How Christmas Was Saved

One set of Nathan's grandparents lives in Utah while the other lives in Minnesota.  We got really lucky for Christmas this year with both sides of our family in Utah.  And we almost didn't make it there.

We were all ready to go.  We had our own little Christmas before leaving so we wouldn't have to bring our gifts.  Our bags were packed with Christmas goodies for our families.  We woke up at 4:30 to head off the airport so we would have plenty of time with holiday travel.  We were traveling just 2 days before Christmas and we knew it would be crazy.  We arrived at the airport and went to bag check.  The line didn't look too bad so we thought the hour and a half we had left ourselves would be more than enough.  We soon realized we were moving no where fast in this line.  There was only one Delta representative working the bag check line. One! On the day before Christmas Eve! After an hour of waiting in line we finally got to the desk only to find out we could not get on our flight.  "Bags have to be checked in 45 minutes prior to departure," she said. "You can get on standby for this afternoon's flight," she said.  There may have been tears on my part at this point.  The likelihood of getting on a flight on standby during holiday travel was zero. We'd seen practically everyone in front of us getting rebooked/put on standby.  We asked if there was another flight that we could get seats on.  The Delta lady came back with tickets for the next afternoon, Christmas Eve.  It was all we could do at that desk.  After a little investigation we found out there were no seat assignments for that ticket either.  It felt like Christmas might be cancelled.  We went back home, heartbroken at the prospect of having a present-less, family-less Christmas.

Luckily, we had someone who actually might be able to help us.  We called Brad's dad who is a "Double Platinum Diamond Super Elite Delta Skymiles Member" or something like that.  He made some calls, didn't take no for an answer, and got us tickets for that day!  It was a Christmas miracle.

Not wanting to miss the flight we had procured by some act of Christmas magic, we gave ourselves 2 hours to get through the bag check line.  When we walked back into the airport I couldn't help but laugh.  There was not a soul in line for bag check.   We checked in, dropped off our bags, and went through security all in 15 minutes.

If I said everything after that was a breeze, that would be a lie.  We had a grouchy toddler who hadn't gotten his nap because of all the change of plans.  We did have the nice comfort seats right behind first class with extra leg room so I laid Nathan on the floor to go to bed.  He went to sleep, but an hour in I saw he was restless.  "Oh, he'll find a new position and go back to sleep," I thought.  Well a minute later I hear a little gasp, Nathan crying, and a lady calls back, "We have your baby."  Nathan had crawled into first class where they were eating their dinner.  What a surprise!

After all that we finally made it to Utah for Christmas.

We had our first Christmas with the Bennetts. There was presents and lots of good food.  The best part was skyping with our missionary in Italy.  Adrianne was so happy and doing so well!  

Byron broke his collarbone just before Christmas
so he had to use his teeth to open his gifts. 

I might have made this beanie for him.

And I might have made this hood/cowl for my sister.

Watching "The Polar Express" together. 

We also got to spend Christmas with our Packer family.  Nathan's favorite part was playing with all of his cousins and they were so sweet to him.  The boys would run around with the purpose with getting Nathan to run after them and he would giggle and follow along.  Anna would come up to give Nathan hugs and kisses.  Ella and Kate were also very sweet to play with him which made him so happy.  Don't let this picture fool you.  He really does love his cousins.

And after a very quick week it was back to Philly.  The trip back was so much better.  There was extra room on the flight so Nathan got his own seat.  And Nathan's pretty much a pro at this whole flying thing now.  You read Sky magazine and then take a nap until you land.

It was kind of quick trip with seeing both families, but spending Christmas with them made it well worth all the effort.

Visit to Santa

For no real reason, I've wanted to bring Nathan to see Santa Claus.  He's not going to remember it, he doesn't even care to go see Santa, and he would most likely hate it.  But I visions of him sitting on Santa's lap, curiously looking up into Santa's twinkling eyes, and ever so sweetly asking for a "gar" (car) for Christmas.  I couldn't stop myself.

We visited Santa today and as I predicted, he cried through the whole experience.  He had one quite humorous sad faced picture that I almost paid for, but the ones I snapped will have to do.  Had it been as great as this gem, I would have.

18 at 18 Months

He's grown up a lot in the last 3 months!  Here's a few of the highlights.
- Loves watching the "gars" out of the window.
- He likes coloring, but loves playing with stickers.
- His 18 month stats are: 21 lbs 1 oz (12 percentile), 31.5 inches tall (26 percentile), and 18 inch head circumference (15 percentile.)

- I sometimes call him "My Little Linus" since he loves his little blue blankie so much.
- He's pushed off the TV backwards off of its stand and dented the wall.  Twice.
- He is still a finger sucker.
- He's liking talking to his grandmas and grandpas on FaceTime.  He will finally sit to smile and talk to them.

- One of his favorite places is in our reading/car watching nook.  He loves to lounge in his special spot and read.
- He's starting to climb on things he's not supposed to.  Like using the kitchen cart as a ladder.

- I finally have some pictures of Nathan's head not tilting!  I don't know that I've talked about this on the blog, but Nathan has tortacollis (a head tilt.) We've been going to physical therapy to correct it for 10 months!  It's been a long time!  We're so close to being done and having his head always being in the center and having these photos of his head straight is one of those light at the end of the tunnel moments for us.

- Still taking 1 nap, and it is still long.  At least 3 hours, usually 4.  I know I'm lucky.
- He loves to eat the same things we are eating at dinner.  He ate all the broccoli I gave him for dinner tonight.
- His least favorite time of day, I'm sad to say, is bath time.  He used to love it.  He slipped a few weeks ago while he was standing up and almost went under the water.  I was right there so he didn't go under, but it sure scared him.  Every time I give him a bath he cries through the whole experience.  Any suggestions on how to get him liking bath time again?

- He does a great job of cleaning up his toys.  In fact, I found him the other day unprompted "cleaning up" his toys right into the trash can!
- He loves to run, run, run!
- He's been sneaking into nursery for the past month, and yesterday he went all by himself.  He did great, except for (oddly enough) clean up time.
- When I lay him down in his crib he will roll over and wedge himself against the side rails and smile back up at me to give him his blanket.

- He has such an infectious little laugh.  He is always having a good time and loves to giggle away at how silly he is.  Seriously love his happy little personality.

Longwood Christmas 2013

I don't know how the gardeners at Longwood come up with something even more creative and even more beautiful to top the year before.  But they do and I'm always amazed! The theme this year was using fruit to decorate.  Some of my favorites this year were the pineapple tree toppers, the huge floating apple display, and the chandeliers made out of orchids. We invited some of friends to join us and I'm so glad they could come enjoy one of our favorite Christmas traditions with us.

These make me so excited to see to what they come up with for 

Orchid Festival in a couple of months!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Little Buddy wanted to help with decorating the Christmas tree.  He helped pull out the ornaments.

But then got distracted playing in the box. By this point it was Nathan's bedtime so we resumed the next day (and thus the change of clothes.)

Nathan was so soft putting the snowflakes on, but it's a good thing they are plastic because he would mostly hold them where he wanted them and then let go.

He loves hiding out behind the Christmas tree.  He'll crawl back there and softly play with tree or his snowflake ornaments.

I'd love for our Christmas tree to stay up all season long so here's to hoping he'll continue to play softly with the tree.

A Green Dinosaur

When Brad was a little boy he was green dinosaur for Halloween.

Well guess what?  When I was a little girl I was a green dinosaur for Halloween too.

Well I bet you know what Nathan was for Halloween then.  Yes, he was green dinosaur.  Nathan loved being a little dinosaur and would even roar with it on.

We went to our ward Halloween party and Nathan won the best animal costume award.  Brad and I also won the best couple costume award as the tooth fairy and her tooth.

Happy Halloween!

Carving a Pumpkin

Nathan was actually a great little helper and was fascinated by carving our pumpkins.  With no prompting from me he went ahead with pulling out guts and seeds.  He did this mostly to try what they would taste like, which turns outs he thought pretty tasty.