A
very merry Christmas to everyone! We had a blessed year and hope that
2013 was good to you. We had many happy moments mixed in with some sad
good-byes, but we thank God for the blessings He's given us and pray
that we will be ready when Jesus returns soon. We're looking forward to 2014 and the adventures the Lord has planned for us.
Christmas morning was just the four of us. Nathan had gotten up early to start on the food for our holiday meals while I slept in a bit. The girls woke up around 7:30 so once I confirmed that Santa had indeed finished his visit, we brought the girls downstairs and they got to see the tree all decked out with the presents and the stockings overflowing. We checked out our stockings and then got busy unwrapping presents. The girls played with their new toys and watched "The Polar Express" while we finished making breakfast - strawberry stuffed french toast, hasbrown casserole, and fruit.
After our Christmas breakfast, we packed up our food for dinner and headed to Nathan's brother's house for appetizers, gifts, and dinner. In an effort to shake things up, we were all supposed to make a new dish for each course. For our appetizer I made a fruit Christmas tree, for entree I made a Potato Mushroom Gatto (an Italian dish of mashed potatoes with veggies and cheese in between layers), vegetable was a brussel spouts gratin, dessert was a yule log, and for a drink we made Grinch punch.
Between appetizers and dessert we opened presents. The girls got an airport, a doll house with people and furniture, plus some cars and and several other little fun presents. I got a few things for the house, a new camera bag, and a gift card for a massage. Santa was very good to me this year!
Thanks to my sister-in-law Melissa for sending me these photos she took:
My father-in-law made the kids a Snowman Kit. It's a wooden box with all sorts of supplies (most made out of wood except for the gloves) to use on a rolled snowman. We think he should make these to sell on Etsy because they are so cute! I'm secretly hoping we don't get enough snow this winter to use it, but since I'm pretty sure my wish will not come true, it will be a fun thing to use when we get out into the snow.
Our Christmas was wonderful this year. We're looking forward to seeing my family in two weeks when Dad and Chris visit from Florida!
It's my favorite moment of the year. That time in the evening on Christmas Eve when all the urgent tasks for the season are finally done. Food is ready. Presents wrapped. House cleaned. Kids in bed. The room is dark except for the tree lighting the corner. It had been bare until a few minutes ago and now the lights have the gloss of the wrapping paper to bounce and dance off of back onto the wall.
Something about this scene makes me feel 38 and 6 all at the same time. In the moment I feel the motherly rest from caretaking, cleaning, and cooking until this moment. The rest of tasks done. Dozens of Christmases past are stored up in this feeling. Bitter cold outside. Warmth and safety inside. No rush. No demands. Just family, laughter, and memories. Staying at grandpa and grandma's house. Sleeping on the floor and listening to the genuine joy of chatting and laughter coming up through the floorboards. Love and comfort all around.
Every year when we are on the brink of another memorable Christmas morning, this pause, like a slow draw of breath, takes me back to a collection of moments. They stack up in my mind into one great, true feeling about what matters. The world outside is bitterly cold but in the warming wrap of family, there is love. Acceptance. Care. Your existence is welcomed. It has a way of centering you to understand this at the deepest level of your heart.
No other time holds the comfort of the past and the peace that comes in just being in this moment of your life. Living in those times that shaped you knowing that they have given you wings. No other moment in holiday season makes me feel the most grateful and blessed as this night. I hope my daughters will look back on these years and have the same warm feelings and find love and peace in the memories.
I know they are little and may not remember all that much of these very early years, but I've been trying to focus on doing activities with the girls this Christmas season. I admit, I'm not really a gift-giver. It's not my love language and I'm generally pretty bad at it. I can buy a gift card and something off a list, but I'm no good at picking up clues and getting surprise gifts. I tried to talk Nathan into backing off on gifts this year but gift giving is his love language and he's actually quite good at it. The agreement was that he'd handle the gifts and I would handle the activities and sentimental memory making.
So far we've seen Santa a few times...made some cookies that we handed out to neighbors (and I took to my coworkers)...decorated the cupboards with ribbon for our Christmas cards so we could look at the pictures everyday. We also tried melting candy canes in the oven and re-shaping them into our names, but that project was a dud. The candy canes melted too much and then were hard as rocks.
Since it's the week of Christmas I wanted to do a few more fun things. First and foremost - Christmas cookies. We used to make the same butter cookies each year when I was a kid and I still love them. I thought the girls would really like seeing them being made and decorating them. They wanted to help with the rolling and cutting (and they did a little), but due to issue like the cutters being a little sharp and the dough having raw eggs, I mostly took care of the first part of the process and had them join in when the cookies had cooled. Chloe had done a little last year but this was Megan's first time. Oh boy, she thought this was awesome! A lot of eating and some decorating later, we had some pretty cute cookies. We're eating them like they're going out of style but we're also struggling to stay in Santa's good graces, so we will be sure to save him some. Nathan even made some homemade eggnog to go with them!
We had a marvelous time on our trip to Florida! We flew down on Saturday, December 7th. We got up super de-dooper early (we left the house at 5:55am) to make our 8am flight to Orlando. The girls took the early morning in stride and had fun exploring the airport. We could see our plane from where we were sitting at the gate and Megan kept pointing to it like she knew that's where we were headed. The girls did pretty well on the flight - thanks mostly to snacks and iPad games. They were a little cranky from getting up so early but the excitement of travel kept them in fairly good spirits.
When we got to the airport we could not wait to see Grandpa Roush who was waiting for us! After picking up our luggage we had a yummy lunch at Sweet Tomatoes and then headed home to see Grandma Chris!
The weather was beautiful so we changed into our comfy clothes and went out on the back porch to enjoy the sunshine. The girls painted and explored the backyard. Then around sundown we stopped at a local light display. Once home, the girls got their height recorded in grandpa and grandma's closet to see how much they'd grown since last year.
Sunday morning we had a hearty breakfast before spending some more time on the porch. Grandma painted our nails while the herons looked on :)
Grandma had a social engagement so Grandpa took us down to Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park for the afternoon. We saw all sorts of animals (most which we don't see at home) and then had a late lunch at Applebee's. By the time we got home, Grandma was back so we went to dinner at the Ice Cream DR - the shop owned and run by her family.
Monday morning we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast which are my favorite. Nathan taught Chris how to make the biscuits and we dinned like kings :) After breakfast we went to the beach at Pine Island. It was a gorgeous day with a high of 85 degrees. Because it was a weekday, it was not crowded at all. We had so much fun sitting in the sun and playing in the water. A former student of mine from when I did taskforce at Sunnydale Academy lives in the same town as the beach we were visiting and I got to see her, too!
Tuesday morning we headed down to Orlando for our Disney time. Our first stop was Magic Kingdom and the Character Spot. The day would not be complete without getting pictures with Mickey so we did that first. The girls L-O-V-E these characters in the costumes. I mean they love them to a point that it seems odd. They don't get scared of them. They practically claw their way out of my arms to get to them. I'm glad they are not afraid but I'm not sure where exactly this extreme affection comes from.
We got there late morning so we rode a few rides, had some lunch and a Mickey Bar. Nathan humored me and went on a water ride with me :) The girls had been seeing these balloons all day (they LOVE balloons) so as a treat before we left we got a big balloon with a smaller Mickey balloon inside. It was not cheap (seriously, $12 for a balloon?!) but we got our money's worth in the first few hours we had it. They played with this thing non-stop. (I had to include the photo with the balloon covering my dad's head because it makes me LOL.)
We also got them some Mickey ears which we'd been meaning to do for years. I think you can guess that Nathan picked out Chloe's R2D2 hat and I got Megan a Minnie Mouse hat.
Since we were staying over, we left the park and checked in at our hotel. We were staying at Port Orleans - Riverside. It was beautiful and was generally a great resort. We'd definitely stay there again. As a bonus it had a boat that went to Downtown Disney so we left the kids with grandpa and grandma and had a mini date night.
Wednesday morning we had reservations at The Polynesian resort for a character breakfast. The main attraction was, of course, the characters, but the food was delish. We told them we were vegetarian so instead of a meat plate they did a veggie/tofu stir-fry that was really good. Also, at the beginning they bring out bread and pastries - there was a wonderful pineapple bread that I'm determined to replicate.
After breakfast we headed to Epcot for more rides and characters. Yes, MORE characters. The girls cannot get enough of them and of all the things we did at Disney, giving hugs to the characters was their favorite thing. They definitely have their favorites, too. Chloe LOVES Mickey Mouse and Megan LOVES Minnie Mouse. The first and only time we saw Minnie Mouse was that day at Epcot. She was the last one in the line up so we had to wait until the people ahead of us were done. I picked up Megan because she kept trying to jump the line. The amount of force I had to exert in order to keep this girl away was crazy. I felt like I was trying to hold down a cat trying to jump out of my arms. I could hardly contain her. When it was their turn, I put Megan down and she ran up to her. She didn't want to leave her and when we finally got her to walk away, she stood there blowing kisses to Minnie. Then Minnie blew kisses back to her. It was off the charts adorable.
After Epcot we stopped at Downtown Disney to see Santa, do some shopping, and have a quick dinner at Rainforest Cafe. The girls did well overall but there was a pretty major meltdown by both girls on the way back up to grandpa and grandma's house. All in all our two days at Disney were a lot of fun. I also had the cold I'd been battling shift into overdrive that afternoon so I was starting to feel warn down. Thanks to some NyQuil, I and the whole family slept well that night.
Thursday and Friday we just relaxed. We'd been so busy all week that we just needed some down time. We hung out in the warm air, played, ate, and generally chilled out. Nathan taught Grandma and Aunt Jean how to make pie crusts and then we got to eat lots of pie. It was great!
On Saturday before our flight home we stopped at Aunt Jean's house down the street to look at her grapefruit tree. Chloe even picked one but we left it in grandpa's car for him to enjoy. We hope to go on another trip to Florida this winter!
By the way, when we got home Saturday night, we were greeted with 7 inches of snow - the first measurable and shovelable snowfall for the season. How nice! This is what it looked like Sunday morning when we woke up and were able to see it all in the daylight. As if we didn't miss Florida enough!
