So! Today marks Noël's second Christmas, and Flara's first! How fun! That also makes it sound like we are busy at quickly expanding our kiddo line-up. haha!
We rang in Christmas by attending the Christmas Eve service at our church. Mike had a couple of verses to read. I would have liked to watch him actually read those verses, but I was around the corner allowing Noël to frolic in the playroom. She loves her 'dada' so much, I knew that if she saw him on stage, that little determined girl would go marching right up the stairs to him. So as to not disturb the service for the nicely-sized crowd, I tried my best to hear from afar. He did great!
Once we got home, we put the girls to bed and finished wrapping a couple of presents and setting them out under the tree. We filled Noël's stocking with a few things of candy (plain M&M's, Skittles, and Reese's cups), as well as a couple of little toys. Halfway through filling her stocking, Mike and I looked up at each other in the glow of our Christmas lights and remarked, "this is really fun." We didn't have a lot to give, and we were (still are!) okay with that. Overall, the girls had a really good Christmas. Actually, I think this is my favorite Christmas of all. Mike and I couldn't get presents for each other, but I honestly didn't even miss it. Watching Noël (mainly Snoop) open the presents, and her delighted little squeals of excitement, followed by her hearty belly chuckles, and holding our sweet little Flara was more than I could ever ask for. All I wanted for Christmas was my littlest baby girl home, and we have her!
The wind had blown hard all throughout the night bringing us warmer weather. =) No white Christmas for me! However, the wind kept blowing out our electricity. I was doing a 24 hour low (temperature) and slow (cook-time) of my massive 22 pound turkey, so being awakened multiple times by Mike telling me the power was out AGAIN left me pretty tired come morning! (Not counting getting up to feed our hungry pseudo-newborn.) Well, okay, and counting that we stayed up late watching a marathon of The Office episodes. Finally, I lay awake at 0610 just listening to the rain hitting our windows, and Flara sleeping, and Mike sleeping, and Noël's humidifier next door humming, and SnoopDogg occasionally letting out a gruff here and there, I decided at 0710 to get up and shower, and begin finishing up all the cooking we didn't do the day before (due, admittedly, to plain laziness and being bound to The Office).
Because our church is made up (in large part) of imports, as are we, we decided to invite our small group to our home to celebrate with us in the afternoon. Many of us, being imports, don't have family in the area. We thought it might be nice to handle the cooking and give people a place to go. We were honestly finishing up cooking and cleaning to the last minute, but it wasn't bad at all. Noël was busy playing with her new toys, and Flara was sleeping, so Mike and I were able to cook together. At some point, I did sport Flara in my baby-sling. So, she helped me make deviled eggs! When our guests did arrive, we had a really great time eating and talking and laughing. Not everything was clean, and not everything I had planned to make was made, but we didn't notice. Funny how little details can consume our thoughts, and yet, be amazingly unnoticed in the absence of their presence.
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