Determination.

Well, I've slacked for too long. I've sorta lost my motivation for blogging. It no longer has the impact it once did, since I've had to make the blog private, and I also do most of my "updating" via Facebook now. But as I sit here on the eve of Jeremiah's 3rd birthday, I looked back and saw quite the history unfolding. It's sad to imagine I won't have anything further. So I'm going to try harder. At least once a week! Maybe I'll get back up to my every-other-day schedule I once held. Maybe not. But I gotta at least try!

So where to start?

How 'bout the holidays?

They. Were. Crazy!

~Thanksgiving was held at my parents' house. We had quite the crowd there, as 2 of my 3 Uncles and their families came. Jeremiah was a bit overwhelmed by the chaos (my cousins are pretty loud and rambunctious,) so we set him up with his Cars movie while the rest of us ATE! And it was YUMMY! However, the turkey was on the smaller side, so I didn't get my turkey fix, which lead to me wanting to do turkey for Christmas, as well. More on that, later.

~I do love Christmas. It's my favorite time of year, and having kids makes it that much more fun! This year is really the first year Jeremiah's starting to "get it." For a while, we debated on what to tell Jeremiah, regarding Santa, since we really want the focus to be on Jesus and His birth, and not on the gifts under the tree. For a while, we thought we'd just try to be as vague as possible, but in the end, I decided I wanted Jeremiah to wonder if Santa was "real." So I told him, "On Christmas Eve, Santa brings presents to all the good little boys and girls! When you wake up on Christmas morning, and you see the gifts under the tree, many will be from Mommy and Daddy, but hopefully, some will also be from Santa!"

One thing we did do, though, was still emphasis that Christmas was Jesus' birthday--this is a concept even Jeremiah can understand. To really hit it home, we even ordered a birthday cake for Jesus (okay, Mommy wanted an excuse to order a Costco cake. Mmmm.... Costco cake....) and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas day. And if you had asked Jeremiah, "What day is next week?" the week before, he wouldn't have said, "Christmas!" but instead, "Jesus' birthday!" I know we did our job when the very last gifts to be opened (days later) were those from Santa, but you can still ask him who had a birthday recently, and he'll tell you, "Jesus!" We'll add the more important details as the years go on, but I think we're off to a good start.

~Before Christmas, we had some fun. I had a Cookie Swap, we had our Christmas party (during the first snow storm of the year! but we still had 30+ people!) and various other things that are all a blur at this point. We gave lots of stuff away, too! All year long, I buy toys and baby things on clearance for cheap cheap cheap! Some, I intend to keep for my kids. Most, though, is saved for Toys for Tots, or some other charity during the holidays. We weren't on our game this year, so we waited for our church to put up their Angel tree and took as many cards as we thought we could supply gifts. And it was quite a bit. Even once we dropped everything off, we could have taken more cards, since most people got ONE thing for each card, whereas we had multiple items (not many bigger ticket items, but we could have probably split each one in two.) It felt so good to get all that stuff out of the house, especially to know it was going to someone who might not have anything otherwise.

~December also brought our biggest snow storm of the century! Granted, we're only 9 years in, but considering we haven't had a white Christmas since 2002 (and that wasn't very white... more like a heavy dusting,) this was huge. The forecast called for 12+ inches. Then it was 16+ inches. Then it was up to 24 inches?! Yikes!

The night before, the Friday before Christmas, we decided to take the kids out to go look at Christmas lights. We got a late start, though, since we also wanted to drop off all the cookies I'd collected from the Cookie Swap to our neighbors. And then we hit traffic on 28 (rush hour traffic? still? at 7:30??) But we found the neighborhood we were looking for, and the lights were, indeed, quite impressive. Lots of over the top stuff, but the kids loved it.

On our way to another neighborhood, we stopped at Chick-Fil-A for dinner, and were surprised to find a Barber Shop group there, singing Christmas carols! They serenaded us throughout our meal, even reading the Christmas story from the Bible in between carols. It was really cool! After every song, Jeremiah would say to me, "I like that song, Mommy!" :)

Once we left there, we went on our search to find the house with the million white lights. We found it, and there really was, what appeared to be, a million white lights! Everything was covered, but tastefully so (think wrapping-tree-trunks with strands of lights, and then each branch was also wrapped...) They had several "tasteful" lawn ornaments, too, like reindeer and even a nativity scene! It was very impressive. To top it off, while we were there, it began to snow! A few flurries here and there, and by the time we left, a few had become many, so we stopped at Home Depot to get some supplies (more salt and gloves for Jeremy,) before heading home.

We did get our big snow, about 18" overall, and both kids LOVED it! Jesslyn is definitely part-Canadian, as she wasn't phased by the cold at all! Granted, they were well bundled up, but her face was so red when they came in, yet she was still smiling! I think out of the three of them that went out (Mommy stayed inside) Jeremy probably tolerated it the least! He also had the least amount of clothing on, which may have had something to do with it. ;) Mommy rectified that on Christmas. :)

~As far as Christmas day goes, we overdid everything! We got the kids WAY too much stuff (some of it is still sitting in the garage, waiting for another gift-worthy occasion,) but I kept finding good deals on things, it was hard to say no! My parents came over around 10 a.m., so that's when the fun began. Jeremiah got a Tag Reader (which he loved! though he didn't know it at the time--took us a few days to open it and get it programed,) a train table, some Thomas stuff and a bunch of other random things he doesn't care about (I thought for sure he would, too! I'm looking at you, Rocky the Robot Truck....) Jesslyn got a doll house (so cute!) a new praying baby doll, some "Mommy" gear (high chair, stroller, etc.,) but her favorite gift was definitely the shopping cart! Both she and Jeremiah push that around EVERYWHERE! At least Mommy got one good thing right! :)

After gifts, we had a yummy breakfast my Mom brought over (quiche!) and we made malassadas! Yummy! We took a couple of hours to chill (and Mommy took a nap) before cooking the big dinner! It was all tasty, but next year, I think we should just have brie chicken and maybe some sauteed green beans, or something--keep it simple!

~New Year's Eve was spent at my parents' house. We went over, ate dinner (stromboli!) put the kids down for the night, played cards, watched the ball drop and I fell asleep while Jeremy... did something! Not sure what. Probably on the computer. :) Around 2 a.m., Jeremiah woke up, so we decided to leave. Soooooo tired.... thankfully, so were the kids, and they slept in 'til 9:30 or so, which made the morning a bit more palatable.

That night, we went over my Uncle Nelson's for "Christmas". Normally, we do this part of Christmas on Christmas Eve, but they were away skiing in CO, so we pushed it back a week. It was a nice night, but really, I felt that the whole Christmas thing had gone on long enough. I was ready for the chaos part to be done! I miss the Advent part of the season. That's where the magic lies (see Christmas outing on snow storm eve above...)

Overall, we had a lovely Christmas and holiday season, but I'm too pregnant to do anything that crazy again. :) Next year, I'm going to try to simplify as much as possible! We'll see how well that goes.

And with that, I will leave you, for it is now Jeremiah's birthday, and I need to get some sleep before the birthday boy wakes up! Hopefully we'll be seeing you again soon. :)