Recovering After Christmas

Happy New Years...9 days late! Things are finally getting somewhat back to normal after all the holiday fanfare. We had a pretty quiet Christmas this year, compared to other years. All my siblings were away celebrating with their respective inlaws. (Almost made me feel a trifle guilty...and then I think about flying with Carter...) So we had a small party the weekend before Christmas with Mom and Dad, my brother and his wife, and my sister Christy and her family before they all took off. Jess was in Virginia and missed! We had decided this year to skip presents to each other and just focus on the kids. My family is SOO large that it can really get overwhelming and just suck the merry right out of Christmas trying to get presents for everyone. Carter had a ball opening all her presents, well the toys as least. She opened a box of clothes from Mom and tried to give it back. "Don't want it, Bomma!" she says very indignantly and wanted to go back to playing with all the toys. She did however have to say thank you! (Trying not to raise a complete monster here, with as about as much sucess as can be expected from a very strong minded 2 year old. If you call her monster, she'll look up at me very serious, "Me not monster, momma. Me not. Me Carter!") She love her cow flash light that moo's everytime you turn it on, but her very favorite Christmas present (and she had piles of presents thanks to Roberts mom who is very big on Christmas presents) was a bag of 8 KoolAid flavored chapstick!

Robert and I decided not to buy any additional presents for Carter since she had so many wonderful presents this year. Instead we got her a membership to The Little Gym. They have a weekly class that meets on Saturdays for 2 year olds to run around and play with a parent, doing some structured activities, but mostly letting the children explore and have fun. What an experience! Carter was very intimidated by all the little kids, since living in the country, she really doesn't get to see anyone else her age. Only Cade is younger right now. So, it's been a great learning experience for Carter to interact with other kids her age.

Christmas we let go of the madness and mostly stayed home. I came down with a horrible cold, the septic tried to backup...actually got plugged up thanks to various items flushed down the toilet by the ever helpful Carter, the weather was very cold and snowy. We got up late and opened the remaining presents. We had been letting Carter open a few here and there so she didn't have so many on Christmas and get bored with the whole thing (fat chance really). We later went to my Mom's house for a late Christmas brunch. It was just Robert, Carter, Mom and Dad, Gramma Betty and myself. Dad had gotten Carter a 'Make Your Own Gingerbread' house kit, so we brought that down to make at his house. So Robert, Dad and Carter had way too much fun but the gingerbread house actually turned out pretty good and much less messy than my mom had figured.