Day 58: Merry Christmas!

Posted by: Cris

Christmas 2010 is nearly in the books and Juneau and Nova had a wonderful day surrounded by Grandparents, Aunt, Uncles, Cousins and even a Great Grandma Nova.

Last night the Saccenti tree decorating was in full swing. All of the kids were totally into it - necessitating a lot of adult supervision. Each kid seemed to have a 1 square foot section of the tree scoped out for ornaments resulting in small high-density clumps of ornaments on the lower branches.

After working on her section of lower limbs for awhile, Nova was determined that daddy was going to hold her up and help her put an ornament clear on the top branch. Due to my towering 5'6" frame, that meant putting Nova on my shoulders, standing on the piano bench on my tiptoes, and reaching reaching reaching for the top all while praying I didn't tumble into the tree. Finally, I told Nova she had to settle for a branch about 8 inches from the top.

As the tallest of the family, Kyle was in charge of making sure there were ornaments more than 3 feet off the ground.

Finally, in order to get the Angel on top of the 10' tree, I ended up on Kyle's shoulders which eventually led to Juneau on my shoulders on Kyle's shoulders. We couldn't convince Kyle to hand Nova up to put her on Juneau's shoulders.

After reading the Christmas story (off an iPad from The Message version of the Bible - not sure if that's legal), the kids headed off to bed and the adults made all the preparations.

Christmas morning:

"Can we please start opening presents!!"

Drew brought back some authentic outfits from his trip to China this summer:

It seemed like there would be a problem when Nova just HAD to have the pink dress even though it was a size 3 while the blue dress was only a size 2. I tried to explain sizing to her but she was having none of it. So, we put the pink one on her thinking Juneau would never fit in the blue one - but those tiny little hips slid right in there, it fit perfectly, and she actually looked the most natural of the group in her outfit.

Secily was not too crazy about Juneau's enthusiastic "Cheezit!!!!"

Nova was beyond thrilled to get this "front pack" carrier for her baby doll. Maybe now she'll stop stuffing dolls down the front of her shirt.

Juneau was happy to just tear into package after package.

Nova's baby doll obsession is not likely to subside anytime soon when people keep buying her things like this high chair and changing table from the Alford family.

"Hey, you know what would make Nova even more obsessed with her baby dolls? - We could get her matching dresses for her and her baby doll - Okay, let's do that...The look on her daddy's face when he sees this will be awesome!"

When Juneau ran out of presents, she was more than happy to help everyone else.

Funniest moment of the day: Juneau and Nova both received Bitty Baby baby dolls from Grandma & Grandpa - you know, those ones whose eyes close when they lay down and open when you pick them up. In keeping with the "June Bug" theme, Juneau also got some plastic bugs/varmints in her stocking. While Nova was sweetly nurturing her baby with hugs, kisses and feeding it her bottle, Juneau was seen taking a plastic bat from her collection, flying it around into her baby dolls face and terrorizing her baby doll as it lay there: "Ahhhh, I'm a scary bat, open your eyes...OPEN YOUR EYES!!!" - Classic Juneau.

Best Gift of the Day: My mother-in-law bought my father-in-law this amazing replica Fishnetted Leg Lamp straight out of the classic "A Christmas Story". Kyle and I both agreed that there's NO WAY Becky or Emilie would allow one of these displayed in their house...maybe one day our wives will love US as much as Judy loves Tom.

So, the 3 of us had a wonderful few days with Emilie's family...Yet another reason I am so lucky that Emilie agreed to marry me...awesome in-laws.

But Christmas wasn't over yet!! We headed back to Toledo after lunch to meet up with my side of the family and indulge my daughters even more.

Though I may have fought it in the past, there is nothing more adorable than my little princess...her love of all things princess is only appropriate based on her amazingly sweet personality. I've even grown to enjoy her newest game: "Daddy, you're the prince and I'm the princess."

...and I even voluntarily bought her these little Disney princess dolls with changeable plastic clothes. This was the easiest picture to get all day because she just sat and played with them for a half an hour.

I will say that I was totally proud of both Juneau and Nova for being very excited when they unwrapped the real, bonafide tape measure (ie. straight out of the hardware section) I bought each of them. Now maybe I'll be able to find mine when they are out working in the garage with me.

Alex & Lyndsey playing ball in the house - luckily for them, their mom isn't Carol Brady.

From Juneau & Nova to the most awesome cousins in the world: a killer telescope. I can't wait to try it out.

Nova and Juneau loved sitting out in the 30 degree weather in a 100 degree hot tub tonight. But when Nova came in, she was ready to cuddle - and Grandpa had a lap and blanket ready to go:

A good cuddle, some ice cream, and Toy Story 3 on the TV - my girls' perfect evening.

Thanks to our wonderful families, Juneau & Nova had a great Christmas despite not having their mommy here to celebrate it with them. I was happy to at least be able to talk to Emilie a couple of different times today and was so happy to hear that under the circumstances, she had a pretty good Christmas as well. For me, it was a great day to think about how lucky we are to have such wonderful families and how much God has blessed me with my 3 wonderful girls. Despite the obvious sadness induced by not being able to spend the day with my beautiful wife, the only other thing keeping this Christmas from ranking as off the charts was the constant nagging question with each present Juneau and Nova opened: How am I going to get all this stuff back to Hawaii?