Lovely Christmas

We kicked off our Christmas Eve by meeting my parents at our church. Blake and I estimate there were about 8,000 people at that service, singing Silent Night in unison. That was awesome. We came home to have dinner, and the kids got to open a couple presents each.

Lucas got Georgia a Fur Real pet kitty, and Lulu has become our favorite pet. :) She meows and licks her paws and rolls over for you to pet her belly, but you don't have to feed her or clean a litter box! 

My parents got Nate a real guitar, which he calls a Ki-Tar.

"Dis! Dis!" She wanted her new baby!

Granna read the Night Before Christmas.

And then Santa came! Georgia got a PowerQuad, rocking horse, blocks, pull along puppy, Kai Lan bath toy, rolling ball toy, Fisher Price puppy, a couple books, and a pink poodle harness (aka leash)!

Nate got a drum set, a race track, some Legos and a lego case, binoculars/viewfinder, a book, a movie (Lionel Nation 5), a train (Bash), and an AmTryke (adaptive trike).

The kids must have been pretty good this year!

Here's Maggie spooning with Lulu.

Ahh, Georgia sleeping. That blanket wrapped around her waist is one of her little baby swaddle blankets. :) She still likes to be wrapped up, then she wiggles her arms out, rolls over, and goes to sleep, with her Glow Seahorse.

When Nate came downstairs and saw everything under the tree, he just looked for a minute, then said, "Lionel Nation Number Five?! Look! I got Lionel Nation Number Five!" We were pointing out the drum set and the race track and even the train, and he just kept going back to the train movie. That was probably his favorite gift, of all things, but his second favorite is his drums!

We've taught him to yell "I WANNA ROCK!" and "THANK YOU, LOUISVILLE!"

Georgia just doesn't really get it yet. She picked up various pieces of her Kai Lan bath toy and carried them around. Later, when she opened her stocking, she was obsessed with a spoon and fork.

Look, Lulu! I got Lionel Nation Number Five!

Now he has BOTH "logging locos." (I don't know what that means, but that's what he tells me.)

We had to put Lionel Nation 5 in the DVD player right away.

There's Goldfish in my stocking!

Sunglasses for Georgia ...

and for Nate!

When Granna and Pops came over, the present opening madness continued! What could it be?

Both kids LOVE this trampoline! And Nate shows us how he can jump with no hands! Take THAT, Spina Bifida!

Georgia got a little Dora desk to match Nate's "Car Chair."

This is the AmTryke. It's super cool, but it's going to take some convincing to get Nate to actually ride it. I'll try to get video when he does.

That night, instead of cooking a big dinner, we went out to Buca di Beppo for dinner! We love that place, and we were so happy they were open on Christmas! Nate had such a hard time going to bed last night. He kept saying, "But I'm missing all the games downstairs!" I assured him that Granna and Pops were back at their hotel, and Daddy was cleaning the kitchen and there were absolutely no games, but he didn't believe me. He wanted to talk about our fun Christmas over and over again. In fact, even last night--5 days later--he was telling me little details about our dinner at Buca, like how when the waitress brought our food, he was going to touch the plate but she told him not to because it was hot, so he didn't. Ha! I find it hilarious how little kids remember little unimportant details like that just as much as the important details ... everything is of the same importance.

I have had all week off work, which has been wonderful after such a crazy month. On Tuesday, we went to French Lick, Indiana to an indoor water park/hotel. This was our "family gift." That evening we got to ... Are you ready for this? ... ride on a REAL TRAIN!!! ... WITH SANTA!!!!! (who was on vacation after his big busy season) AND eat cookies and drink hot chocolate. That is like Nate heaven! (except the hot chocolate--he won't touch the stuff) It was really so much fun. And that night it was, of course, exciting to order pizza and stay in a hotel. Nate just talked and talked and talked and asked endless questions! At one point after he asked me like the 100th question, I said, "You sure do have a lot of questions!" He said, "Daddy, I talk a lot!" That's his latest thing he always says, "Mama, I have a question." Even if he doesn't really have a question. After I put him to bed, he always calls me back up because he has a question, and then he asks me something like if I remember that the waitress at Buca di Beppo told him the plate was hot and then he didn't touch it. :) 

Anyway, the next day we got to the water park by about 9:30 am, and the kids played HARD until after 2. Nate really liked playing with his life jacket on in the big pool with Blake. But there was also a baby/little kid area that had a fun little water slide. He sort of wanted to do it and was sort of scared to (last time he got on a water slide, he busted his chin), but I made forced him to do it with much protest, and of course he loved it! He went down that slide probably 100 times. He waited in line with the other kids, learning to take turns, not skip in front of each other (and not overcompensate like Nate did at one point by letting every go in front of him continuously), then he climbed up the steps, waited for the kid in front of him to go down the slide and get out of the way, and then slide himself down and swim away quick. It took a lot of coaching at first, but I was really proud of him. There have been times when we didn't know if he would be able to just play independently like all the other kids on something like a water slide. But no one would have been able to tell anything was different, unless they saw the scar on his back. That's the thing--no matter how big Nate gets, and how "able" he is, we will never take it for granted. We watch him in awe.

Tonight is a low key New Year's Eve, just watching a movie (or blogging while half-watching the movie Blake is watching). We have a lot of work to do this weekend to get our house put back together and everything organized for me to head back to work and for the kids to start at their new babysitter! Blake will continue to stay home in the mornings, and Mon-Thur, Georgia will go to the babysitter's house for 4 hours while Nate goes to school. On Friday's, they will both go. I'm really excited about this and think it's going to be a good fit for all of us. We actually knew the sitter--she worked at our pediatrician's office! And I found out in a really round about way that she was leaving that job to start an in-home daycare. She is very sweet and wonderful with kids. She has a 4 year old girl of her own who is so excited about playing with Georgia every day (and an older son who Nate thinks is really cool). She's also going to be watching another family's kids. I think Georgia is going to love being around other kids for a few hours a day, and I am so confident in the sitter's ability to care for both kids. Georgia starts on Monday!

Well, I hear Nate is back up, at 11 pm, talking a mile a minute. He came down with Blake, saying, "Hello, mama. I just came down for a little snack and a little drink." Looks like we'll be ringing in the new year with the 4 year old! Happy New Year's to everyone from the Payne family!