Christmas Day

Christmas morning 2009. The kids slept in until 7am and then were very antsy to open presents. After talking loudly didn't work, Bruce had to go upstairs and get Auntie Bel up. She wasn't particularly thrilled.

Both kids helped sort the presents into two enormous piles (for each child) and much smaller ones for the adults. Bruce totally recognized his name on all his presents and was getting pretty good at Juney's name.

Notice the artful presentation of his gift stash. He was very meticulous about how it was stacked and would change the location of any gift Juney attempted to add to his pile ... much to her irritation.


For Juniper this was the year of Dora. She adores Dora. She got a plush dora, dora mermaid, dora playhouse, dora books, dora panties, dora dominoes, dora playcards ... and she attempted to have one of the Doras ride her large pretty pony. Alas, she wouldn't stay on.




Will Deedee ever not spend Christmas day attempting to open packaging and putting things together. Is it me or is the packaging much harder to open than it used to be.

For Juniper's birthday she got one of these Barbie fairy things that rocks when the sunlight hits it and holds a tiny plant. Bruce loved it ... he insisted to his Nonnie that Santa must bring him one when he, by chance, saw one in the store. He was obliged and very happy to discover it.

For those who don't know, Bruce adores Star Wars so he received many Star Wars items. It is so funny to see him so happy about Star Wars when I remember playing SW as a kid with my best friend Damian. Makes me wonder if he'll move onto Transformers and GI Joe. Actually, he does already like Transformers a lot ... robots.


While buying Juney a "Knitting Nell" book to replace the library book she loved (see Christmas Eve entry) I discovered several other knitting themed children's books. I loved this one, "Woolbur." It's about a little lamb who does things his way and soon leads his flock astray. When he cards his own wool (while still on the hoof) he looks a little like Bruce before his haircut. I also got them "Shall I knit you a hat" about a mommy and boy rabbit who knit wild hats for their friends on a blizzardy Christmas Eve.

Juney got a CooCoo Clown rocking game. She didn't quite get the point of it although we did make a game up to play with it. Bruce totally understood the physics principles ... we had a lot of fun with that.




While getting Juney dressed for Christmas dinner (out of her Dora Christmas jammies) she found her pink camo leggings. She insisted on wearing them because "daddy loves camo."

She did eventually agree to pants overtop of the leggings since it was a bit chilly. But please note the Dora slippers.

Bel hard at work prepping the asparagus.

Mom always insists on taking pictures of the holiday table. So here it is immortalized. To follow is the dessert table. Can you believe how cute the rice krispie gingerbread boy is.


At the dinner table, Aly and Israel ...

Juniper ...

Aly and Jo ...

Gillian ...

Gillian and Colt didn't make the 7am gift ordeal with the kids, so they leisurely opened their gifts that afternoon.

Gillian and Colt got Juney these great dress-up outfits. Juney adored them, especially the fairy wings. Do all little girls love fairy wings?

Christmas Eve on the Farm

Christmas Eve was very busy as usual. Baking, finishing gifts ... We made special reindeer peanut butter gluten free cookies. In the morning Bruce and Juney did an awesome job of picking out all the green and red MnMs. They also "helped" break up the pretzels to make the antlers. BTW, if you haven't tried the Glutino brand GF pretzels they are awesome.


In the afternoon after Gillian and Kaiya arrived, we had the kids roll the cookies into balls for baking. They all helped. Kaiya and Bruce were amazing. Juney really wanted her "balls" to be pancakes so we had a few issues there but we eventually worked everything out.

Mom and I tried very hard to get a great picture of all three kids with their creations but, alas, Bruce has discovered fake smiles, Juney kept shoving cookies in her mouth, and Kaiya adores making funny faces. I finally settled on this picture because I thought Kaiya was just too funny.

After two years I finally finished Juniper's stocking. It better last forever. If you will notice the ornaments, the bluebird was knit by a dear friend of ours last year and I always think of Juney when I see bluebirds. The goddess ornament was given to me after a blessing from the woman who was our midwife for Bruce. I hope it brings joy and fertility to Juniper (cuz I want lots of grandkids). The jade elephant my dad bought in Thailand (I think) before I was born. I wore it for years and I always think of Bruce when I see elephants. The gold diaper pin was one her grandfather's when he was a baby. And finally, the little frog is a pin I've had for a long time and I always think of Taliesen when I think of frogs.


Now we begin the stocking opening process. Israel and Aly join poodle Charlie on the couch.

FYI, Bruce loves anything with rockets, spaceships, robots, or Star Wars ... hence the rocket night light.

The first thing Juney did when she opened her stocking was pull out the four foil covered chocolate Santas and unwrap all four of them. The she began to eat double fisted. This was how the entire day went and most of Christmas day was spent trying to prevent her from finding (she was very sneaky) sweets. She was very good about eating her meat at dinner though.

Gillian made me this amazing little bag. On each side are the handprints from one of my two kids.

So I tried sooo hard to get a nice picture of me and Bruce together. Alas, the funky smiles, closed eyes, and bizarre expressions were too much. I eventually gave up and just hid his mouth :)

River of Lights

Bel and I took the kids to see the River of Lights at the BioPark. I think I'll wait another 5 years before I try that with the kids again. They were cold. Juney only wanted to drink hot chocolate and shiver in her stroller. To be fair, the kids did like looking at the snowmen diorama and they enjoyed the animated light displays like the T-rex, elephant spraying water, and running cat along the Japanese garden wall. I was wowed by the animated puffer fish but my favorite was the apple tree that showed itself in all four seasons.


Bruce was very cold. It was actually one of the warmer nights we've had this December.

Holiday Zoo

Bel and I took to the kids to a fun but very chilly outing to the zoo. I think the highlight was Bruce explaining that the rabbit in the giraffe enclosure was looking at him and was thinking that his lab coat was really cute. We also spent a lot of time watching the elephants and playing on their playground which, thanks to the cold, we had all to ourselves. Bruce and Juney took turns sliding and then at some point Bruce decided Juney should slide with him so he dragged her along. She wasn't amused by his usurption of her power. Hope she never gets used to it. Being a girl in our society ain't easy.



This is what Juney enjoyed the most all day ... drinking lots of hot cocoa.

Bruce also dragged me to the top for the big slide. Definitely designed for those four foot and under.



Everytime we go we spend a little while scooping and piling up leaves.



Juney was very tickled by her rainboots which she just happened to wear. That isn't a rain puddle by the way. It is a melted snow puddle.

Bruce finally got to ride in the stroller. Juney usually monopolizes the ride but this time she decided to push a little.