We received a Christmas package Monday from my parents. They had already given us our 'big' gifts, but still had some smaller things for us to open. Lily was pretty excited to get to open more presents, so I figured I should share the experience with my parents, and the world!
Lily and Jim opening gifts together. Lily played Santa's helper and brought the gifts back to us. She got pretty excited about Jim's golf ball. We had come across some bouncy balls earlier that day that I wouldn't let Lily have because they're too small. So I think she was thrilled that she got to play with another ball.
Almost as much fun as the gifts themselves, was the box and packing paper that came with the gifts! In this video, Lily says, "mores (which is more, but plural), uh-oh, ball, that?, bite, oh, trash, and help."
We've been wanting to film this for a while, but last time we went we didn't have our camera with us. So since we had our camera from the cruise, we decided to stop by on our way home. There is a house in our neighborhood that has some awesome Christmas lights coordinated to music. You tune your radio to a particular channel, and hear the music that goes along with the lights. I've seen stuff like this on Youtube before, but it was really neat in person. (You can hear Lily at the very end saying "lights, lights".)
My friend, Jen, gave me a coupon the other day for a buy one, get one free ticket on the North Pole Lights Cruise at the resort. It sounded like a lot of fun, so Jim, Lily, and I set sail last night to go to the North Pole. We left from the dock at the resort and sailed out around the "world's longest floating boardwalk" which was decorated with tons of fun Christmas lights. Then we sailed across the lake and arrived at the North Pole! (I knew we lived up north, but I didn't know we were that far north!) At The North Pole, Santa talked to us and read all the kids' names off the nice list. I felt a little guilty putting Lily's name on the nice list, not because she's naughty, but because they said it was for kids over age 2 and she's not quite there. But I shouldn't have worried because it looks like every other mother on our cruise had named their daughters Lily and her name was read about 10 times anyway. After seeing Santa, we sailed back to Coeurd'Alene. A coworker of Jim's told him that the Lights Cruises make more money for the resort than all of their summer dinner cruises combined. I guess it makes sense since the Santa Cruises are only 40 minutes and they run three at a time several times a day. They also charge you for hot chocolate and cookies... but it was worth it! :)
Jim did not believe me that this guy was a snowman. I'm not sure why. But whatever he was, he totally freaked out Lily... even though he gave her a candy cane. I was lamenting the fact that I'm never in any pictures since I'm usually the one taking them, so Jim made sure to take charge of the camera from time to time. Yup, the snowman still freaked out Lily. Jim and Lily enjoying their cocoa and giant cookie. Pay no attention to the half-naked sunbather in the picture behind us. Lily looking at the lights on the dock. We couldn't really get good pictures of them, but they were pretty. Lily checking out the lights on the dock from inside the boat.
Jim and Lilypie out on the lake. Lily liked to look down at the water. Me taking a family picture. Lily and I out on the boat. A much better family picture up on top of the boat. The North Pole!! That little floating house is where Santa is. For all you locals out there, I have a question... is this at the golf course, and is that the world's only floating green? The largest living Christmas tree in the U.S.! Lilypie and Jim Klein. The Nice List. (Notice you hear two "Lily's" in this short video.)
After we saw Santa and started our journey back, we went inside to warm up. We got about two steps inside, and Lily started saying, "back! back!" she wanted to stay outside! So we stayed outside the whole way back, and even let her splash in a few puddles toward the end. (Today Lily woke up with the sniffles, which I know isn't caused by cold feet, but I still feel like the Mother of the Year for letting her splash around in the freezing water.) Lily loved her some puddle splashing!
Winter has arrived! I guess we got a couple inches of snow a while back, but it melted quickly and was gone. But it looks like we're finally getting snow that might stick around for a while! Yay! The last couple of days we've been getting a few scattered snow showers, which I've been loving. I turn on the Christmas lights and the fireplace and sit around feeling all cozy. I was also super excited to take Lily out to play in the snow. She played in the snow last year, but she wasn't really walking, so it was kind of like sitting in the snow for 5 minutes. I didn't have great expectations for her lasting all day in the snow or anything this year, but I still wanted to get her out in it. So we spent 30 minutes bundling her up, 15 minutes out in the snow, and 30 more minutes warming up inside by the fire. All and all it was a wonderful morning with Lily! (P.S. I got her snow suit, mittens, hat, and boots either at garage sales or given to me and I think the grand total for her snow equipment was less than $10. Go me!!)
Lily trying to put her boots on by herself. The more hats, the merrier! Lily looks very much like her cousin Carter in this picture. (Oh, and these are the moments when you're SO glad your child is NOT potty trained... if they have to go, they go!) She was rather unsure at first, but eventually warmed up to the whole snow thing. (P.S. I had taken the bow out of her hair and set it down. She found it and insisted that she have her bow.) Throwing snow up in the air was just hilarious to Lily. This was super fine fluffy snow, too. Terrible for snowballs, but great for throwing in the air. Yay for snow! Here is Lily enjoying throwing snow at Hazel.
So I'm pretty sure that I have the silliest toddler ever. We came in from the snow and I quickly stripped off all of Lily's snow clothes, and then went and took off my boots and put them by the front door. When I turned around from taking my boots off, Lily was saying, "Icky, icky, icky," (you can hear her say it once in the first second of the video) and she had gotten the hand towel from the kitchen and was wiping up all the snow and water puddles from the kitchen floor. It had taken her about 30 seconds to notice the mess and decide she needed to clean it up. Before I grabbed a towel to help (which I was planning on doing anyway once I took my snow clothes off) I had to grab the camera and record my silly little girl. You can really see how upset she is that there is a mess on her floor. And if I had to guess what she's muttering to herself, I would guess it's, "Mommy makes these messes all the time, and Lily has to clean them up!"
We came inside and I figured that no snow excursion is complete without hot chocolate at the end. Hers was more like "warm chocolate" since I just used warm water from the tap (I figured that too hot of chocolate would be a bad experience). But as you will see in the video, she loved it! (P.S. This video is of her very first taste. What a great reaction, huh?)
Sipping her hot chocolate. Yum yum! This makes me happy!
42 people. By my best estimation (based on a video I took as well as counting who we knew was there, but wasn't in the video) we had 42 people in our home on Sunday night. Normally we have our LIFEgroup at our home on Sunday evenings, which consists of around 20 people. But this Sunday evening was not a normal Sunday evening. Our friends, Patrick and Allison Ford are packing up and leaving town to move to New Mexico. They had been in our LIFEgroup and were the youth and family ministers at our church for a few years, so they were well-known and well-loved. So when word got around that we were having a little shindig in their honor their last Sunday in town, the youth group asked if they could come and say goodbye. So with the addition of a large portion of the youth group, as well as a few couples who were especially close to the Fords, our home somehow managed to fit 42 bodies this Sunday night. It was tight, and barring a few taco toppings, every morsel of food was eaten up. But we all had a great time, and it was very nice to get to say goodbye to the Fords. Jim wondered if houses were like stomachs, where if you fill them to the brim often enough, they'll expand to fit more people. I figure we can give that theory a try...
The evening consisted of lots of talking and laughing and eating and joking. We had a movie on downstairs, as well as video games for the kids to play. (We kept having to explain Ratatouille to Chris... it's a complex movie.) At the climax of the evening, we all crowded into the downstairs family room and told Patrick and Allison how much we love them and will miss them. I discovered that if I have about 39 more kids, I'll never have to pay a heating bill again. (And I'll have to invest in Fabreeze.) The evening was rounded off by a rousing game of Karaoke Revolution, where most of us found out that, contrary to our previous thoughts, we can't sing.
Here are a few pictures from the weekend.
On Saturday, the Fords had a Pack-Up-The-Budget-Truck party. I kept all the kiddos at our house and entertained them with movie after movie. I'm like the cool aunt ;)
This seemed to be a common problem; a 100 inch screen and the kids would stand about a foot away from it. I don't know how many times that day I said, "Scoot back honey... sit on the couch." P.S. Kind of a scary picture of Sid! (Oh, and Jim wants me to mention that the flash from the camera makes the big screen look washed out, and that in real-life it looks *awesome*.) Lily was multitasking; playing with blocks and watching Toy Story. Video game action. The kids had been playing really hard, and then I made popcorn and they all sat right down and watched the movie. It was pretty cute. Cleaning up before the Sunday night party, Lily discovered that she can help Daddy with the trash. She can even hold the bag up all by herself! The Amazing Lily and her trash-dragging skillz.
And finally, the video by which we obtained our head-count. I didn't realize how quickly I was going until I watched it later. Sorry if you get seasick!
I've been a slacker in the picture department for the last week or so, so I thought I should at least post the pictures that I have for those grandparents and Lily-fans out there!
I have a pair of open-finger gloves that I like to wear when I'm out and about in the cold. Lily found them and put them on... ...and then proceeded to run around the house like a crazy baby. She thought she was pretty hot stuff!! I was doing the dishes one afternoon and Lily had been playing in the living room, but it had been pretty quiet in there for a few minutes, so I figured I should check on her. When I went in there, she was laying back on the chase lounge reading a book. (You can see her little foot sticking out from under the blanket in this picture, and that she's holding the book up in front of herself.) After I took the first picture she got all self-conscious and giggly. This isn't the first time this has happened, but it's always funny when it does. Lily woke up from a nap and when I went in to get her up, she had taken off her pants, her diaper, and taken the liner out of the outside part of her diaper. What a silly girl!
