Merry Christmas and all that comes with it!

We have had a great couple of weeks (not to slight the weeks preceding when I was STILL not updating our blog!) Christmas preparations were fun and interesting... I thought I had one more "free" year of shopping with Nora and her not really noticing what I was buying. Her expanding vocabulary, though, quickly showed how good her memory is, so I had to steal out in the night to get a few critical gifts while she was asleep! She was with me, though, when we bought other gifts for other people and does not understand the idea of keeping a secret! She kept talking about the mixing bowls we bought for her Aunt Amanda ("bowls! 'Manda!") and even tried to tell Brett about some running socks we bought for him ("yock! Daddy! Shh! Shh!Daddy, yock!"). My brother Andy's girlfriend Tristan threw him a surprise party for his birthday and Nora knew about it... she kept saying "Party! Andy!" but fortunately not when he was around.

So, with my little not-such-a-good secret keeper, we hit many stores all over town and got a lot of errands done. The weekend of December 15th, we packed up and headed to Kalamazoo for my sister Clare's graduation! She got her Bachelor's Degree from Western Michigan, though she's continuing straight on for her Master's Degree. It was fun to celebrate this big milestone with her, and my in-laws were kind enough to take care of Nora during the graduation ceremony, get her dressed up when she woke from her nap, and to deliver her to the restaurant where we celebrated afterward. Brett and I went out to the car to get Nora, and she seemed fairly excited to see us... until Clare came out of the restaurant too. Nora yelled "CARE!" and elbowed me in the throat in her hurry to scramble over to her aunt! We also had a side celebration to acknowledge Genevieve's Master's Degree too... she finished her Master's in Education during the week leading up to Clare's graduation ceremony. All in all, Nora was very happy all weekend to see Yavellos at dinner and to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa Longton's. We were even lucky enough that Great-Grandpa Riggs came over for a visit on Sunday. Lots of love for this little girl.

The next weekend, we packed up again, this time for Christmas visits. In an effort to keep from being up all night on Christmas Eve, we were up way past our bedtime on Friday night trying to pre-prepare as much as we could. I was a little tired the next morning, so we just HAD to stop at the Loony Baker for a coffee and a cinnamon roll on our way to the west side (I would live off of cinnamon rolls if it were even minimally nutritionally acceptable!) That was just the ticket, and we were in high spirits when we got to Brett's Dad's house for a Christmas celebration with Grandma and Grandpa Huffman and Diane's daughters Kelly (and her friend Jeff) and Kim (and her husband Steve and daughter Daphke) {what a poorly constructed sentence... I just wanted to get everyone in there!} We all had a great time, and Daphke was wonderful with Nora... Nora so loved being around a "big kid" and I spotted her copying off of Daphke the whole afternoon and evening. Though when Nora went down for a little nap, Daphke decided that was a good idea and took a little snooze too. Both girls got new baby dolls from Grandma Di, complete with bottles... the bottles were initially the bigger hit with Nora, but now she's playing with the baby as well.

We spent the night back at Brett's mom's house, and awoke very early the next morning to an unexpected sound. I thought it was torrential pouring rain, but Brett said "no, that's wind." Wind! It was relentless!! Sure enough, a short while later it woke Nora up and we then realized there was no power in the house. We rallied and got ready for Mass (I mistakenly washed my hair in the shower with no power to dry it... brrr!), and on our way to the church we saw the culprit... a huge tree had fallen and was pulling the power lines almost down to the ground. The power company's initial estimation was that power would be back by noon the NEXT day (Monday), so we were starting to think we might have to cut the visit short and go home... the house was getting chilly. After mass, we stopped for a warm brunch/lunch and on our way back to the house -- HALLELUJAH! -- we saw the power guys working on the problem spot we'd seen earlier! We bundled Nora up for her nap (onesie, long-sleeve t-shirt, tights, full footed fleece pjs, and a sweat suit [thank you Kelly!]) and just as she was going down, the power came on. It still took a while to heat the house up, but the visit was saved!

Monday we had a nice day of hanging out and then Brett's Grand-pa (Great Grand-pa Riggs to Nora) came over for a great dinner and some present opening. When it came to opening presents, Nora turned out to have the attention span of a gnat. We almost had to tackle her to the ground to get her to focus on opening her last few gifts. But she was thrilled with all of the wonderful gifts, particularly the little grey cat that came with her new Duplo building blocks. As a surprise, Casey showed up after we had dinner (he'd come straight from work) so we got to have some time with him as well! Too soon, though, we had to pack up the car and head home so Santa could find Nora asleep in her own bed on Christmas Eve.

[wow, this is becoming quite the long narrative! If you're tired of all this, feel free to duck out at any time... no hard feelings! If not, we'll plow on...]

Christmas morning was great! Nora slept in a little and woke up very cheerful if not confused about why this day was more special than any other day of the week. We got her a fresh diaper and brought her out into the living room, where she IMMEDIATELY said "Bike! Bike! Bike!" She went straight to the big chair behind which, it turned out, Santa had hidden a brand new Red Ryder Tricycle! We still don't know how she found it so fast... maybe Santa snuck in her room and told her where to look while we were sleeping. :) Taking a cue from the previous present openings, we wrapped gifts in groups so there were fewer packages to open, and things went pretty smoothly. If you were friends with us (the Yavellos) when we were kids, you might remember that we had this little house that slipped over a card table. I made one for Nora this year and it was, thankfully, a big hit! Not as big a hit, though, as the jar of fake pickles that Santa left in her stocking (it's been five days now since she got that, and she still has it with her all the time).

"Towel puppy." She loved this so much that we almost didn't want to unwrap and use the towel puppy as an actual towel.

After a breakfast of cheese strata (mine needs work... not as good as the traditional fare at Mama Yavello's) and warm peaches, we spiffied ourselves up and headed to Divine Child to meet the family for Mass at 11. It turned out that we were the ONLY people who "knew" mass was at 11... everyone else decided it should be 11:30. Luckily, the family was just a few blocks away, so we spent a half an hour with them before returning with the rest of the parishoners for Mass. Read on to the bottom, and I'll tell you something funny about that half hour. Back at Grandma and Grandpa Yavello's, we dug into the presents! It was a little chaotic, scratch off lottery tickets were being scratched off left and right (the Huffmans didn't win this year... but Gen and Clare both won a few bucks), wrapping paper everywhere, and a whole lot of fun. Our Aunt Judy and Andy's girlfriend Tristan joined us for an early dinner (and Nora took a nap, which was nice timing), and a good time was had by all. After Nora got up, and dinner was over, we packed up AGAIN and went over to my Uncle Harold's house to throw out a Merry Christmas to my mom's side of the family. After a very long day (traumatic too-- when Nora saw us packing up her toys she started crying, not understanding that we were going to take them to our house), we got home to spend 2 hours trying to get our wound-up girl to sleep.

The next day we tried to find new homes for all the new toys, and were excited to see Lon, Diane, and Diane's Uncle Bob stop by for a little visit... they brought MORE presents, this time Birthday, for Nora. She loves her new little sled, now we just wait for the snow. That evening, my friend Beth came over to babysit Nora for the first time. Nora thinks they're best friends so she was thrilled to see Beth come in, though she tried to play it cool. After a quick tutorial on diaper changing and a run down of the bedtime routine, Brett and I left the girls with all the new toys and went to Andy's party. It was a fun time, he was surprised, and we got to meet a lot of the friends of his we always hear so much about! We got home to find out things went pretty well with Beth's first babysitting adventure here... a little bit of crying for mama, but Nora talked Beth through it. Haha, so hilarious (it's late at night when I'm writing this first draft, so please cut my bad jokes some slack!) Obviously, it was Nora who cried, but my favorite part came after Beth settled her down and got her all snuggly for bed. In my review of the bedtime routine rundown, I had forgotten to add that Nora sleeps in the dark, so Beth initially left a little dim light on for Nora. As she laid Nora in her crib, Nora started to cry/ whine a little, and then put her head up and said in an indignant sort of voice "Lights Out! Lights Out!!!" I laughed so hard when we heard that... if we've talked to you in the last few days, you've already heard this because Brett and I both thought it was so funny!

The 27th was a recovery day for us and our house... and then the big Birthday was upon us! Nora turned 2 on the 28th. Again, she didn't understand why this day was a big deal, but as soon as Brett played the Beatles' birthday song ("You say it's your Birthday!") she went nuts! She listened to that song ALL day and danced like a maniac every time. I have a video of her dancing in the highchair the first few times she heard it at breakfast... if I can, I'll post it on here. The rest of the day was pretty normal (with breaks for more birthday song dancing), and then a bunch of people came over for dinner to help celebrate: Grandma and Grandpa Yavello, Grandma and Grandpa Longton, Great Grand-pa Riggs, Brett's Aunt Pam, Uncle Warren, and cousin Josh, Great-Aunt Judy, Aunt Genevieve, Aunt Clare, Uncle Andy, and our friends Angie & Tom and their boys Ethan & Cameron (little newbie! He arrived Dec 6th!). Nora had an absolute blast, and played hostess for a little while serving pretzels to our guests (but not before taste testing each one by taking one bite out of it first). She got even MORE presents, each of them so thoughtful and generous. A standout for entertainment value was one of the last she opened (so she was pretty wound up)... it was a Tickle-Me Elmo. Once she recognized his laugh and realized who was in the box, she was a little worried and wanted to get him out right away ("Help! Help!"). Once she saw him do his thing, she laughed almost as hard as he does! It was fun for the adults to see her have so much fun with this laughing toy! Amazingly, at the end of that big night of birthday fun, she went straight to bed without complaint, and slept right through the night.

losing focus...

Nora has embraced all the big-girl-ness that comes with being two. A few weeks ago she started counting up to nine with pretty decent regularity. Today, she spelled Nora for me once I got her started with the "N." She is talking more and more and will recount stories for us one to three words at a time, much to her own amusement!

I think the remainder of Brett's vacation (through New Year's Day) will be pretty low key and relaxing. Brett finally had a chance to get us down to the Wayne County Festival of Lights on Hines Drive, and was right... Nora loved it. We're having a great time just hanging out with each other and with our extended family while people have been in town. With the hustle of the days before Christmas, we never did get Christmas cards out, so here are our wishes to you... Merry Christmas, and a very, very happy new year!

Love,

Sarah, Brett and Nora

You're still here? Wow, a gold star to you... this was a very long post. Since you've been so loyal and persistant, here's a surprise for you. It turns out 2008 will be a year of adding on for the Huffmans:

The funny story I mentioned above about the half hour before we got to Christmas Mass was that it turns out my mom, Genny and Clare have all suspected that someone new was on the way for a little while now. They were comparing notes ("did Sarah drink at Thanksgiving?" "I saw pre-natal vitamins at her house!") and yet, there was still no announcement. When I left Nora upstairs at my parents' house with Genny and Clare, they pounced, and asked her "is Mommy going to have a baby?" (way to pump the 2 year old for information, figuring she was the weakest link!) For once, Nora did NOT spill the beans... she said "No." So later, when all the present opening was almost over, we gave my parents a card signed "Sarah, Brett, Nora, and Someone New." My mom didn't notice it right away, so I asked "did you see who signed the card?" As she lifted the card to look at it again, Genny and Clare jumped up out of their seats and each yelled "I KNEW IT!!!!!"

So the info we have so far: this little person should be here sometime in mid-July. So far, everything has gone very well. I've been feeling queasy and very tired (pretty typical) and we've taken that to be (hopefully) a good sign since I felt the same way when I was pregnant with Nora. She is starting to learn that we have a new baby coming to our house, but I seriously doubt she understands exactly what that means! We were already planning to move Nora to a "big girl" room this year... this pretty much confirms it. We would certainly appreciate any and all prayers for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby!