Just past Christmas

Well, it's now mid January, and I'd like to take a moment to back here and re-visit Christmas. We had a pretty wild one.

Chuck's sister Teri flew into town on Christmas eve from Arizona. She'd not seen her family in a while, and not yet met the babies. Chuck picked her up near midnight and drove her to his other sister's house and hour and a half north of us. Chuck's other sister had promised to host Christmas dinner for his family, but then a series of unfortunate events meant they were unable to swing it. Since the babies were preemies meant we needed to do Christmas at our place. As many of our loved ones are smokers, and until the babies are stronger, they need to stay in a smoke free environment. So, we had plans for the Cicerellos to join us (if you don't recall, we consider the Cicerellos to be family even though there is no blood connection.) Anyway, when things with Chuck's sister fell through, we didn't have the space to host dinner for everyone... so we offered to get dinner for them and ship it up with Chuck when he dropped off his sister who flew in. So, on the day of Christmas eve we were straightening up our place, wrapping presents, preparing part of the Christmas dinner for us and Chuck's family, packing dinner for Chuck's family, setting up our place to host, being chauffers, and caring for 3 six month olds. Whew!!

Chuck and I have had a tradition where we sit and read The Night Before Christmas to each other on Christmas eve. We had looked forward to doing that with our children on their first Christmas. Unfortuantely we were unable to do that until about 3am Christmas morning, which thankfully the babies were already nestled snug in their beds. So, Chuck and I snuck into the nursery with a flashlight, sat in the middle of the floor and whispered the book. The babies would coo and snore every now and then, they were so cute.

Christmas itself came all to early, but it was a lovely day. The babies had many very cute Christmas outfits. Really, they were swimming in so many of them through the various donations we've received through freecycle and gifts - turns out it worked out okay, because every time they wet their pants, they switched into a different Christmas outfit.

We had a lovely dinner and afterwards opened presents, where the babies were royally spoiled. Much of this spoiling then went into finally getting an account to start saving for college, which is a real concern for us. I'm not sure how we are going to be able to swing this, so it's nice to even begin taking the baby steps to get there.

The following week, the babies got to meet Grampa Lou (Lou Cicerello) for the first time. Lou was unable to join us for Christmas with the rest of the gang due to obligations at home, so it was especially nice to have him come up. Here's some pics of the babies with their other Grandpa. Sorry Joey, it's another old man to look at.




New Years weekend, the babies and myself went to Ohio. Chuck stayed behind since he had to work, biting his nails the whole time, but also enjoying a much deserved break. During this trip the babies got to meet their Great Grandma Dixie for the first time. This particular meeting made the trip entirely worth it. Here's a pic of them all together. I love how Sarah, when propped, will stand for an incredibly long time. If she just had her balance down better, she'd stand all day. These days are coming soon.
Click here for a video of the 3 generation interaction.