The Christmas Post

Our drive to New Hampshire on Wednesday night went much better than I expected.  (I love when that happens!)  We got the kids ready for bed and left the house a little after 8:30.  Both kids were asleep within an hour and mostly slept through the night.  I was assuming that the trip would take a minimum of twelve hours, but it only took eleven!  I am SO thankful that we had our van.  It made sleeping, giving bottles, and recovering fallen toys ten times easier.

My parents' house is lovely, but only has two bedrooms and a small living room.  To accommodate six adults and four small children, my parents rented a house.  It was....interesting.  The positive parts were that it had 5 bedrooms and tons of living space.  There was plenty of room for everyone to play and relax without bumping into each other.  We were super excited because it advertised having an indoor heated pool.  Well, I guess I should have learned my lesson in February.  "Heated pool" seems to be up for interpretation.  Fortunately, the "hot tub" was warm enough that Micah and Lucy could play around in there.  There were also some issues with parts of the house being too warm and other parts too cold, lots of things that were unfinished or broken, and not everything was toddler-proof. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, though.  The quirks of the house did not take away from our fun.  And like I said, it was awesome to have so much space.

 Our Christmas included many of our usual activities:

Poppa falling asleep

doing puzzles - even a 3D globe!

lots of sweets - here's Lucy and Gramme making a birthday cake for Jesus

 

 

 

We got to spend time with the creative and adorable Lucy...

...and meet our new niece Natalie!

 

 (Funny side note: not only did we unknowingly put Hannah and Natalie in identical outfits on our Christmas cards, but Meredith bought the same Christmas gift for Hannah that I bought for Natalie!  Ha! I guess we must have good taste. )

Here's Hannah and Natalie hanging out together.  

One of my presents was a lift ticket from my parents.  The ski conditions were great, and it was so nice to spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law.  I only wish I were in better shape.  My legs couldn't last much past lunch!  

The day before we left was a pretty big snowstorm.    Meredith and the babies and I watched from the window while everyone else played in the snow.

Fortunately, it stopped snowing by the time we were ready to start driving on Monday night.  We altered our route to avoid the storm and had very strong winds, so it took us closer to twelve hours to get home.  The trip also seemed quite a bit longer because Micah had trouble sleeping. He was not soundly asleep until the wee hours of the morning....and then Hannah woke up. :)  Oh, well.  It could have been a lot worse.  And, as Scott pointed out, if we had been flying we probably would have been dealing with lots of delayed and canceled flights.

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas as well.  Chamberlins, I love you and miss you already!

We're Home

We survived almost 12 hours in the car to make it home safely.  I'm a little too tired to post our Christmas pictures right now.  Tune in next time....

Super Fun Saturday

In addition to buying a van, we got to have lots of family fun this weekend.  The activity in Micah's Advent calendar for Saturday was making a gingerbread house.  It was a first for both Micah and me.

 

That afternoon Daddy and Micah tried to build a snowman, but the snow was too fluffy.  They had to find other ways to entertain themselves outside.

We topped the day off by stopping at the mall to get a new suitcase for Daddy.  (His broke, and we wanted to take advantage of sale prices.)  This event falls in the "super fun" category because we got to ride the escalator.  Then dinner at Chick-fil-a made a great end to a super day.

New Wheels

A lot of you probably already saw my post on facebook.  For those of you who aren't on facebook (both of you), the big news in the Gurley house is that we are retiring my 1995 Toyota Corolla.  I bought my car back in the summer of 1999 (let's not talk about Mawah, NJ and the reason why I needed to buy a new car) with the help of my parents and money that my aunt and uncle had put in a CD for me when I was little.  I drove that car 125,000 miles in the past 11 1/2 years.  Besides replacing the alternator (twice) and the starter (twice), that car ran like a gem.  You would never know that it hit a deer at 70mph.  

           It did accumulate a few "quirks" over the years.  For exampe, it has stains on the seats and ceiling from several soda cans exploding in the heat.  The trunk no longer opens with a key; you have to pop it from the inside.  And if you're trying to get out the passenger side door, make sure you have two hands free to press in the broken piece while pulling on the handle.

          By now you may be wondering, "Why would you ever get rid of such an awesome car?"  Well, as Micah would tell you, "We don't have room for Poppa."  What he means is that with two car seats in the back there is no room for another person to squeeze back there.  And the passenger seat has to be almost all the way forward to accommodate Hannah's rear-facing car seat.  So when Gramme and Poppa came to visit, there simply wasn't room for all of us to get in the car together.   Nor is there room to take a friend to the park, give someone a ride home from church, or fit a big package when the stroller is in the trunk.  It was time for some more space.

   Last week we finally found a van that had my wish of power sliding doors, and Scott's desire for low mileage and a warranty (he's so practical and responsible).  It's a 2007 KIA that's in fantastic condition and has lots of fun power features (and about 12 cup holders - you can never have too many).  The timing is perfect.  We'll break it in this week as we drive 700 miles to New Hampshire for Christmas.  Hooray!

the beginning of a beautiful relationship...

posing with the AAA guy after locking my keys in the car

one of many, many college road trips

on the way from PA to TN

after the crazy road trips and work commutes, then came the car seats

one last picture together

our new van!

Pictures

Yoga

 

Hm, that's a weird position for a baby to be in.  What is she doing?  A backbend?  Yoga?

Nope.  Just trying to see the TV.

Micah is amazingly good about being patient when I'm taking care of Hannah.  He got out a puzzle for us to do and got started by himself while he waited for me.  Look at all the pieces he got together on his own!

Tired

 Hannah was so tired this morning that she put herself down for a nap!  She fell asleep on the futon, so I just closed the door and left her there.  Since she wasn't sleeping in her room, I finally got to put up the letters for her name on the wall:

And these shots are from yesterday.  Babies in hats are always cute.

3 Months

Hannah is 3 months old today!

Both yesterday and today have been beautiful snowy days.  Yesterday Micah and I bundled up and headed outside.  We shoveled half of the driveway, and went sledding on the other half.  Afterward I introduced my rosy-cheeked boy to the deliciousness of hot chocolate.  Yum!

Bacon and Bakin'

During Thanksgiving we opened a few of our Christmas presents.  Aunt Julie gave me these cool squeeze bottles and tips for decorating.  We got them out for Micah's advent calendar activity on Saturday and made gingerbread men.  Micah had fun, and surprised me again with his good hand-eye coordination.

For dinner that night we had blueberry pancakes and bacon.  (Bacon and chicken nuggets are the only two forms of meat that Micah will eat.)  To make it extra healthy, Micah decided to dip his bacon in syrup. Here he is with a very sticky and blue face.

This and That

Most moms occasionally have that moment when they realize the house is just a little too quiet. Usually it means that someone is being naughty and/or creating a terrible mess. Yesterday when one of those moments occurred I was pleasantly surprised. I called downstairs to ask Micah what he was doing, and he responded, "I'm reading books to myself." And he actually was!

Hannah is getting bigger and stronger. At her two month appointment (which was really almost three months) she was eleven pounds, eight ounces, and twenty-four inches long. Today I put her in the bumbo seat, and she had no problem sitting up.

She likes to suck her thumb, of which I'm a fan. Primarily because she can calm herself down and get herself back to sleep without a half-asleep parent stumbling in to give her a pacifier. Because her thumb is so little, it's also pretty cute to watch.


Last year a friend found this Advent calendar with pockets that she wanted to get for her mom.

It was in the Pottery Barn catalog and a little pricey, so she asked me if I thought I could replicate it for cheaper. I bought some materials to give it a try and quickly learned the answer is "no". I am neither talented nor patient enough to make something that could be mistaken as a Pottery Barn item. However, I am capable of making something "good enough" that looks like...well, it looks like I made it. :) So this year I pulled out the materials and finished it. My plan is to put something in it every day for Micah. Some pockets will have activities (today was decorating a little Christmas tree for his room) or crafts, some will be stickers or candy. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

(It will eventually have a star on top. My first try looked stupid, so I gave up. Did I mention my lack of patience?)