Christmas A___ Family Style

Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my whole family. It was such a different event than our other Christmas - more people, more kids, more presents, more chaos. As usual tres primos had fun together. I think we'll now refer to them, as Patti put on the calendar, Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Three.

The kids checking out the bed in Bill & Renee's spare room - plenty of room for all 3!






Rudy dressing up as a veterinarian.




Lucy decided her booster seat had to be on the couch so she could sit with 2 of her favorite guys.



Lucy showing off her new shirt.







My aunt sent hats she made for the kids. Here they are modeling them. Max wasn't quite as willing to wear his for very long.









Lucy has figured out the best way to vacuum is while sitting in a chair...


Our family (the picture we took of everyone turned out blurry - hopefully someone else got a better picture - hint, hint)



Tres locos primos

Christmas Fun

Christmas Eve day we were all home, We hired Grandpa to take Rudy to the Children's Museum for a few hours so we could clean the house and get ready for our guests. After 2 hours I don't know who was more tired!

After cleaning and running errands and cooking most of the day, we got ready to go to church. As I was getting dressed, Rudy was playing in the bathroom. He can't yet open the door handle so when he went in, he couldn't get out. When I went to open the door from the outside, the handle wouldn't turn. I tried a few more times and then called for Paul. Rudy was just talking from inside and completely unconcerned. Paul came and also couldn't turn the handle so he went to get some tools. We managed to get the door knob off, including the inside where we had to get Rudy to pull it out, but we still couldn't get the door open. The latch in the door seemed to be jammed. At this point Rudy is still fine, talking to us, saying "You need help, Poppy?" and completely unconcerned. Meanwhile I'm thinking we're going to have to just tear the door down. Paul took the top hinge off the door but the bottom wasn't as easy. We found that once the top hinge was off, we could stick a screwdriver between the door and the wall and pry it open. Rudy came out safe and sound and not realizing that he had been stuck. We all managed to get dressed and make it to church on time. I told Paul I really wanted to take pictures a few times but I was so worried that we would be late for church I didn't do it.

So after that excitement, we went to the children's mass at church. Fun, crazy, chaotic and pretty quick. Rudy got to play the tambourine for the processional and march with the priest, deacon and other kids while singing jingle bells. He also got a Baby Jesus gift, which is currently hidden somewhere in our house. No pictures, unfortunately. We actually had a conversation on our way out the door where Paul asked if we should bring the camera and I said no, we're just going to church. We now know to always bring the camera to church when it is something out of the ordinary!

After church we came home and some friends stopped by for a little while. Then we got the rest of the food ready and waited for our families to arrive. We enjoyed a very low key Christmas Eve celebration (with the exception of someone else getting stuck in the bathroom - we then took all the mechanisms off the door and there is just a big hole where the knob should be - Ace will be on our list of stops tomorrow or Saturday) and everyone left by about 9:30pm. Rudy went to bed and Dad, Paul and I went to work on his train table. This was our first late night gift assembling and hopefully our last. i think we'll try to do some of it ahead of time. We had only one minor snafu, but once the table was assembled, we then had to assemble the trains and accessories. So it was just before 2am when we all went to bed.

Paul laying out all the pieces for the train table.



Partially assembled....



The completed product.



Naturally at 6:15am a little body toddled out of his room. I got up, took him to go to the bathroom and went to lie down with him, but he wasn't showing any signs of actually sleeping so by 7am everyone else was up and the fun began.

Knowing that the train table would be the prized gift (thanks, Grandpa!), we covered it with a sheet and went straight to the room where the tree was. There we checked out our stockings and opened our gifts.





After we'd seen everything, we told Rudy he had another gift in the living room. He was so excited to see the train table.





He also played with many of his other gifts, especially the harmonica that was in his stocking,



but he always come back to the train table and he pretty much plays with it by himself, which is a gift for me and Paul! :)

The rest of our day was spent being very lazy, going to visit Paul's mom and Gram and taking naps (thank goodness Rudy fell asleep in the car so Paul and I were able to take naps too!).

It was a wonderful Christmas and we still have part two with the rest of my family on Saturday.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Rudy was in his first Christmas pageant today. He (and all the other little ones) was a sheep. As our priest said at the beginning of the service, "Sheep wander." So he and the other sheep pretty much wandered all over the altar and church during the pageant. It made my job to watch the sheep a lot easier!
Last week when we left church and were talking about Rudy being a sheep, his response was "No, I be baby Jesus." Fortunately he didn't seem too disappointed not to have the starring role. Although he was very interested in seeing the baby who was Jesus. And even at the end of the show when pictures were taken, he went and stood right in front of the baby and just stared at her.

Here the sheep are all at the altar. Rudy decided to take a little walk around the church during his starring moment.



As the angels were speaking, and the sheep were still center stage, Rudy decided maybe he should do some preaching.



The sheep making their exit.



Such a cute sheep.



Taking our final leave of the stage.



The show, from my view, seemed to be total chaos but everyone seemed to enjoy it. Maybe next year Rudy will enjoy the spotlight more than the opportunity to wander all over church. And hopefully next week, he won't think he's still a sheep and try to wander again!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let it Snow

Today we had our first snow of the season.



Okay, it was really a Christmas show we went to that had a snow machine. Although it was certainly cold enough to snow all day, AND it's rained all week, we of course did not get any precipitation today. So we had to make do with the fake snow.

Besides the Christmas show we went to, Santa came by on a fire truck tonight. It was VERY cold out and Paul and Rudy waited outside for about 1/2 an hour until he showed up. I joined them once I knew he was around the corner.







The advantage to Rudy being outside and running around in the fresh air at 8pm is he went right to sleep tonight. So if one of us (read: Paul) is willing to do that every night then we should not have any more problems with Rudy at bedtime.

Home At Last

If you remember almost a year ago I wrote a post about Nidia. As of last night, (actually early this morning) Nidia is finally home in the US with her family. It took over 3 years for it to happen but the family is safe and together and enjoying the snow at home. Congratulations, Damaris, Eddie, John Jose and Nidia. I am so happy you are finally all together as a family.

Too Smart For Us, continued

To continue this theme here's conversation we had on the way to school. We had heard the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and a few minutes after Rudy was asking me what hippos eat. I told him I thought they ate grass, plants, and maybe seeds. He kept saying something over and over again that took me a while to interpret but finally I figured out he was saying "Clementines". So I said "Do hippos eat Clementines? I don't know but I guess maybe they do." He was very exasperated with me at this point, since it took me a while to figure out Clementines but he responded, "No. Clementines have seeds like hippos eat seeds."

Wow. What an amazing correlation to make.

Of course today he also told his teacher we light a menorah at home. So maybe we don't quite have a genius on our hands!

Too Smart For Us

This morning while Rudy was using the potty, I congratulated him on going and he stuck his tongue out at me - something he's been doing a lot lately along with blowing raspberries - always in response to something we say. So I told him it isn't nice to stick out his tongue. His response: "Snakes do that. I pretend to be a snake."

Yeah, right, That's why he did it. But just to continue the charade, he pretended to be a snake for the rest of the morning. Our breakfast of "chicken muffins" (english muffins) was mice and bugs that the mommy snake and the Rudy snake were eating.

If this is what he comes up with at 3, I am scared of what he'll come up with at 13!

See You at Mithmille, Santa

First, kudos to Paul for naming my post. As we left our activities today he said, "I bet I know what you are calling your post." To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it but I used Paul's suggestion because it was a good one.

This morning we went to a Christmas party sponsored by a Mom's Club I am in. It wasn't particularly exciting but Rudy got to hang out with his friend Tommy (who was dressed in the same shirt) and see Santa (who was wearing the same hat as Rudy - and he made sure he pointed that out to Santa). Rudy was very excited to see Santa. He talked to him when he walked in...



...sat on his lap to receive his present....



...stood with him again because he wanted another picture taken...



...and then ran after him as he was leaving to utter the title phrase. We had made plans to go to Smithville after the party with Tommy and his parents to ride the train and walk around. Rudy asked if Santa would be there and we said yes he probably would. That's when he ran after him. I wish I had my camera and video ready because he was so cute about it. Of course, after walking all over Smithvlle, we never did find Santa but Rudy and Tommy took it well.


Here are Rudy and Tommy in their matching shirts. I love the progression of these pictures - it shows how difficult it is to get two little boys to look at the camera at the same time. In the last picture they are making noises with their tongues.

FFF- Christmas Decorations

Last weekend we put up our outside Christmas decorations and everything inside but the tree. Hopefully it will stop raining long enough this weekend for us to get a dry tree! Rudy loves the Christmas village we have up. Paul and I started collecting these when we got married. Almost every year my mom and then my dad would buy us a new piece. The last two years we've asked for no pieces because we weren't sure how we'd set them up in this house, and we weren't sure about the little boy living in our house and how much damage he would cause! He LOVES looking at these and after the first day or so (and lots of time outs) has learned to look but not touch. Maybe next year we'll be ready to add to our collection.

Grandpa's New Look

My dad gave himself an early 74th birthday present - he broke his hand. He has a lovely blue cast on his left hand - not his dominant hand, thank goodness, but still injured enough to be unable to drive, go into his basement, or cook much. I think the boredom of being at home for 3 weeks is going to get to him more than the pain or inconvenience of the cast!
Some pictures....

Giving his best "Moan, groan"...

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Today is my dad's birthday. We hope you have a great birthday (we know you'll be running around all day as usual)! We love you!