Our Christmas

So tomorrow is the last day of 2015.

I believe this year was a good one for us, even though we were really busy with the move, and of course after Jessie came to our little family :)

Our Christmas were the first in a new country for me and our kids. I was so happy that we could share it with my husband's family. There was 9 of us at the dinner table. 

Alex of course didn't want to wait and wanted to go to the living room before anyone could get dessert or coffee after the Christmas meal.

In here we share Christmas presents after the dinner and so we couldn't allow her to go back there by herself as all the gifts were already on a huge pile under our hanging Christmas tree.

We took her out for a moment to light up sparkles and give everyone else a little time to get ready to move out of the kitchen.

When we walked in Alex was surprised but didn't  know much about what is going on. 

My hubby's sister started to sort out the presents. Of course our kids got all of theirs first. Alex was so busy with her first one that she didn't even realised how many others were placed next to her. Daddy opened all Jessie's ones with him. Jessie didn't know what was happening, and to be honest he didn't even touch anything. 

Alex opened everything and helped her granddad to open his as well. It was funny as he got a bottle of alcohol and she tried to open it for him. That evening she didn't play with anything much. But she checked every single present even Jessie's ones and before she went to bed, she looked through mine and hubby's ones too.

The following morning she tried everything and played with most of her new toys. The one she unwrapped first she didn't like at all. It's the pop up pirate game. She was scared when the pirate jump out. So she complained when I was testing it with my sister in law. It took her 3 days, now she's able to sit with it for hours and play all by herself. 

She got puzzles, books, alphabet letters, other little games and toys. Jessie got a book, some fluffy toys and a set of cars. And same as Alex he was afraid of one of the presents too. My favourite: set of 4 cars. He couldn't be nearby them, but now he's crawling to get them and what's interesting he loves to play the pirate too, even though he can't stick the sword to the barrel, but he's trying :D

So far so good. All gifts accepted and kids are happy to play with them. This is what I wanted.

We still have a little bit of our cookies and a lot of other food in the fridge. Funny how much do you buy and get when the family should come together and then everyone is too full to eat anything :p

Now we are alone. Somebody would say, time to rest, but with our little angels rest is a word we don't know. 

Unfortunately the sleep training we did with Alex a few times and worked that worked with her perfectly is not working with Jessie, so we might need to try something different. He has good nights when he wakes up once around midnight and second time around 5-6am, but after a good night a bad one comes when we could go there even 8-10 times. 

I'm really tired and I fell asleep two days ago when both kids slept in the living room. This little power nap made me good, but it's rare to have it as Alex usually doesn't nap anymore.

So I call it tonight and go to bed, my eyes are burning, my body aching as I started working out after two weeks without regular exercising and tomorrow is the last day of 2015. I will need to prepare good lunch, dinner and a little bit for the evening as we might not go to sleep that soon.

Next post will be in 2016. So I wish you all the greatest end of the year and all the best in the new one. Most of all a lot of love, health and luck :)

BTW Jessie has a tooth!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

So it's here. Christmas Eve is tomorrow.

We have nearly everything ready. Our Christmas tree is hanging from the ceiling :D That's a lovely and very practical tradition if you have little children. Of course, your tree can't be too big ;)

Christmas cookies are done, two full large shoe boxes. 

We just need to prepare the Christmas dinner. It's going to be fish and potato salad and for those who don't like the fish we'll have pork ;)

All presents are wrapped and ready to be moved from one room to another at the right time. I can't wait for tomorrow evening. 

Why tomorrow? Because the Christmas Eve is the big day for us. We have family dinner and we get the presents. We don't wait until next day. This year it will be first Christmas for Jessie. Alex will actually enjoy this one as she will understand what is happening. Last year it was just another day for her, except she got some boxes to play with :) She didn't mind what was in them. Paper and cardboard were the best toys.

She likes the Christmas tree and she's happy that there is so many people in the house. There will be 9 of us at the dinner table.

I feel happy and satisfied with everything so far. So Santa or little Jesus come on, we are waiting for you :)

I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and the happiest new year. May all your plans and wishes for next year come true. Thank you for reading my lines here and I hope you enjoy some of them.

I know I don't have a lot of posts. Hope you understand. 

Two little angles are keeping me busy and with Jessie who just started to crawl properly on all fours and was able to lift himself on a foot stool yesterday and move from living room to kitchen over 15 cm high threshold this morning, it will be even busier. 

So wish me good luck and strong nerves :p The funny time is coming!

Christmas traditions

As you all know every country has different Christmas traditions. 

In some presents are delivered by Santa, somewhere else the Three Kings (Wise men) and in our part of the world it's little Jesus. As I already wrote about it last year, I'm not going to white a long story about it. I actually love the ideas that you can get personalised letter or video from Santa and I love to do the Elf on the Shelf too, so we are combining Santa and little Jesus together. For our kids it will be one person or two best friends.

Alex and Jessie already got a video from Santa and Alex absolutely loved it, she watched it three times.

For me the Elf on the Shelf tradition will be something like Hide and Seek game with kids. The Elf won't go away to tell Santa who's good or bad. There is no need for this. I just like to make this little surprise for them every morning.

In our home countries we have one more person who gives presents to kids. It's St. Nicholas.
He comes at the beginning of December with Devil and Angel to check on kids. If they were nice, they will get sweets etc, if naughty they get potatoes, stones etc. 

Some families play this good/naughty game with their kids. They tell them if they are naughty the Devil will take them, a lot of kids get scared of them. I didn't want to traumatised my daughter, but I wanted to show her who they are. Jessie doesn't understand it yet, so there was no need for explanation for him, but Alex had to be told. We took them to the city where there was gathering of people to see this St. Nicholas and his helpers. (Kids here don't visit Santa's house).

I showed Alex a few pictures of people in the costumes, so she could be ready a little bit and I told her not to worry. We won't give her even if the Devil wants her and if she doesn't like him, she should scare him away. I told her to say "bu bu bu". While we were driving to the city she was constantly saying Devil bu bu bu, it was so funny. When we arrived there was a lot of people there. Christmas lights already on and a Christmas tree was standing in the middle of the public square. 

There was a tent were the St. Nicholas was sitting with Devil on his left and Angel on right and a few more kids behind singing songs. The Devil was actually a lovely girl and was smiling at our kids. Both of them got a little bag with sweets etc. It was nice. Alex was constantly saying Devil bu bu bu even if she said she liked him (her). I'm glad we took them there.

Some people continue to get their kids to behave the way they want, because Santa or whoever brings the presents will see them and so if they don't do what the parents ask them to do, they won't get anything under the Christmas tree. I just don't feel it's right and when I hear that someone is saying something like this to Alex because she does this or that I tell her that she's nice enough and she'll definitely get something.

What I feel is just exploring the world around, could look to somebody else like bad behaviour. It's just a different point of view. I don't want to change my daughter or son, I want to support them and help them enjoy the life. I want them to feel loved and understood and I don't want them to feel under pressure just to make me happy. They make me happy every minute of every day even if I get irritated or stressed. It's just a feeling and that will pass, but the love I have for them won't change with it. It grows even more as they do, because they can show me that they love me the way I am and I don't need to be someone else. This is called unconditional love and I have a lot of it for my babies. 

Christmas is behind a corner

It won't be long and the Christmas for our little family of four will be here.

This year we will celebrate with in-laws. My hubby's mum, sister, grandma, granddad and dad should be with us. It will be lovely to be with so many people. Alex will love it for sure and Jessie probably too as he loves attention and everyone around.

This year Alex will also get some presents we know she would enjoy. Even though she didn't write a letter to Santa, we know what she's talking about these days so we added some presents as per her interests on the shopping list now. I can't wait to see her face when she gets the gifts.

We already made a few Christmas cookies. Alex was helping me bake them. Well she was eating the dough a lot but did what I asked her to. It was fun, but I'm looking forward to next week when we'll be doing ginger bread cookies. I found the shape cutters today and handed them to Alex. She loves helping in a kitchen, so I hope she will like to make these too.

The snow is amazing. Alex was on ski already. A little baby ones, but she walked on them well. Didn't want to slide and didn't know how, but she thought it was fun when I showed her :D

We built a snowman as well, but we are waiting for better snow to make a bigger one. It's currently melting, but in a week or so we should get a fresh supply ;) I'm really excited about it. This is first real winter after so many years in Ireland and for our kids it's first one ever.

So as I didn't publish this post when I started to write, I can add now that we finished all the Christmas baking. We have a lot of cookies. It was certainly challenging work with two little ones.

Alex was trying to help and managed to eat a lot of cookie dough. I didn't like that, because I was afraid she'll get sick. She was OK, her digestion works perfectly. Jessie is teething again or still, not sure if we had any breaks in between and is really cranky.

We had his vaccinations last week and he was much better this time. It didn't make a big difference with his routine, so I'm really happy about that.

And of course we celebrated Alex's birthday. She had two cakes and two celebrations. One of the cakes was a rainbow one, You can't see the colours here but there was green, pink and the top was light blue. We even had a baby bubbly :D that was fun. 

Now we have just last bits and pieces to sort out, and the Christmas could come. It's going to be my hubby's birthday soon too, so we will be busy celebrating again.

Little update :)

Alex's birthday is nearly here. I picked up a recipe for her cake. I just hope it will be tasty and nice. Well, when it's ready, I'll take a picture and put it up here :)

We moved out of kid's bedroom last week. They sleep by themselves now. It's working good so far. Of course we have a baby monitor, but we could hear them through open door as well. Yesterday we rearranged the furniture there so they both sleep in new location and a little closer to each other. I just hope that they won't wake each other if they cry.

So far so good. Last night was the first night and Jessie slept much better than usual. He woke up only twice between 8pm and 5am, after that he didn't want to fall asleep, so I had to take him with me. When he was sleeping next to me for about 5 minutes he started to talk from his sleep. It was the longest babbling ever :D and so cute.

Jessie is 8th month already, but he's about the size of one year old baby. His clothes are getting smaller too fast. He absolutely loves food. Anything he gets, he eats and milk.... That's a different story. He doesn't take it during the day, only night feed(s). He takes usually one feed a night, but there is the odd night when he wants twice.

This evening it was a first time after about 4 weeks when he took milk after dinner, before he went to sleep.

Alex loves watching fairytales these days. The weather is cold and wet, so we can't go out as much. She loves horses, bunnies, dolphins etc and she's learning English from them and 90% of our movies are in English. She told me tonight Good Night in English. It was a big surprise for me. Her languages improved so much. She's constantly talking, loves reading her princess book and even playing with Jessie.

Jessie on the other hand is trying to crawl. He's moving around all right. Just not on all fours yet. He loves exploring everything especially with his mouth. I'm glad we don't have small toys yet. 

Alex didn't want to eat much lately. After we were sick, she had usually breakfast, a little one, a half of potato with something at lunch time and maybe something for dinner. I started to worry, because she didn't even ate what Jessie was able to finish within a few minutes. It was just a phase. After about 3 weeks of this picky eating she started to eat everything again. She surprised us one evening to finish whole slice of bread (usually she has a half of it), same portion of soup as I gave to her father and today two large chicken wings with rice. It was nearly the same portion I had for lunch.

We had to move her evening routine a little as she was complaining when we put her to the bed before 8pm. Most of the days she goes to sleep around 9pm which is still OK with me. If she has a bad day she would try to stay awake for ages, like yesterday but with the bell at 10pm she was in bed fast asleep. I told her to go the be when she wants, but I expect her to wake up at 8am and be fresh and ready for the day. That's what we agreed on. And even though she went to bed so late last night, she was up by herself at 8am and came to us. All happy and asking for a Litter Mermaid movie :)

Today it was 9 again, I hope tomorrow will be same.

That's about it. There is nothing special happening now, except for the snow outside, but we'll be really busy from this weekend onwards.

Christmas is coming!!!!! I'm really excited about this one, I'll tell you why next time :p