Merry Christmas!

The Wuehlers in all our morning glory

Somewhere I read that even tiny kids should sit at the "big" table
when possible. I decided to set a place for Ireland rather than put
her in the high chair and she was thrilled with the arrangement!

Believe it or not, this was our very first family only Christmas! I have to say it was a success too, with just enough (ok, perhaps a teensy bit of excess). After talking to friends and family about how they put it all together, Brent and I settled on the philosophy of  "something to wear, something to read, something they want and something they need." We did our fancy dinner on Christmas Eve which was nice for two reasons: it filled up the girls so they slept hard and it gave Brent and I good fuel to do our elving. In the future I think we'll stick to the fancy Christmas Eve dinner and then do something simple like a crock pot or frozen meal on the big day. Since we spend all morning eating chips and candy, it's kind of nice to finish the day with something simple.

The girls and their stockings

Brent's mother always rang a bell to let everyone know when it was time to come out. After a bit of searching, I procured our own Christmas bell that Brent rang after I queued some holiday music and ran the train around the tree for ambiance. We started the festivities off with a photo and then launched into the stockings. It took Ireland a bit to catch on but catch on she did! Liesel was getting eager to "help" unwrap her presents so Dad gave her a little lesson in folding arms and being patient for our turn. My favorite part of the morning was seeing Irelands little fingers covered in Pringle cheese. Pringles are a tradition from my family. One year my Mom got them because they quickly filled the stockings. Christmas isn't Christmas without Pringles ever since.

Liesel showing patience and restraint before opening her big gift.

There's always a gift that surprises and this year it was definitely the train people. We have an LGB train with a "Duck Tour" car. Technically it's themed from the cartoon but we adopted it as our Boston car. During our time there, we went on more than one Duck Tour to show off our city to visitors. Well, the plastic ducks that came with the car didn't really make sense, so this year I ordered some people. Heretofore, Ireland has been somewhat terrified of the train. Early in the month I think she accidentally knocked over a car and the resulting mess traumatized her. In fact, the reason she's scowling in our family photo (above) is because the train was running behind us and she didn't like it. Well, once those little people were on the Duck Tour car, her demeaner completely changed (see video below).

After about 3 times she started bidding the people, "Buh BYYYYYE, BYYYYYE, BUUUH BYE!" when they came around. I hope you all had a wonderfully Merry Christmas!