Christmas Eve and Christmas 2012

The whole month of December seems like a blur. Sleeping, pumping, sleeping, going to the hospital, pumping for hours on end, and trying to keep Claire on a normal schedule was crazy. Looking back, while I don't enjoy the fact that the girls were in the hospital for the whole month, it really was a blessing for us (Kennedy, Kinley, and me) all to heal and get a little more prepared mentally (everyone) for what was about to happen at our house.

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love the decorations that got put up in mid-November. I love the music- which I didn't get to listen to very much this year and I love the movies on TV- which I for sure didn't get to watch this year. Next year I will make up for this. This year my dad and sister planned to come here for Christmas. They proved to be a big help in the Claire department and played with and snuggled her when we were running around. We did take Claire to see Santa this year- fail- and we took her to ride the train at the mall-totally loved this!

 Christmas Eve Eve we decorated cookies with my mom, Claire, Nikki and Bryson. Everyone else was watching a movie so we happily decorated and ate broken cookies.

Christmas Eve we got to bring home Kennedy! I was so happy to have one of our newest chicks home, but still bummed the Kinley wasn't with us. We did go visit her during the day, but it was still a stinky feeling. That night we had a fiesta of tamales, king ranch chicken, and all the normal sides. We had a few friends over that are also stationed out here from home. That night we gave Claire her big present from my parents. They got her the Little Tykes bounce house. We set it up in the garage since it was dark outside. She was so happy and could have bounced all night long.

Christmas day we woke up to Santa throwing up on the tree. We opened stockings first and everyone got lots of fun stuff in theirs. I won't even lie- we went a little overboard with Claire this year. I will admit I felt guilty about how much time I knew would go into the babies and while she has so many toys and makes a mess of her playroom daily- I didn't care. She got a card table playhouse. Best thing ever! I ordered it on Etsy. We simply unfold the fabric and put it over a card table. She thinks it's a tree house and just sits in there and screams for someone to come look through the windows. She also got some fun dress up stuff to add to her collection- Buzz seems to be the favorite. There are also several new Little People things around and new Disney Barbies.

I think the major change I'm seeing in Claire now is that she will go in her playroom alone to play. We hear her having conversations with her dolls, feeding her babies, and setting up her animals. She's also sitting down with books and talking like she's reading. It's so fun to see her becoming a real person who is independent.