Jingle Bells, White Knuckles, Gold Medals and Puke

There are a couple of themes that came out of Christmas this year:

Jingle Bells: Christmas was truly merry and bright. We packed a ton into our trip home and delighted in how much Sam enjoyed seeing his cousins, grandparents and friends (aka our friends' kids). We snuck in an adults-only dinner with my college friends and loved meeting Jen's fiance for the first time. Sam was buried in gifts at the Peckhams on Christmas Eve, but was really only interested in doing laps around the kitchen, living room and dining room. We brought Sam to mass on Christmas morning and Steve and I were absolutely astounded by Sam's behavior. We spent most of last year's mass in the church basement and were expecting to do the same this year. Totally not the case as Sam was perfectly happy to scope out the people around us and listen to the music. Definitely a highlight in my book.

Our afternoon was filled with food, more gifts and lots of laughter. We finally wrapped up the celebrating at about 10:30 and promptly fell into bed. Sam gave us a very nice gift and slept until 7:40 the next day. Again, another highlight.

White Knuckles: Our ride home to Chicago was pure hell as a dense fog descended on most of Wisconsin. We chose a semi that was going about 55 and stuck behind it almost the entire way (the longest 7 hours of our lives). Steve's hands were sore from gripping the steering wheel and I don't think either one of us has ever been so happy to see 2234 West Charleston. We highly recommend against driving through Wisconsin on a dark, windy and foggy night.

Gold Medals: Grandma and Grandpa both get gold medals for putting up with us and our mess while we were at home. It's amazing how a family of three can descend on a perfectly clean and neat house and immediately turn it upside down. In the midst of that, they managed to pull off another memorable Christmas celebration and some excellent beef tenderloin. Sam gets a gold medal for being an great traveler. He slept in the car when we wanted him to, only fought a couple of naps and handed out lots of hugs and kisses along the way.

Puke: Unfortunately this Christmas will be remembered for its puke. Within 48 hours of Christmas, Angie, Claire, Grandma, Meghan and I all had the flu. I can't remember the last time I felt this terrible, and again, would recommend against it. I just thank God that we made it home before my gage reflex started up. And speaking of gold medals, Steve gets one for driving us home and then welcoming me with open arms when I tapped him on the shoulder at 5 a.m. and told him I was deathly ill. Of course he jumped right in and spent the day taking care of Sam and nursing me back to health. Another priceless gift for me.

Hope you had an equally enjoyable Christmas, minus the white knuckles and puke, of course.

Walk and Roll

Sam has officially graduated from crawling to walking. I have mixed emotions about this development. I loved Sam's crawling days. If you ask me, the crawling phase is just way too short. And not because it's more work to keep an eye on him now that he waddles around. Crawling is just so "baby." I'm a little sad to see him move on.



BUT that's life, so I'm working on embracing it. It's hard not to fall in love given how fun it is to watch him make his way around the house. The only thing that's not to love: all of the trips and falls. So far he's taken a header into the Christmas tree, the side of the toilet and numerous walls. We're hoping that part passes soon.

Bring it On!

The countdown to Christmas is officially on. Sam's been keeping an eye out for Santa and carefully inspecting the tree to make sure everything's in place. The Christmas tunes have been blaring since the day after Thanksgiving and the gifts are slowing stacking up. In about a week we'll be headed to Minnesota! It's amazing how quickly time flies this time of year -- especially when you throw in a couple of crazy weeks at work.
We've been throughly impressed by Sam's restraint around the Christmas tree. We were fully expecting to yell "no!" every time he passed by, but he mostly just gives it a quick once over before moving on. Occasionally he'll examine a branch or an ornament, but otherwise, it's on to more important things like empty plastic bottles and garbage.

Turkey Day 08

Given all of the time that's passed since my last post, you're probably wondering if we survived Thanksgiving.

We did!

Sam was a real trooper on both the trip there and back. He slept most of the way, and when he wasn't sleeping, he just sat quietly (huh??!)

We hit both families on Thanksgiving and the day was so nutty I only ended up taking two photos -- and they are not good ones.

We're all counting the days until Christmas. Mostly because there's so much to do between now and then, but also because we can't wait to catch up with our friends and family again.