Holidays 2012 Recap

Looking back a few weeks and reminiscing about the holidays there are four things that stick in my mind:

1. J fascinated by her mini Santa's Enchanted forest that Pop Pop put up for her in the backyard. She was obsessed with the lights and wouldn't stop pointing to go outside and see them, even during the day!

2. Opening her first present by herself and she did a pretty good job for a 13 month old! She loved her sports set, Grandpa picked that present right.

3. For once getting to tell Mom to "get out of the kitchen" since H and I took over the cooking duties this year. She didn't know what to do with herself (after cooking all holiday meals for the last 39 years) and it was kind of funny!

4. The cousins are almost to the age where they can play together, they booth love to swing. Next time we see them there will be two more to this brood, we'll need the entire swing set!

As it always does our time in Miami flew by. Normally it's because we are running all over creation trying to see everyone, this time we didn't do much but hang out at our parent's houses but the week still seemed to go by too fast.

J loved playing with Lucy, it's amazing how well Lucy is with the little ones when she normally hates people in her house. I guess the babies have our "smell", she is very protective of them and goes into mourning when they leave.

This time we stayed with my parents since the L family couldn't make the trip with the twins impending arrival. J got to spend a couple nights with her Grandma and Grandpa which gave mommy and daddy the night off and a reason for a date to our favorite restaurant in Miami, Captain's Tavern. I miss going there, very good fresh seafood that is reasonably priced and the best wine list (and affordable) in town! I enjoyed some tasty Florida stone crabs (boy do I miss them) and F had a Florida lobster tail. We had a great meal and enjoyed our babyless meal!

The Saturday before Christmas we surprised F's dad with his Christmas present a little early, well we kind of had too since the Mercedes dealership called the house and we thought ruined the surprise. He's now a little "Smarter" and finally has the car he has been waiting over 10 years for. He also cooked up some fabulous BBQ while we were there.

J helped mommy make a batch of Tollhouse cookies and went to town on the beater, who doesn't love raw cookie dough! She wasn't into the cookies once they were baked, weird kid who doesn't like cookies! I don't know when the last time was that I made homemade cookies, oh wait I have a 13 month old!

We spend Christmas Eve at my in-laws (both of our families get along great and we go back and forth between the two houses for the holidays) and Christmas at my parents. Typical tradition in Brasil is that Santa (Papa Noel) comes and delivers the gifts Christmas Eve, but after J's meltdown with Santa this year we figured that wouldn't be the best of ideas, we'll save the in person delivery for when she gets a little older. Everyone got great gifts, J got a boat load of toys and she did well at opening most of them by herself. She missed out on most of the night, she goes to bed early but the adults got to enjoy great food, champagne and company.

Christmas morning we woke up to our traditional Christmas breakfast, rice pudding and cinnamon rolls. J wasn't into the rice pudding (I think it's the consistency of it, more for me and what attributed to my couple pound weight gain) but went to town on the cinnamon rolls. We then opened presents in our jammies and enjoyed some what of a commotion less and quiet morning. It was bittersweet when J got to open her present from Great Gram (it was supposed to be for last Christmas but she was so little and my Mom had forgotten about it), even though Gram isn't with us anymore I knew she was that morning watching and gleaming at J enjoying her new baby doll. If that is all she would have gotten she would have been perfectly content, so much for the Pooh we got her! We spent the afternoon cooking and getting ready for Christmas dinner (that H and I prepared, well dad cooked the meat on the grill) and enjoying time with the family.

 

We ended our wonderful time in Miami with a trip to Monty's where we had more stone crabs for lunch and then left overs (because of course we always make too much food) for dinner. 

That Thursday we headed to Jacksonville to spend sometime with my sis, bro-in-law and nephew. My in-laws drove us half way where we met my bro-in-law at Cracker Barrel for lunch before embarking on the second half of the car ride. J was good in the car for someone who is not used to more than a 30 minute car ride.

 

We were in Jville until New Year's Eve where we mainly just hung out and spent time together. We went out to lunch a few times, took the kiddies to the park, library and mall, and just hung out at home. F and I did her last Babies R Us run to finish picking things up for the twinkies. The guys got to go and have oysters and watch football on their afternoon off, what did we get to do, run errands, go figure! At least we didn't have the little ones in tow but we did go to the Ale House for lunch! The cousins got to play together, and they interacted better this time, the age gap where they are able to most of the same things now is starting to close, the next time these two see each other they will be double trouble. It was sad to leave but I know I will be back there soon when the twins arrive.

We had a great holiday and nothing went wrong until our journey home. We booked our flights at times we thought J would sleep, she was an angel on the way to Miami but a devil on the way back home. We were fortunate to be upgraded to first class (for the extra room) but had to sit there and sink into our chairs for the first hour of the flight. With the way J behaved I'm surprised that she isn't on AA's no fly list! Thanks goodness she finally settled down (my nerves were had and they were out of champagne!) and fell asleep. That was the longest two and a half hours of our lives. We got home put J to bed (of course I unpacked, I can't leave a full suitcase alone) and celebrated NYE at 11pm with the east coast, hey we spent most of the day on the east coast so we had to end our day with them too, I don't think we would have made it another hour to celebrate in our time zone.

The pictures from the trip are in the 12 & 13 month albums. Enjoy, there are lots to look at.