Holidays with Four

I find it funny that the last two years we have added a new child to our holiday reservations. 2012 was the year of Annabella, bringing yet another fun face to the Thanksgiving and Christmas photos. I pray that we wont be following the trend this year because this body needs a rest! This was also this first year we lived in the same city as both of our parents, which made the holidays even more festive! What a blessing to be so close.

Not only that, but on Thanksgiving day we had one of the biggest surprises happen (at least of my lifetime!); our sister & brother-in-law (Dusty & Caitlin) showed up at our dinner! It may not sound like that big of a deal, but if you know this family, NO ONE misses Thanksgiving at Grandma's. Family first, they say; and the food comes in at a very close second. There were gnashing of teeth and wails heard across the country when they left after their summer visit, not to visit again until Christmas, and the fact that we were having a baby in October meant that Annabella wouldn't meet her uncle & aunt until she was almost 3 months old! But sneakily they got tickets and LIED to our faces about being in Virginia for the Thanksgiving holiday. We were actually on our cell phones - video chatting when they told me they were on their way to their friends house for Thanksgiving dinner. What I didn't know is they were actually walking to the front door, only yards away. I started seeing faces light up and smiles around the table, and when I turned around, there they were! No one can describe the squeal that came out of me, and I'm pretty sure my head hit the ceiling, I jumped so high! Chris happened to be putting Abigail down for a nap at the exact moment my shriek came, and apparently I even scared my sweet Abby. Chris's aunt was holding Annabella and she said that Bell practically jumped out of her arms at my excitement! Obviously it was exciting to say the least. Then after the sudden shock of two of my favorite people showing up unexpectedly the tears came flowing. It was quite an eventful afternoon!

Christmas was also eventful, filled with lots of visiting family. delicious food, and LOTS of presents. I can't (and wont) complain about any of those three. All are very important to the season's celebrations. Decorating is also top on the list of my favorite parts of Christmas. And this year was no exception. The new house provided for a lot of fun new decorating ideas, especially since we have a ton of banisters around our stairs. We didn't have a fireplace this year, so I had to improvise with placing the stockings on the stair railing, which I thought turned out to be a great touch.

We also had our outside lights professionally hung since our roof is WAY too high for anyone's safety. We had a great time decorating the tree. Abigail helped by being the ornament runner. Daddy would unpack and hand off to Abby who would then run the ornament to mommy to then be hung on the tree. She was very excited to help, until about ornament #18 when things looked more fun to play with than to hand off to mom. Grandpa came over with a few new tree toys as well, which became the popular ornaments among the children folk. Nothing cooler than buttons to push that create light and sound. Needless to say there was always some sort of noise coming from the tree!

Abigail helping daddy build the tree!

Abigail is always such a ham!

Wearing the beanies that mommy made for them!

The favorite ornament among the kid crowd!

Decorating the tree is fun!

Christmas week was busy as always. We had a Christmas Eve service that Chris was involved in, singing and playing the violin as well as speaking. After the service we had family over for a quick dinner, and then the girls went to bed. It was fun playing Santa, putting the Christmas presents under the tree. We weren't sure how Abby would react in the morning, but when she walked into the room with the Christmas tree and saw all the presents, there was a big smile, giggle, and a loud "WHOA!" It was super cute! Guess she did notice the presents! It didn't take long for her to get the hang of ripping open the presents, and soon we had a massive mess of toys and paper all over. It was glorious! What a fun experience for Abby AND parents!

Getting the hang of opening presents!

Christmas morning disaster!!

After our morning we got ready and headed over to the O'Neil's for our late morning present opening. It's always a mad house with the sounds of ripping paper and squeals of delight (those come mostly from the girls, and maybe Dusty! hehe) but this year there was a time out for Abigail. She got full attention as she opened her presents. But who wouldn't want to watch a 20 month old rip open presents on Christmas morning? Annabella didn't get left out, I promise, but she wasn't as into it. I'm not sure why, but I have an idea it might be closely related to her age. Next year, Annabella. Next year.

We then packed up and headed to the Esposito side for lunch and more presents. We had a delicious meal followed by a great time opening presents with my parents and grandmother. Abby was 100% in the spot light again, which she couldn't have enjoyed any better. Her Mimi helped open presents with her as mom, dad, Annabella, Papa, and Great-grandma watched. As always, Abigail was quite entertaining.

The evening consisted of eating, hanging out, and eating at Chris's grandma's. And no, it wasn't a mistake that I wrote eating twice. Like I said previously, food is very important to this family. Once we stuffed ourselves to bursting at the seams, we headed home to clean up our Christmas-trashed house.

Chris even spent hours putting together all of Abigail's toys.

I'd say we are officially parents now...