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Tomorrow morning, bright and early (well not too early) we will be hitting the road. We are making the trek up to the Great White North to visit our families for the holidays. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone. I am not, however, looking forward to the travel part of it. But, since they haven’t invented a teleporter yet I guess I’m stuck with the travel part of it *shrug*.
Since we’ll be traveling with a baby who still enjoys eating every 2-3 hours we’ve decided to break the 14ish hour drive into 2 days. Breaking it up is nice in that neither day will be too crazy driving wise. But, at the same time, it is nice just to get it all over and done with in one day. I’m hoping Anna does well on the trip. She has, recently, started tolerating her carseat a little better. She certainly doesn’t like it by any stretch of the imagination, but she doesn’t cry as much now and can entertain herself a bit with her toys back there. Hopefully there isn’t too much crying so we can all maintain our sanity. The night in the hotel could get interesting too. Hopefully we all get a little sleep.
Today I’m busy packing and organizing, 100% sure I’m going to forget something. Hopefully it all fits in the car!
Yesterday I took the girls to see Santa since I had been procrastinating and needed to get it done before we left. Maya had a blast and talked Santa’s ear off. Anna was determined not to crack a smile for the lady taking the picture and burst into tears moments after the first picture was snapped when the lady tried to tickle her. Oh well, at least the first shot was a good one 
I hope you all have a great weekend. Please keep your fingers crossed that our weekend of driving, driving and more driving goes smoothly.
Every Christmas since Maya’s second Christmas we have made a gingerbread house with her. I usually buy the pre-built one that you just have to decorate since it is the decorating with candy part that Maya enjoys the most. Each year we have so much fun making our little gingerbread house. And, each year they look better and better.
Maya’s favorite part is probably when she get to sneak candies as she watches Lorne get the house all ready for her job, the placing of the candies. Plus, she likes when she gets a few tastes of icing since Lorne usually sneaks a few tastes and can’t get away with it without letting her have a taste too 
Anna couldn’t really be of much help this year, but she did have fun watching all the action. I’m sure next year she’ll be right in the middle of it all causing trouble.
Maya was pretty happy with the finished product. I think this is the best one so far. It looks pretty darn good!
Every year since Maya was born I have been determined to do photo Christmas cards and every year I end up procrastinating and then just sending out plain old regular cards. This year I was determined not to procrastinate. I was determined to send out adorable Christmas cards of my beautiful girls to all our friends and family.
And guess what…I did it. I took some pictures of my girls dressed in their pretty Christmas dresses in front of the tree, made a photo card online and ordered the appropriate amount. The cards should be arriving today or tomorrow and will be promptly mailed out to our dearest friends and our family so they can enjoy a little Christmas cheer care of my lovely little girls. I’m so proud of myself for not procrastinating this year. I’m so glad I finally got my butt in gear early enough that I won’t have to send out generic Christmas cards again this year.
The photo shoot was chaotic and crazy but I did get some really cute shots of the girls. Here is a little sneak peak at some of the adorable shots I got (and these aren’t even the ones that made the cut!).
Now that I’ve managed to do it once I’m going to be determined to do it every year. Let’s see if I can keep it up
I knew this day was coming, eventually. I had hoped I’d get a little more time, maybe even another year or so. More time to figure out how I would answer it. No luck, it came out of the blue, when I wasn’t expecting it at all, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
The other day we were talking to Maya about the people that make up her extended family. We started talking about the fact that her grandparents are our parents. Lorne was asking her if she knew who his mommy and daddy were, she answered Gramma and Poppa. I then asked her if she knew who my mommy was. She responded with Nana. Then it came, the question I’ve dreaded pretty much her whole life, the question I never wanted to have to answer. “Mommy, who is your daddy?”, bam, ton of bricks to the chest.
I stalled as I tried to come up with a 4 year old friendly answer, because the real answer is too much for me to swallow most days, let alone a 4 year old. I simply said that my dad wasn’t with us anymore. I said that he got sick a long time ago and he wasn’t here anymore. It took a lot of conscious effort on my part not to cry. She looked at me for a long moment, I wondered what was going through her little brain and waited, holding my breath for more questions, but they didn’t come. She just moved on to a different topic and that was that.
I know one day she’ll have more questions. I know each time those tough questions come they are going to stop me in my tracks, but I’ll answer them as best I can. And one day when the “he got sick and passed away” answer no longer cuts it and when she is ready, I’ll share the whole story with her. I hope that day is a long way off.
Christmas is my favorite holiday. I have such fond memories of my Christmases growing up. Many wonderful family memories warm my heart this time of year. My mom was a big Christmas decorator. December hit (well usually the later weeks of November) and our house was transformed into a Christmas wonderland. Pictures on the wall were replaced with Christmas decorations, the tree was put up (a couple of years there were even 2 trees!), Christmas goodies were baked, Christmas books filled our book shelves and Christmas music filled the air.
I always get excited when Thanksgiving arrives because it means I get to start decorating for Christmas This past weekend our house went through the holiday transformation.
Christmas lights were put up.
The tree was put up and decorated.
Bits of Christmas cheer appear in little places throughout the house.
The box of Christmas books has made its appearance, it didn’t take long for them to find themselves scatters around the family room floor.
Soon the sounds of Christmas music will be heard in our house almost daily and the smell of Christmas baking will fill our house. Looking forward to the weeks ahead as Maya and I make a few Christmas crafts together and we make our annual gingerbread house.