Merry Christmas

Santa came to our house this year, and The Snake had a blast.

He was thrilled that Santa ate the cookies, and even left a note saying “Thanks.”  He couldn’t believe that Santa left so much in his stocking that it was too heavy to leave hanging!  Santa got him M&Ms!  And he was convinced that Santa had even played a new game he received on Christmas Eve, because it was moved to another spot in the room.  Sure enough, as MomMom (his grandmother) warned, he could tell which wrapping paper was for Santa’s gifts.

Since we couldn’t be with my family, here is a little taste of our Christmas morning:

Sorry there aren’t more pictures showing The Snake’s face, but he was just too busy to look and smile.  Oh, and the babies love the play gym that Santa sent.  They too had a lovely morning and received lots of great clothes and toys.

Happy Hanukah

For the first night of Hanukah we decided to give our big boy a special treat — a digital camera of his own.  He has shown a big interest in photography and is very excited about having his own camera.  Naturally he has already filled the memory card three times and killed one set of batteries in less than 24 hours.  But his enthusiasm is infectious.  So today we made this slide show to share with you his first foray into photography.  He says he now wants to be a travel photographer, go all around the world, stay in hotels and have his own magazine.  So look out world.

In Your Eye

Yesterday The Snake and I were discussing Adam’s current trip back east for a few job interviews.  As usual, the 5-year-old was complaining about something, which spurred me to ask, “Would you like to keep living in California?”

Surprisingly, he said “no.”  But even more surprising is what came next:

I want to move to South Dakota.

South Dakota?

Yeah, I’m gonna live in the guy with the beard.

The guy with the beard?  You mean Abraham Lincoln?

Yeah, I’m gonna live in his left eye.  *giggle*

Honey, you can’t live in Mount Rushmore.

Oh yeah, well I’m gonna sneak in and live in his left eye!  … you can live in his right eye if you want.

All this is thanks to a cartoon he watched (where the bad guys hid in Mount Rushmore) along with his fifty states quarter collection.  Who knew you could learn so much from a quarter?

A Special Day

One year ago today began a new journey.  One involving two precious new individuals.

It sounds corny and pat, but in all honesty, from the beginning of our relationship, Adam and I knew that raising a family was an essential part of our future.  We saw ourselves having it all:  school, professional careers, children — in fact, several children.  It didn’t quite work out that way.  We both made it through professional school, but it wasn’t exactly a smooth road.  When we thought the time was right, we tried to start our family.  That road too was a bit bumpy.  After a miscarriage and months of waiting, we were ecstatic to learn The Snake was on the way.  While it was exhausting, parenthood was all we’d hoped.  And faced with the busy life of surgical residency for Adam, I decided to stay home full time.  Within a year we were ready to hop back into trying to conceive.  While I had not expected it to be quick, it quickly turned difficult, then painful.  After a year, we began looking to the medical community to help us expand our family.  That road, too, turned out to be quite bumpy — with boulders in fact.  More than two years down that road, we found ourselves on this day a year ago.  The day those two precious new souls began their lives on Earth.  Of course the road has remained bumpy, sometimes cutting deep into mountains so very hard to climb, or diving into dark black tunnels.  But I wouldn’t want my journey to go anywhere else.

Note:  I’d never heard this song before, but it was the first suggested on the slideshow website and somehow seemed right.