Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!

This morning I woke up to see that it had snowed just a little last night. Not enough to shovel, but enough to make the ground look pretty again (we had patches of grass yet mounds of snow, icky looking!)After getting to bed late and trying to get up early (and failing) I took Demand to gymnastics this morning, again there were some flurries but nothing to get excited about.

After class I had to brush off part of the car,but still nothing exciting. Then I heard the forecast. We could get anywhere from 1-8 inches! It all seemed to stop by the time we came home for lunch but it's definitely a heavy snow now. I'm enjoying the snow much more than I did last week. We left a day early for Christmas travels to try and beat "the big storm". We left Monday night and drove half way no problem. (Mr. Sloth has a different opinion seeing as he was the one driving from 7:30pm-11:30pm) We took our time in the morning. After the worst continental breakfast, Demand and I took a swim at the hotel pool. Now I enjoy swimming but swimming in a hotel pool that is surrounded only by glass during a snowstorm....that's a cold experience, and since I wouldn't have time to dry my hair before hitting the road again, I wasn't about to go all the way in to get warm. Demand had a blast though, and she was very good about getting out of the pool when we were done especially since we weren't in there very long.

It took twice as long to drive the final two hours of the trip than under normal weather conditions, but most of that was our own fault. We took a detour to get the food we wanted and ended up detouring for over an hour. Eh, it was an adventure.


Christmas itself was great. We ended up sitting in the front row at Christmas Eve Mass because the Church was almost full when we got there. I wasn't sure if it was reserved for the handicapped or not, but the way I saw it, no one in their right mind would kick a pregnant woman out of her seat on Christmas Eve. That's just bad taste!!
And get this, Demand fell asleep right as Mass started, and slept the entire time! While we wish she could have enjoyed the Mass more, it was for the best, she hadn't napped all day and we were headed to a party right after Mass that would go late.

Santa Claus of course dropped off gifts for Miss Demand. She was after all a good girl this year. The night before, we kept trying to bribe her into bed, telling her she'd have presents in the morning. Well she already saw a hundred gifts under the tree, (she assumed all of them had her name on them) why couldn't she just have them? Sure enough the first words out of her mouth the next morning were, "Presents?". In all honestly she's quite boring at this gift opening business. It took her over half an hour just to open her stocking. It then took her over an hour to open her gifts from Santa. Sometimes she would get bored trying to open them and just walk away.

There was about a two hour lull before the rest of the family came over to open gifts. We cleaned up the mess and put away most of the toys which didn't matter anyway since Demand had already went back to Grandma and Papas toys. When the rest of the family got there and we started to pass out gifts, Demand got overwhelmed. She truly has Mr. Sloth's personality. Surrounded by gifts and semi-familiar people Demand turned to me and asked, "Dora?". She wanted to watch TV. Mr. Sloth had her rest in the back room and watch TV while the rest of us open gifts. It wasn't until after dinner that we convinced her to open her last few gifts. And I do mean we had to convince her.

We stayed one more day before heading home. Demand seemed surprisingly ready to leave Grandma and Papas. She kept running around the house saying "Road trip! C'mon Momma lets go!" Her only concern was that the new gifts all come home as well.

The weather coming home was actually worse. We thought we'd hit ice the second half of the trip, but as it turns out we had very thick fog the first half of the trip which is really scary. Luckily though we were with a pack of cars most of the time and never had to worry if there was a car we didn't see in front of us or a car behind who didn't see US. When we got to the point where we expected ice we found it was the clearest roads and view we'd had all week! No ice, no fog, nothing. It was smooth sailing.

When we got home we Mr. Sloth unpacked the car right away and I headed to the store to pick up dinner. While I was gone Mr. Sloth unpacked everything. It was so nice. The last few trips I've been taking a trip from FLYlady and the first thing I do, before even taking my shoes off, is completely empty the suitcases and start a load of laundry. I literally walk in the door with dirty laundry in hand (we keep it separate as we go) and start a load of laundry. Half the time Demand isn't even out of the car yet! Well Mr. Sloth caught on to me doing this after the last few trips and loves it. We hate having half empty suitcases laying around for a week. And there's nothing worse than being in the middle of a shower only to realize you haven't unpacked your toiletries yet. Mr. Sloth did a great job unpacking. It was hard to tell with Demands new toys and gifts scattered all throughout the upstairs,but I truly noticed the next day when I realized my black boots were on the shelf in the closet and not in the suitcase. Impressive Mr. Sloth!!


Demand is down for an early nap today. I think she's fighting something. She hasn't been sleeping well and after noticing that she was super crabby at an earlier time than usual I decided to try for an early nap. She fell asleep in record time. Fantastic! Now if she can only stay asleep for a few more hours and get the rest she needs.