Eyes full of wonder
From sweet joys December brings
Taking it all in
This Christmas season was a lot of fun to share with Bruce. Sure, last year he loved to lay under the Christmas tree, but not much more beyond that struck his fancy. This year though. We've been able to include Bruce in so many more of our family traditions. Family traditions that Charlie and I had growing up, some that we didn't even realize were traditions until now, and new traditions that we've started as our own family unit. It has been special, and exciting, and leaves me happily enjoying them now, and anxiously anticipating future years to come.
I'm typically not a huge Christmas music fan, but we've had the holiday playlist going almost nonstop for the past month, and surprisingly I've found myself actually enjoying it. And not just when the Jackson 5 or Big Bad Voodoo Daddy cycled through - but all of it! It's interesting how having Bruce around changes things. Bruce's favorites seemed to be all the classic hymns, with a traditional version of "Joy to the World" topping the list. He's a funny kid. His latest dance move has been adding "the swim/airplane" to the hip shakin' mix.
The first decoration that we got out at the beginning of the month was our Advent calendar. Yes, it has chocolate hidden for every day leading up to Christmas - but it's not your typical Advent calendar. Several years ago my friend Kim introduced me to the best Christmas cd ever - Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God. For those of you who know me well, I've probably recommended it to you, and quite possibly have even given you a copy of it. What makes it special is that it tells the Christmas story from the beginning. The very beginning. The songs take you from Creation, through all of Israel's history leading up to the birth of Jesus. I really wish I would have been the one to compose it, but I wasn't. What I did do though, was compile a collection of verses that narrate the cd and also summarize The Story. For those of you who follow me on Facebook, it's become a tradition of mine for the last few years to post my Countdown to Christmas with these 25 verses, and they also are a part of our Advent calendar. (If you want to see all the verses, here's a link: Countdown to Christmas) Bruce had a great time each morning taking the little felt icons I made out of the drawer of the Advent calendar and sticking them on the outside. He may have just wanted his bite of the Hershey Kiss, but I enjoyed reading him the verses!
Towards the beginning of the month we had our international students over for dinner and we decorated our Christmas tree. There's something about having a tree inside the house that brings the spunk back into our cat, Mr. Pants. And Bruce loved it too. He insisted the first thing we did every morning was to turn on the Christmas tree lights. We kept our most precious ornaments toward the top, but Bruce thourougly enjoyed playing with the ones we left on the bottom. Unfortunately, several of them had to visit "Santa's Hospital" before putting them away at the end of the month because of pieces that were loved a little too much.
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| Comparing Cowboys with Sojung |
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| Making stockings |
The next week when we had our international students over, Santa came a little early and we celebrated Christmas with them before they all left for their holiday travels. We roasted marshmallows in the fireplace for s'mores, opened stockings, and had a lot of fun blowing bubbles for Bruce!
We didn't get any lights up on the outside of our house this year, but on multiple occasions Charlie bundled up Bruce after dinner and took him for a walk through our part of the neighborhood to enjoy the other houses. I'm not sure what Bruce thought was going on, but he definitely loved every bit of it!
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| Bruce insisted that Joseph hold Baby Jesus instead of Mary, and of course Jesus would look better with a cowboy hat on. Then Bruce put them on the tree. |
Charlie and I also took Bruce to see the Norman Christmas Parade. We couldn't stay for the whole thing because we needed to get home for lunch and a nap (not to mention that it was actually pretty cold that day!) but for what we did see, Bruce was pretty impressed - especially with the high school marching bands!
We got to go to two birthday parties this month for littles we love. Charley had a Bigfoot birthday celebrating five years of adventures, and sweet Caris turned one! I love birthdays and look forward to bringing Bruce to more as the years go on.
Since we spent Thanksgiving with my family in Texas this year, we drove up to Perkins, OK to celebrate Christmas with Charlie's family. It was just a small group this year, just us and his parents, but we had a really nice time. Bruce got several hours of tractor driving in with Grandpa Bill and Charlie, so of course he had a blast. Charlie went to Kansas with his dad one day to see the new bulldozer and bring back a load of hay, and we were all going to cut down a Christmas tree the following day, but some pretty nasty weather was moving in, so Yvonne and I decided to cut down the tree ourselves before they got back. Well okay, she cut the tree down by herself. I mostly just tried to keep the cows away from Bruce, and keep Bruce away from the barbed wire fence. I did help haul the tree over the fence (okay, so the perfect tree just happened to be on someone else's land... shh...) and help tie it on to the back of the polaris. I think Bruce thought we were crazy, but was happy to have another tree to decorate.
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| Not your typical tree, but still great! |
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| Lots of rocking chairs at Granny K's! |
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| Our ridiculous Christmas elf almost ready for bed |
Charlie was able to take some time off from work, so we stayed a few days after Christmas and then headed home. We took down and put away "Christmas" and got ready for our friends Dan, Leslie and Liam to stay with us on their way to Houston. They got in really late, so we didn't see them until the next morning, and they had to get back on the road fairly quickly, but we had a fun morning anyway. The best part was that it started snowing like crazy! They'll stay with us again on their way back to St. Louis in a few days, so we're looking forward to that as well. Like I've said before, I love having a friend who has a son Bruce's age. And now that they're both a year old, the two or three month difference in their age doesn't seem noticeable at all. It's fun to compare milestones and developments and see how the boys are growing.
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| Liam and Bruce |
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| rubber-banded ziplock baggies make great snow shoes... |
And how is that boy growing? So incredibly fast. Do I say that every month? But it's been great. He's now so much more of a little kid, and hardly recognizable as that baby I've toted around for what has seemed like forever. He loves checking to see if the "big boys" across the street are playing outside, and if they are, he insists we go and say hello. They're super sweet and considerate and always make time to talk with Bruce and include him in what they're doing. Now that it's getting so cold, it's hard to spend a lot of time outdoors, which makes life a little more challenging, but we're hanging in there. He still has an amazingly short attention span, but will sit for a bit now and then to play with play-doh, or scribble with markers. We also got a hand-me-down slide that's intended to be an outdoor toy, but for now it lives in our living room. It isn't too big, and it gives Bruce something else to play with inside, so I don't mind.
In keeping with leaving babyhood behind him, Bruce is definitely getting more opinionated! He now will shake his head "no" and even run away from me when he doesn't want to cooperate with whatever it is I may be asking of him. Or if I'm holding up the "wrong" jacket for him to put on, he'll run into his bedroom and pull the one he wants out of the hamper. What? Who knew such small details were so important to him. So I give in when I should, compromise when I can, and put my foot down when I have to. Isn't that they way it works?
To compensate for his little rebellions, Bruce has gotten a lot more affectionate these days! He's been hugging his animals for months, but will now finally give us a hug (usually) when we ask, and can even blow kisses (sort of). He also is without a doubt saying mama and dad all the time now. Charlie is usually dada or dad, and I've been various forms of mama, mom-mom, mum, ma, sometimes all together... I'll take whatever I can get!
So how are we ringing in the New Year this year? With a lot of elbow grease! Well, for Charlie anyway. When we bought our house almost five years ago, we did a lot of work updating things around the house. At that time though, we couldn't do much with the bathrooms other than a few little things. We've finally decided to take the plunge though and do some major renovations in both bathrooms. And we're also putting in new ceiling fans in our bedroom and the living room. So far Charlie has installed new recessed lighting in those rooms because the fans we're getting don't have light fixtures attached, and installed exhaust fans in both bathrooms. It's so nice being married to a handyman! We've been looking at tile options for the bathrooms and will hopefully get started on that project soon!
We may not be staying up, playing games until midnight tonight, but that doesn't mean we're not excited about the new year! We've had such an amazing year, and are looking forward to what awaits us in 2013!
