Christmas morning excitement...

The first morning we were at my parent's house, Amelia woke up and inspected the family room and then said "Santa didn't drop in last night." She continued to check every morning so when she came out Christmas morning, she was happy to say that "Santa DID drop in." Christmas morning is so much fun with kids. Because Amelia had stayed up so late the night before, we were all awake before her and finally had to wake her up around 8:30 because we were growing impatient.

She was thrilled with each item she received. She carefully removed everything from her stocking and would say "oh beautiful"...she was even excited about the small pack of tissues in her stocking..."oh wow, my very own tissues!"

A few weeks before Christmas, Amelia started requesting a pink guitar and was pretty sure Santa was going to bring her one. She was so excited to discover that Santa had heard her request...




Amelia inspects her Santa pile.


Everyone watches Amelia look at her Santa gifts. She was definitely the center of attention Christmas morning.


Ben presents Amelia with a giant check, er, guitar.


Unwrapping gifts.


Elsa is overwhelmed by all the chaos.


Amelia unwraps her other Christmas wish, a Baby Alive. This doll is seriously high maintenance. I had an easier time potty training Amelia.


Amelia rocks out.


Elsa examines her gift with hesitation.


She looks to James for answers.


Amelia poses with her loot and it becomes clear that she was completely spoiled.


Elsa was pleased with her loot as well.

Rock Band for the Wii also showed up Christmas morning so we pretty much spent the next several days rocking out.

Amelia joins in with her recorder.




There was also a lot of puzzle action. Amelia was really into it as well and actually found several pieces.

Green Bay excursions...

It was fun to drive around Green Bay and check out old hangouts and see how things have changed. We all had lunch at one of our favorite places, Zesty's. Delicious frozen custard, fried cheese curds, and butter burgers...yum!


Ben attempts the Zesty Burger...a combination hamburger and brat.



We headed to the zoo to see which animals could withstand the cold and snow.

Snow!

On Christmas Eve day the weather was perfect...up to 30 degrees and lightly snowing with a nice new coat of powder on the ground. We found a sledding hill near my parent's house and went crazy.


The previous sledders had left a nice jump for us.


Amelia had no fear going down the hill and even went off the jump a few times. She eventually learned how to get off the tube at the bottom of the hill and could have continued sledding all day.




Amelia gets a ride from Grandpa.


For some reason my brother decided it was the perfect time to take a bike for a spin around the block. Ben had to give it a try as well.


Amelia demonstrates how high the snow was in my parent's driveway.


Making snow angels.

Family = Laughter

It was so nice to be with my family. Despite the fact that one sister was enduring chemo treatments and the other was recovering from some abdominal surgery, we enjoyed a lot of laughs. (Well, maybe Erin didn't enjoy it so much since it was painful for her to laugh.)

Amelia and Elsa pose with cousin James in their Christmas outfits courtesy of Grandma.

We were all set to take them to church but because of a bad snowstorm and temperatures well below zero, they canceled church that day. We enjoyed our own Christmas program at home, complete with stories and musical numbers and choral readings. It was especially nice to hear my parents sing a duet together.


Stephanie tried to use her hair loss to our advantage...telling Amelia that she lost her hair because she didn't eat her vegetables. Every time Amelia would pass by Steph, Amelia would casually slip the phrase "and I still have my hair" into her chattering.


Amelia performs with Grandma...any chance to take center stage.


Traditionally, we bake our own gingerbread and assemble a huge house. But we had just finished making five different types of Christmas cookies (including gingerbread men) so we went for the pre-assembled house. Amelia was in her element arranging candy by color and shape.


Elsa and James were excellent playmates and Elsa enjoyed the freedom of a large living room to roll around in. She doesn't make it far in our house without rolling onto the hardwood floors or getting stuck under furniture.

Pretend you opened your mail...

...and got a Christmas card from us! Okay. So the Christmas card thing didn't happen this year. But it was quite nice to come home to a big stack of mail that contained not only bills but tons of Christmas cards from friends and family. So thanks for thinking of us and don't cross us off your list...we'll try again next year.

A trip to Wisconsin begs the question "What happened to global warming?"

We just returned from a fabulous trip to Green Bay to visit family, celebrate Christmas, enjoy the snow, endure the cold, eat lots of food, and relax.

I was also reminded of just how friendly and nice people in Wisconsin are. Of all the places I have lived, Wisconsin is by far the friendliest. Everywhere we went I had casual conversations with all kinds of people. Even in Walmart the people were polite. I think I've gotten too used to the grumpy, high-strung D.C. area.

It was a miracle we made it to Green Bay the Friday before Christmas. There were massive snow storms that morning and the areas hit the worst just happened to be the two places we were flying to that day, Detroit and Milwaukee. The Milwaukee airport shut down that morning and Detroit was experiencing major delays. We were pretty sure we wouldn't make it out that day. As it turns out, all the flights to Detroit from Baltimore (we always swear we won't fly out of Baltimore again, but it always happens) were canceled up until our flight. Such luck. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the flight crew on our flight out of Baltimore so we left an hour late. We arrived in Detroit with only 5 minutes to make it to our connection to Milwaukee. Ben ran to the next gate while I waited with the girls to collect our car seats and stroller. He called me from the gate and said the doors were shut and nobody was around. It appeared we would be spending the night in Detroit. I finally got the car seats and stroller and headed toward Ben when he called again and said a flight attendant from our flight had run down and opened up the door and made them hold the plane for us and we needed to run. So I had the stroller and all our carry-on luggage and Amelia's car seat and Amelia and we had to run about 20 gates down. Poor Amelia was trying so hard, but was carrying a backpack and did a face plant. I picked her up and must have been quite a sight running with her in one arm, her car seat in the other, pushing the stroller with Elsa. Ben came to our rescue and we made it on the plane, completely out of breath. They had actually retracted the jetway so we were extremely lucky that they let us on.

But we made it. And the girls were super travelers. My poor brother and his family were flying in the next day and got stranded in Minneapolis and my dad ended up picking them up and driving them to Green Bay through a treacherous snowstorm. I think they were traveling for 24 hours. They had no luggage for a few days and then their flight out of Green Bay after Christmas was canceled and they were stuck for a few more days. The joys of winter travel.

Despite all of that, we had a fabulous time. I just uploaded 300 photos and several videos from our trip so it may take some time to post about it. I still have bags to unpack, laundry to do, and children on Central Time.

Warm December Day...

Yesterday was nearly 70 degrees so we enjoyed a lovely walk to the park.


We met up with Ben after work and walked over to the National Christmas Tree behind the White House. It was nice to finally enjoy some Christmas festivities without freezing.

National Cathedral Nativities

On Sunday afternoon we headed to the National Cathedral to check out their display of nativities from all over the world.







We stopped at Gravelly Point on the way home to watch the airplanes land for a few minutes.