January 4-11

The title lies.  This is, in fact, a recap of December 21-January 4.  I'll lump this past week in with next week's post.

We spent six days with Bryan's family, visiting from the weekend before Christmas until Christmas Day.  I had two Etsy orders to finish (done in time to go out with Monday's mail!) and two and a half Christmas presents to complete (done by Wednesday, I think, except for the snaps on Justine's...).  They didn't take me much time, but did allow me the occasional break from pre-Christmas craziness.
We went to Mass on Saturday night with the girls and then left them sleeping at Grandma and Grandpa's while Bryan and I went to midnight Liturgy in Lima.  Gretchen decided to participate a little extra in Mass (you know, because it's Christmas) and proceeded to read rather loudly from her book during the Gospel.  Then she spent the sermon singing the song "Singing in the Shower" (from my fabulous birthday present) at progressively higher pitches.  Delightful.  She read some more during the Eucharistic prayer and then settled down to listen during the actual hymns.  As we sang "Silent Night," she caught the words "Jesus, Lord" (Jesus, Lord at thy birth...) and began pointing to pictures of Jesus Lord in church.  This was great, until she realized the the large statue of Jesus Lord at the back of church was *gasp* naked!  Then she spent the rest of the service proclaiming, "Jesus nanake!"

Christmas morning was everything Murry could have wished as the girls gazed with wide, excited eyes at the presents awaiting them under the tree.  Gretchen opened a tea set and Olivia opened a set of books with an electronic machine to read them to her (books on tape sure have come a long way), and they were good to go.  We got some presents out of boxes right away and put the rest aside to open at a later date.  They've been discovering these other presents a little at a time over the past few weeks.  Our house has never been so full of anticipatory excitement.  :)

After festivities were done, we began packing the car to head to Michigan.  We made a brief stop at our house to drop off presents and pick up things for the Michigan folk before continuing on our way and hit the chaos just before 7.

Thursday through Tuesday were spent visiting with my family.  The girls ran around with their cousins, re-learning from William how much fun it is to just run around being crazy.  :)  At one point, Joseph was letting William, Olivia, and Gretchen run at him one at a time.  He would catch the runner, lift him high in the air, and then put him down and await the next toddler.  After Joseph (or perhaps his arms) tired of this game, he told the kids to amuse themselves and left the room.  Apparently the three decided to continue the game without an adult, taking turns being the catcher.  What resulted was them running full speed and smacking into each other.  They made it a few rounds before bumped heads ended the game in tears.

My dad, loving the fact that Gretchen calls herself Kiki, set out on a mission to get her to refer to herself as "Opa's Kiki."  This plan worked... mostly.  Gretchen says Opa's Kiki, but we're pretty sure that's her name for dad, not for herself.  :)  One night after the girls were in bed, dad was talking in the living room.  There's a fan on in the bedroom, so sounds are muffled, but apparently Gretchen heard his voice, because she immediately shouted, "OPA KIKI!"  The whole living room erupted in laughter.  Dad told her to go to sleep, to which she replied, "NO!  OPA KIKI!"  She did settle down shortly after that, though.

Bryan worked from my parents' house on Monday and Tuesday, but then we needed to head home.  After dinner on Tuesday, we packed up the car and began the trip back to Lima.  We arrived at the not-unreasonable hour of 9:30, put the girls in bed, unpacked the car into the dining room, and fell into bed.

Wednesday morning was spent beginning to unpack and find homes for new belongings.  That afternoon I had a rehearsal, followed by an evening concert, so I didn't get too much done the rest of the day.  Thursday was a day off for Bryan, so we all hung out and continued the quest to find the floor.  By Friday morning most of the things were at least contained, which was good because the Kleins were coming to visit that afternoon.  Steph and I ditched the men with the kids and headed off to a Messiah party (where a bunch of people get together for a laid-back singing of select parts of Handel's Messiah).  Unbeknownst to Scott (Steph's husband), Bryan had volunteered to babysit all the church kids while their parents attended the festivities.  Scott and Bryan ended up with 9 kids ranging in age from 1 1/2 to 5 and one elderly dachshund.  They were hailed as brave heroes at the party, and it would seem that by all accounts they did splendidly.  :)