December (Part 2)

The 2nd half of our December started with a trip to Kansas City.  We went there to visit my brother who just had a baby in the beginning of November.  We thought that since my parents live close to us that we would all head up there and spend our Christmas that way.  My other brother who lives in Chicago wasn't able to make it because they had a new baby of their own just a couple of weeks earlier.  My parents were headed up to see them on Christmas Day.  We decided that spending the weekend before Christmas together would be good.  For the last couple of years, my parents have wanted us to get together and do things or go on outings instead of doing the buying gifts for everybody.  This year they got us a hotel room and we got to go swimming, watch my nephew be baptized, and do some shopping.  We did get presents for the kids/babies, because it is just fun to do with them.  Here are some things we did on our trip.



This was Jaycee before we headed out on our trip.



Brandon, Corrinne, and Ethan right before his baptism.





Mira's parents with the two grandchildren. 
I am surprised that Jaycee stayed sitting.



Brandon had a huge oversized tennis ball that Jaycee had a blast playing with.  As you can tell. 

 

She loved opening presents.  What she really liked was the paper. 

 

After we came back from the trip, Jaycee got a really neat KU outfit from her grandma and grandpa Walker.  Since both Tom and I love KU (even though neither of us went there), we thought that she should have a lounging day in her new KU gear.

On Christmas Eve, we headed over to Tom's sister's house to celebrate Christmas with the Ehrlich's.  Jaycee was kind of not so happy on the ride there, so I was prepared for a pretty rough evening, but uncle John had a laptop and found her favorite PBS show Super Why! She sat there so still for almost 30 minutes straight.  This gave me time to eat dessert without her wanting to be held and then put down.  (Later on in the week, I found out that she was cutting some new teeth.  I guess I should have known by her different demeanor)

Christmas Day

On Christmas day, we actually got to sleep in.  The night before I think wore Jaycee out, so she allowed us to sleep in a little, and that was great for me.  We didn't do that whole Santa thing because she doesn't know about all that yet, and so we just got up ate some yummy cinnamon rolls, and then headed over to the tree to open presents.  We didn't do much for presents this year.  Mostly, Tom and I went out together and bought a few things that we each said we would like to have and then came home and wrapped them.  So we weren't real suprised, but it was still fun to have Jaycee open up the gifts.  Most of the gifts were bags this year.  But the tissue paper was fun for her.
 

Can't you see how thrilled she is to have breakfast.



One of the things that we really wanted to do this year was to make Jaycee a little kitchen.  She has been really curious about the kitchen in general, so I thought that we would make her one.  I found the idea from Family Fun magazine, and asked Tom if he thought he could make one for her.  Here is what he came up with.  I thought it was really cute, and we spent a few days before Christmas getting some play kitchen stuff for it.  I think at first Jaycee didn't really know what to do with it, but she has soon gotten to like it and to pretend to wash the dishes.  Here are some pics of her new homemade kitchen.

It was nice just to have the day to ourselves and not to have to be anywhere.  We all stayed in our PJs all day and just kind of vegged out.  It was one of the most relaxing Christmas's that I have had in a while.