Merry Christmas (Part 2)

And Christmas continues...

Friday, 12/19 - I have no recollection of what happened on this day so it must not have been much. Probably some shopping and some cleaning.  And guests over for Friday night supper.

Sabbath, 12/20 - This week my father was at his Braintree church so we all followed suit.  Calleigh was hilarious with my dad.  I think she was just so proud that he was the pastor of the church and she was his granddaughter so she would keep going up to him (even when he was up front) to hug him and whisper stuff in his ear.  He was feeling the love!  

A little blurry but here's Calleigh sitting next to/on Papa for the children's story.

The "twins" feeling the love.  Aubree is just a smidge taller.

Camille made the boys matching bow ties.

The sun sets at like 4:15 (crazy!) so there was still plenty of time to hit up a mall after sundown.  I mean, it's only right to go to a mall on a Saturday night during the Christmas season, right?  My father would wholeheartedly agree.  We went over to the Natick Mall which has the American Girl Doll store and the girls were in heaven, of course.  I had gotten them these little AG mini dolls on Black Friday for really cheap and I saw them in the store.  I pointed them out to Aubree, "Oh, look at these.  They look neat!"  And she said "Those look boring."  So that made me feel great! 

Sunday, 12/21 - Time for the Boston Pops.  As is tradition, we meet at the Cheesecake Factory at the Prudential Center for a meal at noon before the concert at 3pm.  One of these years I'm actually going to really enjoy that meal.  It seems like one of the kids is always a problem and I barely get to talk to anybody.  Symphony Hall is a close walk from the Prudential Center and it wasn't really cold but we did get a few snow flurries on the walk over.  We were a little bummed when we got to our seats and saw that we were separated from the rest of the group. My dad buys all of the tickets months in advance and with buying like 35 tickets (or whatever it is), sometimes that happens.  

Camille shepherding the kids to the Pops while the rest of us walked behind her snapping pictures.

Just as the conductor takes his spot, Aubree leans over to me and says "I'm hungry!"  I'm like, seriously?  It's 3 pm and we probably finished eating a huge meal like 1.5 hours ago.  I pacify her and jiggled Colby on my lap hoping to keep him quiet.  Thankfully he ended up falling asleep after about the first song and then I see Brady's head bob over next to Duncan.  Ah, yes.  Both boys asleep.  I can enjoy the music even though my legs are totally cramped and I can't move for fear of waking Colby up.  We get to the third song and Aubree's whispering to me again, "When are we going to have supper?"  Be quiet!  She makes it halfway through the song and she's at it again, "What do you think we'll have for supper?"  Why do kids think about food ALL the time?  

Colby woke up at intermission so I knew the second half would be a fun ride.  Naturally, he wanted to nurse and I wasn't about to deny him and cause a scene.  Hopefully the people behind me enjoyed the show.  It's pretty tight quarters there.  And then the worst thing happened.  Out of nowhere, the conductor says "For those of you wondering, the Patriots...." except he said the whole thing but I didn't hear the rest because I was cramming my fingers into my ears and singing "la-la-la-la-la." How dare he announce the score of the Patriots/Jets game!!  It started at 1:00 and we were taping it to watch when we got home as we do every year without incident.  I thought I saved myself but as soon as he finished his sentence people started cheering.  I doubt there were many Jets fans there so that could only mean one thing.  The nerve!  I mean, 98% of the audience has a phone that they can check the score on so why the heck would you find it necessary to announce a score?  Then to makes things worse, the old couple behind me apparently were hard of hearing because then this started happening "WELL, MARTHA, BRADY WASN'T PLAYING TOO WELL BUT THEN THEY GOT A TOUCHDOWN IN THE THIRD QUARTER AND THE JETS TRIED FOR A FIELD GOAL." I didn't feel so bad for possibly exposing a boob to them after that.

Colby was a handful in the second half and I had to keep getting up and standing over to the side but it was all worth it when they played "White Christmas" for the encore.  Pure bliss.  That's what music will sound like in heaven.

Monday - 12/22 - Well look at that...my anniversary.  Twelve years to my dearest husband.  I couldn't be more blessed and happy. 

The Copsey clan decided to pay us a visit since Newport wasn't happening this year (Aunt Lori and Uncle Charlie went on a European cruise the week before...not that we expect them to do Newport every year) and we wouldn't get to see them otherwise.  Toni, Alison and the boys, and Shannon with her two came down.  We quickly determined that we would go insane with 10 kids running around the house all day so we decided to go to this place called KidzTurf located the next town over.  I called ahead and was able to get a rate of $7/kid which was a good deal.  The place has a zip line, bouncy house, basketball hoop, trampolines, etc.  We all went and hung out there and talked while the kids played.  They had a great time and I couldn't help but notice how nice the employees were...getting the kids snacks and one especially nice guy set up obstacle courses for the kids and timed them.  What a difference between that and the experience at Lucky Monkey here a few months ago.  

Alison brought her dog with her because her other one was hit by a car and killed about two months ago.  Colby was smitten.

The crew having lunch before heading out to KidzTurf

Alison and Westin

Calleigh doing the zipline.  I was a little nervous because of her recovered broken arm but everything went fine.

The obstacle course was taken very seriously...put face paint on and everything.  

Griffin and Colby playing in the toddler room.

Camille, Shannon, Alison, and I.  Missed you Kelly!  Yes, I'm contorted at some weird angle because I always feel like a giant.

Tried to get a kids' group shot but at least one kid was crying...I think it was Griffin.  From left to right: Winslow, Camden, Finley, Westin, Acadia, Tyson, Colby, Calleigh, Griffin, Aubree, Brady.  

On Tuesday morning, I noticed I had a set of keys in my bag but I didn't think much of it, thinking they were my mother's.  When I asked her about it on Tuesday night, she said they weren't hers.  I took them out of my bag, without really looking at them, threw them on the microwave and thought, "Oh, they must be Camille's."  On Wednesday morning I asked Camille and she said they weren't hers either and that's when I had a bad feeling.  I went and got the keys and looked closer and I saw that besides having two car key fobs, a gym membership tag, and a bunch of other stuff, there was one strap that said the name "Alejandro" on it.  I knew immediately that I must have picked them up somehow at KidzTurf. I called right away and they said yup, someone had been looking for them.  I felt so bad.  Who knows if the person was even able to drive their car!  I know how frustrating it can be to lose something and look EVERYWHERE for it (hello, camera!).  As soon as I could, we drove over there and I ran them inside and as it turned out, they belonged to the employee who had been so nice with the kids and the obstacle course.  He was so relieved but the first thing he said was "I hope you didn't have to drive too far to bring them here."  I happened to have $15 in Target gift cards (from couponing) so I gave those to him.  I have no idea how those keys got into my bag!

Tuesday - 12/23 - Last year my mom had taken Calleigh and Camden on a random shopping trip for a few hours and had taken them to lunch on the outing.  Seems simple but Calleigh still was talking about it a year later.  So I told my mom she needed to do it again!  This time Aubree got to go so she took the three of them out on Tuesday morning for a good portion of the day.  They shopped, had lunch at Subway (which my girls are hooked on) and went bowling with Kathy and Bruno.  Making memories with Gigi!

Awww, just realized Camden and Aubree are holding hands in this picture.  So cute!

Meanwhile, it's wasn't that great of a day out but we decided to take the boys out shopping to the outlets for some last minute shopping.  They were surprisingly very well behaved.  We had promised Brady that he could ride one of the little rides they have there so he must have spent at least 20 minutes walking around trying to find the perfect one.  It was kind of raining so that limited his options but he left happy.  Afterwards we met Shawn, Camille, Acadia, and Winslow at Panera for a late lunch.  We noticed how peaceful it was without the three older kids which was odd to say in a way because usually it's the boys that are so loud.  Guess that isn't always true!  

Got a free lolli-pop at one of the stores so things were going good.

Hanging out at Panera.

Wednesday - 12/24 - Christmas Eve.  A little more shopping (I think I was at Target like EVERY day) and then let the games begin.  The Rondinelli's came over late afternoon to exchange gifts and Bruno was there for some games that I put together for the kids.  One of them was a game where I hid a stocking somewhere and gave them a clue to find it.  Once they found it, the next clue was in that stocking.  So they were running all over the house looking for them.  I followed them around and told them that they should let Aubree read some of the clues since she can do that now.  Brady kept getting upset about that and said "No, Calleigh reads the clues."  Not sure what that was about.

The kids played "Pin the nose on Rudolph" but we couldn't resist letting my dad have a go at it.  He didn't win.

Bruno won.

Christmas Eve dinner...subs and soup.

  After the kids went to bed, time for the grownups to play.  Except I did tell the girls that they could get back up and watch the games after Brady went to bed.  With Ricky and Ana not around and Bob in the hospital we only had nine persons playing this year so we made three teams of three.  It was Duncan/Steve/Charlie, Shawn/Camille/Dad, and Kelly/Mom/Lori.  It was very close between the first two teams with Shawn/Camille/Dad eking out a victory in the last event to take first place.  Ahhh, I do enjoy the Christmas Eve games.  

Guessing what objects were in the stocking.

We also had our Christmas card contest where we vote for our favorite Christmas card that my parents received.  It was slim pickings this year and it was controversial to begin with because Camille always sends my parents a card for the contest and it gets a lot of votes.  Usually we don't look ahead of time to see who sent what card since it could taint our views.  Somehow I had seen which card she sent so I said it shouldn't be in the contest because I couldn't be partial.  So that caused a problem!  We finally made our selections and had our winner and top five.  Someone started opening them to see who had sent them, starting with fifth place.  When they read the card that came in second and saw that it had come from Jim & Sue Smith (let's just say), we were all like, what? Why would they be sending you a card?  My mother starting laughing hysterically and couldn't stop. And then Lori was laughing and laughing.  It turns out that Aunt Lori had been saving these two "perfect" cards (that folks had sent to her) for years and years and had my mom stick them into the stack of our cards because she knew that we would pick them as the winners (which we did!).  It was all rigged.  My mom insisted she had never looked at the two cards, she had just stuck them in blindly but of course this was now all a big controversy.  My dad has then told Aunt Lori that she is prohibited from being anywhere near the card contest in future years.  All in good fun!  

First and second place.  

Christmas 12/25 - We started opening gifts at about 8:45 and it took a few hours as usual.   We didn't have any big gifts this year for the kids (last year it was the American Girl Dolls) but had probably more than enough smaller gifts.  It's always funny seeing what the kids gravitate to.  One of the first things Calleigh opened was the mini American Girl doll mentioned above.  It was of Felicity which is one of the dolls/characters that we've studied about a lot in school because she's set in the late 1700's. (For those that don't know, the American Girl Dolls aren't just dolls...they have books, movies, etc and the ones from earlier time periods are very educational).  She just loved that doll and when I told her I only paid $12 for it she was blown a way.  She couldn't believe it was that cheap and kept saying so!  I guess considering how much the regular size ones are, it was a good deal.  She also got a violin set (we hope she will be starting lessons soon...Calleigh, not her doll) for her big AG doll and she said those two things were her top gifts. Aubree apparently changed her mind and decided her mini doll was not boring after all.  Brady got a lot of remote control stuff but I don't know if there was any one particular thing that was better than the rest.  

Christmas morning in their Christmas jammies.

With her Felicity mini doll.

We got Aubree this Indian costume but Calleigh really wanted to wear it.

Got Calleigh this Pilgrim costume.  Since we've studied the Pilgrims and Indians it seemed fitting.

The big gift for me was an iphone 6 from my beloved husband.  My mom got an iphone 6+ from my dad and Shawn got an iPad Air so it was a big year for Apple for the Brace family.  Oh, but also just as exciting were some black and white canvas pictures that Shawn and Camille made for us of the kids.  Amazing stuff.

Shawn and Camille's gift to my parents...a picture of the seven cousins taken up in Nova Scotia this past summer.

I didn't take a picture yet of their gift to us but I will!

We had our usual delicious brunch after all the gift opening.  A great day all around.

Friday 12/26 - We spent the day returning/exchanging some gifts...Duncan set up a new remote and office chair for my parents.  I took a nice nap because I was exhausted.  

The last evening in front of Papa & Gigi's fire.

I was reading a Bedtime Story to the kids before bed and came across this.  Look at the first line.  "Johnny was very big and very fat."  What??!

Sabbath 12/27 - We went to the Norwood church this time.  My mom was kind enough to take all the kids to SS and let Duncan and I sleep in a bit since we would be driving all night going home. Very weird getting ready for church without a kid screaming. At church I had one of the proudest moments of my short time as a parent...Calleigh told the children story!  She loves listening to CD's as she falls asleep at night (Your Story Hour, Aunt Brenda, Felicity, etc) and subsequently loves to retell the stories to anyone who will listen.  My dad suggested she tell one of the stories for the children's story and she got right on board.  She did great and at the end she whispered to my dad asking if she could tell another one (they were out of time so no).  

Colby fell asleep not long before we left to go home.  Not good but he looked so cute cuddled with Gigi.

Usually when we do the Boston/Orlando car trip, we try to leave early afternoon so that we can drive for half a day, have the break of the night for the kids, and then have a little less than half a day the next day.  The problem with this plan is that whenever we leave to go home after Christmas, we always hit horrendous traffic in Connecticut/New York/New Jersey/Baltimore.  The New Jersey Turnpike has just about caught up with New Haven Connecticut, as the worst stretch of driving.  To combat this, we decided we would leave in the evening so that we would hit all these places in the middle of the night.  I wasn't crazy about the idea of starting out driving all night and having the whole day to go the next day but I think it worked out pretty well.  We didn't hit any traffic at all in the problem spots.  We did, however, hit some traffic in South Carolina and took an alternate route for a bit.  We got home about 7:45 and this is where the travelling all day really paid off...it was now bedtime which meant that I didn't have to spend a half day taking care of the kids in my very exhausted state which would have happened if we got home at 1:00 pm.  So I considered it a win. The trip took 23.5 hours which was longer than the trip up but I'll take it.  The kids did amazing in the night part of the car ride.  I didn't hear anything from anyone all night until 8:45 am.  Couldn't have been happier with that.  Despite us stopping for gas and switching drivers, etc. no one awoke.  I did find my elusive Mountain Dew in the D.C. area although get this - - it cost $3.79 for the equivalent of a Big Gulp from 7-Eleven.  That's D.C. for you.  I paid it, of course!      

A few other notes about our time up north:

• A big disappointment was that there wasn't any snow.  We saw flurries a few times but nothing accumulated.  The small upside to this was that the kids played outside a lot without getting too wet or cold.  
• The sleeping left a LOT to be desired.  Colby was terrible.  Half the time I had to get him to fall asleep at night by lying next to him on my bed.  The other half I was lucky enough for him to fall asleep while nursing.  But every single night, except the second night there, he would wake up between 11:00 pm - 1:00 am and start crying and crying.  Not wanting to wake other people up, I had no choice but to bring him in bed with us (fortunately we have a king size bed in our room).  Can I just say I will NEVER understand how people co-sleep with their kids? He was all over the place in that bed and I was constantly waking up (the hand in my hair didn't help either).  And forget any naps in the pack 'n play.  All the naps took place in the car while we drove places.  Brady was also a challenge although not as bad.  He insisted on sleeping in a sleeping bag even though he still sleeps in his crib at home.  He kept moving around too and bumping his head into the bed or rolling into Calleigh.  Poor Duncan had a bed buddy often as well.  
• Ricky and Ana weren't with us for Christmas but they did come for a few days before continuing on to Ana's family in Maryland/West Virginia.  So nice to be reunited with them and we look forward to next year when we get them for Christmas Day.  Like I said, marry an orphan :)

Aubree and Tia Ana cuddling by the fire watching a Christmas movie.

• I have to give a very special thank you to my mom who did an amazing job feeding us, cleaning up after us, and putting up with a constant mess in her house.  She's quite a woman.

It really saddened me when I woke up on December 26 to think that it was all over already because there is no better time of the year.  I LOVE it so much.  I imagine heaven will be like the Christmas season every day.  It must be.  But to quote my dear daughter Calleigh, on January 1 she woke up and announced "This is so exciting.  Everything starts over again.  My birthday is this year, it's going to be Thanksgiving again and Christmas is coming!!"  

A few other random pictures.

Aubree was a big help, especially to Duncan, with wrapping and writing names on the packages.

The two lefties.  Brady is a lefty and Acadia is too!

This is a doll my mom has that Acadia had taken outside and she got dirty.  My mom put her int he sink to get cleaned up but she scarred a bunch of us when we came across her in the sink because she looks so real!

Aubree eating a PB&J.  She usually eats a slice of Swiss cheese on the side but decided to just stick it in the sandwich to make it easier.  Ewww!

Have a great rest of the week.