Christmas Trip - Day 4

We had a very low key Saturday after Christmas. We stayed in the whole day, and tried to enjoyed the last few hours with the family before we had to drive off. Unfortunately, Patrick and Laurin had to work, so we only saw them for a few minutes each. We spent the rest of the day packing and spending time with Grandmother, Mom, and Dad.

We took off at about 7pm again and it took us 12 hours to drive back. A storm rolled through Shreveport earlier in the day and we managed to catch up with it after a couple hours' drive. Unfortunately, Daniel woke up crying when the rain started pounding us. We stopped after a little while and burped him thinking that maybe his tummy was hurting. But soon after we got in the car he started crying again. I got into the back seat with him and tried to play and talk to him to try to calm him down. Nothing helped until, out of desperation, I started singing old Russian songs to him. He calmed down immediately! I was shocked! I did not realize that my crappy, out of tune singing, can have such an effect on him. But at that point I was ready to sing for the rest of the trip if that was necessary. I sang for about half an hour to him, and than we played his new favorite game: "through everything away and let mama get it". At the next stop (it was close to midnight) we fed him another bottle and he fell asleep and slept all the way home.

If I have not mentioned it before, Daniel is a very lucky little boy! He has 9 grandparents and great-grandparents still living. On Stephen's side they are: Great-grandmother Evelynn (or as Daniel will call her Gigi), Great-grandmother Ruby (Granny), and Grandparents John and Monnie. On my side they are: my maternal grandmother Lidia, my mother Nina, my paternal grandparents Emil and Inna, and my father Gregory. So I am on a quest to take pictures of Daniel with all the different predecessors. I am not sure if we will ever be able to get them all together to take a group picture... Well, here are pictures with Gigi:

And the four generations of the Cole clan:

This is it! The Christmas 2008 is over, it has been a very happy and busy time for us. We really enjoyed going over to Shreveport and seeing everybody there. Thank you Grandmother, Mom, and Dad for making us feel as welcome as ever! We hope that you will be able to come out and visit in March for Daniel's 1st Birthday and in April for Stephen's 40th Birthday and maybe even sooner :) We really appreciate everything and love you more then ever!

Christmas Trip - Day 3

The Friday after Christmas came and with it a much awaited visit to Jason, Krystal, Alli, Walker, and Griffin's. Jason is Stephen's first cousin on his mother's side. Stephen, Jason, and their cousin Mark used to hang out together when they were little. But as time went by, they all moved away from each other and ended up not hanging out as much. Stephen and I reconnected with Krystal and Jason in June when they came to visit New York. You can read all about it on Krystal's blog HERE.

I am posting this picture especially for you, Krystal. This is the reason Daniel was so good during our visit:

I was amazed at how well behaved and sweet Alli, Walker, and Griffin are. And they were so good to Daniel. Even Griffin gave Daniel a hug.

Daniel was not too sure about the group hug, he just wanted to watch everybody :) But he quickly warmed up and it was smiles all around as usual.

Three little cousins playing:

Griffin even delivered Daniel's gift:

This picture has no special significance, I just thought Daniel looked cool standing in his little shoes being supported by Chele. Chele was so sweet to Daniel, hanging out with him for a long time. Daniel really liked her. I think Chele wants another baby :)

I know this is not the most flattering picture of Danny, but I really liked the sky behind the boys

Daniel having a ball:

Two little buddies hanging out on top of the letter box:

Two happy mommies with their babies:

Our most gracious hosts:

I really wanted to take this picture. There are four generations of the Holt side of the family here. Granny Holt with two of her children, Monnie and Danny, three of her grandchildren, Jason, Michele, and Stephen, and five of her nine! great-grandchildren Hannah, Alli, Walker, Griffin, and Daniel.

Krystal and I have been joking around about who is the better icer (is that even a word?), Stephen or Jason. So Krystal put together a little icing-off competition. Just look at the concentration on those boys faces right before the countdown :)

And here they are, all done. And guess what!? Stephen won!!! Way to go, baby! You rock!

Griffin really enjoyed the cupcakes afterwards!

We had such a nice time with you, Krystal and Jason. Thank you so much for everything! We really hope to see you soon, it is too bad that we live so far away from each other.

Christmas Trip - Day 2

Warning!!! Too many pictures!!!

Christmas Day finally came!!! We could open the presents! My awesome husband gave me the best present ever: a Nikon D40 camera with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AND 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED lenses. PLUS Photography lessons! I've been wanting to learn photography for so-so long! My wonderful parents-in-law gave me a tripod and a 4GB card for the camera! Thank you so much baby, Mom, and Dad!

Stephen has been wanting some type of video game console for very-very long, but we always agreed that it would take up too much of our time. (Actually, I did not want to share my time with Stephen). Well, I decided to stop being selfish and I got Stephen a Wii this year. He really seems to enjoy it! I am so glad.

We got and gave lots of other presents and we are grateful for all the presents that we received! Thank you, Grandmother, Mom, Dad, Laurin, and Patrick! You guys are wonderful!

As you can imagine Daniel got lots of things too. Here is Daniel playing with his new Mega Blocks truck and a bag full of Mega Blocks:

After we were done opening the presents, I caught all the Cole boys hanging out together:

Patrick has two dogs, and Daniel LOVED them. Especially, the smaller one - Zouie. He would touch her with one finger and them squeal in delight!

We had a wonderful Christmas lunch complete with Turkey, Ham, Green Bean casserole, dressing, Ambrosia, and other tasty treats. Thank you Mom!

After everybody took a nap, we went to see Stephen's Aunt Judy and Granny. Here is Daniel with Granny:

Judy and her Granddaughter Danielle really seemed to enjoy the chocolates we brought them:

Stephen's cousin Dana did not let Daniel off her arms the whole time she was there. I think she misses the baby smell and feel (her children are 12 and 18).

I've never met Judy's husband Larry before, he is such a hoot! He is an avid hunter and an ex-hippie, he showed me bunch of pictures of him on his chopper years ago. He is too funny, he made me almost cry with laughter!

Christmas Trip - Day 1

OK, I've started a recount of our Christmas holidays a few times and every time I would put it off because I have so much to talk about. I am going to seperate the days so that the posts are not toooooooo long :) So here it goes:

This year we went to Shreveport, Louisiana for Christmas. After much deliberation and consideration we decided to drive through the night so that Daniel would sleep and make it a little easier on us. Well, Daniel did great on the trip there. We took off at about 7pm Eastern time on Tuesday night and Daniel fell asleep right away. He woke up when we stopped for the first time at about 8:30pm and we fed him dinner. As soon as we started driving again he fell asleep. He did wake up every time we stopped after that but never cried or fussed, just looked around. The drive was not bad at all, just so long! We were so tired! I felt so bad for Stephen, he had to work that Tuesday and he stayed up for the whole drive. It took us about 11 hours to do the 615 miles from our house to Stephen's Grandmother Cole's house in Shreveport. But we did it!

We spent the Christmas Eve together at Grandmother's house. Daniel spent the first half-an-hour after we got there just looking around and getting to know his surroundings and people. After a short while he became completely comfortable and started playing with everybody.

After a while Dad, Mom, Stephen, Daniel and I went to the Red River broadwalk mall for lunch and a little shopping.

Grandmother and Mom went above and beyond decorating the house and the outside for Christmas. The house looked wonderful! Thank you Mom and Grandmother!

Whew! First Christmas post down, just three more to go! Blogging is hard, but I want to keep the memories ;)

Boys being silly and Christmas preview

Yesterday evening I walked in on my boys playing around in the nursery. Daniel was LAUGHING at his Dada (and so was I):

We went to Babies R Us couple of days ago and got a set of Christmas PJs complete with this hat for Daniel to wear on Christmas morning. He was not too thrilled with the hat. I hope all the presents will distract him on Christmas morning.

Christmas is a week away...and counting!

I moved to the United States from Ukraine 10 years ago next Tuesday the 23rd. Growing up in Soviet Union, where all religion was prohibited, we did not celebrate Christmas. And even if we did, the Russian Orthodox Christmas is on January 7th. Plus, half of my family is Jewish (so now they celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year). All this amounts to the fact that we did not have Christmas or Hanukkah traditions in my household. Our big holiday was always New Year. That is when Father Frost would come with his Granddaughter to deliver presents for the kids. We would also put up a New Years tree, and have big late night family dinners to meet the New Year and toast with Champagne.

Over the years, especially since I met Stephen, Christmas has become more and more important to me. It is a time to see family, celebrate together, and of course exchange gifts :) I LOVE getting and giving gifts. I tend to think hard about gifts I get for different people, and get very excited for them to open the presents and see if they like the gifts as much as I though they would. In fact, I have been known to give the gift to the person ahead of time because I was so excited. I hate waiting.

Stephen just called me to tease me that he just bought my gift. And will have it with him when he gets home today. Although I do have a pretty good idea of what it is, I might have to sneak a peak at it, or maybe even play with it. If I do, I might post about it or I might not :) (Lets keep Stephen on his toes :) )

This year, the Christmas holiday is going to be extra special because we have Daniel now, and it is his First Christmas. I really did not think much about it, until I saw how excited Stephen and the rest of his family are. Stephen's grandmother has gone above and beyond with decorating her house and getting ready for us to arrive. Dad (Stephen's father) has sent us pictures of the outside and it looks so festive and beautiful. I think everybody in Shreveport has been ready to see us for weeks. I cannot wait to go!

Additionally, we are going to get to see lots of our cousins from Mom's (Stephen's mother's) side of the family. They are all so much fun. Let me just say that our visit will include a cookie icing-off competition. I will post more about that after we go see them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year everybody! I hope you have safe and joyful holidays with your loved ones!

Wordless Wednesday