Sleepless Christmas

The eve before Christmas Eve, my husband and I were given a priceless gift, an entire night to ourselves. Woohoo! The kids were sleeping over at their grandma’s. We gladly packed their Spiderman suitcase with more toys than clothes and sent them off.

With the kids safe and sound (and supposedly asleep), we decided to take full advantage of our short window of freedom. We called some friends and headed out to party like rock stars. Well, if you know us at all, you know we’re not that adventurous, but we did play Guitar Hero until well past one in the morning. And so, as we fell into bed around two, we were blissfully happy knowing we could sleep as late as we wanted without any middle of the night potty runs or water requests. That was the idea anyway.

The trouble started at 4 AM when my Mom called us to come get Luke. He was completely done with the sleepover and was coming home. So there I go, in my pajamas and slippers to rescue my five year old from the monsters that live at his grandma’s house.

He was so sweet standing there in his pajamas and coat, his eyes still red from crying. I couldn't be mad at him. So I grabbed him up and brought him home. Trying to salvage the night, I fell asleep thinking at least we only had one kid to deal with in the morning, no problem.

I realized I was wrong before dawn when Luke was wide-awake and very excited about Christmas Eve. In his mind, we had a lot to do to get ready for Santa. In my mind, I was desperate for sleep and couldn’t believe what was happening to our perfect night/day off.

Max joined us a little later but things weren’t quite right and they fought and fussed all day. It got so bad the “if you don’t behave I’m calling Santa” line was used more than once.

Finally, after they fell asleep during the Christmas Eve service, I called my mom and asked her when they went to bed the night before. “11:30” she said, as though that is the normal time for a 3 and 5 year old to go to bed. “What!” I screamed, my head spinning around about three times. “Why did they go to bed so late?” “We were just watching a movie,” my mom continued, confused that I was upset.

After five minutes of this, I gave up in defeat. I did, however, come to several conclusions.

1) No more sleepovers until Luke can drive himself home.
2) There’s no such thing as free babysitting.
3) I’m too old to stay out until two in the morning; I don’t care how much fun it is to play Guitar Hero.



How cool is this guy? I'm still smitten.

Christmas Standouts

When I think about the Christmases of my childhood, there are a handful of memories that always come to mind. Hanging the stocking with my name glued on in felt, putting silver icicles on the tree and setting up the manger scene with half a dozen sheep who only had three legs (it was ancient even when I was a kid). There was also the gigantic Santa we put on our front porch. No one else in the neighborhood had one, so of course, I thought we were pretty cool. Now it would be considered tacky, but I still have very fond memories of that Santa.


With my own children, it's interesting to see the parts of Christmas that stand out for them. For Luke, it has been the song Angels We Have Heard On High. He is obsessed with that song and sings it constantly. When he sleeps, we put his CD player on repeat so we don't have to go in there every three minutes and turn it back on.

Max has been obsessed with the Nativity. Merk and I collect Nativity scenes so we have about 15 of them set up this time of year. In early December, I put one in each of the boy's rooms. Max now has four in his room. He would have more, but I had to put them out of reach. It took me awhile to figure it out, but he was taking figures from different sets around the house and setting them up in his room.

This may explain his funny behavior at his preschool pagent this year. They made the mistake of putting Max on the end, right in front of the living Nativity (pre-k kids). He was overwhelmed. He spend the entire show with his back to the audience and staring at the "real life" Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus.




We thought it was funny. I'm not sure the other parents felt the same way.

Luke was also very concerned this year that our tree wasn't up in time. He literally wore us down over Thanksgiving to get that tree up. These pictures were taken on Sunday when we finally gave in. Notice that there's no staging in our tree photos. Normally I would put them in Christmas pajamas and take a lot of pictures. Not this year. After Luke asked for the 100th time, we just put the thing up.

In hindsight, I'm glad we did it that weekend. They both love the tree and take turns every morning turning it on. The both have to do it, so one turns it on, then the other turns it off and then on again.




So now we're down to only a few days until Christmas. This has been a very sweet season for us and I pray that it is for you as well. Thanks for keeping up with us and we want to wish a very Merry Christmas to our dear family and friends.

Sleeping Issues

If you've read this blog at all, you know that Max has sleeping issues. We've been through 25 stuffed animals in the bed to sleeping on the floor and the ever present sleeping backwards on top of the covers. Now, he's into the flashlight. Won't sleep without it.



The fact that my child sleeps with a flashlight doesn't really bother me. If it makes nighttime easier I'll vote for it every time. Now if I could just remember to go in and turn the stinking thing off.

It's a small price to pay except have you bought a package of C batteries lately? Robbery.

Fall Fun

A few pics of our fall activities.

Here's Max as an Indian at his preschool Thanksgiving Feast.


The sandwich he's eating is as big as his head.


The kids had a blast with their cousins. In my opinion, you can't have too many cousins.


Especially if they have a drum set.


Even a pile of leaves can provide hours of fun.



Now we're ready for Christmas!

Christmas List

It's official. Luke has made his list for Santa. We gave him a toy catalog and let him mark the things he wants. As you can see, he's quite optomistic.


Apparently he didn't get the memo on the budget. How many motorized cars does one kid need?


He's also interested in a couple of kitchens.


Let's not forget that we need two bounce houses, a trampoline and a pink playhouse. The playhouse was promptly scratched off when I pointed out that it was pink. He was so focused on checking things off, I don't even think he noticed.