Colorado Mini Trip

Over a long MLK weekend, the kids and I took a mini vacation.  Will and Laney went to visit their grandparents in Indianapolis while I took Eliana with me on a trip to visit my sister Abby and her family in Denver, CO. We drove to Indianapolis on a Thursday evening, and flew out Friday morning. Eliana was going to miss one day of school on Friday, however, they received so much snow back in Columbus that her school had a snow day anyway! So it turns out she didn't miss a thing.  We got a little less snow in Indy that day, but our flight was still delayed about 2 hours due to the snow.  Once in Colorado though, the weather was wonderful! Sunny and warmer, we really picked the right place for a our winter vacation.

Eliana did a great job on the plane.  She has actually flown twice as a lap child (both of those trips involved visiting my sister Abby as well!) but this was the first time she had flown since she was 14 months old.  She was very well behaved and spent most of the flight coloring in her new activity book or playing on the iPad.  She was really amazed on our flight back to Indy because we flew later in the evening after dark, so she liked to look out of the window and see all the cities lit up below.  She marveled at how small everything looked - whole cities were just the size of her finger!

Once in Colorado, we got to meet my new niece Naomi for the first time. She was just a tiny baby, only 3 weeks old! Naomi was an excellent sleeper in the morning so Eliana got to have lots of cuddle time with her new cousin. Due to the time change, Eliana and I were up earlier than the rest of my sister's family.  So when Naomi would wake up at 5 or 6 in the morning, Abby would bring her down to us to cuddle and then she would go back to sleep.  I didn't mind (too much) getting up early because at least I got an uninterrupted night of sleep! My mom was getting up with Laney back in Indiana and Abby was getting up with Naomi.  All I had to worry about was Eliana who is my best sleeper at night.  So I was pretty much in heaven!

While baby cuddles were fun, we also really enjoyed seeing my Goddaughter and one of Eliana's favorite cousins, Hannah.  We celebrated her 2nd birthday while we were visiting.  Eliana and Hannah make a great pair, and play well together.  Until they both start acting like the oldest child and get stubborn about having their way.  Luckily those moments were few. 

Eliana and Hannah together at last! Dressed like twins in their matching purple coats.

Morning snuggles with sweet baby Naomi

What a special Mommy/Eliana trip we got to take.

The girls playing inside Hannah's playhouse. Eliana was pretending to be a teacher and Hannah was the student.

Eliana was really good with Naomi and always put her back to sleep in the mornings.

 During our trip, we visited Red Rock Amphitheater, which is a giant concert and event venue built right into a natural amphitheater in the rocks.  Tons of people made the short hike to this beautiful sight and were just climbing up and down the many many stair in the theater. Hannah was like the Energizer bunny and just kept climbing and climbing the stairs!

These were the rocks behind the stage.  My amazing sister, just over 3 weeks out from having a baby, hiked along with us while wearing Naomi in her carrier.

We left the amphitheater and continued hiking around Red Rocks Park.  Eliana named this rock formation "Turtle Rock"

 We had some hungry, tired girls on our hands after this exciting day. 

Our last morning in Colorado, Hannah opened her birthday presents and spent some time playing with Ana.  She is such a sweet little girl, and we had a great time. 

Eliana and I had an excellent trip!  (Will and Laney enjoyed their vacation to Grandma's house as well).  I can't wait to do it again with the whole family sometime this summer.

Shopping List

I know this is hard to read, but look very closely at this shopping list. Can you find what was added to this list? Like, if I was shopping and not paying attention, I might just pick some up ... just because the list told me to? Haha, sneaky!

Eliana's 6th birthday

Can you believe our big girl is 6 years old?  She continues to grow before our eyes.  At her check up, she was 48in tall (90th percentile!!) and weighed 50lbs (75th percentile). Her latest desire is to become an artist when she grows up. She loves to draw and paint, and can go through a blank pad of paper in just a few days.  She mostly gets along well with her brother when it is just the two of them, but she fights with and excludes him if she has any friends over her own age.  She likes to play "homeschool" with her siblings where she is the teacher and Will and Laney are the students.  They do things like have coloring time, snack time, or recess.  Sometimes they even have Spanish homeschool where Teo, our nanny, is the teacher.  Will and Laney seem to love it, and follow her around doing as she wishes.  Her favorite foods are chocolate and ice cream.

For her actual birthday, we had a small celebration at home with chocolate cupcakes.  The next day, she had three friends over for a "drop off" party (meaning her friends' parents didn't stay). I'm not exactly sure what the girls did.  They played in Eliana's room with the door shut, and I heard lots of giggling and talking.  At one point when we were having pizza for dinner, they all started telling jokes.  It seems like they quickly ran out of real jokes that they know (How does the ocean say hello? It waves!) and deteriorated into poop jokes (Why did the poop cross the road? Poopy!).  Why do kids think poop is the funniest word ever? I feel like this was party was very reflective of what I have to look forward to for the next several years.  Eliana ended the party with giving out goody bags (she even made one for her brother with a lizard in it).  This is apparently the most important part of any birthday party.

I love that big girl of mine.  She knows how to push my buttons the most, but she can also be the sweetest little girl.  We are so blessed that God gave her to us 6 years ago.

Celebrating with family.

Messy Laney loves her chocolate cupcake.

How selfies usually end up...

This picture is actually of a Christmas, not birthday, present, but I feel is represents well how much Eliana has grown. She got a K'nex set for Christmas which I wasn't sure how much she would be able use or enjoy.  However, she understood how it worked right away!  I don't know why this surprised me so much.  She's very smart.  I guess she is just my oldest and I don't realize how much she is growing up. But she understood the directions and with very little help was able to quickly build anything in the instruction book.

Eliana's finished Eiffel Tower, mere seconds before William tipped it over and tried to break it. (The hardest part of this present is keeping her little siblings from ruining/eating what she is working on.)

Christmas Eve snow

On Christmas Eve, there was a big snow fall in Indiana.  My kids had a blast playing in the snow at their Grandparents' house. 

Will in the backyard with Grandpa

Laney didn't have great "snow weather" clothing.  Her main winter coat isn't very waterproof and doesn't have a hat.  So overtop of her pink coat I put a 3T vest of Will's that he has never really worn.  Laney loves her new vest! Especially because it has pockets.  (She hates mittens and always takes them off.) She also doesn't have any snow pants because I have never had a kid in 12 month clothing before that could walk.  She seemed to do ok for a while, but did have to go in a little early due to the cold.

The snow really started coming down! Will made a little snowman with Grandma on the picnic table.  He then promptly crushed it! Which is his usual response to any snowman that he can find.

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.

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