Christmas 2008

We enjoyed a Christmas this year that held more joy than I could've imagined! Last year Ivy was beginning to recognize lights and our house in particular. This year she was enraptured by Christmas everywhere. The trees, the decorations, the "boots" (stockings), and of course the lights! Glorious lights!

Christmas Eve held more meaning this year. Alex, Ivy, and I began a tradition of reading the Christmas Story of the Bible and 'Twas the night before Christmas before saying our prayers and tucking Ivy into bed together. Next year we hope to add the traditions of cooking Christmas Eve dinner together as a family and making an extra dessert to leave for Santa. Of course, Santa's visit was more fun, too, because Ivy understood that in the morning there would be a bicycle. Still, she was too precious for words when she walked into the living room, lit only by the tree and beheld the magic of Christmas Morning.

Alex had the brilliant idea of setting the video camera up on tripod the night before, so we have excellent video of Ivy opening her Christmas gifts on the first Christmas morning that actually felt like a Christmas morning with our daughter. It's odd considering this was actually her 3rd Christmas!

Ivy's pink bike!

Really tearing into those gifts...

Helping Papa...

Fun with the Frosty Train...

Piano fingers?

Santa brought Ivy a Hershey's Kiss for her stocking. I don't think Santa knew it was SOLID chocolate... nevertheless, Ivy was happy!

The rest of Christmas day was spent cleaning and enjoying our Christmas gifts. Our few family members came over for an early dinner and we had a wonderful time visiting with them.

If you've never seen Ivy at blessing time, let me give you a mental picture. She pushes the plate out of the way. Completely lays her head down on the table and with her face smushed in, tries to get out her blessing. If you have seen Ivy at blessing time, you'll appreciate that a standing blessing looks much the same!

We enjoyed some hot chocolate before saying, "Good-bye" to a wonderful day.
In other news, just for posterity's sake since that's what I'm really doing this blog for anyway, Ivy has had a TERRIBLE time sleeping for the last two weeks. Since Nanny left and life returned to "normal" she's had a very difficult time falling asleep and has completely refused to nap unless she's in the car. I feel like she is preparing us for life with a newborn again. We are up and down all night. As of tonight we are taking the high (hard) road. It's bed. The End. No more singing, no more patting the back, no more fill in the blank. Note to self: you CANNOT negotiate with a two year old. You will lose every time! I'll let you know if things have improved by next week. (Please, God.)

Merry Christmas Eve! (Marathon Post Finale)

On this Merry Christmas Eve I have to remember the gift Ivy gave us two years ago... she slept through the night for the first time!

Although she's already in bed this evening, she sends a little entertainment...


and a Christmas wish to you all!

Marathon Night III

We were excited to spend Friday night as a Girls' Movie Night at our friend Amanda's. Ivy watched more of a movie than she's ever watched before (about 2 minutes) but Elf can be rather captivating! She also got to spend time making mischief with her friend Annie...

and lounging with her Madrina Brooke...

We spent the rest of our weekend hanging around the house taking pictures in front of the Christmas tree! :) There was a group shot (I'm hoping for a better one on Christmas Day)...

a solo shot to show off the new slippers...

DIV>

and a Sunday School shot (she was watching Plaza Sesamo and refused to look at me)...

Tomorrow night's post will be a couple of video snippets, and then I'll probably call myself caught up until Sunday or Monday.

Marathon Night II

Early in the week we took Ivy to the mall to have her picture made with Santa. She was a good girl! She told Santa that she wanted a pink Dora bike for Christmas (I hate to disappoint her, but Santa didn't expect her to be quite so explicit and had already acquired her bike before she went to make her request in person. Hopefully she'll be happy anyway!)

Then we played on the ride-on toys right behind Santa (strategically placed?) and let Ivy run around a little at the playplace in the mall. This was the first night she realized that she could flip out of the back of the car. She though that was GREAT!

Thursday was Ivy's Christmas Program at school. They dressed in pajamas and Ivy was just too cute in my opinion. (Shocking, I know...)

Her class sang a couple of songs and shook their jingle bells. Surprisingly, in front of an audience Ivy seems to get shy. I guess she gets that from her papa!

Marathon Post

Well, let's see... a million things have happened since I posted last. I'll try to make multiple posts and put them up from oldest to newest... maybe I'll do a little post every day this week to try to catch up. That sounds like the best plan, so check back often to get caught up and to see what's going on around the Alfaro house these days!

For tonight's post we'll start with December! It has been a party!! Nanny was scheduled to leave on December 3rd, but with the hustle and bustle of Ivy's birthday and then Thanksgiving, it seemed like we had done a lot of running around and very little sitting and visiting. Late on the night of the 2nd she decided that she'd stay another week if we could change her ticket, so we did! While Nanny spent the week visiting family outside of the Alfaros, Ivy spent the next week investigating all kinds of machines...

There was the carousel at the mall...

the Wish-List Disney Princess Mustang at Wal-Mart...and Papa's carro...

The following weekend, Alex wanted to take us to see some snow, so we bundled up...

and practiced sledding...

and then we headed to the only place we could find snow - the mountains! Over the river and through the rock, to Appalachian Ski Mountain we went. We didn't ski (or sled), we just spent time playing in the snow on the deck and watching the sights around us and that was plenty of fun!

When we headed back to the car, Papa surprised us with his advance planning! Some homemade hot cocoa to warm us up! What a nice treat!

Then we headed to Chick-Fil-A to grab lunch. Ivy played on the indoor play area and then shared a milkshake with her Papa.

We had a wonderful time being together, but the week passed quickly by and when Wednesday morning arrived, it was time to say "Good-bye!" Ivy was happy to say adios to Momma and Papa. She packed this bag, grabbed Mr. Bunny and said, "I go Texas wish Nanny!" We explained that Ivy would, in fact, have to stay with Momma and Papa so that we could go to work and school and Ivy seemed to understand that. We took one more picture in front of the tree...

and then sent Nanny on her way!

We were so lucky to be able to spend this time with an important part of our family who is often too far away! We will always treasure those memories!

Tag, I'm it!

My dear friend Brooke tagged me for this game, and since I don't usually do things like this, I thought, "Why not!" So if you want to know 7 random things about me, read on! If you don't skip down to the end to see if I've tagged you!

1. Most people know this already, but I have 2 names which I am known by independently. My family and most of the world calls me Kristi, but a select few VIPs call me Marissa. My sister chose this as my name when I was born, and she vowed that if her name did not 'win' she would use that name anyway. True to her word, anyone who knows me or has ever met me through my sister calls me Marissa. Since my husband and I met through a friend of my sister, he and his family call me Marissa, as does Ivy (when she's not calling me momma).

2. I have three tattoos and would have more if I could think of a good place to get them. I love the excitement of a new tattoo, and I love having a permanent reminder of special moments or emotions in my life. They're better than any scrapbook!

3. I prefer dark chocolate. I never cared for dark chocolate when I was younger, but now, I think a good piece of smooth, slightly sweet dark chocolate can fix just about any craving!

4. I tend to be an overly analytical/worrisome person which has caused some delays in life... I did not ride an upside down rollercoast until I was 25, it took 4 months of agonizing before I could sign the contract on our house, and I cried so hard I nearly threw-up over buying my car.

5. In complete contradiction to #4, some day I really want to skydive!

6. I am more likely to cry over something happy (or when I'm angry) than about something sad... unless it's something sad about animals and then the tears freely flow.

7. I was once "rescued" from the top of a ski mountain by a SERIOUSLY hot snow rescue guy when I waited at the top with a friend who had a panic attack over taking the ski lift back down the mountian.

So now, to tag 7 people... I don't know if I know people who read this blog, let alone 7 people who have their own blogs...

Here goes...

1. Jennifer C

2. Jennifer W

3. Leah

4. Megan

5. Debra

Yeah, I think that's all the blogging friends I have who haven't been tagged, but if I missed you, YELL at me!

Thanksgiving '08

It's very weird to think that this is Ivy's 3rd Thanksgiving! She was the tiniest little thing for the first one...

Thursday was a great day of baking and cleaning and family fun. It looks like Nanny and Ivy were up to their old lessons in photography...

Friday has become our traditional Day of Decorating! The lights went up high (with some help) and the tree was decorated by someone with a new view on ornamentation (everything went in one spot until something fell off). Then we celebrated the coming season with a little hot chocolate! (Ivy's first, and she LOVED it!)

And, of course, we'll be enjoying more Nanny love until Wednesday!

By the way, I finally finished last week's post... scroll down to see the fun for November 18-24th.