A Christmas Story 2014: The Martin Version

While it's much easier for me to combine posts these days, a la my Christmas Spirit post, upon reviewing the quantity of pictures I have from this Christmas, that will just not do.  So I'll split our Christmas documentation into two posts for your reading pleasure.  The Martin version and the Boarman version.  You're welcome.  ;c)

First up, let's review Christmas morning here at our house.  This was the first Christmas morning maybe since moving in that we woke up here.  I think?  Regardless- it made it much easier for Santa to find us, and that he did.  Who WOULDN'T have been lured in by those prize-winning cookies?!

Emery's haul from Santa on the top and Brynn's on the bottom.  Clearly he thought they were good this year.

This was Emery's first year to sort of "get" Christmas since she was only 9 months at the time last year.  We had been trying to teach her who Santa was and what he did if you were good.  I thought our efforts were fairly fruitless, but when we woke her up Christmas morning I asked her if she remembered who might have come to visit her the night before.  She looked at me and said "Dan-ta?"  So perhaps like her father, she's listening even when I don't think she is.

When Emery first walked into the sitting room where Santa left her presents, Ryan had our nice camera set up on the tripod to film her reaction.  Her first words?  "Paw paw," as she excitedly pointed at the tripod.  Even Emery knows my Dad is the paparazzi.  It took her a few minutes to notice the presents and even then she was  pretty skeptical.

Wait wait wait.  You mean after weeks of getting after me for touching boxes that looked like this under the tree, you are encouraging me to mess with these?  It feels like a trick.

You're sure about this?

We finally convinced her that the presents were for her and that she could open them.  It took her a bit to get into that too.  I would like to think that the fact that she's still so hesitant to assume presents are for her and that she should rip into them is a sign of her being a giving and selfless child by nature but I'm pretty sure it's more a function of her being young last Christmas. 

Okay fiiiiine.  If I must.

Each present took about 3 minutes to open because she would rip off an approximately 1" x 1" square, hand it to me and say "trash!"  I would take the piece and say "thank you," and she would say "thank you," and we would rinse and repeat for the next piece.  It was pretty freaking cute.

Turns out clothes are not fun for children of any age.  Her response?  "For da bebe!"

This was her big gift from Santa this year- a stroller!  As you can see, she was pretty pumped about it.  This did not elicit a "for da bebe!"

Were you wondering where Brynn was for all the excitement?  Snoozing.  On her belly.

Hey hey hey- can we move faster over here Dad?  I have some plans for that "koh-leur" (stroller- not sure why it has a k).

Future lawn woman in training?

So... is this tree going to magically produce some more presents or what?  I'm ready.

Both: Ahhhh... it's happening again!

Em: Hey!  Where you going bebe?  Brynn:  Out.  Must get out.

Em: Mama, what's her deal?  Brynn: Time is of the essence here guys.

We mentioned that the stroller was so she could take her babies on walks.  She assumed that meant RIGHT NOW.

I am so used to spending Christmas morning at one of our parents' houses that I wasn't sure if spending it just the 4 of us together would feel like Christmas.  I was definitely wrong.  It was so special to get to see and experience Emery's excitement and wonder quietly together.  It absolutely warmed my heart... I already can't wait for next year when Brynn starts to join in on the fun.

After we finished opening the girls' presents from Santa, we quickly got the little misses dressed, threw the last few items and Lola into the car and headed over to stop #1 on our Christmas tour o' Texas- Ryan's parents' house.  Getting 2 kiddos under 2, 2 adults, 1 massive dog and all their associated luggage for 5 days away out the door by 9:30 am is a real workout.  I'm not sure what the temperature was outside, but this Mama was definitely "glistening" (you can't sweat on Christmas- it's science).

Whaaaat are you doing?  Didn't we take enough of these this morning for the entire day?

Whoa Dad.  Haven't you heard of personal space?

Heart melted.

At Ryan's parents' house for the first time in a while, we got to see both Pam, Bob & Jenny AND Grandpa & Nancy.  It was a true Christmas miracle.  Ryan's Mom treated us to a delicious brunch of ham, potatoes, danishes and donuts, wisely, prior to the chaos that was gifts.  After getting our bellies full of goodness, we all sat down to open presents.  I've never been involved in a tornado, but I assume it would feel fairly similar to opening presents with 10 adults, a 4 year old, a 1 year old and a 5 week old, but with less glitter and exclamations of "look at THIS!"  

It was, of course, so much fun to watch the joy in Emery's face as she opened her presents with her Daddy (she had improved quite a bit since her morning go-round), but what warmed my heart most was watching her with her cousin.  To say she was obsessed with Kylie would be an understatement.  Emery was on Kylie like white on rice.  She wanted to look at everything Kylie got, to do everything Kylie did and to sit by her at all times.  It was seriously adorable.  Like puppies playing with kittens level cuteness.  Kylie was so sweet and patient with Em too.  It's been so fun watching these girls grow up and I can only imagine how much more there is to look forward to- especially with a new partner in crime.

I'm not sure there are enough gifts here.

Grandpa, Nancy and little Miss Brynn.

My Indiana family would prob at our fire when it's like 60 degrees out.

Kylie doing work on her balance bike.

Emery has zero idea what this is but she anything that requires more adult attention gets her stamp of approval.

Little girls flock to Ryan.  They can sense how much he likes Mean Girls and Keeping up with the Kardashians.

Hey, nice to meet you.  Mind if I use you as a bed?  And potentially drool on you?  Great.

Emery doling out Christmas gifts.  Some day she'll learn those envelope types are usually the best ones.

Open dat, Da-ee.  OPEN!

Hmmmm... what next?

I told you.  All up in her cousin's business.

Our little elf.  Surrounded by a sea of Minnie.  This is probably exactly what her dreams look like.

Proof Tiff and Jenny were there.

She looks way too big here for my approval.

We, and our tiny lovebugs, were BEYOND spoiled.  In fact we scored so much awesome loot that we had to leave it with Ryan's parents because it wouldn't all fit in our car.  That is a LOT of gifts people.  While I know the girls were bummed to leave their presents behind, the added bonus is that it meant we had a re-run of Christmas after we returned home from my parents' house and picked up their Martin family haul.

As you might expect, the Martin family side of Christmas was perfect this year- from getting to experience Christmas morning for the first time as a family of four to getting to see so much extended family- we had an incredible time.  Thank you to all who were there and played a part.  Up next: Christmas with my side of the family (spoiler alert: the perfection continued).

Getting into the Christmas Spirits, er... Spirit

Christmas time has always been my favorite time of the year.  I look forward to the day after Thanksgiving when Sunny starts playing Christmas music non-stop and it is on without fail in my car for the entire season.  I love Christmas shopping.  I love looking at the decor.  I love the red cups and their accompanying flavors at Starbucks.  I love all the time spent with family.  I love the seasonal treats.  I love it all.  There is just something very magical about the entire month of December.  I have always, and will always, look back fondly on the memories of things we did to get into the Christmas spirit when I was growing up and I hope to instill these same types of memories with our little ones.

This year, admittedly, was a difficult one since Brynn was so new and thus Ryan & I were so busy and short on sleep.  I know that Emery is starting to really understand things though so I felt very strongly that while I couldn't do all the things I wanted to do (read: Zoolights), I still wanted to do as much as I could.  I know she won't remember these things, but Ryan and I will always remember the wonder in her eyes and excitement in her voice.

If I had all the time in the world, I would split the few activities we did or participated in into their own individual posts filled with pictures.  However, the realist in me recognizes that because I generally have a newborn baby in the crook of my arm I don't have archives of perfect pictures nor the amount of time to sit down and write that many posts.  So instead, I'm squishing them all into this post.  I apologize in advance for the length of this bad boy - maybe you can take some breaks.  Heaven knows if you're in accounting or finance you could use one right about now.

First up - Emery's class Christmas party.  As I mentioned in my July 4th post, Ryan and I haven't historically been good at attending things put on by the school mainly because Emery hadn't been at an age where we felt like she interacted a ton with the other kids  nor understood.  This year we were both off work on the day of her class Christmas party, Friday December 19th, so we loaded up Miss Brynn and headed to school.  Similar to the July 4th party, we were the only parents there for her class.  We apparently have exceptional taste when it comes to the events we choose to attend.  That or we scare people.  It could be either.

Em and her class decorated sugar cookies to look like reindeer.  With 1 to 2 year olds this really equated to watching them lick icing and trying to eat the cookie at each individual step of the process.  I actually think that made it more fun.  Who wants to watch kids do things perfectly?

How Ryan manages to constantly find himself in situations that may land him on a watch list is beyond me.  The only Dad sitting at a table with 5 small children?  Sure, sign me up.

Em was so excited to have her Da-ee there.

Sure- you put that wherever dude.  I'm just going to sample this icing.  You know- just to make sure it's safe for the others.

Lady- you realize you are standing between me and slurping this icing, don't you?  Don't expect a smile for that.

One of my personal favorite memories growing up was always decorating cookies.  My Mom would make mounds and mounds of them and Matt, Julie and I would set up shop at the table and decorate them... well that and make fun of Julie for her lack of skill in doing so... but mainly the first thing.  I am not a baker as anyone who reads this blog knows... or if you don't, Ryan will tell you.  I really felt like this was a tradition I wanted to start with Emery though.  The kid loooooves herself some ginger snaps, which she calls "crackas," so I determined that gingerbread cookies would be a perfect first start.

I set out on a mission to find gingerbread cookies and decor.  After two stores were completely out and a few increasingly urgent texts from the Daddy at home I called off the search very bummed about my failure.  THEN I realized that a week prior I had purchased all the ingredients to make Ryan a cake.  Anyone who has set foot in our kitchen has likely heard Ryan spin his sad tale about how I insisted we put a cake display on our registry but in the 4 years since we've received it, I've never made him a cake.  I remind him regularly that maybe if I wasn't always either pregged up or with  brand new very screamy baby for his birthday, he'd get one, but I digress.  So I decided that I'd kill 2 birds with one stone and make a Christmas cake.  Not so traditional, but when there's funfetti, who's going to argue?  So that's precisely what we did.

Mama, what are these things?  I've never seen anything like them in this kitchen.

Can I use this yet?  I'm really tired of waiting.

The product pre-Emery's sprinkles.

Did you see how awesome I was with those sprinkles?  Gah, I'm like a professional.

Next up in the Christmas spirit roulette wheel?  Seeing Santa.  I decided that on Monday December 22nd we were going to try to tackle a Santa picture.  If you're laughing at the image of me talking Ryan into this, you know him well.  Okay, so in my naive mind I thought- hmmm, the Monday before Christmas.  Surely people will be at work or wrapping presents or whatever.  I was wrong.  We arrived at 9:45 (Santa opened at 10) and the line was already halfway up the center aisle of Bass Pro.  My stomach dropped.  I was sure Ryan was going to call the entire operation.  However, he did not.  To his credit he handled the entire thing like a pro.  

About one hour and 15 minutes, 50 trips around the store with a toddler, 25 viewings of the fish tank and 10 times looking at the catfish and saying "meow," it was finally our turn with the jolly fellow himself.  We left the proud owners of the winner below.  Was it a great picture?  Nooooo.  Would I do it again?  Yes!  Isn't family time really all about the stories anyway?

Emery actually handled this 100x better than I thought she would.  If this picture were taken about a millisecond later, she'd have totally lost it.

Last, but not least, we had Christmas Eve.  This year we spent Christmas Eve at home with our own little family.  So we tried to implement a few fun little things to make it feel like a special day for the girls.  We had donuts for breakfast....

I specifically requested this red, white and green sprinkled one at the donut place for her highness.  I am very cheesy indeed.

It was well received, thankfully.

... We enjoyed some family time.  Which mainly looks a lot like this these days.  No room in the Inn nor our laps.

"Up Da-ee, up!"

My absolute favorite thing to do around Christmas is probably to look at Christmas lights.  Emery's car seat is still rear facing and Brynn hates the car.  So clearly doing it the old-fashioned way was out of the question.  We decided we would try to take them on a walk in the neighborhood to look instead.  As it turns out, it was really cold and the temperature was dropping on Christmas Eve.  So we decided to leave a little before sunset in hopes that people would turn their lights on early.

I wouldn't say that this attempt at Christmas-y tradition was a success as you'll see below.

All bundled up and no lights.  Except from the sun.  #parentalfail

About halfway through Emery was completely over being bundled up.  Ryan decided wearing the blanket the entire way home was the best alternative.  The Martins: bringing down property values since 2010.

Ryan wanted to have the girls make cookies for Santa.  Obviously after my failed attempt the weekend before I was totally on board.  So post-walk we decided to make some cookies.  There may have been a run on the gingerbread market in Katy but there were pleeeeenty of sugar cookies.

Brynn wasn't so into making cookies.

Emery's managerial skills once again hard at work.

First cookie.  You can tell because the sprinkling methodology became increasingly more aggressive.

Sticking your entire hand into the yogurt container is entirely acceptable.  Getting the smallest dab of icing on your arm however is extremely offensive.

More is always better, right?

Finished products.  I have no doubt Santa was highly impressed not only with Emery's sprinkling but with Daddy's cookie shaping skills.

To end the day we planned to try to find a Christmas movie on TV to snuggle up and watch for a bit with Emery.  After her bath, she ran out into the living room half dressed and kept saying "mah-kee, mah-kee" (monkey).  We thought she was just talking about the huge stuffed monkey that my dear friend Chelsea gave her.  We followed her in and found that the TV was on a station that kept just flipping through various animals.  Emery was hooked.  She refused to let us change the channel.  So that was how we ended Christmas Eve.  Looking at and identifying various animals with our crazy little monkeys.  Pretty appropriate if you ask me!

Seriously.  This is what we watched for about 30 minutes.  I think it might be an ad to order this channel.

Em's never been into the TV but it showing more interest lately.  However her understanding of it is like nil.  She thinks we can control what's on it.  Every time an animal went off screen she would keep saying and signing "more, MORE!" like we could bring it back.  It's moments like this I hope I always remember.  So precious.