Christmas time this year came with a little more stress than usual as our lease was up on December 31st and we were trying to find a place that would work. Plus, I was feeling pretty bad through the holidays due to my pregnancy. BUT we managed to still have some fun!
We had scheduled a viewing of the place we ended up renting at 9am one morning. Penny NEVER sleeps that long, but of course she decided to sleep in this day (it's a 6th sense she has - if we need to be out of the house in the morning, she'll sleep in). I had to wake the poor girl up and she was pretty lethargic the whole morning. We stopped by Target on the way home for a few things and she just chilled in the cart like this the whole time. Most peaceful shopping trip I've ever had! She was back to her normal self after nap though!
Steve has been really busy lately, so Penny and I decided to have a lunch date one afternoon. I asked her what restaurant she wanted to go to and she surprised me by saying Jason's Deli. It wasn't until we were actually there that I realized it was because they have free ice cream she can help herself to! She was pretty pleased with herself and I was pretty impressed she remembered that detail!
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| Made some Christmas cookies! |
Penny really wanted to visit Santa this year, so we took her to a community Christmas lights display that had him there. We waited 45 minutes in line - it was awful! But she was super patient and really excited to see him. This is the reaction she had once it was her turn - total shut down... so anti climatic. She was very impressed that Mrs. Claus had Christmas lights painted on her nails though!
Steve and I get a funny/comfy pair of socks for each other each Christmas season and this year I found some tiny fuzzy socks for Penny as well! I was so excited to include her in the tradition!
I went in to get Penny on Christmas morning and told her that Santa had come to our house. Her first question was "candy cane?!". At this point, I had a huge oh crap moment. When we visited Santa he had given her a little candy cane and she was very excited about it and mentioned it several times. I guess Santa = candy canes in her mind and I didn't make the connection until way too late. Being the prepared parents we are, there were NO candy canes in the house on Christmas (believe me, Steve was frantically digging through all the cupboards!). Steve did find a ring pop which he put out from Santa and I think that was acceptable to Penny. Still, I'm definitely buying a box of candy canes to have on hand next year!
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| My parents gave Penny some curlers for Christmas. She loves them and asks me to put them in all the time! |
Finally, the time to move had come. I wanted to have a last nice Christmas at home, so I didn't pack too much until the 26th. I mean, we were just moving across town so it would be easy, right?! So, so wrong. It was by far the most stressful move I've had - I'm sure a lot because I was feeling really sick the whole time. We overlapped our leases by 4 days and just moved loads of stuff over as it was packed. Some friends from church came over one morning and helped us move all our furniture in a rented moving truck, but we did everything else on our own. I was able to go over and get some major cleaning done one night after Penny went to bed, but it felt like we were just frantically throwing things into the car at the end! And did I mention Steve was sick too? Luckily, Penny was such a good girl through the whole process and we officially checked out at 8:40pm on the 31st - 3 hours and 20 minutes before we had to. Haha!
We LOVED living in this house and even though it had some quirks that drove us crazy, it was definitely home. It will be hard to adjust to a new place. Lots of love and lots of memories there.
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| So tired, but officially done! |
