Audrey and Andrew are 4.5 months old and are beginning to enjoy holding small toys, rattles, and stuffed animals.  They giggle when you tickle them and imitate sounds and tongue movements.  They are beginning to be pretty fun to be around.

My parents came to share in the fun of Audrey and Andrew’s first Christmas.  They drove their car from Florida and brought Daisy, their border collie.  On Christmas Eve, mom and I attended the beautiful candlelight service at our church and then we went home to enjoy some eggnog and the annual viewing of Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story.  We all laughed a lot and enjoyed each other’s company as we navigated the wild terrain of ever increasing baby equipment that has taken over our living room, combined with three lounging dogs sprawled about on the floor.  The ease of such navigation is inversely proportional to the amount of eggnog one has consumed.  I know because I’ve done the research.

Christmas morning started off with delicious bowls of oatmeal straight from the crock pot.  This is a great way to cook oatmeal.  My dad likes to use a basic crock pot which requires a special plug timer to set it to come on at 3AM.  Strangely, the only outlet in the house that works for this purpose is located in his bedroom.  So, at 9AM on Christmas morning, he emerged from the guest bedroom with a giant pot of oatmeal and Christmas day had begun.

After breakfast, we put Andrew and Audrey on the floor in the middle of the living room and went to town opening presents.  The twins got lots of clothes and books and a few small toys.  My dad felt certain that they needed a set of SPAM onesies to match his SPAM tshirt, so we spent several minutes on a SPAM related photo shoot, of which Audrey was not really a fan.  SPAM is just not her thing, apparently.

The twins had made some Christmas ornaments at day care and they were wrapped and under the tree for Dave and I to open.  It was a pretty neat surprise, as we had no idea they had done this.

Dave began working on a turkey for dinner, which he decided needed to be cooked via spatchcock.  My dad spent some time amusing himself by convincing all of us that spatchcock meant “spread eagle” in German.  We began giggling and Googleing at the same time, as “spatchcock” is a pretty awesome word.   I was glad to have the opportunity not only to eat the delicious turkey that resulted, but to walk around the house saying “spatchcock” all day.

My mom felt compelled to buy some luminaries that she brought with her and insisted that we set up in the driveway.  She thought that she had bought 3, but it turns out that she had bought 33.  The luminaries consisted of a white paper bag, a cupful of sand from the beach where they live, and a tealight candle.  We set them all up in the driveway and they were quite pretty after dark. I spent the next hour digging sand from under my fingernails.

We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!