Countdown to Christmas...

Dec. 22nd. Only 2 days to go until Christmas Eve, which has always been my favorite part of Christmas...maybe its the anticipation or that magical feeling in the air that night. I have admitted in the past to being an anticipation junkie so it only fits that Christmas Eve is my favorite part of Christmas. It wasn't always that way. As a kid I used to write up a schedule for Christmas Eve a few days ahead of time. It was filled with activities that would help make the day speed by until Santa arrived. Every year it started with sleeping in, because shortening Christmas Eve day was the best way to make it fly by. I wonder if Karen and Mike remember their dictatorial Christmas Eve schedules?

Kai seems to sorta get Christmas this year, at least the Santa Claus, Christmas Tree and Presents part of Christmas. A mesmerizing computerized message from Santa certainly helped http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/ed637c5931a401ae8885e1c41086e0ee . We're not sure how we're going to explain all the other stuff to him when the time comes seeing as we're not particularly religious folk. We will definitely tell him the original Christmas story when he is a little older but for now, in an attempt to add something to all the commercialism for him, we've told him that Christmas is about Love. It is about celebrating the people that you Love and treating everyone with Love. We hope he gets a little bit of that. He has learned how to say 'Mewwy Isfmasf' and its pretty darn cute.

A few days ago we took him to a place called Santa's Magic Playland. It looked pretty spectacular on the website so we figured we'd suck up the steep admission and take the little man. We dubbed it Santa Land to keep it simple. It turned out to be a bit of a cheesy amusement park with the "indoor" part being the concrete outer hallways of a baseball stadium, but there were a few gems there, like a reindeer barn with a red-nosed Rudolph and moving reindeers and lots and lots of Christmas lights. Kai was pretty mesmerized at first and then a little freaked out by all the commotion. We got a neat shot of him watching the reindeer that really captures the true innocence of a young child enthralled with Christmas...definitely part of the Christmas miracle. Mommy and Daddy played a water gun game and Evil Daddy won and snatched a high quality stuffed penguin from the hands of other people's little babes. We hope Kai appreciated it. We left not sure if it was worth the money (well, actually we know it wasn't) but over the last few days Kai has been talking alot about Santa Land so maybe he got more out of it than we did. And if he did, great, that was definitely the point.

In the spirit of Christmas we've got some snow. We're expecting it to melt by Boxing Day so we're busy trying to make the most of it. Kai has been out sledding and Mommy and Daddy have been out on their skis. Yesterday I visited our favorite local spot, Great Brook Farm, and did an hour of skate skiing. I both dreaded and looked forward to it b/c skate skiing is really hard work and I'm carrying just a little bit of extra weight :-) and alot less fitness than last year. But until my arms threatened to fall off from exertion, it wasn't that bad. I credit either 1) blood doping (pregnancy induced) or, 2) muscle memory - it is the 2nd year of being back into winter sports for us Fennells so it wasn't quite the shock to the system that it was last year. I can't wait to get out there again and to try pulling Kai in his chariot with its newly attached skis.

No post would be complete without a little Teia update. I know we're biased but she just gets cuter by the day. She has discovered her voice and when she's awake, she's "talking." She also likes to stand. She stiffens her little body and pushes on her feet until we raise her to a standing position where she triumphantly surveys her domain from her wobbly perch. She is getting more and more interested in big brother Kai and we're already thinking of booking her a chiropractor appointment to deal with a sore neck from it whipping back and forth as she watches him sprint by (just joking, not offense to chiros but I don't believe in manipulating babies - can baby life really be that physically taxing???). Teia loves to smile and she saves her biggest smiles for mommy, the milk source. Sometimes I wonder what I must look like to her, a giant milk bottle maybe? On second thought, likely not given that she has started to complain quite strongly when offered a bottle these last few days. Does that mean I look to her like a giant boob????? Okay, let's scratch that image, QUICK!

We want to wish all of our family and friends who take time to read our blog a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year (2010?!) We didn't get to snail mail Christmas cards this year but you might receive a New Year's letter if we get a few quiet moments here and there.