Christmas, Mon!!!

Our December was filled with more treats than we can count. Well...particularly for Norah, whose sweet tooth has been out of control! (Although she did barely pass her 32 week glucose tolerance test – Phew!)

On the first day of the month, our house was filled with banging and drilling and sawing and more power tools than Lewis had ever seen! The work started on a new master bathroom. It was a hectic first week. My neighbor was an angel and let Lewis nap over at her house during the first few days of demolition. That was such a help! I quickly learned that the month was not going to consist of getting much done besides keeping Lewis away from the construction and trying to wipe up some of the dust here and there. But, it was all very exciting! The project lasted the whole month, ending on New Year’s Eve. We’re so, so happy with the finished product! (Well...almost finished...the glass on the shower will be installed this week! Then we can officially move in!) We love how it feels in the bedroom, and the bathroom is wonderful. Plus, this was great timing to put in a bathroom that’s literally 3 steps from our bed when Norah is 8-9 months pregnant. It’s getting lots of use in the middle of the night!

We had our last big trip of the year right before Christmas. Norah’s Uncle Dave turned 70, and planned a family reunion for the whole Lewis family to...Jamaica! What a treat! As if that wasn’t enough, Norah’s parents thought they should capitalize on the family all coming out for the reunion and decided to add a few extra days on to the trip for an Ellis family get together before the whole family reunion. So, we all flew to Jamaica! It was such a treat to be with the family and spend time together. Lewis loved the attention from his aunts and grandparents. He also absolutely loved the beach. It was really fun for us to get to see him at the beach during the winter. He changes so quickly that every month or so is different. It was fun to see him in a context we normally wouldn’t have. With the Ellis family, we filled our time with beach, tennis, ping pong, the playground for Lewis, yummy jerk food, a trip out to some “glistening” waters, a visit to a bird sanctuary, and a stop by the local market.

After about 4 days together, we joined the entire Lewis family (about 45 people) for a big reunion. It’s always a special treat when the Lewis family (Norah’s mom’s family) gets together. There are 5 siblings in the family, and they’re literally spread all over the world. What a generous birthday present from my uncle to bring us all together. The resort was gorgeous. The family stayed in 4 different villas and we got around by golf cart. (This, of course, was Lewis’s favorite part!) There were just the right number of organized activities to accompany general fun and catching up. We had dinners planned every evening as well as a sand castle contest, a scavenger hunt, a volleyball and a tennis tournament, and a birthday celebration night at the end of the week. My cousins all really know how to have a good time, so the whole thing was one, grand party! The last time the Lewis clan all got together was 6 years ago in Cape Town. A few of the cousins were married by then, but there weren’t any little kids running around. This year, there were 10 little kids to keep us all entertained. Lewis had a great time. He did get sick in the middle of the week, which was so sad – first baby throw up of his life. Luckily it didn’t even last 24 hours. But, poor thing was a bit tired needed a bit of extra love from Mommy after that. Otherwise, everything went well, and we all came back loving Jamaica, mon!

Margie and her brothers

The birthday boy - Uncle Dave, with Auntie Fogo

When we returned, we stepped into another few days of fun because Didi and Papa John were visiting! How lucky are we!!! They were out for Rachel’s baptism. It was so special to get to attend Rachel’s baptism – she just shone. Besides the baptism, Didi treated us all to an evening out in NYC to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes. SO FUN! We hadn’t done that since we were kids, and we loved every minute. Mike got to show off his parents at work over lunch. We also did a Christmas tour of the governor’s mansion in Princeton together.

And, the night before Didi and Papa John left, we celebrated Lewis’s birthday together. Norah had actually won some catering from a choir raffle a few months earlier. Since the house was totally under construction, and we knew this was just the crowd to appreciate a catered dinner, we thought it would be a great time to use it. So, for his 2^nd birthday, Lewis had a very fancy catered dinner! Other activities of the evening included coloring on the paper that was covering the floor for the construction with his cousins and his friend, Carter. And, opening presents. He got the hang of that pretty quickly! Lewis was spoiled with lots of great presents for his birthday, including a train set from Didi, a Boise State outfit from Papa John, some V8 (his favorite) and pretend fruit from his cousins, and a bus from Jaime, Jeff, and Carter. He asks about all the presents on a regular basis and clearly loves them all. But, the bus has become a new snuggle buddy in bed. He has slept with it every night since! Who knew! A big plastic bus?!?

Mommy, Daddy, and Auntie Fogo (as Lewis now calls her...and who visited after Jamaica through Christmas) also celebrated Lewis’s actual birthday with another birthday dinner and some pumpkin cake...another Lewis favorite. We’ll have to include some videos of Lewis singing with his new microphone, which was his main present from Mommy and Daddy. Too cute!

And then, Christmas! All this fun in one month, and we’re not even to Christmas yet!!!

Actually, Christmas felt very peaceful, quiet, and just lovely. We had plans to get together with the other Wasdens, but Lewis actually came down with a fever just before Christmas, and so we ended up having it just be us. We had a lovely time! It was such a treat to have Fogo here too, not only for her fun, but also her cooking! We had gone to our local Christmas Tree farm to pick a tree the weekend before Christmas. Lewis loved the

lights, and did learn not to take off the ornaments, although he loved pointing them all out. He did quickly figure out that the candy canes on the tree were edible, so those all had to come off! Christmas Eve consisted of a bit of tidying (again...we were still in the middle of construction!), quite a bit of cooking, and relaxing together. We acted out the Christmas story with Lewis and sang lots of carols, and that felt very special. Since Lewis was sick, he didn’t quite make it to our scrumptious dinner that evening. We enjoyed every morsel! Then, Mike and I experienced our first Christmas staying up to wrap presents and get the stockings all sorted out so our little boy could be surprised the next morning! It was so fun!

Lewis did love Christmas morning! We opened stockings up on Mommy and Daddy’s bed in the morning. He had lots of goodies to explore, just from that. Then we brought him down to see the tree and his present from Santa. He was very excited by all of that. As we got into presents, we had a bit of calming down to do because, of course, he had learned to expect that all presents were for him, since we had just celebrated his birthday! He caught on before too long though. Auntie Fogo treated us to a scrumptious breakfast. And we spend most of the day relaxing, playing with some of our toys, and just enjoying. We did head off, about mid-day, to catch the annual re-enactment of Washington crossing the Delaware over at Washington Crossing State Park, just about a 10 minute drive from our house. It was nice to be outside, even in the crisp air, and we had fun seeing the soldiers cross the river. We had another scrumptious dinner that evening, and finished off the day feeling extremely full, and very happy!

I should mention here that Lewis does sort of get Santa. We read a couple different Santa books leading up to Christmas, and he definitely got the connection with the tree, lights, stockings, cookies, etc. But, Lewis is actually obsessed with a different person – Noah. He has a Noah’s ark book that he absolutely loves. Ever since I started reading him Santa books, he has insisted on calling Santa, Noah. In fact, he is rather obsessed with his Santa books, only he calls them Noah books! This has continued throughout January. So, not only can he tell you about how “God told Noah there would be a great flood”, but he can also repeat to you that “Noah” says, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!” (He throws his arm out to the side and says this phrase very excitedly whenever we get to that picture in the book!) Ah well. Maybe next year he’ll decide that it’s Santa who comes. For now, the guy with a beard and robes is definitely Noah!