Epperson Christmas '08

Yes, it's 3 weeks since Christmas, but it takes me a lot longer to get everything done these days with 3 kids 4 years old and younger. I'm just excited that I did finally get to something on my 'list' of things to get done. :)

We spent Christmas with my family this year. Since we have been married, we have always flip-flopped holidays with both sides of the family. One year we have one holiday with my family and the next year we have that holiday with Aaron's family. That way we can try to celebrate all the holidays with our families as fairly as possible. It's also nice because now all of our siblings and their spouses jumped into the same schedule and we can be assured of when we will all be together for certain holidays.

On Tuesday, Dec. 23, my brother, sister, and brother-in-law got into town and that evening, along with my parents, we all went to the "Trail of Lights". It was perfect weather because it wasn't cold enough for us to all be uncomfortable, but cold enough to feel Christmas-y. I held Skylyn in a sling, my brother took care of Titus and my Dad and Mom took Aaris. That very morning Aaris has expressed how sad she was that she had never sent Santa her Christmas list, so it was perfect that there ended up being a station along the trail for writing and mailing (special express to the North Pole) Santa letters. She wrote for herself Pixos, bike and kitten, and for Titus tools. The kids favorite part was getting twirled under the huge Tree of Lights. I must say it was my favorite part, too.

The rest of the time we ate the never ending feasts of food. We had endless selections of meals and homemade candy. My mom outdoes herself every year cooking and it is VERY much appreciated and enjoyed. THANKS MOM! Oh, and I must not forget the best gift my parents gave me: they had Aaris and Titus sleep in their room every night we were there (4 nights). It was SOOOOOOO great. It would have been very hard to have them in the room with us as Skylyn woke up during the night to eat.

Wednesday we just hung out at my parents house. My mom bought the kids a Plasma car. All you do is sit on it and wiggle the handle and it goes. Aaris and Titus took to it easily. But, we didn't let them have all the fun. My mom, sister and I all enjoyed riding the Plasma car as well.

We had a big Turkey dinner Christmas Eve. Then, we all enjoyed seeing Aaris and Titus find their Santa and Jesus presents Christmas morning. Santa left Aaris a bike and Pixos and Titus a bike and tools. Jesus always leaves the kids presents on His birthday as well. This year her left them Christian Children's story books and VeggieTale movies. Then, the best traditions ever happens. The men in the family cook a huge breakfast for everyone. They make eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and gravy. After we all eat and clean up, we start the present exchange and opening. It takes about 3 hours because we open one present at a time so that we all get to enjoy seeing it. The kids loved handing out the presents. We all were greatly blessed with generosity to each other this year and had a wonderful time. My brother might have had the best time though because he got to enjoy Skylyn sleeping on his chest most of the time.

During our four day celebration we played ladder golf and checkers tournaments. My sister won the ladder golf and Aaron won the checkers. Ever since I was a little girl and went to my Grandma and Pepaw's house every year for Christmas I remembered that the adults put together a puzzle. The tradition has never ended and every year my mom has a puzzle to be worked on. Some how it's mainly the men that work on it. I think the puzzle is one of Aaron's favorite things about Christmas at my parent's house. My sister, brother and Aaron and I also took advantage of my parent's hot tub. The kids enjoyed their new wagon and we could hardly keep Aaris off her bike. She would never willingly end a bike ride. I walked with her and always had to finally guide her home just so that I could take a break. Also, my sister and I always break the Turkey wishbone every year. We have a wishbone ornament and whomever gets the larger piece gets to keep the wishbone ornament until the next year. Hattie has won the majority of the time, including this year.

Saturday we all headed back to our own houses, but we all headed back with great memories!

Our Family at Christmas

(Just remember that I blog a lot for my own personal form of Scrap booking, so their will be a lot of detail in these next two blogs just so that I will personally always be able to remember specifics of this year.)

This year we did take the time to have our own family Christmas, just the five of us. We went to McDonald's for dinner. I know most of you may be appalled, but when I was overwhelmed with holiday "to-do" lists and a 5 week old, I wasn't going to make a huge homemade meal. We let the kids pick dinner for the night, and since they love Cinnamon Melts, they chose McDonald's. They had a great time and that was all that mattered to me. Well, I say 5 of us celebrated, but actually, we put Skylyn to bed and then opened presents with Aaris and Titus. We lit a fire in the fireplace, the kids passed out the presents, and then we enjoyed the excitement of giving. Aaris got envelopes. She loves writing letters to any and everyone. They don't always get mailed, but they do always get written. So, I saved up a lot of envelopes from Thank You cards I had written and gave her a box full. She has loved them. Titus got Spiderman and Cars pajamas. They both got new mittens which they got to wear the next night at the 'Trail of Lights'. They also both got Travel trays for the car and AquaDoodles for the car. And, since they share a room, but it's still decorated in flowers (because we don't want to redecorate since we are still trying to sell our house) we thought personalized bed sheets would help give them some type of individual personality in their room. Aaris got princess sheets and Titus got Spiderman. Finally, they got a shared gift. A Fisher Price Cool School computer set up. They have both love playing and learning on it. Aaron also went and bought the kids a present I knew nothing about: the movie "Matilda". When Aaris was recovering in the hospital we checked out that movie from the hospital library and she loved watching it. Aaron gave me a Mother's ring with all of my kids' birthstones on it. I gave him money for laser removal treatment on his neck. He always hates how fast and thick the hair on his neck grows back, so now he will not have to worry about it.

You will notice in the pictures that Aaris has a terribly raw nose and upper lip. That poor girl has almost always been sick on Christmas. She had the never-ending runny nose and cough this year. Also, this is the year of the tiara/crown. Aaris insists on wearing a crown almost every day. She loves it and so I gladly let her do it (except on Sunday morning to church). I have decided to do my best to never question her wardrobe. She takes so much pride in what she wears and I refuse to tell her she is doing it wrong. Why start breaking her self confidence down over something as trivial as clothing? She will learn how to coordinate better over time. For now, I'm going to let her be a kid and have fun.

Oh, and since I'm behind on my blogging, I also included pictures from we when decorated our tree back at the first of December. Aaron and I always take the time to hang our first ornament we ever received first before any other ornament gets hung. Next, the kid's hang their very first ornaments: their baby booties. Beyond that we all separate the ornaments into our own individual and personalized piles. Then, we all take our own ornaments and start filling up the tree with memories. It's fun and always a special event.

8 weeks old

Skylyn was 8 weeks old yesterday. She is growing like crazy. She is still continuing to eat more. She is not filling out her clothes, but she is starting to get to the tip-toes of her NB size clothes. I bet we only have about 2-3 more weeks in them before we need to move to 0-3 month size because of her length. She has many faces now, as you will see in the slide show. She is really starting to give more smiles away. She really likes to give them to Aaris and Titus. She did get diagnosed with reflux and so she is sleeping in the bouncy and we are keeping her propped up for most of the time she is awake. We have her on medicine and it seems to be working. We go to the doctor this coming Tuesday for her 2 month appointment, so I'll have all her stats for you next week.

Heaven

Aaris. Wow. She amazes me. It has been nothing by pure joy to have her sweet spirit back since God sent us the answer to her tummy problems. She is voluntarily and abundantly full of helpfulness, kindness, appreciation, obedience, and love again.

One of the things I adore about her the most is her love for God and Jesus. She talks about them all day, every day. She is especially fond of Heaven. Every night she finds the wishing star and tells us all that we have to make a wish. She always wishes for the exact same thing: "To go up to heaven soon (if possible, tomorrow)".

She is always talking about what she wants to do in heaven. I never tell her that any of it isn't impossible, because who am I to know what heaven is going to be like beside pure joy. She prays prayers to God about what her room in heaven can look like. She gets very frustrated by not being in heaven already. She tells me things like, "I know God can do things very fast so I don't understand why He doesn't have heaven ready for us yet so He can come and get us".

The other day Aaron was taking our Christmas lights down and she wanted to get up on the roof with him for just a minute. I told her that she had to be very, very careful, and pay attention every second to what her daddy was telling her to do because I didn't want her to fall off. She asked me why. I told her she could die if she fell off. She wasn't scared at all and just said with anticipation almost, "Then I could go to heaven!" Of course that freaked me out a little, but I knew that she was only saying it with the innocence and love that are in a child's heart.

Last night I could hear Aaron and Aaris talking up in the game room. I didn't hear Aaron's question, but only Aaris's answer which was "ALL I want to do is be a mommy and go to heaven...that's ALL I want".

The other day brought about a question I had been wondering would arise lately. Aaris asked when she could be baptized. I told her that she needed to be able to give her life to God and to be ready to use her life to serve God, and of course she needed to believe in Him and in Jesus. She said, "But, I do all that already." I told her we would need to have some talks with her Daddy before we decided on a decision like baptism. But, even though I don't think she is mature enough, it just THRILLED my soul to know that my little girl is that faithful already.

I pray. Oh boy, do I pray that God helps guide me to develop that faith and to help it only to mature and grow so that Aaris lives an amazing life of having God work through her. I don't know when Jesus will be coming back to take us all home, but for now, Aaris is my bit of heaven here on earth.

We'll Just Call Them "Older"

The other day I had to go to a store with the kids. Skylyn was asleep in her stroller, so Aaris and Titus pushed the door open for me to leave. Aaris then stood there and held the door for an elderly couple that was leaving behind me. They told me that I was doing a good job of raising my little girl to be so helpful. Aaris came skipping up to me and I told her how proud I was of her for wanting to help and hold the door open for those people. She said, "Yea, I held the door for you because you were pushing Skylyn and then I saw that those people where almost about to die, so I thought I should help them, too." As I'm typing this I'm just about to burst out laughing again. I did just laugh out loud when she said that to me. She asked me why I was laughing. I told her that she just brings me joy. Then as I was putting her seat belt on her I told her that when we see people that are older like that we should just say that they are "old", not "about to die". Later I was telling my sister what had happened and she then corrected me and said that I should tell Aaris to call them "older" people, not "old" people. So, from now on we'll just all refer to them as "older".

We started off our Christmas celebrations with Aaron's side of the family the weekend before Christmas. Since Aaron's brothers have to drive in and sleep over at Aaron's parents house, we thought we would pack up and do the the same. They only live 15 minutes from us, but it's fun to all wake up together and stay up late together.

The weekend all started with a ride on the North Pole Flyer run by the Austin Steam Train Association in Cedar Park. It was set up to mimic the Polar Express. The kids were very, very excited, especially Aaris. It was fun to be with the family, but I think we all agreed that the train engineers and coordinators had an off night. They departed 45 minutes late and then had a sudden unplanned stop after about 10 minutes into the trip. They kids got a little cranky, but most of the time kept occupied singing, getting tickled, eating the cookie treats they handed out, blowing the train whistle toys Santa handed out, and looking out the windows. And, somehow, I became the VIP for all the kids. At one point I had 3 on me at the same time. My adorable niece, Cosette, really took to me this visit. It was fun to have her love on me so much. I hope I can always be a source of special love to her

The rest of the weekend was filled with yummy food that Aaron's mom prepared. There was also lots of movie watching...a Dennington boy favorite activity. On Sunday evening we all opened our presents to each other. We let the kids open all of their presents first so they could not have to be told to wait to play with them. All the men around were very handy since there ended up being assembly required on two of the big presents. Aaris got a huge Loving Family doll house and Titus got a Black-n-Decker tool workbench from Aaron's parents. After the kids played a little and then got to bed, us grown-ups opened our presents to each other. It was a really fun time

She's just growing

Skylyn at 6 weeks old on Christmas Eve with Mimi

Skylyn at 7 weeks getting a bath

Skylyn has been through a growing surge lately. She is feeding a lot more often and for a lot longer. I can tell just by looking at her that she is bigger. She has cheeks and a double chin. She also has a nice round belly. She is now 7 weeks old! Every day seems to be going by faster and faster with her. (Too bad the nights are still really, really long) :)