Christmas 2012

I almost didn't blog about Christmas this year because so much time has elapsed but I decided to write a quick account of this year's Christmas season.

We love Christmas in the Pond family -- the whole Christmas season.  We begin decorating the house the week prior to Thanksgiving and relish it throughout New Year's.  Every year on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, we head over to Mayne's Tree Farm where we embark on the Great Tradition of picking out the Pond Family Christmas Tree.  This year's tree (a Douglas Fir) was exceptionally perfect -- 8' tall, full, and completely symmetric.  We decorated it with about 800 multicolored lights and 200 ornaments and it was a glorious sight in our front living room window.

Going to Mayne's for our Christmas tree is one of the many annual Christmas traditions we enjoy each year.  Here are some others:

• The Kris Kringle Procession in downtown Frederick. This year we were joined by the Lawvers, the Doyles, and the Auths
• Christmas Pageant at church.  Every year all the children's Sunday School classes at church put on a Christmas Pageant telling the story of Christ's birth.  It's always so wonderfully done with assistance from folks helping with the costumes and sets, to the children who memorize their lines and put in a few hours of rehearsals the day prior.  Alaina's preschool class dresses up as either angels or lambs.  The past two years she has wanted to be a lamb so we'll see if next year she'll want to be an angel.
• Breakfast with Santa.  Every year our church hosts Breakfast with Santa as well as a Secret Santa Shop where the youth take the little children through the shop and they can buy their family members $1 and $2 gifts for Christmas.  This year, my gift from Alaina ROCKED.  She got me a gold makeup bag filled with brand spankin' new Avon makeup.  I WAS SHOCKED!  It was awesome!  You see, last year she gave me a frog tote bag so I was expecting a similar gift this year.
• Watching "The Nutcracker" at the Weinberg.  This was my first year taking Alaina to see "The Nutcracker" at the Weinberg in downtown Frederick and I was thrilled with Mom, Cindy & Lauren decided to join me.  We had a wonderful time and are planning to make it an annual tradition.
• Carriage ride in downtown Frederick.  This year we celebrated Rob's birthday on December 14th by taking Alaina & Brady on a carriage ride through the Baker Park area of downtown Frederick.  It was a chilly night but not overly cold so it was just perfect to look at the beautifully decorated homes surrounding Baker Park.
• Baking cookies!!!  Lots and lots of cookies are baked throughout the month of December.  Our church holds a "Bake a Batch" fundraiser on the second Saturday of December so I bake a bunch of cookies for that, we bake cookies for our family to enjoy, we bake cookies for Santa, and then finally we bake cookies for my mother's Christmas dinner on the 26th.  It's no wonder we gain weight during the holidays!!
• Attending church on Christmas Eve.  Every Christmas Eve we attend the Children's Church at 5pm.  This is the perfect church service for our family because both Alaina & Brady are so young.  The service is only 45 minutes long, features lots of Christmas carols, and an interactive Christmas message.  Alaina's choir sings at this service too so it's quite an enjoyable time.
• Birthday Party for Jesus on Christmas Eve.  Following the Children's Service is our church's annual Birthday Party for Jesus.  Many of the moms & wives bakes cakes and cupcakes for the party and everyone sings "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.  It's always lots of fun.  After the birthday party is over, everyone wishes we each other a Merry Christmas and then they head home to wait for Santa to come!

Christmas Eve is my favorite night of the year.  The closeness.  The peacefulness.  The quiet anticipation.  The cookies and milk have been set out for Santa.  We have read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to Alaina and Brady and tucked them into bed.  I love nothing more than sitting with Rob as we gaze at the Christmas tree with all the gifts under it, while we sip on a cocktail while watching "A Christmas Story" on TV.  This year Christmas Eve was even more special because it SNOWED!  We had about 2" of snow on Christmas Eve so we had a white Christmas!  It was perfect.

Then it arrives... Christmas morning.  I always wake up early to do my hair and makeup before I come downstairs to start the monkeybread for breakfast.  By the time Alaina wakes up I'm ready and waiting for her.  We then go in to get Brady and then the children come downstairs together and Rob & I eagerly anticipate their reaction to what Santa might have left for them under the tree.  One word: magic.  Christmas is magical.  There's really no other word that does it justice.

We always spend Christmas afternoon with my family in Chambersburg.  Then last year we began a new traiditon of eating Chinese food on Christmas night. All the other restaurants are closed so we decided to start this tradition last year where we would get Chinese takeout on our way home from Chambersburg (ala "A Christmas Story"). Fra ra ra ra. Ra ra ra ra.  It works out really well and Rob & I love our new tradition.

On December 26th we always head back up to Chambersbug for the annual Lucas Family Christmas dinner.  This year Chambersbug got about 5-6" of snow so everyone cancelled but we still somehow made it up to Chambersbugr (we brought Zoey and our overnight things because we figured we'd be snowed in).  The kids had a good time sledding in my parents' front yard.

Here are some pictures from Christmas 2012:

Alaina's 4th Birthday

It's hard to believe but Alaina turned 4 last week. 4!  Seems like just yesterday when I was in the hospital holding this 8lb, 10oz baby girl in my arms and now she's a beautiful, intelligent, hilarious, energetic preschooler.  I cherish every moment with her but I wish that time would slow down.

Due to being born at Thanksgiving time we've always had to spread her birthday celebration over a span of about 10 days.  This year was no different.  I suppose you can call it Alaina's Birth Week instead of birthday?  She's not going to be feel entitled AT ALL when she gets older.

Alaina's "friends" party was on Saturday, November 17th at Chuck E Cheese's (per her request).  She absolutely LOVES it there and gets excited every time we drive by it.  We did things a bit differently this year, though, because she's old enough now to have her own friends.  We didn't necessarily invite friends of mine and their children as much as we invited playmates of Alaina (though admittedly, her playmates' parents are all friends of the family).  Nine children celebrated with Alaina this year:

• Brady
• Sophia Bostian
• Sebastian Duthoy
• Emma & Mady Lawver
• Riley & Taylor MacDonald
• Catherine Waskey
• Rory Wilson

The kids had a great time at Chuck E Cheese's.  They played games, ate pizza and cupcakes, and danced in the show.  Alaina is already asking to go back next year (though I'm hoping she might opt for a bowling party).  Here are some pictures from Alaina's party at Chuck E Cheese's:

On November 24th we had Alaina's "family" party at our home.  Alaina's parents, brother, Meme and BawBaw, Uncle Jeffrey, Aunt Michelle, Ryan, and Uncle JB were there to celebrate with her. Later that afternoon, Aunt Cindy, Lauren & Andrew came over to celebrate with us.  Alaina chose to have a Barbie cake this year.  We had a great time!

Then finally, it was Wednesday, November 28th.  Alaina's 4th Birthday. Officially.  Alaina's preschool teacher scheduled Alaina to be Star of the Day on her birthday so I provided cupcakes for her class.  Alaina brought her new Angelina Ballerina stuffed animal (see picture above) with her for Show and Tell.  At snack time, Alaina got to wear a birthday crown and her class sang to her:

After school was over, we went home and had lunch with Daddy and Brady and ate cupcakes from Wegman's.  It was a great day!  Thus ends Alaina's Birth Week Celebration till next year.  :)

Halloween

Halloween 2012 was a whirlwind of fun as it is every year.  We celebrated Trunk or Treat at the church on October 20th then we went a Halloween party the night of October 27th.  Rob and I dressed up as Lucy and Ricky.  What do you think?!

Then of course came Halloween night and all of the excitement of Trick-or-Treating.  Rob stayed home to hand out candy and scare the neighborhood children who dared to ring our "dingbell" (as Alaina calls it), while I took Alaina & Brady Trick-or-Treating around the neighborhood.  I piled the kids in the wagon at 5:55 PM and at 6:00 we were out the door and on a Candy Mission!  We hit every house for the next hour when Alaina suddenly announced that she had had enough and wanted to go home.  I was like, "Huh??  There's a whole 'nother left!  We can get so much more candy."  She said, "No Mommy.  I want to go home."  So I obliged and took Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf home to enjoy their yummy candy.

Ryan

Our nephew, Ryan, was born on August 28th and our family was so pleased to welcome the newest addition into our family.  Ryan is such a sweet baby and Jeffrey & Michelle are such proud parents.  Alaina was over the moon to have a baby cousin to hold and cuddle.

Our family's first trip to Knoebels

I grew up in south central PA but never went to Knoebels as a child.  Instead, my parents would take us to HersheyPark once a summer so I grew up riding the Comet and Sooper Dooper Looper.  Well, having two small children somewhat precludes us from taking them to a full-fledged amusement park so we were considering other options -- mainly, Sesame Place or Knoebels.  I had read so much about Knoebels from friends of mine on Facebook who had small children so Rob and I decided we would check it out this summer.  We invited my sister and her children to come along with us so on July 21, 2012 we took Lauren, Andrew, Alaina, and Brady to Knoebels.  What a fun time!

Knoebels is located in Elysburg, PA (north of Harrisburg, near Sunbury) so the drive to get there wasn't too bad.  The park is set up similar to a fair in the sense that there is no admission to enter the park; instead you just pay tickets to ride the rides that interest you.  This is a perfect set-up for small children who can't ride much of anything.

Alaina and Andrew were just shy of the 44" required to ride most of the adult rides (a few of the roller coasters required riders to be 48" so they really couldn't ride those).  However, they were able to ride many fun rides including all of the kiddie rides (including a children's roller coaster plus several of the "big kid" rides like the log flume, boat ride, haunted house, pirate ship, and the swings!  Alaina was pumped to ride the swings.

Summer Vacation

We took our summer vacation to Virginia Beach again this year.  We were thrilled when my parents agreed to come with us for a few days and I think they very much enjoyed their mini-vacation to the beach.  I know we certainly enjoyed having them come to the beach with us.

We stayed at Rob's parents which is only a short 10 minute drive to Sandbridge so every morning we'd load up the cars and drive to the beach.  Following a lengthy process of unloading the cars, hiking down to the beach, and setting up our camp, we were finally able to relax on the beach.  Though I'm not sure how much relaxing we really did with Brady -- he hated the sand and required lots of attention.

Two highlights of our trip were Alaina and BawBaw riding the Ferris Wheel at the oceanfront and eating yummy ice cream at Handel's.

Here are some pictures from our trip to the beach:

Trip to Maine / Michelle's Baby Shower

This past June we traveled to Wells, Maine for our annual vacation to see Rob's parents.  The past couple of years we've gone to Maine they have had an unusual heatwave so we were never able to escape the sweltering heat.  This year, however, the weather was much more seasonal we were able to leave the heat and humidity behind in Maryland as we traveled north.

While we enjoyed going to the beach and flying a kite, walking around Kennebunk, and eating lunch at the Maine Diner, the highlight of this year's trip was my sister-in-law's baby shower on Saturday, June 9th.  Michelle's parents, aunt & uncle, and cousin all traveled to Maine for the co-ed baby shower.  My mother-in-law asked that I handle the games which I happily agreed to do.  We played the Guess the Baby Food game (the guests had to figure out what kind of baby food was in the unmarked jars without actually tasting it), the Wet Diaper game (guess how many cups of water a Newborn-sized diaper will hold), and the How Many are in the Bottle game (where I filled a baby bottle with baby q-tips and the guest who guessed the closest without going over won a prize).  What fun!  Jeffrey and Michelle then cut their baby shower cake and opened their presents.  It was such an enjoyable afternoon.

Their cake (blue for a BOY!!)

Michelle & Jeffrey opening their gifts

The guests