Xmas part 2: Nana & Pepere’s house

This year, my side of the family opted for gathering the weekend before Christmas. It was a great warm-up for the Xmas fun we'll be having at our house (more on that later). Maggie, especially, was keen on the whole thing and it was great to really have her participating (boy howdy!) in the action.

Story time snuggles with Nana and Pepere

Some secret handshakes before the gift-opening? ;)

And so it begins...

And continues...

Auntie Erin and Uncle Chris

Showing off her loot

As always, there was big eating, too ;)

Dressing up for a neighborhood Christmas light tour

It was chilly, but us girls stayed warm just keeping up with our little tour guide!

Thanks to everyone for a great weekend. We're so lucky that the holiday has been long, warm and bright.

Like father…

Think I'm gonna get in trouble for this one but she would NOT pull her pants up all morning and it was her daddy who insisted we get the pic

:D

Tis the season

For jam-packed weekend days!

Last Saturday, we kicked off the Christmas season by getting out early to head over to see Santa at the Red Door in Fremont. Yes, that’s a bar – but on select Saturday mornings in December, it’s a family-friendly bar! Also there were some dear old friends – Paul, Michelle, Elle and baby Lily:

We had only time for pix and a quick mimosa (well, I did!) before jaunting off to meet up with other dear friends…

The Waddells – Gordon, Danika, Lucy and Beatrix – are a great bunch to hang some Saturday morning hours with in a cool, kiddo-friendly coffee shop. It’s kind of crazy that we’ve seen them maybe twice since spending nearly every hour of a week of warm and sunny days together last May, but the catching up is always easy and fun. (No pix – too busy on the gab!)

Then, we grabbed the girls to head over to our go-to Christmas tree nursery. Now, we’ve always done well there, but this year, we spotted a true inspiration of a tree. They graciously measured the three at 8’ 6”, but really, it was more like a ~10’er. We figured, eh, our living room (to quote Dave), is made for Christmas! So we bit the bullet and went for the gold. I have to say (as if I haven’t said it already), that the tree is beautiful and huge.

So, many boxes of decorations, four or so attempts at setting up the tree, two tree stands and LOTS of corralling curious kiddos later, it comes to this:

I love this house at Christmastime.

And I think the girls approve, too.

Next weekend’s agenda: the girls’ first sleepover together without mom or dad at Nana and Pepere’s house. Halleluiah, joy to the world!!!!!

Maggie’s milestone magic

I’m quite behind on my blogging, having just posted T-day pix after a good month of silence, but I think it’s quite worthy to document some mega milestones that Maggie has reached (or in some cases, been pushed to), in recent weeks.

In the beginning of November, Maggie’s teething with her two-year-old molars hit the high-water mark. The girl was a biting fiend. In fact, her vicious, unpredictable and prolific biting assaults prompted our daycare to enact a new policy: three bites w/ wounded victims and you’re going home for the day. We got lots of warning calls but thankfully also LOTS of grace and extra chances. No one had to leave early, but we were this close too many times for my comfort!

Also in the beginning of November, I started to wean Maggie from her bed-time feedings – not really willingly, but in preps for our looming separation: I was going to Phoenix, alone, and would be away from Maggie overnight for the first time ever. It seemed only fair to Maggie (and Dave!) to make a gradual (though reluctant) shift from our happy and reliable routines since I wasn’t going to be around to share in the misery of ending our beautiful nursing. Had I the choice, I’d have weaned in a much more organic fashion, but alas, some (most?) things in parenthood you just don’t get to plan.

Right about that time, I also began painting our guest bedroom in preps for turning it into Maggie’s big-girl room. The plan was to move her in there sometime after her second b-day, in February, while at the same time moving her into her big girl bed. Little did we know that coupling painful transitions for the sake of less tumultuous times was going to be our modus operandi!…

After increasingly poor nights of sleep leading up to a beaut of 3 hours of interrupted sleep one night, we reached desperation and I reached for a fresh approach – her toddler bed! Laying there for the first time, Maggie was stunned into a short silence. (We set the bed up next to her crib and I lay down with her. She was in awe!) Ultimately, we stuck her back in her crib that night. However, the next night, with the painting complete and the toddler bed standing by at the ready, we decided to just go for it and do the big moves right then, in one fell swoop.

Oh, and it was the end of daylight savings – time to turn the clocks back – of course!

So, those of you parents out there will kind of see where I could be going with this, but I’ve got to say that we were happily shocked to see that despite a few bumps in the road (slightly rocky bed times, no significant falls from or adventures out of bed, no attacking my boobs or wailing for me in my absence, etc), we all made it through. And Maggie came out the other side with more words in her vocabulary, less biting, proud ownership of her big-girl digs and an overall happy disposition.

Color me proud.

Thanksgiving/Thanksmas 2010

Every Thanksgiving weekend, we stuff it to the gills: our bellies (hey, I’m an eater!), the good times and the busy – all into those 4-5 happy little days. This year, the festivities were a little, well, eventful, but overall, our little unit had a good time catching up with family, even when we had to do it in separate shifts.

(Read: With his grandmother having had cataract surgery and his uncle’s wife on her death bed, Dave opted to take Zoe down to Olympia/Vancouver – on the train, no less! in the freezing cold snowy weather, no less! - while I took Maggie down to my folks’ for a small fete with the WA-contingent of the St. Pete side.)

We began our respective adventures on Wednesday. After dropping Maggie off at daycare, I drove Dave and Zoe to the train station, then headed in to work for a bit. They had a great ride down to Olympia where Auntie Tammy collected them and brought them home to warm up and spend the night. After lunch, Maggie and I hit the snow-covered roads for Buckley where we met up with Nana and Pepere.

Thursday, Maggie and I, Nana and Pepere were joined by Auntie Erin and Uncle Chris. Maggie ate up the spotlight – that girl has never known the glory of adoring fans without her older sister sharing the stage. I think she was OK with her solo act.

Zoe and Dave, in the meantime, jumped aboard with the Alonzos four for the trek down to Vancouver. Dinner at McCormick & Schmick’s ended up being a popular and drawn-out idea, but I hear that Zoe was a patient and fantastic diner. It’s been a while since she’s had her older cousins to herself and I’m pretty sure she didn’t mind not having to share!

Friday, after a jaunt to the hospital with Pepere (we’ll leave it at this: it was scary there for a bit, but we’re all happy to have him back to his old self without a trace of any life-altering developments), Maggie and I traveled down to Vancouver to join up with Dave and Zoe. I have add that Maggie was a pretty fantastically-behaved visitor at the hospital and still talks about Pepere’s boo-boo, though only matter-of-factly.

I’m sorry to report that on Saturday, amidst the preparations for the Coffield family Thanksmas (T-day dinner for all and Xmas opening fun for the kiddos), the Alonzos four were met with the tragic loss of their sweet new pup, Kuma. While it was heartbreaking to witness their loss (being at a total loss to alleviate it), I must say that I admired how they loved and supported each other; they are good people who know how to take care of each other.

The rest of the day went along relatively uneventfully. Dinner was eaten, gifts were unwrapped, games were played. We were all a little off-kilter, but overall it was so good to be around the family.

Sunday morning, Dave’s uncle Dale’s wife, Judy, gave up her long-fought battle with illness and passed away. While we’ll miss her and are worried for Dale to be alone, there is a quiet sense of relief that she is no longer in pain and that Dale will maybe begin to heal, as well.

And, just to make sure the weekend had a bit of everything mixed in, Zoe had a 2-hour tummy flu just to make the car ride home a bit more interesting.

I can’t really complain about the holiday – in the end, our little family faired pretty well in the midst of lots of sad and hard tidings – but I have to say that we were truly relieved to come home, the four of us together, to find our house still standing. And for that, I’m truly thankful.

Some photo highlights to bring the tone up a notch: