Christmas 2009

So here I sit, completely exhausted yet toasty in my new fluffy socks and warm fleece, eating way too much leftover cheese ball and reminiscing about maybe the best Christmas we've had yet. It started early for the kids - 9am on Christmas Eve Morn when Fadia threw her annual Kids Christmas Party and Parade (the kids are the parade). It was from 9-11am which gave Ahren and me just enough time to get showered and dressed and back over there to pick them up. From there we went right over to Gigi and Poppy's house where Auntie Amy, Uncle Scott, and most importantly, the COUSINS had just arrived. It was at that moment that the craze began, and it did not slow down until we put the kids to bed on Christmas Day at 9pm.
Christmas Eve with my family was wonderful as always. We spent the day preparing for the party and eating...a lot...in very frequent intervals. But since we all tend to get grumpy when we get hungry, I like to think of it as a necessity rather than gluttonous. We were very smart this year, and had the entire family dressed for 5:15 mass by 4pm. This way, we were able to get all of the family photos done before the children got too tired, and before the craze of the party began. Mass was wonderful as always. We go to the Children's Mass now so that the kids can enjoy the live nativity and singing, and they even have ballet dancers now. It's quite a show.
By the time we got home we had only a few minutes to spare before the party began. And what a party it was!! We estimate that we had about 60 of our closest friends and family attend - some who haven't made it in years! It was an amazing celebration made even more fun by the fact that we had about 13 young children who were completely enchanted by our visit from Santa. While I always feel like I don't actually get to talk to anyone on Christmas Eve, I did have a chance to have a few WONDERFUL conversations this year, and I now have it on pretty good authority that 2010 is going to be a spectacular year...more on that to come later. Much to our dismay, the children did not go to bed well before the party ended, but rather were the last ones we saw off at the end of the night! Ahren brought Zach and Lexi home at 11:30, while I stayed behind to clean up and ensure that Christmas Magic would be alive and well in the morning.
After going to bed around 1am, Christmas morning came all too early with the 6:25 wake up call from the cousins alerting us to the fact that Santa had come and was not at all stingy with the gifts! It took us awhile to rile the Lippman troops, but we were able to get their engines going once they saw all the presents that had been left for them! The next few hours were a flurry of wrapping paper, and new toys and squeals from happy children. Lexi was thrilled to get her Ariel doll "with all the dresses and tail" that she had been asking for for months (Santa is such a good guy) and Zach thought it was pretty fantastic they we gave him a whole sock full of toys that he was allowed to pull out. Of course, he was far more interested in tissue paper than any of the presents he received, but that's pretty typical for my kids.
After some breakfast, showers and naps for the kids (or just a short rest in Lexi's case), we were on to round three. As always, Mama made a wonderful feast for us, and Great Gram, Uncle Jay, and Uncle Jack and Aunt DJ joined us for the continued celebration. It was a lively and fun filled dinner and dessert, and by the time we got to our third round of presents we had a hard time keeping some folks awake (the kids, of course, were still going strong)! After another wonderful afternoon, we cleaned up, packed up and took our very sleepy children home to bed. Both Lexi and Zach were asleep before their heads even hit their pillows.
This morning at 8am, Lexi tip toed into my room, came to the side of my bed and said, "Mama, I just have to ask you one quick question and then I'm going back to snuggle in my bed." "Okay," I said, "what is your question?" She replied, "Do giants live in this area of the world?" "No...giants don't live anywhere in the world" I said. "Okay" she replied, and went back into her room, climbed back into bed, and went to sleep. :)
Lexi will be enjoying her cousins' extended visit for the rest of the weekend, and then the best gift of all is that Ahren took next week off from work. So we are thrilled to be getting some time together as a family when we can relax and enjoy all of our new toys.
Merry Christmas, everyone! And Happy New Year! I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas celebration as we did.

Christmas, Here We Come!

It's hard to believe that Christmas could be 4 days away. It seems like just yesterday that we were bundling little baby Zachary into his baby snowsuit for his first Christmas and I was wondering whether I would survive my first year of being a mommy of two. Well, the good news is that I have survived (assuming all goes will in the next week and a half!). Not only have I survived, but it's been a wonderful year. Lexi has grown and matured so much over the last year and she just continues to be a joy. She is such a great big sister to her little brother that when it's just me and Zachary at home alone I don't know what to do without her! Zachary is becoming more and more of a little person himself. It's so exciting when babies start to have opinions about things, and you see them get excited when you are offering them something they want. Zachary is a little ham, and loves nothing more than to laugh, joke, and play with his family.

Ahren continues to do great at State Street, and we're hoping that all of the promotions he is receiving will eventually result in a pay increase as well! I am so proud of Ahren's work ethic, and it's clear that his employers appreciate it as well. I feel very secure knowing that Ahren is so well respected in his career. He works tirelessly day in and day out, but always has enough energy to play and laugh with the kids, and help me in the evenings. He is such an amazing husband and father - we are SO lucky for that.

While the economy has prevented us from doing some things that we would have liked to do this year, it certainly hasn't made us forget how lucky we are to have our friends and family. It's definitely true that it takes a village to raise a child - and an even bigger village to raise two, and I am so lucky to have a fantastic village made up of family and friends old and new.

We are so looking forward to Christmas this year. It's true that Christmas is so much more exciting when you can watch your own children enjoy it. There's lots more Christmas fun to be had, and then we will look forward to a wonderful 2010!

Kid Quotes

Funny quotes from my kids over the last week or so...

Lexi:

"Mama, how can Santa see us if we can't see him?" - This was one of those moments where Ahren and I looked at each other with panic and quickly said something about the elves watching on Santa's behalf!

Lexi was sick last week and I was trying to get her to drink something. I offered a few options that she turned down. Finally I said, "Hmm..let's see...what's your favorite thing in the whole world...?" She replied, "You, hugging me."

Zach:

I was feeding Zach a few weeks ago and he was very far away. As I stood up to move his chair I said, "Zachy, why are you so far away from me?" I SWEAR he said, "Actually, I'm not that far."

Last night at dinner Zach was pointing in Ahren's direction and saying "at, at" I thought he was pointing to the cat, and couldn't figure out why he was pointing so insistantly. Ahren said, "I think he's trying to say "catch"" (they both sound very similar) to which I replied that I was pretty sure it was "cat" because I could see that Charlie was standing near where he was pointing. Just as the words left my mouth Zach looked directly at me and very slowly and carefully said, "BALL". Sure enough, there was a ball there that I couldn't see, and that was what he wanted!