There is nothing more fun than watching a small child on Christmas morning.  It took Rowan all of one present to figure out how the whole ripping paper off thing works. 

We are all thoroughly sick of the singing Elmo but Rowan loves it.  As you can see from the picture, his mother's parents got him a beautiful toy box.  Now we just have to convince him that he's really not allowed to play inside it.

We are having a lazy day and eating left overs for simplicity.  Rowan's mommy is quite sick with a virus so we are saving the Christmas dinner until she feels better. 

Hope you and yours are having a wonderful day!

Remembering

I'm physically back from a week in Florida helping my husband and siblings prepare for my mother-in-law's funeral.  Emotionally I'm still in that numb neverland fog that can accompany the death of a loved one.  My multi-tasking sucks and I haven't even put up the Christmas tree since getting back Sunday.

The service was very nice and my husband did a great eulogy. It was nice having everyone together and we had great fun going through old pictures.  The cats are mortally offended that we left them for such a long time.  We aren't breathing a word about Christmas travels lest they act out more.

Since we won't be able to spend Christmas all together this year, Guitar Guy and I are having a celebration with Nicole and Patrick next week and then with the Iowa clan for the actual holiday.  We had planned to do a brunch but Nicole will be coming off 3 days of 12 hour shifts and probably won't be moving until the afternoon.  We determined the quiche and pumpkin pancakes can certainly be served in the evening so all is good.

Christmas shopping is mostly done and shouldn't take long to wrap. Christmas letter isn't even started but I do have envelopes.  Baking probably won't happen, for which my spreading waistline is grateful.  Unfortunately with my trip to Florida, Rowan's stocking won't be done for this year.  But I've got next year covered!  I may try to get his dinosaur sweater done.  It uses intarsia on the sleeves to make the steggie plates.  Since I've never done that, we'll see if I can figure it out.

Off to take more decongestant for the lousy cold I came home with :-(

The end of an era

It is a strange feeling becoming the "older" generation.  With the death of my mother-in-law on Friday, December 2, Guitar Guy and I are officially the senior members of the family.  This year we have experienced mostly the down side of aging with its accompanying frailty and loss of independence.  Supposedly wisdom also comes with aging and I'd really like to know when that starts cause I could use some!

As I sit in the airport waiting to fly to Tampa for her funeral, I'm thinking that 7 AM is way too early to be having such heavy thoughts, especially on one cup of coffee. 

All prayers (if you are so inclined) or good thoughts are appreciated as our family waits to put 2011 officially behind us. 

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