Christmas, Knuckles, New Years, Wii, and Mr. Mom

I can't believe it's taken me so long to put up a post. Christmas came and was over too fast. I wish we had more time to relax and take it in.

Ellen came up on Christmas Eve and helped to prepare the Turducken which was quite tasty! After each bird, there was a layer of stuffing and everyone knows how the Tracys love stuffing!

On Christmas morning, we woke up to gifts at our shoes - the Paraguayan tradition. It was so sweet of Nani to do that. The gifts were overflowing at the tree and I haven't seen a tree that packed with presents since the Hobbs Dimmeydale Drive house when I was younger - they lived across the street from us.

Eban loved his stocking and after the first gift he received, that's all he wanted - an orange recorder (like a flute). Then after Steve, Anna, and my father arrived, all he wanted to play with was his first toy - a duck that you push and it flips its wings. We opened Seamus' first gift - a colorful rawhide from Grammy Swooz and he promptly was afriad of it. After the gifts, I had to coerce him into taking the treat and not be afraid of it. What a brave mastiff!

Anyway, everyone opened their gifts in a flurry of activity. Next year, I want to watch everyone and enjoy their expressions rather than tear into the gifts.

We prepared food all day and had a great meal!!

Following Christmas, we all went down to Denver to show Steve and Anna the town. It was so snowy and cold, that being outside was miserable - for me, at least! Walking the 16th Street Mall and Cherry Creek was very chilly and I finally loved it when we all decided to get a pint of beer at the Squealing Pig - an Irish pub in North Cherry Creek. It was nice to sit and relax and chat without being on the move.

The next day, I was going to take Steve and Anna to Boulder to show them that town and it snowed like crazy and the roads were horrific. So two minutes into our commute to Boulder, we all decided against that decision and headed a couple of blocks away to the local McDonalds where we had lunch. It was one of those McDonalds with a play area...and well, it was HUGE hit for Eban!

After we ordered, we went into the play area and sat down on a hamburger bench to eat. After about 5 minutes some other kids came in and went straight to the three story play house...it's all tubes and slides. Eban couldn't stand to see them play while he watched so we got him out of his chair so he could play. I had to follow him in the tubes as he's too young to explore on his own and I didn't want him to hurt himself going down a slide...so here I am - a huge adult in the three-story tubes crawling around with the other tykes. Some kid kindly asked me if I thought I was too big to be playing in the tubes and I honestly told him yes but I had to follow my little one so he wouldn't hurt himself. Let me tell you about those play tubes...they ARE dirty and I wonder how many times a day a McDonalds employee goes in there to check on the cleanliness of them?? I overlooked that fact because Eban was having such a good time exploring and seeing the other kids crawl around and interact with him.

After about 15 minutes, I crawled out and told my brother it was his turn. Mind you, he's about 6 foot 4! So in he went and played around. I know he had a good time but he did admit to having a stomach cramp the entire time from being all bent over in the tiny tubes! Steve was smart enough to bring his camera so I hope he sends me some pics and I'll happily put them up on the blog to share them with you...we'll see if that happens!

After Steve and Anna left to head up to the mountains, Eban quickly learned how to give knuckles as well as high-5. It's the cutest thing to have him give you "knucks". We also made our first visit to Chuck E. Cheese...talk about another germ haven for toddlers?! The pizza wasn't half bad, but it reminded me of the casinos with the constant dinging of machines!

So then came New Years...Nani's friends communicated too late with her about their plans so she got stuck with the old farts. And the old farts (Ryan, me, Jen and Chris) were all staying in and having a simple dinner and watching tv. Well, Jen and Chris brought up their Wii video game system and we played that after dinner. I don't know if you know what Wii is but it's a video game system in which you act out playing certain sports such as golf, bowling, tennis and boxing. We played tennis and bowled and had a great time. I became a statistic as I accidentally forgot to put the Wii controller wrist band on my wrist so I threw the controller up at the ceiling after I bowled a frame. Needless to say, we now have an ugly divot in our family room ceiling as a reminder that I didn't follow the Wii instructions.

Dennis and Eban played in the jump castle that Nani got for Eban for Christmas. It was a great time as they both tired themselves out with jumping and playing with the balls! We all crashed before the clock struck midnight except for Ryan....how lame have we become that we can't stay up until midnight?!?! I'm sure Nani thought we were so lame. So the next morning, we all had breakfast and tons of coffee.

Steve and Anna returned from the mountains late that evening and were exhausted from their travels and the mountain traffic. They witnessed the horrible traffic that we have and even commented about how people were at a standstill and getting out of their cars to talk to one another. They took off back to Chicago on the 2nd and Ryan and I had a date that night! We went to see the movie Juno and I highly recommend it to everyone. It reminded me of the perfectly cast movie "Little Miss Sunshine". That's all I'll say as I hate it when people ruin movies for me.

On the 3rd of January, I returned to work. I put on makeup, high heels and put a purse over my shoulder for the first time in over three months. It was hard to leave the house with Eban yelling, "MAMA NOOO!" and throwing his arms up in the air for me to pick him up. Ugh...I hated leaving him like that. But I knew he was home with Nani and Ryan. Ryan is home for a month so I'm jealous that he now gets quality time all day with the kids and Nani.

I came home from work to a warm plate of chicken and green beans while he looked at me and said, "I can get used to this Mr. Mom stuff." I thought that was sweet - my husband, Mr. Mom!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and New Year and I promise to do a better job of updating this. We'll see how that goes now that I'm back to the daily grind at work!