Merry Merry!

Christmas Eve was wonderful - my sister Carrie hosted us at her house with the in-town relatives. The food and company were great, and the kids were well spoiled with gifts. Papa decided it was time for some noise in the house, and gave Isaac a REAL Timbale and Cowbell set. My little Tito Puente is all set to go. Bella got a whole lot of art materials - somebody let the cat out of the bag that the girl's an artist.

Before heading to Carrie's, we had a quiet day in the house. We ate, watched movies, including Christmas Story: I had thought that the language in it was tame except for the one "bad word" Ralphie uttered... but boy it was full of "SOB, Smart Ass, Stupid, Idiot" and the like. I'm just getting too old... I'm grumpy about cuss words these days because I just don't want to hear my little ones saying them. ANYWAY the movie was funny and then we exchanged family presents: We gave the kids "night goggles" - sunglasses with brilliant blue LED lights on them. When we left Carrie's the kids both had their lights on, and they looked like a cross between Star Wars Jawas, and the Hartnoll brothers of Orbital (a techno band of the 90s where the guys had pen lights attached to their glasses to see the knobs they were twiddling). They kept them on for the ride home and the interior of the car was flush with blue light, and I kept thinking I was getting pulled over.

We left just in time... I wound up with a somewhat severe asthma attack (first one of consequence for years, really) - not sure if it was the tree, the dog, or the rich food (or all of them), but I was gasping for air by the end of the evening, but playing it cool so as not to ruin the time for the rest of the gang. Of course the puffer I had put in my coat pocket was dead as a doornail. So when we got home I hightailed it up to Isaac's room and grabbed his penguin shaped nebulizer and used some of his old meds. 15 minutes later, my lungs were clear, but my heart was pounding - boy that albuterol is intense when delivered in that manner.

The kids were asleep by 8:30, and I was out by 10... Pamela headed out to an evening service with her friend Carla - this time at a Lutheran church, which she was visiting more out of anthropological interest than anything.

It was another magical Christmas Morning - Santa had come in the night and had carefully arranged the kid's presents in the living room. The gifts were amazing: Bella got a retro Snoopy's Sno Cone machine, and Isaac got a REAL 1970's era Evel Knievel motorcycle set. The revving jet engine sound of that bike filled the house over and over again. Daddy was lucky enough to get a couple of Lego sets, and I got a lot of help building the Empire Strikes Back AT-AT walker. Well, once I built the mini-figures, the kids were off playing with them, while I did the hard work of building the large grey machine thing.

A couple of cute things:
1) Isaac: Instead of "I've changed my mind" has been saying "I cross-ted my mind".

2) Isaac has been singing "Release Goldilock" to the tune of "Feliz Navidad". Not sure why. UPDATE: Last night i misremembered it as "Rapunzel" - it's Goldilock. Still don't know why.

3) Bella has been grilling us on where we hide the presents in the house: Which presents I ask? The ones we give them, like the night goggles (I was concerned about a possible lapse in Santa Faith, but no worries). She has it down to one closet, or "someone else's house". Neither are correct, but I'll never tell. Then we were laughing about TERRIBLE places to hide presents. Like on her pillow. Or lined up on the toilet seat ("You'd see them, and if you DIDN't see them, they'd fall into the toilet water!!!"

The madness continues tomorrow with Bella's birth family coming over for stew and presents... it'll be a blast!