A Lengthy Christmas Season Recap (for memories sake)

This year we truly cut back and it was appreciated nearly every day! Gifting was cut back, much to some of my siblings teasing chagrin. I just have to say that for a non-gift-giver gifting is not the same experience it is for someone blessed with the joy of gifting. It just isn't something that comes naturally to me. I have weighed it over in my mind, wondering if its related to selfishness or whatnot but I came to the conclusion that I just don't get the JOY of giving! Maybe my expectations of giving are too high? I want to honor the person I am gifting, therefore I want it to be perfect, something they have always really wanted, will use all the time and also something that they wouldn't have necessarily bought for themselves. Something that will bring them joy every time they see, or use it. That is a lot of expectations for a gift! Therefore I stress over what to get someone and think it is stupid to purchase something just to wrap up for the sake of them having a gift to open on Christmas! Children are fairly easy to shop for, they make their dreams and requests known and they are super excited when they are fulfilled. We brilliantly draw names for gift exchange in both my family and Joes so I had a grand total of 5 children's gifts to buy. What Fun! My siblings blessed with the joy of gifting decided to exchange amongst themselves this year to which my like minded brother and sister in law joined Joe and I in saying "Merry Christmas" to each other as the others opened their gifts.
Parents were gifted with things that were needed or desired and we were more than happy to fulfill their requests!

We had our annual cookie baking day at moms with the kids and they had fun and tons of sugar. We accomplished very little in comparison to previous years because we set our sights a little more realistically and we enjoyed the time with the kids. Although I do foresee the possibility of a ladies cookie baking night in our future Christmas season because that was an idea that was talked about that I think just sounds wonderful!

This year Annie and I were invited to join my mom and sisters at the Nutcracker since she has reached the required age of 5. This year my Dad and John Patrick also went and we had a wonderful time. Annie was so excited to be able to wear her pretty Christmas dress and have a special outing with her "best friend Anella". She sat on either mine or moms lap and talked through the entire thing, asking questions and making comments and it was so much fun!

We listened to whatever Christmas music we were in the mood for, watched plenty of Christmas movies and the girls even got "Hanes sisters fans" courtesy of their daddy for Christmas so they can now do the Sisters dance from White Christmas with their own blue feathered fans which is pretty adorable.

With the help of my sister taking all three girls to church Joe and I were able to join his moms family in Dayton for their annual brunch which was a nice time for just adults to enjoy one another's company, Joe's Grandpal loved Christmas brunch at the club and we have not made it a priority since he passed away because it always lands on the same day as my family Christmas party. However his Uncle Art has just been diagnosed with cancer and we wanted to opportunity to be together with them this season. We were back in plenty of time for my family Christmas!

We enjoyed a semi-quiet Monday and then the festivities continued on Christmas eve with Joe's family. After a quiet Christmas morning with the girls who enjoyed a tea party on their new tea set (from Joe and I) they played with all of their toys from the previous day, ate candy from their stockings we headed to my parents for our traditional brunch of biscuits and gravy, ham and potatoes and enjoyed a quiet day of Christmas naps and movie watching and were later joined by Kelly & Zach, and eventually Kara's family at dinner.

I think I truly confused the girls on the whole Santa matter this year. Joe and I have always said we wanted Jesus' birth to be front and center during the Christmas season. Its hard to convince children to get excited about that when you have a great and powerful Santa Claus who will bring you anything and everything you ask for looming around you. So we decided to tell them that Santa is a fun thing to play and pretend, he's great fun like superheros and such. So one day when they picked out books to read, one about Santa and one about the birth of Christ I told them that santa is just pretend to which Annie said "I already knew that, Troy told me" No big deal from either of them.
Christmas morning they come downstairs to their table set for tea and I had to remind them that their stockings were even there! Later when my mom asked Annie who got them their presents Annie looked at Joe and I and said "Im lookin' at 'em"
Then fast forward to Christmas night we come home and the girls #1 question every night is "What are we doing tomorrow?" especially during this season when we have been doing so many fun things. Annie said "but when does Santa come?" I explained to her that the stockings that morning and such was pretend from Santa and she mostly implied that I was wrong.
A few days later while riding in the car Annie says "mom, you know on Polar Express they say that there is Santa and I think they are right and you are wrong" ;o) I just let it go and decided to let it ride till next year and we will see where we stand then.

Instead of loading the girls up and taking a Christmas light tour we added a few special stops when we were already out and about. We hit two local homes that have light displays set to music on the radio and were so glad we did, they were pretty darn cool! Other than those we just took a detour down a road or two here and there and pointed out lights to the girls. Last night on our way out of the neighborhood I heard Carly say "Ohhh wook, see, pre-dy!"

Which brings me to my next point that Carly Jayne is really talking up a storm right now and its so adorable! I first noticed her really conversing with me about a month ago, a baby replying when you ask her a question just catches you off guard at first. When you are used to saying "Do you want some milk?" and they reply "milk" for months and then you ask and they say "yes" its just funny! as well as hearing her say "yep & nope". She dropped something one day while at the table with me and said "uh oh I get it" which I suppose was her first sentence, however last week when she spilled her cereal on the kitchen floor and said "uh oh mama, I drop a yereal" it was pretty epic. She came to me when I was watching Samuel and reported "Mama, molmol is stuck!"
She has also added "mia, Mam=Gram, Mamps=Gramps, Char, Juice, Water & Poopy" amongst much more.
She sits on my lap and pats my belly saying "hi baby" and one day when I went in her room to get her out of bed and was putting my shirt over my head as I walked in she said "hi Mama, Hi baby!"

We just got back from our annual trip to Indiana where we had a wonderful time with our family as usual and look forward to celebrating with the Glenn family this Saturday. So with the exception of packing all things Christmas away I am happy to have the season winding down. I think the de-decorating will go slowly according to my mood and ability as the rest of the season has.

Great Wolf Adventure!

Success! Great Wolf Lodge Christmas Gift 2013 was:
 "Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome!" -Mia age 3
"My best day ever!" -Annie age 5

Check in to your room is at 4pm although you can check into the water park at 1pm. We chose to meet Joe after work which ended up getting us there right around 4 anyway.
I told the girls that morning that we were going on an adventure and there would be no naps for them which was exciting in itself (for them). I packed one backpack with jammies toiletries and a change of clothes for the next day, grabbed their blankies and bears and headed to grams to grab swim gear.
Over the summer Joe told Annie he would take her to a water park someday and since then she randomly asks if we can go. She declared when I got in the car at Grams that we were headed to a water park but when I asked her if she wanted to put her bathing suit on and go out in the snow she quickly decided that was not what we were doing!
We dropped Carly off at my sisters for a baby free adventure and ran to Kroger to purchase what ended up to be $35 worth of junk food aka "adventure snacks" and breakfast for the next morning.

When I pulled up to the lodge Annie said "mom, you never told us you were taking us to a big building!" so excited even though she had no idea where we were, you couldn't see the loops of water slides jutting out the sides of the building from the front ;o)

Waiting in the lobby for Daddy

 



Writing letters to Santa

There was a craft center in the back of the lobby

 

Needless to say they were super excited. The lobby was all decorated for Christmas and there is a big picture window in the back that overlooks the waterpark. So they ran around like crazy looking at everything while we waited a few minutes for Daddy.
We got checked in and headed to our room to change.

Excited to head to the water!

 



We chose to book a standard hotel room (with a fireplace because it was the same price so why not?) as opposed to the cool kid friendly rooms with bunkbeds in a small room designed as a wolf den or tent because it was about $30 more for those and we decided although really adorable and fun they wouldn't know what they were missing and we could spend the $ on food. Looking back the only reason I would pay for the bunk room is so that I could have slept. The girls are not used to sharing a queen size bed and they toss and turn all night long, therefore every 30 min they would wake up crying that they were being kicked or slapped until I finally moved Mia to the floor at 2:00 and when she woke up again at 4:30 and I tucked her back in, I never actually went back to sleep!

The water park was AMAZING for their little bitty selves. They had 5 toddler slides and 2 hot tubs (one adult only) a wave pool, 6 tube water slides and 2 open twisty slides, a "lilly pad" pool and a traditional 4ft pool with basketball hoops, a lazy river and a huge jungle gym/tree house where every single part of it had a lever or a button or a handle that squirted or poured or drenched or dripped or dropped water by the gallons... literally, there is a 1,000 gallon bucket that tips over every so often. Its a water wonder land!

I was a little worried about Mia when she didn't even want to go down the kiddie slide at first, but after we took her down the tube slides where she could ride in the front of a double tube sitting wrapped in our legs her spirit of adventure took over and she was riding every slide in the place!

We played for a few hours and then went back to the room for baths and ordered pizza from Pizza Hut (although there is a pizza place in the lodge)

We went to the lobby where the clock tower came to life for story time which was very earth friendly ;o) They sang Christmas songs and then it "snowed" in the lobby. Very Cool!

 In the lobby for story time in our jammies

 Obligatory Hotel bed jumping

 There was never a fight among them, they were adorable running everywhere holding hands!

 Annie in the wave pool when the waves were off

 The smallest baby slide Annie "catching" Mia

 See all those empty chairs? I highly recommend going during the week, we never had to wait for anyone in any line, it felt like we had the place to ourselves! There were so few people there I recognized everyone's faces by the time we left.

 

 Crossing the lily pads (Annie is in the background)

 Daddy and Annie getting ready to ride into the "Toilet Bowl"

 Ohh the stairs, my pregnant bare feet regret all of this today!

 

Mia and Daddy riding into the "Toilet Bowl"

 

 

Thoughts on our stay.

It was the perfect amount of time, I wouldn't have wanted to stay 2 nights.

 

I personally wouldn't bring anyone younger than 3, there were TONS of families there with toddlers and infants but as a parent I would have been incredibly bored, I think it was fun to be able to ride the big tube slides with the girls. I think the ideal ages are 3-12 the few older kids we saw looked very bored. The only traditional swimming pool is only 4 feet and there's no rough housing allowed.

 

It was just a tiny bit too cold in there! They say it was 84, but without sun shining on you 84 degrees is not quite warm enough. We wished we had rash gaurds or something for the girls. We kept heading to the spa to warm up and it was a perfect 98 so I felt safe getting in for a little bit being pregnant.

 

There are plenty of towels and life jackets so you don't have to bring any.

 

We ordered pizza from pizza hut down the road for dinner (a large from the lodge is about $15) packed doughnuts and juice for breakfast, there is a microwave and a mini fridge so I even brought oatmeal for myself!

Drinks are $2.50 out of the machine but I had brought a few bottles of water and our water bottles to fill. The prices at the 2 restaurants were not ridiculous. Comparable to any grill, kids meals $6, appitizers $9, a loaded burger was $12 and the breakfast buffet for 4 people was only $26.

 

We received a $30 voucher when we booked the room (I signed up for their email club which got a 20% discount on the room also) which they loaded onto your wrist band, which was also your keyless entry into the room. They forgot to add it when we checked in and I inquired about it after we ordered dinner. It expired at 11:00am the next day and we planned to use it for lunch. When I asked in the morning what time the grill opened so I could order lunch before 11 they said it opened at 11:30! So my free money was down the tube... however as I talked this out with the lady at the front desk she kindly offered to extend our voucher through the afternoon! Win!

 

Check out is at 11:00am but you are allowed to stay in the water park until 9:30pm. I would recommend packing very strategically and either leave your stuff in your car or rent a locker for $10 which is what we chose to do since it was Freezing outside. We just took all of our pillows and dirty clothes out to the car and kept a bag with our clothes for the trip home and showered in the changing room, it worked out perfectly!

 

They offer cool things like bowling, mini golf, an adult spa and a little girls spa (holy expensive) and a cool interactive scavenger hunt type thing called Magiquest. But we didn't find any of it necessary, our time was full with just the water park!

 

It was a great experience, so glad we did it and we would love to go back some day!  

 



Lately

Naming a baby is a hard decision to make. One would think I would consult her father on my thoughts more often (we've talked about it twice) but I like to really mull them over in my head for a while because there's no point in having a conversation about a name that even I am going to eventually toss!

I had another US last week. I'm 24w3d and all the unknowns from the 20 week scan came back clear and healthy. She is still on the small side but growing on her own curve and a repeat scan was not recommended! The tech said "lots of times people get worried when they see low percentages but don't worry she's growing just fine" Joe looked at the # and said 35% she's a fatty! Oh the tiny babies we have in our house.

After seeing dead brown spots on our Christmas trees in years past where the bulb touches the branch we have responsibly decided to retire the hand-me-down c7 lights we got from Joes mom that were his grandpas. I didn't want to At All. I love my vintage bubble lights and frosted lights and the random blinking lights here and there. We put a few strands of LED lights on this year and there are not as bad as I thought they will be but I miss my bubblers and frosty balls like crazy! And I have to admit it makes me a little sad. Even Annie said "its just kind of boring" and I agree, all the bubbling makes a difference!
I am finally reading an advent devotional this year. I forgot to order it early enough so I started a few days late but it is good its an easy read and it even has parts for the girls if I want to include them. Which means if they are within earshot when I read mine then I read their part to them. Mia could care less but Annie and I have enjoyed it.

The other day Carly fell down the stairs, were not sure but we think she came all the way down, there was much tumbling and tossing however she landed fairly easily at the bottom. I held her as she sobbed and she looks at Joe and screams "Donk" and goes back to sobbing!
She said "Mia" this morning, which she hasn't said before and it was adorable and exaggerated "here, Miiiiaaa"

The girls call a sneeze a "bless you" and I love it. The other day Mia sneezed and Annie said "ewww Mia, you just Bless you'd all over me!"
Last night I was dressing the girls for bed and Annie said "mom, guess what, Daddy is going to come up and read our special book to us... you married the best daddy ever!" :o) I love that they call the bible he bought them their "Special book" its a really simple story bible but it has questions after the story and they love that they get to answer the questions.

I am almost done Christmas shopping and I have accomplished it almost completely online! It was so much fun to get all these packages and price compare and never leave my house. Only once did I head to the mall and it was for a great deal and the girls were angels. We had fun and they even got to see Santa. Which means that we walked up to him (no line!) and the girls stood there while Santa and I chatted and then he gave them each a coloring book. Annie said she didn't want to see Santa but Mia said "yes I want to tell him Trick-or-treat!"

Tomorrow unbeknownst to the girls we are headed to Great Wolf Lodge for their Christmas gift! Carly is staying with Gram so we can fully enjoy our time with the big girls. I am so excited!