Christmas Celebrations, Part 2

Let's just say Christmas Eve mass was a bust. Shall we?

Sophie hadn't napped very well that day and lasted all of a couple minutes outside of the children's "cry room". I barely listened to any of the service because I was too busy containing my 20 month old. Meanwhile, Santa didn't show as promised to Will and it felt like it was 100 degrees in the church with all the C&E attenders. Not that I'm judging... we haven't exactly been good church-goers ourselves. By the end of the mass, I kind of wanted to pull my hair out. :)Sophie was sweating and terribly uncomfortable. Will was mostly well-behaved but seemed to feed off of Sophie's bad behavior. And I just wanted to get to my in-laws house and breath a sigh of relief that church was over.

I'm disappointed that that was our experience of what should be the most important thing on our Christmas agenda. I LOVED the children's Christmas service when I was a kid. With all the anticipation of Christmas Eve at my grandparents house to come... it was the happiest church day of the year. And then as an adult, I started attending the midnight mass with Craig and my in-laws and loved that too. One day, when the kids are old enough, I'd like to resume that tradition. But that's a long time from now. Meanwhile, I have got to start getting my kids to church more to show them how to behave there...

Wait...didn't I say that last year? Once we arrived at Grandma & Grandpa Riedeman's house, the mood instantly brightened. The kids could run around and play. The house was all festive with the Lionel train surrounding the tree, and family started to arrive.

This was Sophie's first year to really notice the train and she was pretty enthralled for awhile.
The kids immediately bee-lined for grandma's toy stash and entertained themselves for a bit while I helped set out the food spread.

Kelly and Cecilia looked so cute and coordinated.

The little kids were the first to eat and then they got down and played while the adults ate.

Papa, Grandma & Aunt Joan were hanging around chatting with us while we supervised the kids eating and I took this opportunity to take some close-up pictures of the kids in their pleasant, happy moods. I LOVE these pictures. :)

Goofy boys.

Playing peek-a-boo with daddy.

Opening gifts.

Will got a bunch of tractor-themed gifts this year from everyone.

Sophie's were more Dora/Diego themed at Grandma's house. She LOVES her new mini Dora/Diego dolls.

New set of keys and a cell phone to put in her new purse. :)

And our kids' big gift this year was a really beautiful table and chairs set made by the Amish. I can't wait to get started on their play room now to put this in!

Will's dairy farm set.

Grandma had a monkey stuffed animal/puppet that sang Christmas songs when you opened and closed his mouth. Sophie was so fascinated with this.

And she even gave him a kiss.

Three generations - not Craig's most lively smile, but I love how Will has his hand up on Craig's face.

An attempted family picture.

Will got along really well with cousin Daniel this year.

And Sophie was very lovey/cuddley with cousin Stephanie too. Stephanie just has this calming/loving presence about her and it doesn't surprise me at all that the kids gravitate toward her. She's the oldest of four and a professional babysitter (not literally) so she is a natural with children.

Will and Papa spent a good portion of the evening discussing the process of grain crops from field to sale, through harvest time and transport. Papa has a wealth of information and Will just soaks it all up. Anything to do with farming... Will is all ears with tons of questions. Will responds so well to personalities like my father-in-laws that are calm, patient and quiet; that listen and respond instead of being loudly playful and directing. I noticed this same symbiosis with Uncle Rex this year too and I wish he had more interaction with these men. They are excellent role models.

I also loved how he crossed his (bare, of course!) feet while chatting with Papa.

Oh, and another quick funny: there is nothing standard about Will's photographed smile. Most of the time when you ask him to smile, he'll say "cheese" in this totally-forced way but never direct his eyes AT the camera. So we're constantly saying "look at the camera, Will... right here!" Here's one result of that. :)

Then daddy tries again and says "smile...show us your teeth!"

Nice. Haha!

One final try. Ah, much better.

All I wanted was a picture of Will with his grandma. But it's like pulling teeth sometimes!

Okay, so Sophie layed down in the pack 'n play around 9 p.m. and Will actually stayed up (against my wishes) until we left at nearly midnight!

When we finally got home, we quickly put some cookies and carrots out for Santa and the reindeer, brushed teeth and the kids went to bed. This picture is after Santa had eaten some of the offering. :) Remember our cute plate from Jan Pugh pottery?

We brought down all the gifts...

...and filled the stockings...

...and CRASHED for the night.