Carolina Christmas

Here's the tale of our holiday travels that you've been waiting for. Well, the first part anyway. I'm going to try not to be too long winded, cuz my bed is calling to me... but first to remind you of the Christmas spirit, here's our very favorite Santa baby!

We headed down to NC the Monday before Christmas- braving the route thru DC despite the gigantic snowfall that had fallen only a couple days earlier. Luckily the kids were complete troopers, even though DC was not a good choice. Apparently 20+ inches of snow is hard to get rid of; that means that multi-laned roads were down to only two lanes both because of snow and because of lines of dump trucks waiting to haul away the snow. The trip that used to take us 7.5 hrs pre-kids, took us a very long TEN hours because of snow issues and stops. Ugh. But we made it safe and sound and settled in for the holidays.

Most of the fun started on Christmas Eve when we woke up with a full house, Lacey, JT and Jay having arrived in the middle of the night. The kids got to decorate cookies for Santa and had a good time doing so. We were lucky there were any left for Santa!

I don't think Jay really got the idea of Santa and the cookies; Hayden seemed to have a little bit of a better idea, but not much. I helped her write a letter to Santa to leave out, and she even signed an H!
And don't forget that Christmas Eve was extra special cuz Eliza turned 3 months! Isn't she getting big?

Christmas morning was lots of fun with two kids old enough to enjoy the experience. Our family does stockings first and the kids had a great time opening their little gifts that Santa brought. Santa brought Jay a giant dump truck (to be seen in later pictures) while Hayden got some beads. Even Eliza was bright eyed for the occasion.
Gift giving was busy and chaotic. Hayden and Jay liked opening presents - even when they weren't their own presents. Here Hayden and Jay help Jason open one of his big heavy presents - wooden blocks! (Yes, Jason got blocks for Christmas. He plays with them almost every day!)

Eliza helped Poppop open his special present. Stamps with a picture of Hayden and Eliza on them!
Hayden and Jay generally had a great time together, doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Like snuggling with Lacey, stomping around in boots (Jay's were new for Christmas!), getting funny hairstyles in the bath and practicing yoga.


Besides just playing and hanging out at home, we made it a priority to go visit great-grandparents as well. After all, Eliza needed to meet the rest of the family! We got to see Grandma Ruth once, and Granma Jane twice. Hayden really liked visiting Granma Jane. There was lots of room to run around and play, she got ice cream and blueberries at lunch and they had this really cool train running around the Christmas tree in the common room. What could be better?!!

Granma Jane and her two great-granddaughters!

Ice cream!

When just a spoon won't do, use your hand too!

What kind of ice cream do you want Eliza?!

Chilling on one of the chairs in a common area -

so much room to run around and places to climb.

Mesmerized by the train.

Sanford Family! 4 generations!

and finally, I tried to get a video of the kids together as compared to when we all were together for Dad's birthday last year. There was nothing as fun as two kids running around with balloons, but I did catch them chasing the train around and around. You can see the kids running like crazy, Hayden bossing Jay and the adults sitting on the floor to do train maintenance if it jumped the track. It was a fun Christmas!

tricky pokey

So you're probably expecting (eagerly anticipating?!) a detailed blog documenting our extensive holiday travels. Unfortunately I do not have the time or patience to complete such a blog at this time. (however, I have uploaded the photos from the cameras - so that's at least something!) Maybe this weekend I'll find some time to post about our holidays, which were great.

In the meantime, here's a super cute video of Hayden demonstrating the intricate steps of the rarely seen "Tricky Pokey." To set the stage, we are at my parents' house in North Carolina. I think the "hokey pokey" had been done earlier, as a way to entertain Hayden and Jay (and the adults). On her own, Hayden suddenly started doing this crazy dance. She even kept it up as I grabbed the camera AND then named it when I tried to call it the hokey-pokey. I just think it's hilarious how fast her arms and legs move and that she seems to do it so deliberately! Feel free to watch it again and again and try it in your own home!



And of course, so as not to neglect Eliza, who is not quite ready for the tricky pokey, here's a One showing her lifting her head up. And this was even before we left for our travels!

getting ready for Christmas

(for the record, I have no idea why the typing/spacing is so weird on this entry. and I'd rather post it now than spend time trying to fix it! oh well.)
Before we had two children, putting up Christmas decorations was usually a one day affair, or at least one weekend. Pull them out, pick out what we wanted to put up, string up some lights and then tuck the leftovers away till next year. Now with two kids, we don't have a lot of extra chunks of time so we've spent much of December getting ready for Christmas. That includes decorating (we've strung up lights outside on two separate weekends) and just doing Christmas-y activities. Since Hayden is two, she's really starting to "get" Christmas and it's made everything a lot more fun. She's become a big fan of the advent calendars - though she keeps asking to "do the advent calendars" multiple times in one day and doesn't quite get the once a day part of them. I also mis-estimated how hard advent calendars would be to do when you have no concept of numbers beyond 1 and 2. Here's a picture of her getting started on the very first one!

Part of the reason we had such a hard time putting up lights outside (one of my favorite Christmas decorations!) is that Mother Nature has insisted on decorating for Christmas as well. We've had at least 2 measurable snowfalls this month, and what has fallen has yet to melt away. That means no icicles hung up on the roof this year because it's too treacherous to get up there (we've had snow and ice). But we have managed to get some lights up outside (multi-colored of course!) and Hayden had a fun time playing in the snow. She would pick up a bunch of snow and try to throw it on Blizzard (much like her leaf throwing antics earlier!).
Other activities have included dancing to Christmas music (check out the video!), singing Christmas carols (see earlier video!), watching old school Christmas specials (thumbs up to Charlie Brown while the Grinch got vetoed by Hayden), and decorating the house. We have a big tree downstairs and a little tree upstairs.

(this is the only pic from decorating the tree and it doesn't even include the tree! but it's cute!)

We also went to the Christmas party at Jason's work. Both kids did a great job wearing special Christmas outfits - Eliza didn't even have to get her outfit changed the whole time! (a small Christmas miracle!) Hayden had fun at the party, eating all sorts of hors d'oeuvres and hanging out with Sarah.
We also try to put Eliza in aSanta hat whenever possible. Who doesn't love a baby in a Santa hat?!

Eliza at 12 weeks

Not quite as exciting as Hayden singing jingle bells, but I thought Eliza deserved a video too. She is officially 12 weeks old today! Granted, she still doesn't do too much that's exciting - but you can see her smile, yawn, rub her hands together a little bit and start to fall asleep. (the video was taken just moments ago and she is now napping on the bed!)

Jingle Bells!

Bringing you some Christmas cheer!



Hayden was going down for a nap, and decided to start singing while I went to get Eliza, who was waking up and fussing. She really likes Jingle Bells and has apparently learned most of the words! Sorry you have to hear me singing, but I thought we needed some closure to the video. :) I especially like her laughing!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We got back on Sunday from our first road trip with two kids. We headed west to Columbus to spend Thanksgiving with Jason's parents. It was a good trip. Both Hayden and Eliza were excellent car travelers. The trip there was great; the trip back less great, but mainly because of traffic, not because of difficult kids. Not sure why we have to pay toll money to sit in traffic!

Anyway, took a few pictures along the way to document the weekend. Hayden had a great time with so much family around; she was a bit shy at first when everyone arrived for Thanksgiving, but quickly warmed up to Uncle Rich, Poppa and Ammi. She passed off brown chex (I no like) to Uncle Rich and had him reading her stories after dinner. Though I know she would have liked the turkey, Hayden stuck to starches for the big meal. Chex mix, a few bites of mashed potatoes and a roll made up her meal, followed up with ice cream for dessert.

She did crack me up, at least twice when we made our chocolate bourbon pecan pie on Wednesday before hitting the road. First, she was willing to try just about anything we put in the pie, including plain pecans. (she's showing off her mouthful in the first picture.) I think she probably would have eaen the corn syrup had I let her, or even tried the dash of vinegar that went in the crust. Then, when I let her smell the bourbon (we often smell ingredients), she busted out with a big grin and said "yummy!" For the record, I did NOT let her try it! :)

We got in to Columbus at a reasonable hour (8:30ish) and everyone went to bed smoothly. Next morning, I was ready for holiday mode. At her first diaper change in the daylight, Eliza was dressed for the occassion!
As per tradition, we turned on the big parade. Hayden made herself comfortable, for about 2 minutes, before jumping up to find something else to do. She made us pull the stool close enough to the chair so she could put her legs on it. And then she put the pillow behind her back. so funny!
Later in the morning, after a very impressive tantrum, we all managed to get dressed to go for a little walk with the rest of the neighborhood. Hayden was pretty tickled by the giant turkey we found nearby.
And she liked pushing her baby in the stroller, for about 5 minutes. This picture shows her showing the baby the leaves, just like I do for her when we go walking and Hayden is in the stroller.
Grammy and Granddad have a pretty good supply of leaves too. After the walk, Hayden and Granddad did some frolicking in the leaves.

When we got back from our walk, everyone got dressed for dinner (which was planned for early afternoon). We even managed a family picture! I was thinking we could use this for Christmas cards, then realized that Eliza has a thanksgiving bib on and that just wouldn't work. And to give you a little 'behind the scenes', right after we finished smiling, Eliza decided to have one of her projectile vomiting episodes and the thanksgiving bib was retired for the day. Amazingly neither her clothes, nor mine, were harmed!
We had quite the group for Thanksgiving dinner. Ammi, Poppa, Uncle Rich, Norma, and cousin Kim came down from Michigan and the Wesps joined us as well. We even got to talk to the West coast DeRousie contigent via Skype. Not the coolest photo but I love that this picture shows Ammi, Jason and Eliza skyping with Jen and family in Portland. Talk about intergenerational family connections!
Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. Grammy did a wonderful job with the preparations. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, fresh cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, apple pie, pumpkin pie and ice cream. I contributed rolls and the chocolate bourbon pecan pie. YUM! As I said, Hayden stuck with the starches until dessert time when Grammy tried to introduce her to the glories of Thanksgiving pies. Hayden decided she preferred ice cream without the pie.

The annual DeRousie family Thanksgiving potrait.
Thanks to Mr. Wesp for his photography skills!

After the big meal, we just enjoyed our time in Columbus. There was some shopping done by Grammy and Daddy on black friday. There was lots of book reading, baby snuggling, and sport watching. Jason and I got to catch up with a couple old friends. Eliza really enjoyed "talking" to Grammy and Granddad, showing off her new skills of cooing and smiling. Hayden even got to try some of Grammy's eye makeup - can you see it?!

On Saturday evening, we headed over to the Columbus Zoo to catch out their lights. I'm not the best nighttime photographer (christmas list hint - photography class!), but you get the jist. The whole place was decked out in an amazing amount of lights. Hayden seemed to like it, especially eating snacks in the stroller. I think she would have liked to have seen more animals, since we told her we were going to the zoo, but most of them were sleeping.
We did get into a barn in the North American area and got to check out goats and sheep, and some honey bees.
Plus, there were various light animals around the zoo. I took a picture of the hippo in honor of Poppop.
Right before we left, we managed to catch the light show around the lake. The lights flashed on and off in time to 3 christmas songs. Hayden loved the lights and even danced to the music. Then it was time to head home cuz it was late and chilly. See how bundled up we are!
As I said, Sunday's drive home was not quite as smooth as the drive to Columbus, due to the traffic on the turnpike. But everyone hung in there, and we made it home safe and sound. I took pictures of happy kid faces to prove it!
And with our Thanksgiving roadtrip over - I think we just might be ready for our three prong Christmas trip (SC to Durham to Columbus to SC)!Happy Holidays!!!