Christmas 2015

Christmas was, of course, wonderful this year.  It was fast and furious and I am happy to have the holidays behind us even though they were super fun.  I love it but there is so much to do and so little time to do it.  All I can say is thank goodness for A.ma.zon P.rime!  

matching pajamas forever.  

We always have a dinner on Christmas Eve and this year we had that at Jenni's house.  My brother was in town for the first time in a year and a half and we were so happy to have him.  He stayed with my mom and they came over during the day Christmas Eve so he could hang with us and my kids.  Then we went to Jenni's and it was great.  The babies did good even though it was a late night for them.  When we got home we put all the kids to bed and then Santa came.  

Blakely was SO excited to match Emery.  

And then she was over pictures....

I think Uncle Matty played play doh with her the entire time.  

For Christmas Day we typically have brunch at my mom's house and then hang out all day.  Well I decided this year it would be easiest to do it at my house.  That way the babies were in their element and had all of their things.  I could easily put them down for a nap when needed and I wouldn't have to pack up my whole house for a few hours at my mom's!  Also, Lonnie had to work Christmas Day so I would have been doing all of that by myself.  Not fun.  I am so glad we did it this way and I think we will continue each year!  

My mom and brother spent the night with us on Christmas Eve that way they could see the Santa stuff and then we would all exchange presents before the rest of the family got here.  It worked out great and I know they both really enjoyed it.  Especially seeing Blakely's sleepy face when she realized that Santa came....and that he did good.  ;)

I think these two things were Blakely's favorite presents.  My mom got her the sleeping bag with pillow and I got her the suitcase.  She has slept with the sleeping bag every single night since.  And she packs up the suitcase multiple times a day :/

We all had to wear a tiara...

Brunch was wonderful.  We hung out in the living room and everyone opened their gifts (we draw names).  Then we just enjoyed each other's company and everyone got plenty of baby time until it was time to eat again.  Ha!  

sisters...

so proud of my brother and I love how he loves my babies.  

I love this picture.  She is wearing a dress that is 2 sizes too small, a gold tiara to mach the gold sparkles on the dress, her new gold sparkly shoes and she was singing something while playing.  It is just so Blakely.  

So yes, it was a lovely Christmas.  My kids were spoiled and my house is still a wreck but that's okay!  I think it is going to be a wreck for a couple more years before I can catch up.  I love this little family of mine!  

Vegas

Lonnie had some time off at the beginning of December and we wanted to plan a little getaway for just the three of us.  I really just let him plan the thing because I didn't care where we went.  I preferred a direct flight or a short drive somewhere but that was about it.  

He decided on Vegas.  Ha!  

If I am being totally honest I wasn't that thrilled with the idea of taking a 3 year old to Vegas.  But once I started doing some searching around I realized there were quite a few things we could do with Blakely and quite a few Christmas-y things we could do as well.  So I didn't complain as we were only going to be there for 3 full days ;)  

Blakely was great on the flight out there.  She slept most of the way.  We stayed at the Palaz.zo for the first time and really liked it.  We had a suite and it was FANTASTIC.  I wish I would have taken pictures of it.  It was split level with the king bed and a large sitting area up top and then down three steps was the "living" area with a huge sectional and the fold out that B slept on.  Blakely would have been happy just to play with her babies in our room the entire time.  I worried about her sleeping in the same "room" with us but she did fine.  Went to sleep great each night and even took great naps with me everyday.  She was really a dream on this trip and I was so relieved because she had been quite naughty the weeks leading up to the trip.  

The first full day was spent walking around and letting Blakely take in the lights of Vegas.  We bought a new umbrella stroller (J.eep brand and hello love it) because our other one pretty much died on our last trip.  When we went to Denver in March I swore I wasn't taking B to walk around a city without a stroller again anytime soon.  I could just picture her getting lost in Vegas and I knew a stroller would save my sanity.  It did.  She still walked quite a bit but the stroller was so very helpful because even when she was walking she wanted to be pushing her baby in the stroller.  

We took a gondola ride at The Ven.etian and she thought that was fun.  Our driver sang songs to her and I think she wanted to go again.  

I had read that the Cosmopolitan turned their swimming area into an ice skating rink and I knew B would love trying that so the next day we took her there.  Obviously I couldn't ice skate (darn) so Lonnie had to be the one to skate with her.   He hasn't skated in a million years so I let him get his bearings before sending her out there.  

Basically she looks adorable...

She thought it was fun and the girls there tried to teach her the best way to stay on her feet. She did okay but Lonnie had to keep her upright.  She didn't want to stop but after about 20-30 minutes I could tell this was not going well for Lonnie.  The position he was in, slightly bent over at the waist and holding all of her weight most of the time, was not looking good for his already injured back (see this post).  I tried to get him to stop and let the girls who worked there take B out but they were just holding her hand and not really giving a shit if she cracked her head or her arm so we weren't okay with that.  He pushed on.

When we were done we went and had dinner and then came back out there to the fire pits they had set up.  They had Christmas music playing and you could get hot chocolate at the bar and stuff for s'mores.  We roasted about 20 (Mommy LOVES them) and sipped hot chocolate by the fire.  

The best part was that it wasn't actually cold...ha!  Then they made it snow and B was fired up about that.  She ran around and jumped up and down trying to catch it yelling, "Snow!  Mommy, it's SNOW!"  

The next day we took her to the indoor theme park at Ci.rcus Circ.us.  She has never ridden any rides before.  I know!  I can't believe it either.  We have meant to take her to the fair each year but something has always come up.  I was so looking forward to Disney in March because I knew she would love to ride rides (and, well, princesses).  Since that is cancelled  I was excited to see how she liked this little theme park.  For an indoor theme park it was pretty great.  They even have some big rides.  They had about 8 rides that she could ride and that was really plenty.  Lonnie or I rode many of them with her first and then tested out one by herself.  

She was so excited and picked out her airplane with care.  About halfway through the ride I could tell the change on her face.  She was getting a little scared and made eye contact with me.  I told her she was doing great! and wasn't it fun! and it was almost over!  I think she got a little freaked out because she wasn't sure when it would stop.  I was so proud of her because she didn't cry and I could tell she was trying so hard to be brave.  It was just one of those mommy moments for me and I could have cried I was so proud of her.  Or maybe I am just pregnant and overly emotional.  

We stayed for a few hours and then went back to the hotel to crash.  And I am talking a 3 hour nap.  Glory.  

On our last day we went to old downtown Vegas.  It was fun and Lonnie and I had never checked that out before.  It is more of the old timey major lights and flashiness that you think of when you think of Vegas.  We had fun walking around and and then had dinner.  Blakely did so well at our dinners in Vegas.  I was worried about it because she is in a stage where she doesn't want to listen to anything we say.  But really she did well and I was impressed.  We even did a couple of fancier places and didn't have to leave early.  By the end of dinner I was ready to go lay down.  I was hurting and worn out and knew I was going to have to travel the next day with Blakely by myself.  So we went to bed at like 730.  Wild Vegas nights I tell ya.  

Blakely and I came home together and Lonnie stayed for a few extra days.  She did well traveling with me although she didn't sleep on the way home.  3+ hour flight with a sleepy toddler who wants to get up and pee every 15 minutes.  Exhausting.  She didn't whine though so I can't complain much.  

On the way home I asked her her favorite part of the trip.  She said the taxi rides.  LOL!  We didn't take a car seat this time since we didn't rent a car.  Also I knew we wouldn't use taxis much...mainly to and from the airport which was quite close to our hotel.  She thought she was so big to not have a car seat.  Lonnie and I stressed the entire ride.  What do y'all do? I didn't want to take a car seat because then what would we do with it once we got to our destination?  The only place we went was the Cosmo and we couldn't lug it around the entire time.  But I really wanted to take it.  It was just weird.  She only had about 4 rides without a seat but still.  Stressful.  Interested to see what everyone else does in this situation.  

She looks scared to death here but she really was thrilled.  

All in all I am glad we made the trip.  We were able to have some fun family time together and since we can't go to Disney this was our last big trip as a family of three!  Eeeeek!  

Christmas!

Happy New Year blog friends!  I know you want to read another Christmas post today, right?  Well I am just the person to treat you to it.  ;)

This was obviously the best Christmas yet.  Blakely definitely "got it" this year although she was a little nervous about the idea of Santa coming into our house in the middle of the night.  I had to reassure her that he wouldn't come downstairs about 20 times.  

I didn't do the Christmas Countdown this year like I have in the past.  We were gone to Alabama and then a few days after getting home from there we left for Vegas...more on that later.  I knew we couldn't smash it all in and I wanted to try and have a relaxed holiday.  Plus I am pregnant and tired.  So yeah.  The poor child didn't even get a picture with Santa this year.  That's okay, right??  It's just going to have to be because she totally didn't care.  

We did do a few Christmas activities like paint ornaments for each family member and bake and decorate cookies.  I let her open her Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve and we did have an elf this year.  He was super lazy but she liked finding him each morning and she named hime Gio.  No idea where she came up with that.  Painting the ornaments was definitely her favorite.  When we were leaving the house to go to my Grand's house on Christmas Eve she suddenly said, "Mom!  We have to take the ornaments so everyone can put them on their tree tonight!".  Well that was a good idea so we did.  She was very proud of them and handed out each one with care.  

We spent Christmas Eve with my family and Lonnie's mom came as well.  We have dinner and just spend time together with no presents.  Well, I say no presents but every single one of them got Blakely something.  She is the only child in the family so they spoil the heck out of her.  We came home with three bags full of stuff.  My cousin Jan took Blakely outside to try and find Rudolph just like she did with me and my brother when we were kids.  It was a great night.  

Christmas morning is spent with just the three of us.  Blakely dug into her Santa stuff and then had ZERO interest in opening presents from me and Lonnie.  I didn't want to force her because she was playing and having so much fun with her new stuff.  But we were on a time crunch because we had to get to my mom's to open with her before the whole family got there at 1130.  I decided to scrap opening our presents until later that night.  I've decided that next year my mom will just spend the night with us and that will cut out us being rushed to her house to open.  We can just do it here!  

Is this all for me??

Anyway.  We didn't really get Blakely one big item this year like in year's past.  I thought about getting her a bike but we really don't have a place to ride it and Lonnie just wasn't on board.  The only this she kept asking for was babies and diapers.  So that was pretty easy.  Santa brought a new Elsa dress (the other one was disgusting and in shreds basically), an Anna dress, a super hero cape, a train set, some makeup, a jewelry box, a damn unicorn (thank you Santa Jenni!), and a new baby and diapers, of course.  He also threw some new panties and socks in her stocking.  

She loves all of it and has hardly taken the Elsa dress off.  This is totally off the subject but let me just tell you about dress up clothes for a minute.  There is a HUGE difference in a "dress up dress" and a "princess costume".  This is important!  First of all a dedicated dress up dress is more expensive.  BUT OMG WORTH IT.  They are machine washable, not itchy and don't shred the first time you accidentally step on Elsa's train.  We have a couple of both and the costumes are gross.  You can't just throw them in the washing machine.  You are expected to spot clean them...well ha!  This mama is not a "spot cleaner".  They are made to be worn one singular time and if you have a princess obsessed daughter like me well that is a total joke.  She eats in them, takes a nap in them and occasionally wears them to the store when I am feeling super generous.  All of this to say that Santa brought Blakely an Elsa dress up dress to replace her Elsa costume.  The Anna dress is a costume and the top has already ripped from the skirt and I sewed it back up.  I knew I should have bitten the bullet and bought the Anna dress too but I wasn't thinking.  Just a word to the wise.  Now, if you can convince your child to be careful while in her dresses and to not wear them while eating, jumping on the trampoline, doing cartwheels, and wrestling with Daddy on the floor well then go for the costumes.  (We have these and these and both are great)

Okay...back on track.  After letting her play for a while we headed over to my mom's.  She got Blakely a bunch of fun stuff.  A few new games, some kinetic sand, babies and accessories and all of the PA.W Patrol pups with their vehicles and the tower.  She was so happy to just play by herself while we opened our presents.  

Then everyone else showed up and we had brunch and then opened presents.  We draw names every year which I like but I get everyone a couple of things from Blakely (a picture and a calendar with lots of pictures of her).  It was a great day after that of being lazy, snacking and playing with Blakely's new toys.  By the time we ate I was completely worn out.  I didn't get much sleep due to playing Santa and finishing up the wrapping.  Then I had to load up all of our presents to take to mom's and make sausage balls for the brunch.  I have about zero stamina these days so I was ready for some rest!  (Lonnie would normally help me do these things but he has severely injured his back, again, and has been out of commission.  More on that later!)  

We came home late that afternoon and Blakely passed out in the car before we even left my mom's driveway!  

I let her sleep in the car for a little bit and then we came in and opened our presents together just the three of us.  We mainly got Blakely some craft sets but my Dad got her Ma.gna T.iles and they are a huge hit.  She has played with them almost non stop.  We all got wonderful gifts and are so so lucky to have such great family.  Christmas was wonderful and I look forward to next year with two more littles in the mix!  

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my blog friends!  

Blakely has only asked Santa for babies and diapers.  And I mean that is absolutely the only thing she has asked for...every.single.time someone asks for the past month.  Until this morning when I told her that Santa was coming tonight and she said, "Oh goody!  He's going to bring me a unicorn, Mommy!  I'm so excited!  I love unicorns!"  What in the world?  You can't change it up on Christmas Eve!  And there is no way I am getting out today.  We will see what kind of magic Santa can come up with :)   I hope you all have a great holiday!