We had a great Christmas. We were basically snowed in, so we stayed home, warm and cozy with just our little family. We missed our extended family, but had a nice day with just the four of us. Taylor's parents visited today, and my family will be up tomorrow. We got some great gifts, and the kids got some great toys. We've been playing with them for two days now.
On the 21st we celebrated out sixth wedding anniversary. We stayed at the Anniversary Inn here in Logan. We got the student rate ($129 for any room!) on a great room. We can't believe that six years have passed since we were married. We have come so far.
On the 22nd we went to Salt Lake to Body World. It was cool. Definitely a must-see.
On the 23rd my family had our annual night where we stay up all night long playing games. When we were little we did this so that we could sleep on Christmas Eve (instead of being up all night too excited to sleep). We have added in-laws over the years, and it gets better every year. This year we were really into the Wii Nintendo games. I even finished higher than last place on a few turns at Mario Cart (really impressive for me).
On Christmas Eve we had dinner at my folk's house then headed back to Logan. We went through the light display at Willard Bay. It was really neat. Claire kept saying, "Wow! Would you look at that!" Kyle made great baby noises, and we all enjoyed the display. We were very grateful to make it home before the storm started. We finished all of our wrapping and santa activities and made it in bed by midnight!
Our kids slept past 9 on Christmas morning (yeah!). Kyle was a crazy present opener, and tore into the wrapping paper. Always a helpful child, he handed each scrap to Taylor to put in the trash. Claire was pretty funny with her "Oh! Thank You!" after each present. She's wanted a backpack for over a year, and we found one for $4 at Kmart that is really cute. When she opened it she said, "Oh! Just what I wanted! You guys are SO sweet!" Pretty funny girl.
And oh how it snowed. Last night before we went to bed a little before 2am (see next paragraph) we opened the front door. It was so bright outside that it actually illuminated our front room. It was so cool to see all of the snow. It's so deep that it's touching the bottom of the swings on Claire's swing set. Bless Taylor's heart he has scraped and scraped our front walk. There is talk of going sledding tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it.
The excitement has caused a delay in Claire's good going to bed behavior. She's screaming at Taylor as I type this. We're at our wit's end with her. She won't stay in bed. She's out of her room every 5-10 minutes. She was up past midnight last night. She's causing a serious problem with our sleep and other bedroom interests.... (TMI?) Would it be wrong to handcuff her to her bed? Maybe just with soft ribbons? Also, she changes her clothes all night long. Are there any serious objections to us sewing her pajamas shut? Just a few stitches, and she goes potty before she goes to bed. We're sick of cleaning up the mess and having a popcicle child join us in the middle of the night wearing a sun dress.
I'll post pictures later. The camera is downstairs, and I really don't want to go down and then come back up. Lazy. I know. Maybe that can be a New Year's Resolution.
I feel for you!! We're seeing MUCH more of Annie at night than I'd like to, but I don't know what to do about it. Her not being in a crib anymore kinda limits the 'confinement' possibilities! Good luck! If it makes you feel any better (it was a little bit of a consolation for me), I was reading an article of a woman who's kids were all in their teens now, and she was thinking back and realizing that never again would she have a three year old crawl into bed with her and cuddle in the middle of the night, and how she never thought she'd miss it until she realized it would never happen again. I tried to remember that last night, around 4AM :-)
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe the snow! It is crazy. Sounds like you guys had a nice family Christmas. I love all of Claire's comments about her presents. Too funny. I don't have any groundbreaking advice about keeping Claire in bed, except to start taking things away each time she gets up. I did that with Weston when he first got his bed and now I rarely see him once we've put him to bed. If he came out I would take him back to his room, tuck him in and show him what toy he just lost (ones he liked) because he got out of bed. I often say not very kind things like "I don't want to see your face until morning" in my mean mommy voice. Also, I keep the toys that he lost in plain sight so he remembers that he can't play with them.
ReplyDeleteAs for the changing clothes . . . that made me crack up. What a girl! I have no idea what you can do about that. Lock up her clothes?
So, ya, hope night time improves for everyone soon. There's nothing more frustrating than kids that won't sleep.
Hope you enjoyed the sledding!
Ooh! I forgot to mention that we also put a child safety thing on the inside of Weston's door, so he couldn't get the door open. When he woke up and wanted to come out in the morning he would just knock.
ReplyDeleteHey Jac! It's been a while since I read your blog! Life has been a little crazy, I haven't spent much time on the computer.
ReplyDeleteOne thing someone told me about keeping PJ's on, is get the pj's that have the zipper (the one's that you put your little one's in) and put them on backwards (with the feet twisted around normally). I'm not sure if they make the zip up pj's in Claire's size, but they can't get the zipper undone to change clothes!
I also used to change clothes NON STOP when I was little. I think it was because I was bored and it kept me busy. Maybe think of some creative things to keep her mind busy that you can put on the ceiling. This way it will keep her busy but still keep her laying down in bed. It could be anything from a giant "where's Waldo" or "where's the bunny" type of poster to a bunch of paper clouds that look like "things" and have her see if she can figure out what they are by morning. By the time she is done with her little "night game" she might just be too tired to get up out of her bed!
Anyway, good luck on that!