Christmas (and Covid-19)

 Photos with Santa at my family Christmas party.

Miriam

Still Miriam

"Do you want to wear your fuzzy boots?"
"Yeah!"
"Uhh, those are your unicorn slippers."
"I know!"
"Sounds great. Let's go."

New bed for the girls

Very cute, tomato soup face

Wendy got her own camera for Christmas and she loves it.
Little did we know, there are a few video games on it, including snake (like the super old one). Wendy and Miri hadn't ever played video games before and they really liked it.

New purple outfit and shoes that we got her.
When we were writing letters to Santa, she wanted to say, "Dear Santa, You are so sweet and loving."
 I prompted, "What do you want for Christmas?"
"I want to see you in my room."
"Well, he comes while you are sleeping. Maybe we can get a picture of him for your room."
"Okay!"
"What do you want for Christmas?"
"I would like. . . any toy that you want to bring me."
We discussed this a bit. She was certain she'd like anything Santa wanted to bring her.
"Maybe you would like a specific toy or clothes?"
"I would like sparkle shoes that are lots of colors and magic!"
Jay found those shoes for her. They light up and she loves them.
When she's at the playground and a car drives by, she stamps her feet and yells, "Look at my shoes!"
Miriam already has light up shoes and she wears them too.

A chest of dress up clothes from Gabi and Tache

 My family Christmas Eve party was held a night early because Christmas Eve is a Sunday. The girls had been discussing getting to see Santa. I heard them repeat, "But it wasn't the real Santa," Miriam would say, "Real Santa only comes when you're asleep."
The next day they asked Jay to print off the pictures of them and they paraded around saying, "Look, it's me and fake Santa!"

Jay couldn't guess what was in the package -- it turned out to be bubble wrapped glass bottles of hot sauce. He was excited.

Do you spy the Santa coloring page?

Christmas morning

On Christmas Eve, Wendy decided that she needed to decorate the whole house with pictures of Santa. Theo lent her his new red marker and she got working.

Theo is in the yellow hoodie in his school program. He presented on how Spain celebrates Christmas. All the kids in his class had a different country and then they sang, "It's a Small World After All." Later all the 2nd graders sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" together

Christmas Eve I wore a mask and sneezed and sniffled and rested. We decided to keep the whole family home from church and we just had a low key day, but Wendy did all that coloring. Miri, who was the first to get sick (she was mostly sick Wednesday and Thursday and didn't seem too bad) took a nap with me. I told her she could because I wasn't worried about getting her sick.

The next day was Christmas and I was, again, sick, and took Tylenol a lot and wore a mask, but I was able to sit on the couch and enjoy watching my kids open gifts. Theo was excited that he had picked out gifts for us at his school store, so we were surprised. That was sweet. The night before I had also made soup in the instant pot. At dinner time I asked him and the girls to help set the table, and he said he was too busy making me a gift. I was too tired to insist and just set the table. The next day Theo gave me the gift he'd been working on: they were chore coupons, including one that said, "Set the table." I used several on Christmas.

Christmas was a Monday and by Wednesday I was feeling a lot better. Wendy started symptoms on Tuesday. Jay started on Wednesday. And then Friday we were having more coughing, and I took a COVID-19 test and it was positive. We were all tested and everyone but Theo was positive. We're okay.

One gift Jay got the girls were some easy reader books. The girls have been learning to sound out the words. Miriam is working hard and making progress on the books. She also loves to go to bed at night, though, and at bedtime will sometimes ask me to finish reading it because she's tired.

I think Miriam has really noticed that I'm sick and a few nights ago she asked to watch a movie and then wanted to be in my lap and then refused to move out of it the entire show. She wanted Mommy time and got it. Miriam loves her mom time. She asked for a monkey for Christmas and got a cute pink electronic one that she likes.

Wendy's Camera's photos