Sorry for the delay in writing this, but it has been a whirl-wind time here since about two weeks prior to Christmas.  Grandma Johnson came to visit around that time and stayed until after the new year.  Uncle Eric was unable to come for Christmas, but was able to come for a few days after Christmas.

This year was a lot more fun for Mommy & Daddy to watch the kids over Christmas, and the kids were much more aware of what was going on.  We put ornaments on the lower part of the tree that the kids would be interested, like some new Sesame Street figures, Sponge Bob Square Pants and Patrick, Toys from the Land of Miss-fit Toys, etc.  The only ornament they wanted to touch that we were concerned about was one of our nice red ball ornaments.  But they didn’t break anything, and they were not constantly at the tree either.

Santa sure did know how to spoil them this year.  They each got a nice rocking animal, they got an inch-worm to ride, a zebra toy to ride, a sit-n-spin, some interactive toys for teaching numbers and letters, and more.  Several people also mailed them gifts too, including Precious Paws stuffed animals, plastic building blocks, a toy tractor with the farmer and 4 farm animals, a toy dog to walk, several books, pajamas, a large stuffed Elmo, a Curious George plane and fire truck, and more.

Apparently we had the wrong tee shirt on the wrong kid.  Jonathan was wearing the “Official Present Opener” shirt, but he was the least interested in the actual opening of gifts.  Anna did ok, but Lydia was the one that really liked it.  As they are also into copying things and doing certain things the way we want, Lydia caught on that Daddy wanted the torn paper.  She would give each piece, no matter how small, to Daddy.  And once she figured out Daddy was putting the paper into a trash bag, she wanted to put the wrapping paper directly in the bag herself.

The Sunday before New Years, Grandma Johnson felt sick enough to want to go to the hospital when Lisa headed in to work.  After the typical several hours of mostly waiting around, it was finally determined that she had a small amount of pneumonia in her lungs.  Given that Jonathan may have had a mild case of pneumonia just before Christmas, we have to wonder if he might have passed it on.  Thankfully Grandma only stayed over night and came home the next day.

The new year brings Mommy a new work schedule.  Instead of working every weekend, Mommy will now only work every other weekend and three days during the week (after Daddy gets home).  So now that the kids are getting more fun to take out, we can have some weekends for the whole family together.

Anna mastered the word “No” just before Christmas.  In fact, she says “No, No, No, No, No”.  The way she says it is really cute, and sometimes she uses it in the correct context to help us scold Jonathan.  Jonathan also started saying “No” a few days ago.  But he says it a little more forcefully than Anna.  Right before Christmas, Lydia started saying “Oooohhh” and “Woowwww”.

Dinner is getting frustrating.  They still do not like some of the “classic” things most kids love, like mashed potatoes, etc.  And they are starting to refuse to eat their baby food.  Sometimes we can get them to eat a grilled cheese.  But we don’t want to give them that every night.  If they would just start eating a few more regular foods, then we would quit the baby food altogether.  But they’re really in a limbo stage where they don’t want the baby food or the regular food.