The Rebecca Jeanne Routine: Parties

This post is way overdue seeing that my sisters and sister-in-law threw a baby shower for me on February 23rd, again always playing catch up! The day was just perfect and it was great to see all the family and friends who joined us as we prepare for Williams arrival. We are beyond blessed with so many supportive and loving individuals, Wills surely is one lucky guy to already be so loved! We had of course local but also many out of town family and friends come to share in the special day with us. We even felt all the love from those out of town that were unable to make the occasion. It is amazing and blows us away every time to know how loved we truly are. It means the world to us to have so much support!

Ready for the shower!

Baby E came dressed in her theme appropriate Dr. Seuss dress!

Brian made an appearance at the very end as I was finishing opening up all the wonderful gifts!

Super dada!

Grandma brought N a special treat!

(Brian's family Christmas work party)

Oh yes I am finally getting an opportunity to blog about Christmas! Unfortunately technology hates me and I lost half of our Christmas pictures due to a memory card deciding to sync itself against my wishes. We lost all of our pictures of Christmas with Brian's family, some Christmas Eve, and some from Christmas morning. The lucky news is that we ran out of space on one card so Christmas morning we then switched over to another memory card which decided to not erase itself like the other which has been my only saving grace from not completely losing it! Alright I'll admit it, I cried for an hour straight at the lost photo memories. Alright I'll admit more, it became one of those terrible I hate my life ugly cries within minutes where you can't even catch your breath because you're so upset. Even my poor husband who was working when I texted him my first world problems couldn't settle my woes, pretty certain he thought I was possessed by demons. Let's all just blame it on being 26 weeks and 1 day pregnant ok?!?! Again saving grace was this was all during the kids nap time so I spared them my over dramatic reaction and I think it'll spare them one less memory of me being a crazy woman. Go ahead, remind me memories are in our minds and hearts forever and that's what matters but it's not going to cut it. Moving on.

I'll give the visual and you insert with your own imagination awesome pictures. We spent time visiting Brian's mom and brother as well as extended family and friends for several days. The 3 hour ride down and back went without a hitch with baby E and N as we planned both trips around their nap times. I do feel like superwoman at times that we have found nap time driving to be the best kept secret of traveling with young kids. This time before heading out we went to the local foster care party for the kids in the morning which tired them both out before we headed on South. Yes I have photographic evidence of such party happening as I have scanned in the picture we were given at the party (Just as I scanned in the picture at the top we were given from Brian's work family party).

Christmas Eve we traveled back home and went to my parents for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We also exchange gifts between my siblings (dog siblings included!) and gifts for my parents.

Then came Christmas morning! Having gone to midnight liturgy when neither were up by 9 a.m. and knowing we had to open gifts and get ready to head to my parents house we had to wake them up. N did refuse to get up for the longest time but finally we coaxed him out of his crib.

Notice our Christmas tree look....only the top half of our tree adorns ornaments for obvious reasons :)

Meeko started off the gift distribution! The two guys surprisingly somehow knew which gifts were for them. Santa brought them Kong squeaky toys which aren't scented so again we have no idea how they knew which ones under the wrapping were theres to open. We opted to video our Christmas morning experience so these are some not so great stills taken from the video that will just have to due!