This post was supposed to go up nearly three weeks ago. But nearly three weeks ago I threw my back out. Bad. So I haven't been doing much other than "rest-es" for my back, as Ellie says. Every time I get back from the physical therapist Ellie is convinced that the doctor got me all better. She thinks doctors can fix anything from hangnails to televisions that won't turn on when the power is out (which is what we were dealing with on day one of my back catastrophe). She has a lot of faith in the medical profession.

Needless to say, the kids haven't been loving this. None of us do, really. It's slowly getting better, I think, and I have resumed some basic level of activity, counter height and above. Problem is that the kids are not counter height (well, except when Ellie climbs, which is actually a lot, but is also another problem). The PT also gave me a "back grace" [brace] to wear sometimes when I need to lift Charlie or do some cleaning and I think it helps. Ellie also fashions different back graces and has to rest her back quite a bit these days too. She has it rough.

This all came just a couple weeks after I started things to take better care of my back, like being smarter about how I clean, doing some stretches I learned in physical therapy before, etc. This seems like really bad back karma. Somewhere someone is out there not lifting with their knees, not doing transverse abdominal work, not stretching their hip flexors, and totally getting away with it.

Anyway, onto the real intent of my post. I just wanted to finally get a few last Christmas pictures up before January is over. I set that as my deadline. Ellie still isn't over Christmas; she regularly wears her Christmas jammies (both kids do, actually), still asks if we can get decorations back out, and builds Christmas "trees" out of her blocks and blankets. Occasionally she will ask me to help her write a letter to Santa, but it's just that--literally a letter: sometimes E, sometimes S, she really likes O. But I think it's time I just dump all these pictures and we close this chapter and I get to blogging about other things.

 We watched a lot a Christmas movies during Charlie's naps. Ellie fell asleep during a lot of them. In awkward places. This is a bed she made for herself in her toy box.

 Lots of fun Christmas parties. After driving three hours to attend this family party/reunion for Brady's dad's family, Ellie was elated to meet up with her cousin/partner in crime Phoebe.

 The centerpieces for the tables were handfuls of candy. Once the candy on our table was gone, the girls moved to a vacant table and made themselves at home. And made a mess.

They sat there by themselves for lunch.

And hid and spied.

 And played "mamnets" [magnets] at Aunt Kathy's house after the party.

 Building a snowman. Ellie loved Aunt Kathy's house. She "went snowing" with Uncle Booga and Phoebe, she introduced Aunt Kathy to They Might Be Giants' "Here Come the ABCs" (they're both huge fans), and had so many goodies. She's dying to go back.

Picking out treats to take home. And Charlie, our good little sleeper, slept through the whole visit. He will be as big of and Aunt Kathy fan as we all are by our next visit, I'm sure.

 We went to visit my family and  continued the festivities. I went to the Nutcracker ballet with my parents, nieces, and sisters.

 And did not get great pictures. We also celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary with a temple trip and dinner at a nice restaurant. I didn't get any good pictures of them at the party. They were always holding one grandbaby or another, playing with the grandkids, which is typical of how they celebrate.

 We had a good Christmas carol cousin jam session on Christmas Eve.

Flowers Ellie got from Aunt Renee ('Nee-'nee flowers), which she insisted on sleeping in on Christmas Eve.

 Christmas morning. Finally a picture of Charlie (to be fair, this kid does sleep a lot of the time. Also, I have loads of videos of him that for some reason are not transferring well since we got Windows 8, so I will work on that. He started walking just before Christmas, which he thinks is the most hilarious thing he ever did, so he walks around carrying things over his head and just cracking up. We really love this boy.) This is one of my favorite presents we got Charlie. His own remote.

 We got Ellie some pots and pans, in hopes that she would leave our kitchen stuff alone. Ha! (And you can see how the flowers fared overnight. Not bad.)

 Charlie's door toy. Lots of little doors to open and close. This kid is fascinated with doors. He can't stand to see a door open that could be shut.

And the table and chairs. Again, hoping to prevent Ellie dumping her entire toy box and commandeering all the throw pillows to make her own table and chairs. Doesn't prevent that, but they do love to play with this set too. As you can see, a very busy, very IKEA, very merry Christmas.

No Love for Santa

We don't play up the whole Santa thing too much with the kids. We'll see how that goes as they get older. We have a lot of fun traditions for them at Christmas, and we don't outlaw Santa by any means, but we just like to hit some of the more important elements of the holiday. So we don't go way out of our way for Santa. But on campus they were having a Santa come for families to visit. It seemed like a good, get-in-the-spirit-of-things family activity, convenient, and free pictures and cookies. So why not?

Turns out our kids are not comfortable sitting on and conversing with a strange old man, even if he looks like Santa. And it turns out, I'm kind of okay with that.

Ellie was a little wary, just watching from a distance.

Charlie was none too happy (and may have thought something smelled fishy about some old man just giving stuff away to strangers).

 So hesitant.

 So Brady and I had to be in the shot too. Charlie still can't figure this guy out. And Ellie agreed to daintily fold her hands, but notice how she's trying to squirm off my lap?

 But the candy cane made it all worth it. And apparently it is the most amazing candy cane I had ever seen (trying to keep some enthusiasm up for Ellie). Lesson learned. No more Santa visits.

We went to an extended family party that had a Santa too (no pictures of this one--not that I have anyway). All the kids who sat on his lap got a little glass (yes, glass!) ornament filled with white glitter that Ellie sooo wanted. She thought it was a snow globe. She finally approached Santa with me, and then the Santa made ME sit on his lap and hold Ellie. It was awkward. I see why she doesn't like it. She wouldn't talk to him either. So he kept asking her questions. He asked her, "Do you want a doll for Christmas?" I wanted to give him a swift elbow jab. Are you kidding me? A doll was not in the plans this year. Santa shouldn't plant ideas. Finally, through gritted teeth, Ellie said, "I want a snow globe." How convenient. She got her ornament and ran off. Atta girl.

A little while later Ellie's preschool had a Christmas party and all the mom's had a different activity for the kids. One of the moms did photos with silly hats. She had a Santa hat and a paper Santa beard for the kids to wear. Ellie really liked the beard, but she refused to wear the hat. She really, really liked the reindeer antlers.

This kid really has a thing against Santa.

Finally, we got the perfect activity. We had taken the kids out for ice cream and our favorite spot was closed, so we stopped at a frozen custard shop near a park on the other side of town. A nice lady asked if we knew about the activity at the carousel at the park that very night. Santa would be there and they were offering free rides on the carousel. Ellie had been asking to go on the Merry-go-round since we took her on it once last summer, but it is closed all winter. So we headed across the street, skirted around Santa, hopped on the carousel and couldn't have had a better family outing if we'd planned it.

Both kids absolutely loved it.

 Look at that face. The magic and thrill on her face of not being forced to sit and converse with Santa. You just can't manufacture that.

Belated

Bet your Nativity set didn't come with Pluto, Pongo, or a "Yodelin' Cowgirl."

That's what Ellie calls herself when she wears that hat. Not Jesse. Yodelin' Cowgirl. I managed to keep things out of Charlie's reach this year, but I couldn't keep Ellie away. Casualties so far are one sheep and one angel wing. When I found the broken pieces and asked Ellie about about it, she sounded a bit panicked and said, "But I can say 'sorry!' The doctor can fix it!" She still apologizes every once in a while for it. Nothing a little super glue can't fix.

I have a serious backlog of blogging material. The holidays were great, but we were all sick and are just now  really recovering from our ear aches/sinus infections/coughs. So I didn't get around to chronicling everything in the moment. And lately Brady has wanted to work from home while he still has the chance and has been using the computer a lot.

I just might go back sometime and post a few holiday pictures, since I am terrible at any other form of record keeping and someday my kids might appreciate seeing the pictures. If you few readers will indulge me. Not very zen of me to look back, but aren't we supposed to try to keep the Christmas spirit all year long? In case I don't get around to it, though, this counts as this year's and maybe next year's Christmas card. Hope everyone had a lovely time.