Christmas 2009

Despite feeling under the weather, we all managed to celebrate Jesus' birth.  Christmas Eve night we went to  church and enjoyed Christmas Eve service.  Then afterwards we drove through the lights at Olin Park.  We have done for the last 2 yers, so we were happy we were able to keep the Christmas tradition despite our sickness. 

Prior to church, we let Kylan and Alaina each pick out a gift to open.  Ky picked a gift from Aunt Janice and Linda so we gave Alaina her gift from them as well.  Ky really enjoyed his singing bear with lights.    And Alaina who has a love for any baby or animals was pretty ecstatic as she gave hers a kiss and hug and then proceeded to dance as the bear sang.  It was very cute---and even funny, because the Bear coincidentally had a Christmas plaid skirt on that was almost identical to Alaina's dress.  I didn't get a very good picture of that, but it was funny.  Thanks Aunt Linda and Aunt Janice for the wonderful presents.

So there are a couple of hodge podge pics in there.  This Christmas we did very little baking :(  I only got 2 different cookies made before I also fell under the weather.  However, we did have other plans for homemade gifts.  I dried out a bunch of my herbs from the summer and then put them into baby food jars I had saved.  I then decorated the jars and VOILA--dried organic herbs as gifts!  I have to say the coolest jar decorating was rolling the jars in melted crayons---these were crayons I had saved of Kylan that were broken pieces.  They came out so neat looking!  I also made Mint Tea for my mother in law using mint I had dried from the garden and some black tea that a friend brought me from her visit to China.  It came out really good!  Enough of my homemade stuff...back to the kids....

The next morning we were up around 8.  We convinced Ky to crawl in bed with us for a little while until Alaina woke--and that didn't take long.  We got up and put our baked french toast in the oven--another Christmas tradition of ours--which reminds me I need to add that to our recipes--SOOOO GOOOOOOD! (We only eat it once a year!)  Then we let Ky--who was SUPER ecstatic tear into some of his gifts.  The first thing he opened was a bowling set.  The boy loves to bowl--so he was pretty darn happy to get that.  Alaina opened up a bin of playfood.  And then she began eating.  If you look at the pics--that is pretty much all she did that day--was eat her play food--and even today that is pretty much her favorite thing to do.  Empty the play food bin and taste every piece.  In fact--we had difficulty getting her to open any other gifts because she just wanted to eat the play food.  I guess the food was a good choice for our little beauty!

Ky also received a couple of boxes of candy canes from us.  All he talked about the last few weeks was candy cane this and candy cane that.  He was obsessed with candy canes and very happy to eat them--though we have not let him eat all of them.  He got a Play-Doh set from Grandpa & Grandma Vander Heyden--and to this day he goes around saying "I have 20 different kinds of Play Doh"--pretty funny!  He got Thomas underwear--which he was not too excited about, (I thought this was the age where kids were still excited to get characters on their underwear??), a Brewer shirt, a Curious George game from U. Adam and A. Liz---he loves doing "the wave" with this game.  They also got him a book, and a soccer ball ornament--a neat way to remember his 3rd year--playing soccer.  And last of all we got him another Thomas train set.  I found this set for $5 at Savers--what a great deal!  He loved that the set worked with his other set and this one had a tunnel AND a bridge, not to mention it came with Annie, Clarabelle, a troublesome truck and Thomas.  He spent a lot of time making different track layouts and playing.  Thanks so much for the gifts Vander Heydens & Folkerts!

Alaina, as I mentioned before, was not too into opening anything else.  So we had to help her.  She got a Fisher Price little people set from U. Adam and A. Liz.  She likes taking the people out of their little house and then putting them back in.  She got her FIRST cabbage Patch doll from Grandpa and Grandma Vander Heyden.  This baby's name is Kiana Donna.  Alaina LOVES babies, so she was a pretty happy girl.  We tried to get her to say the adoption oath--but she just wasn't taking it seriously :)  Maybe next year.  She also got a playset of dishes.  So now her kitchen is stocked and hopefully she will stop playing with my stuff--yeah you know that didn't happen. 

Christmas afternoon, we dressed the kids up and were off to Grandpa and Grandma Schnake's.  We had a nice time with everyone.  Kylan and cousin Dominic are really getting along well now and playing so good together.  It is fun to watch the boys.  The kids got a lot more presents there from all the relatives.  The present that really stood out was the fire truck Grandma got for Alaina. She loves this thing.  And of course one of the first uses for it--A STOOL with wheels.  Yeah---she wheels that sucker around with its crazy song, puts it in front of something she shouldn't (like the oven) and uses it to stand on so she can reach all sorts of baby no-no stuff.  You can see from the one picture, that she figured she could stand on it right away.  CRAZY girl.  She really keeps me busy.  Seriously---you have not seen this girl....

She fell asleep in Daddy's arms that night.  Very cute.  She was EXHAUSTED.  She hardly slept at nap--and then on the way home she cried most of the way.  We were all feeling pretty lousy.  It was nice that the next day we just lounged around the house and tried to get better. 

The day after Christmas we also decorated the cookies I had baked (but never decorated because we weren't feeling up to it.)  Chai Spice Cookies--YUM--check it out in my recipes--so much better than traditional gingerbread.  Dad let Ky decorate a few and did not monitor his sprinkles--so yes those cookies covered in colored sugar are Ky's and he enjoyed eating them. Whew...one more blog done--and many more to come....