An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle but will never break. --Chinese legend

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Ridiculously long Christmas post



David had a blast this Christmas. We kicked things off Christmas Eve with the arrival of Grandmama, Granddaddy, Uncle Adams and Ashley, whom we promptly ditched for a brunch with friends from my residency. We got to see our friends Katy, Will and Jack who moved to New York after we finished at Loyola, as well as a bunch of friends from closer to home. The kids had a great time playing together and decorating gingerbread cookies.
David, Gus, Jack and Maya decorating cookies.
The Loyola crowd: Lisa & Katie, Katy & Jack, me & David, Christy with Gus & Eli, Nicole & Maya.
David enjoying his cookie on the way home.
We headed home in the early afternoon for a quick change before leaving for party #2 at Kevin's Uncle Paul and Aunt Joan's house. David got to meet some family there for the first time. He had fun playing pool with Joey and Jonathan (see below). Surprisingly, no fingers were smashed in the making of that photo. Santa visited the kids. David was brave enough to get his present from Santa but immediately backed away and refused an individual photo with him. David enjoyed opening his presents but had just as much fun assisting with other people's gifts.
David playing pool. David with Hailey, Joey and Jonathan. The 3 of us with Santa.
David opening presents and then rearranging Melanie's stack.
David came downstairs Christmas morning and made a beeline for his new car. It's pretty awesome that Santa has a connection at Radio Flyer. He spent most of the morning sitting in his car and opened his presents from the driver's seat. We went to church at 10:00 (David still in his pajamas), and David had his new dump truck from cousin Susan blessed. Everyone needs a holy dump truck. When we got home, he helped us prepare for the big crowd coming over in the afternoon. He and his Grandmama LaBorde were in charge of dessert, and they did an excellent job on the peppermint pies.
We had about 20 people at our house on Christmas evening. It was a lot of fun but an absolute mad house. I'm pretty sure there are still people in my basement opening presents right now. I would like to commend my brother and Ashley for surviving two extended nights of family fun.
David loving his new car.
Preparing the oreo crust with Grandmama
We had a lazy day the day after Christmas but eventually got it together for a trip to the lights at the zoo and dinner at the Ale House. David also opened a couple more gifts, including a superfun train set from his LaBorde grandparents, and spent time enjoying his other presents. He breakfasted with the cars from great aunt Vic and John and alternated chewing on his new stethoscope with using it as a phone.

Yesterday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry where David learned all about tractors, trains and various other things that go.
Here we are in a big tractor and David sitting in the wheel. David helping Granddad with his computer-based learning.

Today Kevin dropped the Columbia crowd off at O'Hare, and now we have nothing planned other than to watch the Bears and begin to clean up our very big Christmas mess. As I mentioned in the last post, David is all about enjoying each gift, and so we still have about 6 more presents under the tree for him to open when he gets around to it. We hope that the 4 of you out there reading this blog had a joyful, peaceful holiday, and we wish you all the best in 2009.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Thank you!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Thank you to everyone who sent us greetings or gifts or who spent some time with us this season! It means a lot to us.
There will be a lengthy boring description of our holiday and many cute pictures to follow, but there are currently people living in my computer room, so for now this video will have to do. It's David today opening some blocks from Grandma and Grandpa Maas. He likes to savor each gift, so he still has quite a few in his pile to open.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The weather outside is frightful

If any of you following this blog from somewhere warm are foolish enough to think you want some snow, I would like to let you know that it took me 2.5 hours to get home from work yesterday, which is nothing compared to the more than 5 hours Kevin spent on the road because there was a snow storm in the middle of rush hour. It was a disaster. And...good news...there's going to be another one tomorrow, but this time with more ice. Great.
While Kevin and I were creeping along in traffic, David was having a blast with Alma and playing in the snow. When it became obvious that Kevin would be much much later than the 6:00 Alma was expecting, she took David over to her mom's house for some chicken alfredo. He got to play with Sabrina, and when I finally showed up at 8:30, I could here him yelling his happy yells from outside the house.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Napless

After fighting his afternoon nap but eventually giving in Saturday and Sunday, David flat out refused to sleep today for Alma. Here he is at dinner tonight.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Parties and visitors

I think every parent would agree that toddlers are at their best when they are confined to small spaces, off their schedule and over tired. So in that spirit, this weekend we took David on long car rides to go to parties at times when he would normally be sleeping. He, in turn, fought very very hard never to nap. It went swimmingly.
Friday night David and I battled traffic to go to my office Christmas party. He was a little slow to warm up, perhaps recovering from our 1 hour 25 minute ride there, but eventually had an excellent time trashing the restaurant with Evie and Maya. They particularly enjoyed shredding the tissue paper from the gifts and throwing it up in the air. When it was time to go, the kids were very good at helping pick up their mess.
Saturday we drove out to Dekalb for Adam's Christmas party. We needed ice skates to maneuver through the parking lot, but once we were inside we had a very nice time. David loved the candy train Adam had set up around his tree, and he loved it even more when he realized that it was carrying dozens of chocolates that tasted delicious and made beautiful hand prints on my pants.
Here are David and Laura checking out the candy, David pulling off a Santa hat like no one else can, and David with baby Logan, who is such a happy little man and whom David found terrifying for some reason. The last picture is courtesy of Leah, our good friend and blog enthusiast. Thanks, Leah!

Today everyone enjoyed a special guest appearance by Dr. Steve who was in town from Kansas City. David showed him how to water the Christmas tree, the appropriate face to make when have your picture taken (or when taking a picture of someone else...really doesn't matter) and how to have a tantrum when you are denied a second snack since breakfast.
The first picture is one David took himself with minimal assistance from me and then a couple of cute ones of David with Steve.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Vous nous manquerez, M. McCoy

This weekend was my only completely work-free, travel-free weekend between the end of October and Christmas, so we attempted, with moderate success, to stay close to home. Since I didn't have to round at the hospitals or race off to O'Hare, David and I took full advantage of my Friday off. We stayed in our pajamas until after 11:00 and only left the house for a quick run to Target. Friday night was the Screenflex office holiday party, so Alma and Sabrina came over to play with David. He had a fantastic time, as did Snoopy who ate the cookies Alma brought for the kids.
Saturday was St. Nick's Day. In Kevin's family, that means the first of 18 visits from St. Nick/Santa. St. Nick delivered presents to all of us via an enormous stocking and Grandma Maas. As you can see below, David was very interested in his new animal pajamas and toy car.

Later in the morning, we went to the Illinois/Georgia basketball game at the United Center with Adam and Laura. This was David's first sporting event outside of Uncle Dave's baseball games this summer. He was very well behaved, especially considering the fact that the game was during his usual nap time. He especially enjoyed the music and the water fountains conveniently placed every 20 feet around the concourse. Here are pictures of David with Kevin in front of the Jordan statue, David enjoying some of Adam's fries and a rare picture of the three of us.

Saturday evening, we braved the cold again and went to get a Christmas tree. We put it up in the basement this year because we believe that to be the location in which the dogs are least likely to knock it over and die of internal bleeding after ingesting all the ornaments. David was my helper while I watered the tree and strung the lights, and he smiles every time he sees the tree all lit up.

On a sad note, Mr. McCoy, my former AP French teacher and the student activities director at my high school died Sunday of liver cancer at the age of only 61. He fought a horrific case of senioritis to somehow teach Alexa and me enough French to pass our AP exams, and we couldn't have had more fun doing it. No one was more pleased (or, I think, more surprised) when we got those scores back. He was a great teacher and a wonderful man. The school district has set up a scholarship fund in his memory, so for those of you who knew him or who want to support local kids in Columbia or who want to remember a great teacher, here is the link for more information: http://www.richland2.org/content.aspx?id=16338.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Mara's holiday weight loss plan

Nothing says the holidays like vomiting, and so I spent all night Thanksgiving night into Friday morning throwing up everything I had eaten and then some. It will be some time before I can eat smoked turkey again. Other than that, we really did have a great Thanksgiving. A very special thank you to my family for all the help they gave Kevin whilst I was incapacitated.
We flew to Houston midday Thursday and had dinner at Leslie and Stanley's house with my parents, Adams and his ladyfriend Ashley. I can't tell you much about Friday other than that David went to the zoo with his dad, his grandparents and Aunt Leslie. Saturday he returned to his favorite park in Texas to run up ramps and feed ducks, and Sunday was a day of rest and football before flying home to a cold and snowy Chicago after a much shorter than we expected flight delay. Overall, David's weekend highlights included knocking over towers of blocks onto the tile floor and terrifying Apollo, beating everything in sight with Uncle Stanley's drumsticks (including Uncle Stanley) and walking around with a plastic box over his head.
Pre-flight yardwork with Dad. At the Houston zoo. The plastic box.
At the park in Katy.
Drumsticks: they're not just for hitting drums any more.
Last night. 11:00pm. Mom and Dad's bedroom. After a 2 hour nap on the flight and armed with his toothbrush and my hairbrush, David is ready to go.
In closing I would like to say that it is cold, and there is snow. This is only the very beginning. blurg.