christmas

christmas this year was spectacular. the days leading up to it were extremely full and it kind of crept up on me this year, but man, was it the best.time.ever. beth was SO into it. she helped me decorate the tree, and did a fabulous job as you'll see in the pictures, and was so excited about the santa thing. she loved watching all the christmas movies (still does) and if you asked her what she was going to tell santa she wanted, she would always say "presents", which made it super easy on him, hooray!!! ...until two days before christmas, that is.... then she decided she wanted to tell him that she wanted a bike and a helmet like little gwen in the recently released arthur christmas (great christmas flick, btw). nice timing, sis. you just now decided to tell santa about a bike?!?! uh, i'm pretty sure he's finalized his gift list for the year by now...

well, with the help of the grandsantas who happened to have been given one just her size a few days earlier, santa did indeed deliver a bike to her on christmas morning. with a helmet. she was SO excited! we got that part on video and i'm so glad - the whole scene is priceless.

and hyde, of course, didn't quite get it. and the poor kid was told so many dang times to stay away from that blasted tree - we eventually gave up on telling him and smacking his little hand and just let the tree be what he turned it into. it's no macy's tree - the bottom half is empty/scattywompus, but it's ours. and it still served it's purpose. leading up to christmas he, of course, tried to rip into all the wrapped presents until it was time to actually open them, then he didn't care to at all, but beth didn't mind helping out on those. looking back through the blog at our pictures from the beach in portland just a couple short months ago... both of them have grown and changed so much since even then. hyde is becoming a little boy and losing the baby, and beth is a cute little girl, no longer a toddler. she is so conversational, and SO self sufficient (which, wow, how nice is that...?) and she makes me laugh every day with the things she says. she is so much fun right now. we have the best time. and hyde is just, well, so blasted cute, nobody knows what to do with him. despite the fact that he is into EVERYTHING he shouldn't be and has absolutely NO interest in toys, just things he shouldn't be into. he is still cute. most of the time... : )

we spent a lot of the week with family - brothers and sisters and cousins and grandparents. it was so rad. so many good laughs and quality time together. just what the holidays are all about. giving and family. especially when it comes to sick germs. :) hyde and i got nailed with it just before new years eve and have been out for the count for a few days now (yes, the christmas tree is still up - don't judge me); beth and hank have managed to avoid it so far, though beth has started to cough a little bit. i think it's headed her way next. bummer. can't remember the last time i was this sick, and poor little hyde - can't do anything for him really, but let it run it's course. hard to do as a mom when you just want to make everything all better. he's hating life right now and neither of us are sleeping which makes the days long and the nights longer. but hey, at least we made it through christmas week before getting hit. for that, i am grateful.

some shots from the night we set up the tree and introduced the ever popular elf on the shelf (huge hit, btw. huge. and GENIUS). we affectionately named our elf lucy - she was very good at keeping a watchful eye on beth every day and reporting to santa... and a slideshow of christmas morning if you feel like sitting through it.

merry christmas my friends - i hope yours was as merry and bright as ours. :)