Christmas
We had an excellent Christmas here. (Well, other than the tons of snow we've been getting and the sub-freezing temperatures.)
I had Christmas Eve off so I was able to attend the get together we have with friends each year. Like last year it was at Bill and Donna's house. Bill and Donna are the parents of our friend Kathy.
Here's Kathy (in the red) with Jackie and Anne.
Bill and Donna have an absolutely gorgeous house They also have a fairly large backyard with lots of trees. Here you can see part of it with snow (surprise!).
Mark (Jackie's husband) wore his new Christmas sweater to the party.
Mark bought it as a joke to wear for Christmas. It's a woman's sweater. I think it'd look better without the tee shirt under it.
And here's a picture of Mark, Kathy and Anne.
And Jackie and me.
Aunt Marta was visiting for the week. She and Sydney had a wonderful time playing together. They frequently sat up on the bed in "Grandma's Room" (that's what Sydney calls the guest room) looking through wrapping paper tube telescopes to try to find pirates.
Aunt Marta was at the party and Sydney brought Penguin (the one she got at Sea World in February - he's her favorite bedtime stuffed animal).
After eating and nibbling on excellent food that everyone brought we eventually got down to the present unwrapping. We let the kids go first then booted them out of the room to go play with their new stuff.
Sydney, of course, liked everything she got, but two presents stand out as apparent favorites from the party. First is a blanket that Kathy's boys made for her. They made a blanket for each of the kids (Caden and Rylan - Mark and Jackie's boys - and Sydney). Sydney really likes hers and it is a regular part of her bed now.
The other present was a little Yorkie (I think?) stuffed dog in a carrying case. She's pointing at the pink case in this picture.
We got home around 8:00 pm. Sydney spent much of the trip home looking up in the sky for any sign of Santa. When we got home she had something to eat (she wasn't that interested in the food at the party for some reason) and then we checked out NORAD on the computer to see where Santa was. Luckily he was still visiting the east coast.
Sydney went to bed and we expected her to fall right asleep despite the excitement. She only had a short nap on our way to the party earlier in the day and it was almost two hours past her bedtime. But when I went to check on her about fifteen minutes later she was still awake and had a silly grin on her face when she saw me.
I went in, tucked her in again, kissed her on the cheek and told her I thought she would be asleep. Her reply was, "Daddy, stop bothering me."
The next morning she got up at her regular time (7:00 am) and was very excited. So were we! Aunt Marta got up and we called Grandma and Grandpa to come over. (They stayed home on Christmas Eve. Partly because of various ailments that limited them and partly because of the weather.) Sydney had a bite to eat while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa M to arrive.
The first thing Sydney did when it was present time was to put on "her" Santa hat. (It is generally worn by a stuffed Snoopy Anne has, but Sydney decided she was going to wear it this year.)
She was very excited and had a good time opening presents. She got a lot of things and just about everything she opened was, "Oh, boy. Just what I wanted for Christmas!"
She was particularly excited about two of the presents she got from Santa. First was a pre-school laptop.
She's wanted one for some time and always plays with them in the toy aisles of the store when we go.
The other particularly exciting present was a new baby doll set. It is a newborn doll that comes with a stroller, crib/bassinet, car seat and diaper bag. Here is Sydney jumping up and down with joy.
Santa was also very good to the three of us by bringing us all new Redskins jerseys. Here we are wearing them while watching them lose the last regular season game on Sunday. (Sydney's is several sizes too big so she can grow into it.)
There is only one thing that Santa seems to have missed out on this Christmas and that was a purple hippo.
Sydney's favorite cartoon character, Kipper, has a purple hippo squeeze toy. Sydney has been talking a lot lately about wanting a hippo like Kipper's. After the stockings and Santa presents were opened we were ready to move on to other gifts. But Sydney had other ideas.
She was still very excited about her Santa presents and getting "just what I wanted for Christmas" as she looked at the presents still under the tree. And she asked Mommy, "which present do you think has my purple hippo in it?"
There wasn't too much of a problem with it, luckily. One thing Santa had put in Sydney's stocking was a purple snake/anemone squeeze thing. Mommy quickly explained that that was probably as close as Santa could come to a purple hippo toy. Sydney seemed satisfied with that.
(If anyone happens to find a purple hippo squeeze toy let me know. And, yes, we did also try explaining before Christmas that the purple hippo was probably a dog toy and not a little girl toy, but Sydney didn't seem to care.)
As much as Sydney loved all the presents she got from everyone there are two others that will get special mention here seeing as I have some video to go with them. First, Sydney got a harmonica from Grandpa M. He enjoys playing and she likes to listen to him. So she got one and immediately took to it. (She even "taps it out" as instructed by Grandpa every time she's done playing it.)
The other gift is the sled that Grandma and Grandpa M got her.
Between our two houses is a giant pile of snow the snow plows push up. The streets have been packed snow so it's been easy to slide down it and into the street. On Saturday, though, a plow came up our street to clear things out better since it had actually warmed up to a little above freezing. It cleared the street a lot better and pushed more snow around to make it easier to get from driveways to the street. In the process more snow got piled up on that pile. It's now over eight feet high and has a rather steep drop to the street. We won't be sledding on it anymore. But there are a couple local areas that are supposed to be good for sledding.
We had a great Christmas here and we hope everyone else did, too. Happy New Year to all of you. We wish you the best in the upcoming year and hope everyone has a great 2009.
I had Christmas Eve off so I was able to attend the get together we have with friends each year. Like last year it was at Bill and Donna's house. Bill and Donna are the parents of our friend Kathy.
Here's Kathy (in the red) with Jackie and Anne.
Bill and Donna have an absolutely gorgeous house They also have a fairly large backyard with lots of trees. Here you can see part of it with snow (surprise!).
Mark (Jackie's husband) wore his new Christmas sweater to the party.
Mark bought it as a joke to wear for Christmas. It's a woman's sweater. I think it'd look better without the tee shirt under it.
And here's a picture of Mark, Kathy and Anne.
And Jackie and me.
Aunt Marta was visiting for the week. She and Sydney had a wonderful time playing together. They frequently sat up on the bed in "Grandma's Room" (that's what Sydney calls the guest room) looking through wrapping paper tube telescopes to try to find pirates.
Aunt Marta was at the party and Sydney brought Penguin (the one she got at Sea World in February - he's her favorite bedtime stuffed animal).
After eating and nibbling on excellent food that everyone brought we eventually got down to the present unwrapping. We let the kids go first then booted them out of the room to go play with their new stuff.
Sydney, of course, liked everything she got, but two presents stand out as apparent favorites from the party. First is a blanket that Kathy's boys made for her. They made a blanket for each of the kids (Caden and Rylan - Mark and Jackie's boys - and Sydney). Sydney really likes hers and it is a regular part of her bed now.
The other present was a little Yorkie (I think?) stuffed dog in a carrying case. She's pointing at the pink case in this picture.
We got home around 8:00 pm. Sydney spent much of the trip home looking up in the sky for any sign of Santa. When we got home she had something to eat (she wasn't that interested in the food at the party for some reason) and then we checked out NORAD on the computer to see where Santa was. Luckily he was still visiting the east coast.
Sydney went to bed and we expected her to fall right asleep despite the excitement. She only had a short nap on our way to the party earlier in the day and it was almost two hours past her bedtime. But when I went to check on her about fifteen minutes later she was still awake and had a silly grin on her face when she saw me.
I went in, tucked her in again, kissed her on the cheek and told her I thought she would be asleep. Her reply was, "Daddy, stop bothering me."
The next morning she got up at her regular time (7:00 am) and was very excited. So were we! Aunt Marta got up and we called Grandma and Grandpa to come over. (They stayed home on Christmas Eve. Partly because of various ailments that limited them and partly because of the weather.) Sydney had a bite to eat while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa M to arrive.
The first thing Sydney did when it was present time was to put on "her" Santa hat. (It is generally worn by a stuffed Snoopy Anne has, but Sydney decided she was going to wear it this year.)
She was very excited and had a good time opening presents. She got a lot of things and just about everything she opened was, "Oh, boy. Just what I wanted for Christmas!"
She was particularly excited about two of the presents she got from Santa. First was a pre-school laptop.
She's wanted one for some time and always plays with them in the toy aisles of the store when we go.
The other particularly exciting present was a new baby doll set. It is a newborn doll that comes with a stroller, crib/bassinet, car seat and diaper bag. Here is Sydney jumping up and down with joy.
Santa was also very good to the three of us by bringing us all new Redskins jerseys. Here we are wearing them while watching them lose the last regular season game on Sunday. (Sydney's is several sizes too big so she can grow into it.)
There is only one thing that Santa seems to have missed out on this Christmas and that was a purple hippo.
Sydney's favorite cartoon character, Kipper, has a purple hippo squeeze toy. Sydney has been talking a lot lately about wanting a hippo like Kipper's. After the stockings and Santa presents were opened we were ready to move on to other gifts. But Sydney had other ideas.
She was still very excited about her Santa presents and getting "just what I wanted for Christmas" as she looked at the presents still under the tree. And she asked Mommy, "which present do you think has my purple hippo in it?"
There wasn't too much of a problem with it, luckily. One thing Santa had put in Sydney's stocking was a purple snake/anemone squeeze thing. Mommy quickly explained that that was probably as close as Santa could come to a purple hippo toy. Sydney seemed satisfied with that.
(If anyone happens to find a purple hippo squeeze toy let me know. And, yes, we did also try explaining before Christmas that the purple hippo was probably a dog toy and not a little girl toy, but Sydney didn't seem to care.)
As much as Sydney loved all the presents she got from everyone there are two others that will get special mention here seeing as I have some video to go with them. First, Sydney got a harmonica from Grandpa M. He enjoys playing and she likes to listen to him. So she got one and immediately took to it. (She even "taps it out" as instructed by Grandpa every time she's done playing it.)
The other gift is the sled that Grandma and Grandpa M got her.
Between our two houses is a giant pile of snow the snow plows push up. The streets have been packed snow so it's been easy to slide down it and into the street. On Saturday, though, a plow came up our street to clear things out better since it had actually warmed up to a little above freezing. It cleared the street a lot better and pushed more snow around to make it easier to get from driveways to the street. In the process more snow got piled up on that pile. It's now over eight feet high and has a rather steep drop to the street. We won't be sledding on it anymore. But there are a couple local areas that are supposed to be good for sledding.
We had a great Christmas here and we hope everyone else did, too. Happy New Year to all of you. We wish you the best in the upcoming year and hope everyone has a great 2009.
posted by Tah at 12:20 AM
3 Comments:
http://www.thefind.com/family/info-hippo-toy ;-)
Glad you guys had such a good Christmas - Happy New Year!
Thanks for all the great pictures. Looks like everyone had a nice Christmas, especially Sydney. She really got the spirit!
Happy New Year! Hope to see you in the spring. There is going to be a spring, right?
Glad you guys had a great Christmas
*hugs*
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