Christmas and the day after

We went to a beautiful Christmas mass at St. John's Catholic Church downtown with David's family.  That church has changed so much since we attended that when we were first married.  I love going back to St. John's and seeing Fr. Rick.  It's like coming home to beautiful memories of our first years as a married couple.  What a treasure this church is in downtown Indianapolis.

The Bond Family 2017

(Recognize Laney's dress? It's time for who wore it best, Christmas version! Unfortunately, Laney spilled applesauce on her dress shortly after we arrived to David's parent's, so I think this is the only picture of her in it.)

The day after Christmas, we spent time with my dad's side of the family.  The kids spent time with  G.G., my grandma, as well as other family. 

Will with G.G., opening his presents from Uncle Michael

Laney with Grandma

Laney opening her highly anticipated Christmas present - her blanket from Aunt Melissa. She sleeps with it every night!

We had a long, busy trip to Indianapolis, but we got to see lots of family and had an amazing time. Now David and I are back to work while the kids relax on Christmas break.

A multitude of Christmas Pictures

We spent Christmas this year in Indianapolis celebrating with both of our families.  Amazingly, in the last six years that David has been in residency or fellowship, he has never had to work Christmas.  He has always requested it off and his request has always been granted.  There was that one year though that I had to work Christmas day for my job, and David moonlighted (worked overnight by choice for holiday $$) Christmas since I was working anyway. But still, very impressive that he has managed to escape that dreaded hospital shift.  This year I also had Christmas and Christmas Eve off, so we were able to spend several days visiting.

Pictures from Christmas Eve at my parents house:
Growing up, the only present we as kids were allowed to open on Christmas eve was a book from my mom.  The tradition continues as the kids open their books from Grandma.

Christmas morning, the kids opened their gifts from Santa.  Will was a little disappointed at first because, although he had asked for a Doc McStuffins puppy toy a month before Christmas, a few days before Christmas he had changed his mind and wanted a Hatchimal instead.  I guess Santa's elves can't accommodate all last minute requests... However, he got over it and did enjoy playing with his puppy.

Sad Will

But now he's starting to warm to the toy

Jolly Christmas Baby

After Santa presents, we met up with David's family at St. John's downtown for mass Christmas morning.  I need to snag David's phone and get some of our family pictures from it.  Those are the only ones we have as a whole family!  After mass it was off to the homestead to open presents with the Bonds. The kids got so many toys and really enjoyed themselves!

That time I let Eliana and William excavate dinosaur eggs in the living room, putting tons of dust in the air! Not a great indoor toy...

We spent the night at my parents' house Christmas night, and the kids got to open their last presents from my mom and dad before bed.  Will got a Hatchimal, and Eliana got twin Hatchimals! Santa's elves couldn't do it, but Grandma could. Christmas was complete! (These were really popular last Christmas and impossible to find in the stores. Luckily my kids are a year behind what's popular.) While Laney did not get her own Hatchimal, she was quite enamored with her siblings' toys.  The Hatchimal's eyes glow red when they are mad, and they sing when they are happy.  We were cracking up because whenever Will was playing with his, its eyes were red.  But when Laney would get a hold of his Hatchimal, its eyes would light up blue and it would start singing - a sign that it was happy and well taken care of!  Turns out Laney makes a better parent than Will.

The Hathimal starts out as an egg.  You have to care for the egg to get it to hatch.

Twenty minutes later, you have a little animal to care for that moves, talks, and lights up!

Everyone with a Hatchimal

Ignore us blurry folk in the background. I just love Will's face in this picture.

Laney loves her new "baby."

Will wanted to show his Hatchimal his other presents from Christmas.

This is how Laney feels when her sister takes her Hatchimal back.

We had a wonderful day celebrating with family.  My heart was full.

St. Nick Day and other Christmas things

St. Nick came to our house this year.  Eliana and Will carefully gathered up everyone's shoes the night before and set them out for St. Nick to visit.  In preparation, we also watched a video about St. Nicholas and talked about how generous he was in giving gifts to others because of his love for Jesus.  Our church has a subscription for a website called Formed that has a ton of Catholic media - audiobooks, talks, movies, and kid's cartoons. Will and Ana love the kid's stuff - saint videos and Brother Francis cartoons (he teaches lessons on things like prayer or the Eucharist).  Mostly though they were just excited about the candy.

Laney says, "Is this what I think it is??"

It is! Candy!

Golden coins in her shoe.

Will put out his rain boot because it was the biggest shoe he could find.

When we first moved in this house, I said that I wanted electric added to the kid's playroom in the basement so that I could put the Christmas tree down there.  David was aghast at the time. You want the tree down in the basement?? But we only have so much space upstairs and it is jam packed with all of our regular furniture.  Two years ago we had a very tiny Christmas tree.  Last year we did end up putting the tree upstairs in the living room per David and Eliana's request.  I found it constantly in the way.  It took up a lot of space and the kids were always pulling pine needles off of it and making a big mess.  I know, just call me the Grinch.  This year, when it came time to put up the tree, I asked David were he wanted it.  To my surprise, he said, "The playroom." So my wish came true.  All that electrical work that my dad did was finally put to good use.  The tree went up in the basement!  Really, I thought it looked nice and the kids didn't mind at all.  As an added bonus, I didn't have to lug the tree upstairs since we store it in the basement anyway (I know, I'm still the Grinch haha).

Last, here is a photo of Will in his preschool Christmas Concert.  The past couple of years when Eliana was in preschool, I would get a good preview of the show because she would be constantly singing the songs at home (word for word and in tune).  Will doesn't seem quite as musically inclined. He rarely sings the songs and when he does, he usually only knows a few works.  He also more just recites the words, instead of singing them, so I have trouble guessing what song he is really trying to sing.  He did, however, get really into the motions that go with the song.  During the concert, I could tell that he often forgot the words, but boy would he be going all out on the hand motions!  I just loved watching his concert.  It was more of a surprise this year because he is not as vocal about what he is doing in school or what they have been working on.  So to see him perform at the concert, knowing how hard he must have been practicing all those weeks at school, was really special. 

This is like playing Where's Waldo ... Will is in a striped shirt. Can you find him? (Third from the left in the front row.

)

Fun With Cornstarch

I have been pulling out some old favorites activities for the kids to do while the weather is getting colder.  Specifically, we have made several craft recipes from cornstarch that are quick, easy, and fairly simple to clean up.  Although not tasty, cornstarch is edible, which comes in handy when your toddler is playing with it. The first was making oobleck, although this time I just called it slime.  To make, mix 2 cups of cornstarch with one cup of water.  William wasn't so sure about this creation at first, but Laney was really excited.  It was all fun and games until she started putting the bowl on her head.  Then it was off to the bath.

Notice her licking it off of her face. Yuck!

The second recipe with cornstarch is "snow." I couldn't believe how long this kept the older two occupied!  They played quietly together at the kitchen table for over an hour.  I also realized that when they were done, I could just dump the snow in a ziploc baggie and we could play with it again another time.  The recipe is 2 cups cornstarch plus 1/3 to 1/2 cup oil.  Or in our case, the entire container of cornstarch plus just enough oil to get the right consistency.  They wanted a lot of snow!! Then they put some of their toys in the snow to go sledding or make "snow dinosaurs."  Laney missed out on this activity because she was sleeping.
Will was very curious about what would happen if we put this snow in the freezer.  He reasoned that since snow is usually cold, if we put this cornstarch snow in the freezer, it would change.  I explained that real snow is made out of water but that this "snow" was made out of cornstarch and oil, so it wouldn't be the same.  He wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole thing.

Snow on his face!

You might notice in the above picture that William has a bandaid on his chin.  Strangely enough, both he and Eliana fell of the kitchen chairs (totally unrelated to the snow activity) and busted their chins open on the table.  Eliana must have really smacked her chin hard.  I was in the living room at the time, and heard a big crash.  I came running back in the kitchen and found Eliana on the floor.  She looked quite startled, but told me she had fallen on purpose.  That's what she says when an accident happens and she thinks she is going to get in trouble.  She said she was fine, but then went to the bathroom.  A minute later she comes running to tell me her chin is bleeding.  And boy, she wasn't kidding.  She had quite the gash and for a little bit I was afraid I was going to have to take her to urgent care for stitches.  The problem was she wouldn't let me touch her chin to hold pressure to get the bleeding to stop.  After bleeding through a few bandaids, she finally let me put a steri-strip on her chin.  I think she only let me touch it then because I threatened to call her father and have him come home from work to put in stitches himself.  She seemed quite surprised that he could do such a thing, but I assured her that, as a doctor, he most definitely could.  At that point, mom's "special bandage" didn't seem so bad.

Even though she didn't get stitches, I wouldn't be surprised if she had a little scar there on her chin.

Then, less than 24 hours later, Will did the same thing.  I said, "What happened? Did our kitchen chairs turn into ice? Why are you guys falling out of your chairs?!" He was just eating a snack at the table and, bloop, feel right out of his seat, banging his chin on the table.  Eliana was quick to check out his chin and declared that he had a boo-boo just like her.  Luckily, his wasn't quite as deep, so I was able to just put a regular bandaid on it without threats of stitches by daddy.  Both of their chins are on the mend and looking fine.

Gymnastics Class

One of the perks of half day kindergarten is that the kids are still able to do some fun classes together.  This fall William and Eliana have been taking a gymnastics class.  We have graduated from the "Mommy and Me" class to an actual class where I sit in the hall with Laney and watch. 

They start out on mats stretching and learning new skills.

The favorite of both - the forward roll.  You start out in Pencil with hands above the head.  Next is Mountain with hands on the ground.  Then...

Roll!

Pencil, Mountain...

Roll! (this is a pretty common thing heard at my house lately).

Some of the other things they work on are swinging on or over the bars, handstands, frog jumps (or Dinosaur jumps in William's case), log rolls, and the balance beam.  There is also a lot of jumping on the trampoline.  That's where Will spends a good deal of class time.

Laney just walks around with me outside of class from one window to the next.  It is a great way to spend the morning and burn off some energy!

Gingerbread House

This year for the holidays, I bought a gingerbread house making kit to do with the kids.  One of my coworkers had suggested it, and I thought it sounded like fun.  The kids really enjoyed decorating the houses while also eating most of the candy.  Laney just wanted to lick all of the icing off while completely ignoring the task at hand.  After we had built the houses, William really wanted to eat his.  I told him that he could after his dad came home from work and saw it.  So the next day, Will took a big bite out of his gingerbread wall.  Turns out these well preserved kits are not the freshest tasting cookie.  So Will resorted to eating all the gumdrops instead.

Sampling the candy while he worked.

Will used most of the gumdrops, which he called cannonballs.  I believe his house was supposed to be some sort of impenetrable fortress.

The finished products. The undecorated one in the middle was the one we saved for David to decorate once he got home from work.

The aftermath