Merry Christmas!

It was Caelen's 3rd Christmas but it was the first one where she understood what was going on. (given that for her first Christmas she was 3 weeks old.) The anticipation of presents and Santa Claus was so intense that she still asks if Santa will come before she falls alseep every night (we told her he will come next year, so she's started saying that and I don't think she has a clue how far away that is), and yesterday she found a roll of wrapping paper and told me she wanted more presents as she proceeded to try and unroll the whole thing.
It was so fun getting to watch her enjoy, not only getting presents, but watching others open their presents. She would stand right next to whoever was opening their present at the time asking over and over, "What is it? What is it?" and would dutifully gasp with surprise when each gift was opened. She has taken over the roll of present-passer-outter from her mother and auntie. I still remember being about 10 and passing those gifts out from under the tree on Christmas Eve and so it was a little weird to be handing them to my toddler and watching her take them to their respective recipients. She loved her job and was very good at it!
So here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and then Christmas day which we spent home by ourselves as all of Thomas' side of the family was out of town, and for various logistical reasons, my parents couldn't make it to our house for Christmas dinner. It was odd and a little bit lonely to be by ourselves completely on Christmas, but looking back I already see that it'll be probably the only time that ever happens and it was so relaxing and intimate. We had a very Merry Christmas and I hope you all did too!

Here's Caelen enjoying the usual and much-anticipated Christmas Eve spread. Her favorite was the onion dip. I seriously crave Christmas Eve food all year long and was pretty bummed that my huge pregnant belly and horribly shrunken stomach prevented me from gorging myself.


Caelen and Auntie getting in a little "Mickey Mouse Saves Santa" before we open the presents.
The new generation of "Present-Passer-Outter". Give Addison a couple years and she'll be right in there too I'm sure.
Thomas showing her her new bathtub crayons as she crumples the wrapping paper to give to Grandpa.
Helping Auntie open her gift.

My beautiful girl with her new Tinkerbell umbrella.
Putting her new Wonder Pets and stuffed elephant to sleep.

And then Santa came!

She would open a present and then play with it awhile before realizing there were more.
Sleepy face opening her stocking.
Making Papa play with her Littlest Pet Shop with her.
Cozy on Christmas playing with stickers.

Picture Catch Up

(Blame the double postings of pictures on pregnancy brain!)

Lately it's been so cold! There was snow on the mountains that you could easily see from the freeway. We've had highs in the 40's some days and we've woken up to 21 degrees. Caelen still wants to go out and play so we just bundle up like this:

Here's Caelen with Grandma and Grandpa at the Annual 'Round the Table Carol Sing that our church puts on every December. She loved the music and would close her eyes and rock out the really soulful ones. Girl after my own heart!

Then her little friend Tyler turned 3 (10 days after her birthday) and we had another party at the Party Central play area where her friend Maddie had had her party 2 months before. This time Thomas got to come and it was much more fun for Caelen. She even ventured down the big slide with him.

Since everyone helped her open her presents she got right in there and helped open Ty's. She kept asking for more. When we got home and I asked her if she had fun she said, "Yep, I opened my presents!!"

More Quotes from Caelen

Caelen has been watching a lot of the new Wonder Pets Christmas special, The Wonder Pets Save the Nutcracker. It's actually pretty entertaining and has bits of all the great music from the Nutcracker that the wonder pets sing to as they try to get their only Christmas present, a nutcracker, back from the Mouse King. One of the songs they sing (that isn't from the Nutcracker) is Be Happy With What You Have, right after they've realized there's only one present for all of them under the tree on Christmas Eve. All that to set the scene for: Caelen sitting at the table watching me make breakfast says, "Mommy?" I say, "Yes." She sings, "Be happy with what you have!" After I stopped laughing I said, "That's good advice honey!"

She also thinks it's really cool that the Nutcracker comes to life at the end and dances and sings. While watching it the last time at her Grandparent's house and holding my mom's nutcracker she looks at it and says, "The Wonder Pets' nutcracker came to life Mommy! My nutcracker come to life too???" As she breaks his arm off and it drops to the ground. LOL

On a non-nutcracker note, this afternoon while I was making lunch for everyone, Thomas said something that indicated to me that he had not been listening when I was sharing my feelings with him earlier and this irritated me. Pregnancy hormones have definitely been sucking my patience away. Without going into boring details on why, I began, in a VERY firm but escalating voice, to explain why I was frustrated and that I need him to listen when I speak and yada yada yada. After a pause, Caelen says, "What's happening Mommy?" I said, "Oh honey, Mommy's just pregnant." She replies, "You pregnant at Papa??"

How's that for fireworks

When I wake up in the morning it is about 56 degrees in my house. No joke. Our furnace blew up about a month ago. Luckily we have 2 space heaters and a TON of firewood. My husband works all summer to squirrel away as much firewood as he can. To be quite honest I get a little jealous of his affair with the firewood, but I have never been more grateful in my life that he took all those weekends to work his butt off.
The amazing thing is that you DO adapt to the cold. Yes, even me who is cold when it's 75 degrees outside. I woke up the other morning and thought, "Hey it's not that cold in the house!" It was a whopping 60 degrees. And the cold doesn't seem to really bother Caelen. She still tries to take her clothes off and run around naked. I try to tell her she needs her clothes because it's cold, but I don't know if she believes me or just thinks I'm pulling her leg!
Anyway, we have a fire going almost 24/7 and we recently discovered you have to remove the screen to get any amount of heat out of an open hearth fireplace. Thomas also started placing a fan in front to move the hot air. He tends to build the fire up really high and I'm constantly nagging him about my fear of it falling over and going into the fan. I think he thought I was crazy until yesterday when it happened. Yes, my friends, the blazing wood all collapsed onto the hearth and the fan sucked up the pieces and sprayed them into our living room!!! I ran for the plug to the fan, got the fan stopped, Thomas ran to get the big chunks back in the fireplace (because then the house was filling with smoke) and the last task was to get the burning embers up off our (thankfully) hardwood floor. Thank the Lord it wasn't carpet and I happened to be washing all our rugs. Nothing was worse for the wear, not even my floor.
When I asked Thomas if maybe after living with me a few more years and having these "fears" of mine come true all the time he'd stop thinking I'm over reacting and crazy, he said, "Um yeah, maybe. But probably not."
LOL At least he's honest!

I personally LOVE sleep

Dear Caelen,
What's so bad about sleep?
Seriously. Are you afraid we might be having fun without you? Are there things you want to do that you just can't be bothered with a nap? Are there just too many thoughts going around in your head? That must be it because you lay in there talking and singing to yourself about everything in the whole wide world.
When you call me in saying, "Mommy, I need my _____ " I know you're just trying to get me in your room so you can start trying to convince me that you're "awake now!" but I know you never even slept.
I do appreciate that you don't try to come out of your room, but Mommy can't relax when you're in there whining and hollering. I blame your father for this. Lord knows HE didn't even take naps at this age. At least you take a few a week.
Lord have mercy!
Mommy

There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Grey

Here are some picture from our crazy weekend, and since a nap is calling my name louder than my child from her bed (where she doesn't want to nap as usual) I'll make it short and sweet. Friday was Caelen's 2nd Birthday party and it was super crazy! But it was fun :)
She got a new "baby" and a highchair, stroller, carseat etc. to go along with her and Caelen's whole world is complete. She got lots of others things too that she's enjoying equally as much and Mommy is enjoying to new clothes for Caelen :)

Everyone is singing Happy Birthday in this pic.

Who needs to wait for a fork, just dig in!

Having Uncle Josh color with her after the party was over.

Then Saturday we went to get our Christmas tree. God bless Thomas for getting this adorable picture of her! They're rare these days as Caelen doesn't like having her picture taken and frowns or covers her face in all the shots.

And the final tree, which I like but hate at the same time because it's apparently not strong enough to hold an ornament. I think every ornament I've put on it has fallen off since and one of the glass ones even shattered. Stupid tree. But the house is Christmas-ready. Now after the baby shower, Thanksgiving, Caelen's birthday, getting ready for Christmas and all the other time consumers and fun events in between, I'm exhausted and in need of a week long hybernation period.

Birthday Girl

Caelen turned 2 today and I can't quite believe it. She's so excited about her birthday party tomorrow and almost cried with excitment when we talk about it and she says, "That'll be fun Mommy!" Today when she asked Thomas what he was doing and he told her he was baking her cake for her birthday party tomorrow she told us her friends would eat her cake too. Then she asked if Addison would have some cake!! After I finished laughing at how cute and thoughtful she was I told her Addison could have some of my cake.

When Caelen's friend hit her on the face yesterday she pointed at her and said, "Don't do that! Take a time out!"