Dear Connor and Grace, We spent a very relaxing Christmas Day with the Thompsons. We surprised Papa Jerry at his church in the morning. Papa Jerry shares his birthday with Jesus so it was extra special. We then hung out at Ma and Papa's until we headed over to Aunt Jeryl's house. Enjoy! Love, Mommy
Papa, Connor and Grace couch time.
Mia was cooperating the best with posing for pictures.
Grandma Patti insisted that Daddy and I lay down for nap time since both of you happened to be napping at the same time. Between having a newborn and trying to keep up with the Christmas festivities, we were exhausted. We woke up rested and ready to continue our celebration at Aunt Jeryl's house.
My cousin, Spenser, is always so good with both of you. He was showing Grace Erik's Winnie the Pooh ornament from when he was her age.
Dear Connor and Grace, We spent Christmas Eve at Grammie Mo and Grandpa Den's house. It started with a gift exchange with the O'Connors, followed by cocktail hour, dinner and a visit from Santa Claus! Enjoy! Love, Mommy Grace, you and Auntie Colleen share a love of Winnie the Pooh. You sat on her lap and made her read your new coloring book to you.
Everyone was so excited for the guest of honor.
Connor, you couldn't take your innocent eyes off Santa.
Grace, you still wake up in the morning and from your naps saying "ho, ho, ho" and reminding me that you waved "bye bye" to Santa as he was leaving.
Santa brought every good boy and girl a little something, giving everyone the opportunity to sit on his lap for the perfect photo opp.
We feel beyond blessed and grateful this Christmas season to be surrounded by so much family. It's completely different than how we celebrated as a little family of three last year. We had three days of Christmas with family this year starting with the Thompson brunch and gift exchange the Sunday before the holiday. Everyone brought a little something- making it a very relaxing morning. Enjoy!
Love, Mommy
Baby's 1st Christmas!
Mimosas or Lonnie's famous bloody mary's anyone?
Yes, please.
Connor, your personality is showing more and more everyday through your smiles and giggles.
I'm obviously not the only one enjoying them. :)
Aunt Susan introduced our family to a British Christmas tradition years ago after visiting her best friend, Julie, in the UK. Christmas poppers! After hearing a loud pop there are goodies and paper crowns to be found inside.
Aunt Susan started the gift exchange by handing out an extra surprise this year for Daddy and the two Uncle Matts. Santa iced the boys.
It's a silly drinking game that Aunt Libbie started the day she married Uncle Matt. When you're at least 21 and someone sneakily gives you a Smirnoff Ice you have to take a knee and drink it.
Uncle Matthew gave Papa Lon IU basketball pants just like Daddy's. These were a hot item this year.
You were so excited to receive Uncle Matthew's handmade gift to you and Connor. He spent an endless amount of hours in Papa Jerry's garage making all his future and current nieces, nephews and kids of his own a set of table and chairs. You recognized them from Papa and Grandma's house and sat down right away. Thanks to Papa Jerry, Aunt Libbie, Uncle Matthew and I had a set to play with growing up too!
Your engineering uncle also set up your train set from Ma and Papa.
Between this little blue train and one of your new train books, you seem to always have one in hand while saying, "choo choo."
Our family may have some quirky traditions, but we sure do know how to laugh and have fun together.
Dear Connor and Grace, Since Grace is in love with books, I thought a book advent calendar would be the perfect tradition to start this year. I've always wanted to collect enough Christmas books to be wrapped, opened and read everyday leading up to Christmas. It's been my favorite idea to encourage her early literacy. Being a teacher, I love seasonal books and have quite the collection. I've been collecting them after the season every year since I started teaching. Some of them are from the $ store, gifts from Grandparents and even photo books of past Christmases. I also found some extra special books in the London bookstores last year, like Grace's personal favorite,Winnie the Pooh and the Christmas Surprise.There's only one noted to not be opened until Christmas Eve- Twas the Night Before Christmas read by Grammie Mo. Grace gets to pick out one wrapped book every night after Daddy gets home from work. It took a few days for her to understand that she only gets to open one book/night. Now, she says "one book" as she shows us one finger and crawls under the tree. Connor, we look forward to you being old enough to become more involved in this family tradition in the future. Enjoy! Love, Mommy
Other ideas:
I'm not crazy about the fact that we use so much wrapping paper. Maybe in the future I'll get more organized and reuse bags and tissue paper.
Once Connor's old enough to join, I've read to wrap the books using different wrapping paper per child. That way when they alternate who opens the nightly book, they choose a book wrapped in their own paper.
We just have the wrapped books under the tree which go into a basket I have placed next to it, but there are so many ideas out there. I also like the idea of having a wrapped gift at the foot of your child's bed, ready and waiting to be opened every night or morning. Maybe when they're older? If your kids' have their own trees in their bedrooms, you can also keep them under there.
If you're not thrilled about the idea buying so many books, you can also rent them from your local library. You may have to plan this in advance in case others have a similar idea.
Aunt Colleen has a Christmas cookie bake every year for the O'Connor ladies (plus Connor this year since he comes with me when I'm out and about for long periods at a time). Everyone brings the ingredients to bake cookies and Grammie Mo provides the icing and toppings to decorate her sugar cut-out cookies. One of my favorite parts about this family tradition is that the rest of the O'Connor ladies in Arizona have also continued thuds tradition out there with Grandma Jo ever since it was started back in 2008. Enjoy!
Love, Mommy
Grace decoratingeating cookies with Grammie Mo.
Veronica and Nanette busy baking.
Brittany and Aunt Kimberly preparing their cookies.
This little munchkin sat back and enjoyed the show.
You two have seen a lot of cousin Britt lately between the Christmas festivities and her coming over to babysit while Daddy and I sneak away for a couple hours.
Side note: I've been busy the last couple weeks enjoying the Christmas season with family, especially the little ones. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up with Christmas posts this week.
Dear Connor and Grace, This has been quite the exciting week between Grace's birthday and Christmas only being a couple weeks away. This week also brought the arrival of the Elf on the Shelf. For those of you who aren't familiar with the storyline, Elf arrives at your house during the Christmas season and reports your behavior back to Santa. Grace doesn't remember to look for him in the morning, but she shows her excitement by yelling "Elllllf" once she spots him. For now he is called Elf, until next Christmas when she'll be old enough to name him. Enjoy! Love, Mommy
One of the Elf on the Shelf "rules" is that you're not supposed to touch him. We'll work on that one next year...
Of course Grace had to run and share the excitement with her baby brother.
Last Saturday, GMa and Papa Lon watched you two while Daddy and I spent the entire day in the city. We had a holiday fun filled day of running a 5K Santa Hustle, breakfast with mimosas and bloody mary's and a quick visit to the German Christmas market. Aunt Libbie, Uncle Matt, Aunt Susan and Uncle Matthew started this annual sibling tradition last year while we were in London. Enjoy!
Love, Mommy
Yes, all participants were given a Santa hat, beard and shirt.
Cheers before the race!
It was a pretty cool ride from Libbie and Matt's apartment to the start line. Santa was at every corner.
After breakfast we met Vinny at the German Christmas market.
It was a record breaking warm Saturday in December. Needless to say, we weren't the only ones who had this festive idea.
We also walked past the Macy's windows on our way back to the train station since it was only a block away.
Thanks Mom and Dad for making this event possible. It's so easy leaving the two little ones for such a long period of time, knowing they're left in good hands. xoxo, Kate
