We wish you a Merry Christmas! 2011

We had a quiet Christmas morning at the Long house. We savored our last Christmas as a family of three ( though someone made sure that there was plenty of internal bladder kicking as to not be forgotten). We took our time opening each gift before moving on to the next. Despite staying up a little later than normal, Mike and I were up bright and early, filled with child like anticipation. We waited as long as we could for Mackenzie to rouse from her sleep before Mike , unable to wait another second,crept into her room followed by me with the video camera. Her sweet , sleepy voice whispered " Merry Christmas!" and with that she remembered that Santa was promised to visit and she was out of bed and down the stairs!

We knew Santa would come through with a fantastic present and we didn't want to miss Mack's reaction so we had the video camera rolling to catch her reaction. The poor girl is so much like her mother, who gets easily embarrassed when all the attention is on her. She pulled off the blanket that Santa cleverly used to hide the gift and , with a mini gasp said " Um. I'lllll just have to play with this later." :
This doll house came with a poseable family of six. Mack has loved playing with them and so have I. Playing dolls was a favorite pastime for my sisters and me growing up. Seeing Mackenzie playing with them and creating scenes between them is so much fun to watch. I giggle at how, inevitably,all of the family and the pets , too ( two cats and a dog, perfectly enough) along with a good portion of the furniture end up in the parents bedroom. She is strangle patient when I make the baby throw a colossal tantrum, cooing " It's ok, Dear."

Mackenzie had a pretty good pile of loot at the end of present opening but her favorites were the scented nail polish, lip gloss and ear " muves" :
Mike was surprised with a new shop jacket that he proclaims is cozy enough to sleep in!:

Ellie was a happy girl when she found her stocking filled with dog treats and toys. After trying to bury this bone with no luck, she decided to indulge instead:
Mike spoiled me with my favorite Bath and Body Works treats as well as the "Family of Four" Willow Tree plaque and a figurine of a Mom, daughter and baby. That is a sure fire way to make a mama cry!
And for the little boy bouncing around in my belly from his proud daddy:
Looking ahead and wondering how next years Christmas will be makes me excited but I pray that each Christmas is filled with these quiet blessings and knowing how much love grows in our house.

A fun project

Andy and Andrea sent Mack all the necessities for making a "Big Sister" shirt and " Little Brother" bib. Mack had so much fun doing this mostly on her own.

I tried to edit this so it was easier to . It didn't work very well, but if you look closely you can see Mack wrote " big sist" all on her own before she needed help with the letters to complete the word " sister":

Mack had fun making a sun and a beetle on this bib for her brother:
Thank you for such a fun and thoughtful gift, Thueme's!

Christmas break

Brooklyn came over last week to spend a day of her Christmas break with Mack and me. We filled our time making our own crayons from broken crayon parts, coloring, watching movies, painting nails and sledding.
Goofy faces:
Mack is peeling crayons, excited to have Brooky over:


Finished homemade crayons:
A little rest after sledding and before dinner:

Rose family Christmas

For the first time in I can't even remember when, I was home to celebrate Christmas with the Rose family. Even better- Mike, though he worked the night before, was able to make it! Needless to say, I was a little too busy /excited to take pictures but the one picture I did take is a fun one:
This is my grandpa Rose playing with a few of his (nearing 30) great grand kids. Gramps has always been one to get down on his hands and knees with his grand kids and that hasn't changed with his greats-even as he celebrated his 85th birthday last fall. I can't wait for a chance to take more pictures of him in action this coming year.

Hands together for this project-

Project making is so much fun these days! Mack has become pretty good little cutter and the pride shows on her face when she cuts out the parts of a project all on her own ( Is there any other way when you're three?). One of my favorite projects this season is this hand print Christmas tree.
While looking for stickers to decorate our tree with, Mack found these in an old teachers' sticker pad left over from my preschool days. Even though they are ink pens, we both agreed they looked more like Christmas lights:

It's all becoming clearer...

I can see that Mack is thinking hard about this little brother thing. Every day she asks new , very smart questions , trying to piece together this " mommy's growing a baby thing" . Every week I get a video update of how baby is doing in my belly sent to my phone and Mack has really liked learning about her baby brother this way. Today she learned that he now has eye lashes! Here are a few of the questions shes' asked:

Where does the " extension cord " ( umbilical cord) plug in? Is it metal? Does it sting him?
- I explained her little brother has an umbilical cord that goes from me to him and works kind of like a squishy straw, letting him get all of the vitamins he needs from me. She surmised that's why I need so much carrot cake.

When the baby comes out, will he come out through your belly?
-Yes. Mommy and daddy will go to the doctor who will help us get baby brother out. Since we have to make sure everything is ok, mommy, daddy and baby all stay at the hospital for a few days. Grams is going to come to our house and stay with you. ( This resulted in lots of exciting hooting and hollering and requests to buy a tent. )

Why does the baby live in water? Is he a fish? ( Makes fishy lips)
-No but he doesn't know how to breath just like us just yet so he gets his air through the umbilical cord until his lungs grow stronger. Then he can come out. The water around him helps keep him safe,too.

Why does he kick you? It's not ok to KICK!
-He doesn't have a lot of room in there so he isn't really " kicking" me, just bumping into me when he's moving around.

She also mentioned that when she needs to give her baby brother a bath, she'll be sure to add lots of bubbles to the water so that he doesn't fall over and bonk his head.

It brings tears to my eyes to see her getting excited about actually having a little brother and not just excited that she now has a new room with " new" toys to play with. Over the last week, she's spent nearly an hour a day playing with all of her old toys and inventing new games to play, or simply running between her room and the nursery.

Note to self....

Don't place the gingerbread house with in 3 year old's reach: