expert by then.  Poor Asher is seven months younger, and someday he'll be even with his pushy cousin!  
• The morning of Christmas Eve, I had a talk with the boys about being thankful for their gifts and not greedy.  I reminded them that Jesus was the reason we celebrate Christmas, not the presents.  Christopher solemnly replied, "But Mom, the gifts represent Jesus, who is the greatest gift of all."  Nice try, kid.  

Here's our Christmas in pictures . . .

Sarah Kate--20 months

Sarah Kate has had a busy month.  She's cut a couple of teeth, taken care of her baby dolls, and learned lots of new words.  Her new favorite word is "wow!"  She also likes to imitate us saying, "oh my!"  She says Will's name very clearly as a two syllable word:  "Whee-ull!"  And she says "ff ff" for Christopher.  She's also saying hello, passy, coat, juice, etc., as well as several animal sounds.  She has put words together such as "silly baby Asher" (she says his name like "sigh") or "I wanna see" (when you take her picture).  She still loves books and will ask to have her favorites read over and over again.

Sarah Kate had a great time at Christmas!  We could have given her empty bags of tissue paper and she probably would have been perfectly content.  She would pull the tissue out and say "wow!"  Sometimes she would look in the bag and try to pull out the gift, and other times she'd just start putting the tissue paper back in.  She got a baby doll bed from Grandma and Grandpa, and it was pure instinct the moment she saw it, as if she knew it must be for her baby doll . . . she immediately picked up her doll and went and put her to bed!  It was so cute.