Ohio Christmas 2016

My little family headed to Cincinnati, Ohio the week between Christmas and New Year's to celebrate in the heartland with my mom, my sister, and my mom's extended family. I haven't been back to Ohio over the Christmas holiday since 2008; every year since then I've been on vacation with Victor's family (to Portugal in 2009; on cruises 2010-2012) or celebrating at home as a pregnant lady/with Max. My mom's siblings and their families always have a big extended-family Christmas celebration, complete with a fun and thoughtful white elephant gift exchange. Last year's looked like so much fun (the most coveted--and stolen--gift was 3 boxes of delicious sugary cereal, and they played Ellen's Heads Up game) that I developed some serious FOMO and decided that this year we'd definitely be in attendance.

Here are some photos and anecdotes from our trip. I lugged my fancy camera out there and then never even used it!!! I had every intention to take it to the family Christmas and then forgot it! So please bear with my iPhone photos!

I was so excited about their "big bro/little sister" outfits. Unfortunately, this was the best photo I could get of them together.

Love this beauty! Her moccasins are from Sweet N Swag. She also has a matching bow headband (not pictured).

They love spending time with Auntie Holly!

We headed to Carol Ann's Carousel downtown on Wednesday evening. Max went on his first carousel shortly after he turned 1. He was pretty scared of it then, but I figured he'd come around to it now, at 2.5 years old. I was mistaken, however; he was not a fan of the up-and-down movement of the horse he was on. He only lasted long enough to take this photo before making me get him down.

We all rode the carousel twice, and then Max and my mom went on it two more times. Max preferred the stationary car over the moving animals.

I love the Roebling Suspension Bridge, especially at night. It reminds me of beautiful bridges in London.

We headed to the Cincinnati Zoo to enjoy the Zoo Lights after the carousel. We didn't last too long as it was windy and started to rain while we were there, but Max sure did love all the colorful lights!

On Thursday afternoon, we headed to the home of our friends, Becky and Tyler (I went to college with them; go Redhawks!) so Max and their son Ryan could play together and we adults could catch up. The boys are just 3 weeks apart in age and have only seen one another a handful of times, but they get along so well together!

We left Becky and Tyler's and headed straight to my aunt's house, where my cousin had arranged a private concert of live music, performed by her friends from college, Wes and Aaron of Brother Smith. We were so excited and thought that Max would be elated to see instruments being played in such an intimate setting, but he surprised us all by being a tad grumpy and not very into the entire experience. Everyone else loved it, though. Those boys were lots of fun and incredibly talented! We enjoyed performances of some of their original songs, as well as some Christmas tunes, James Taylor, and Van Morrison covers, among others!

I ran home to my mom's to get pajamas for the kids at one point, and I grabbed Max's ukulele that my sister gave him for Christmas, thinking that it would help him come around to the whole thing. It worked a little, especially when Wes gave Max a pick to play with!

On Friday we did some errand running and lunch eating, and then we headed to my uncle's house for our big family Christmas!

Here's Louisa at lunch, in a restaurant high chair for the first time.

Louisa's fancy dress for the party, which was a tad too small for her so she didn't wear it for too long!

We completed the white elephant gift exchange after dinner and a game of trivia. There were a few steals, but overall it was pretty tame for our family. When we first started the gift exchange years ago, there was a requirement that each gift had to be hand-made, but lately the main rule is that you have to give a gift you would like to receive yourself, a.k.a. no gag-gifts! This year, I gave a coffee-themed gift, complete with a travel mug, a witty coffee mug that said "This coffee is making me awesome!", a bag of Starbucks Christmas blend, and some K-cups. I received a vintage edition of Sorry! with some vintage candy (candy cigarettes, Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddies, etc.). No complaints here!

After the exchanging of gifts, we took our group photos. Here are the original siblings, minus my Uncle Mike in Florida and my late Uncle Willie.

Here are the original siblings and their spouses/significant others (and Louisa!)

The lady-cousins wore Target Christmas pjs to the soiree:

And this is my favorite photo of my little fam:

I'm so glad we made the trip out. These memories are what life is all about! Hopefully next time I can remember to preserve these memories on the fancy camera!

Christmas 2016

Happy 2017 friends! I hope you all had a joyous holiday season with your loved ones! We had a very memorable Christmas here at our house. It was Louisa's first Christmas, and she truly loved trying to eat all the tissue and wrapping paper she could get her hands on. Max began to understand Santa, and we also began the dreaded lovely tradition of The Elf on the Shelf this year. We named him Tito, and he seemed to prefer perching high atop various objects that were far out of Max's reach. Unfortunately, despite Max's knowledge about how "earning" gifts works, he frequently told us "No Santa Claus! Me bad Max!" whenever he didn't like us correcting his behavior. Here's hoping next year goes a little smoother!

On Christmas Eve, we gathered at my in-laws' house for a nice dinner with Victor's immediate family, our sister-in-law's family, and some close friends. We ate, drank, danced, and enjoyed a white elephant gift exchange. Here are some photos from Christmas Eve.

We didn't "plan" to match. I planned on wearing this dress, and before I got dressed, Victor said he was thinking about wearing that sweater. So we just went with it lol.

These two!

Max loves Natalie!

On Christmas morning, Max woke us up bright and early at 7 AM, so we headed downstairs to open presents. He was so excited to see that Santa came, and we opened the gifts from the Big Guy first.

This is the best photo I got of Max with his "boo die-fo" (blue dinosaur). He was very consistent with what he wanted from Santa; he said he wanted a blue dinosaur every time.

Siblings playing together with the Christmas haul

On Christmas day, we went back over to Victor's parents' house for dinner and opened presents with the immediate family there. My mother-in-law got everyone coordinating shirts, so we had to take several photos in our matching ensembles.

We had such a lovely holiday! Can't wait to share about our Christmas in Ohio later this week!

Merry Christmas Eve!

I hope you are surrounded by loved ones on this day before Christmas, cozy and content, prepared to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the arrival of Santa (and most joyously, the departure of your Elf on the Shelf, haha). We have a weekend full of celebrating planned but I wanted to stop by to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

This week has been chock-full of busy for our family. We've been preparing for this weekend by baking (approximately 14 dozen cookies), shopping (not for Christmas gifts but for random essentials), and wrapping (we've been done Christmas shopping for weeks but I just started wrapping gifts this week!). The crowds around here have been insane all week. Louisa and I were out running errands on Tuesday and Wednesday, and after fighting for parking spaces and waiting in enormous lines, I swore I wouldn't set foot in another store until December 26.

I can't believe how quickly this weekend snuck up on me! It seemed like I had all the time in the world, and then suddenly I only had 5 days and an endless list of baking, laundry, wrapping, and assembling to do in addition to the regular momming and wife-ing I do on a daily basis. We also had a Christmas gathering with friends and Victor's office Christmas party this week. I became overwhelmed from time to time, but I powered through by following Max's advice. Whenever he senses that I'm getting worked up about something, he looks at me with his big blue eyes and says, "Fwoh doowwwwnn, Mom" (slow down) as he pumps his little hands as if he were pumping brakes. I can't help but giggle and take a minute to re-prioritize.

Sometimes as moms, we're so busy trying to make everything magical and memorable that we forget to enjoy the season ourselves. I can totally see myself in the future dreading the holiday season due to all the pressure I put on myself to do all the things. I hope to keep things in perspective and really slow down and enjoy these magical occasions with my kids.

Last night, as we drove home from Victor's office Christmas party, I took a detour to look at Christmas lights with the kids. Max loved shouting out all the colors he saw and was fascinated by the brightly-lit houses. We then snuggled on the couch to watch Santa Claus is Comin' to Town before he and Louisa went to bed. My kitchen still had sprinklings of flour and powdered sugar everywhere, there was a load of laundry to be folded in the dryer, and the remnants of my gift-wrapping marathon from naptime were still all over the family room (I turn into a "shove it in a bag with some tissue paper" gal in the eleventh hour, lol); however, it felt great to truly "fwoh down" and actually watch a movie with my kids. The chores were still waiting for me after the kids went to bed.

I hope you are able to "fwoh down" this weekend and truly take it all in with the ones you love most. Delight in the magic of the season and be present. All the to-dos will be waiting for you later. Enjoy the moment now.

Louisa's first Christmas, 2016

Max's first Christmas, 2014

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2015

I should've published this post back in 2015 (you know, 6 whole days ago), but I had other things to do, like put together toys, play with toys, take out bags full of wrapping paper, snuggle with family, eat all the sweets, etc. We had a great Christmas at home, and Max is so entertained with all of his new gifts that he's even busier than he was before, if you can believe it!

I will give a little recap of the entire month of December, since we did lots of Christmassy things throughout the month and I wasn't on top of my blogging game. The first thing we did was visit Santa on December 7. I expected Max to be pretty apprehensive about the big guy this time around, and my hunch proved to be correct. But the photo turned out better than I expected.

No smile, but no tears. I'll call that a win!

Next, we ventured to a private home nearby to see its vast display of Christmas lights. I read about the house in our local newspaper and we visited on December 13. I am here to tell you: it was AMAZING! This lady does this display every year, and she begins hanging her lights in October (at least 35 strands of lights per tree!). She lets you walk around her property to see all of her light displays, and she collects donations for the local food bank and breast cancer research from those in the giving spirit. On this particular night, she was even allowing people inside her home to see her Christmas decorations inside.

Max loved it!

This year, she built a "throne" for Santa in her carriage house and passed out candy canes to all the kids. Max was still skeptical of ol' St. Nick, so Daddy had to sit with him.

We had a great time and Max LOVED running around outside right before bedtime. He crashed hard that night!

We hosted Victor's office Christmas party at our house on December 18. Earlier that week, Max was sick with a stomach bug, and Victor and I managed to catch it just in time for the party...ick! We both felt fine all day that Friday, but when party time rolled around, we started feeling pretty rotten. I couldn't eat anything, which was a bummer because we had some pretty great Mexican takeout! Here are just a couple photos I took that night before going to bed at 9 PM. Victor followed shortly after.

The next day, Victor and I were zombies. I had been up sick all night, and Victor was suffering from a fever and chills. We were "couch parents" all day Saturday as we slowly started feeling better. Luckily Max was OK with watching Curious George for most of the day.

Even though I felt rotten, I loved having my snuggle bug with me.

Honestly, I'm glad we got all the germies out of the house before Christmas!

The week of Christmas was spent baking cookies, wrapping gifts, and tidying the house. I baked sugar cookies for the first time in a couple of years, and I also made some homemade powdered sugar icing (both recipes from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook!). Part of me wanted to buy all the supplies to make beautiful piped icing designs...but then I just settled for sprinkles. You can't go wrong with sprinkles, people.

I also made Max a flannel tree with felt ornaments to decorate so he would hopefully leave our tree alone. It worked! Until he ripped it off the sliding glass door so he could knock on it while I was outside with the dog.

On Christmas Eve Eve, we opened our family gift of matching PJs (photo evidence in the Christmas Day photo section) and a Christmas movie (Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special). The evening of Christmas Eve, we went to Victor's parents' house to exchange gifts with his family. Then some of his aunts, uncles, and cousins joined us for dinner and a white elephant gift exchange. I won a cute little Nativity set! We got home late and Max didn't get to bed until 11!

Playing with all the "ho-hos" on Vovo's tree.

Victor received this ninja apron from his brother and future sister-in-law.

It was 70 degrees on Christmas Eve...I didn't have Christmassy clothes for that weather!

Christmas morning was relatively laid back since Max still doesn't quite understand the excitement of it all (I'm sure being up late the night before had something to do with it, too). We made our way downstairs around 9, and while Victor made breakfast, I pushed Max around in his new Radio Flyer tricycle, which was by the tree and immediately piqued his interest the second he saw it. He was not happy when we made him get out to eat! Then we opened the rest of our gifts in our matching PJs, pausing occasionally to unbox and play with new toys. Victor's brother and his fiancee visited around lunch time before they headed out of town, and then after naptime, we headed back over to Victor's parents' house for Christmas dinner with more extended family.

Mom, don't take photos. Push me around in this thing!

It was 70 degrees again on Christmas Day. Fleece PJs were a bit much.

Awesome drum set from one of Victor's aunts. Max immediately knew what to do!

Santa brought a train set!

Max loves his "choo choos"

This was after changing into lighter-weight pajamas and enjoying a chocolatey cookie.

My mom came out to visit on Sunday the 27th and brought lots of gifts for us from our family in Ohio. She left on New Year's Eve day. Max loved having his 'Ma in town. My sister couldn't make it out for Christmas this year because she's being a SuperNurse and working a lot over the holidays, but we'll hopefully see her in the next month or so!

We cheered on the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night...but they lost in overtime.

See? I told you we had a lovely Christmas. So lovely that I couldn't post about it until the next year. Ha! Check back tomorrow for tales of our New Year's Eve get-together!