Jan 2, 2006

Well we are in a new year once again. We had a good holiday season -it seemed to rush by way too fast this year, but it was a little more interactive and fun for Caelan, which in turn made it more fun for everyone else. We went to California for Aunt Brittney's wedding the weekend before Christmas. Caelan was in heaven with all of the aunts and uncles around. She especially loves to play with Preston. She tried to pick up Genevieve several times while they were there, which Genevieve did not especially enjoy. We had fun. Then we went to Arizona for Christmas. Once again Mom and Caelan and Ben took a plane by themselves and met up with Dad at the airport (we flew straight from CA and he flew from Utah -he had to go back to Utah to work for a couple of days). The whole trip was like Christmas for Caelan -going from one house filled with family to another house filled with more family -she loves it!! We went to Great Grandma Dick's house on Christmas Eve for Beef curry (a Dick family tradition). Caelan had a little fit when it was dinner time: first she didn't want to sit in a specific chair and then she wanted to sit by Mom and then she didn't want to eat at all. She eventually got over it. Christmas morning was very different from any other Christmas morning because it landed on a Sunday. Good thing Caelan still doesn't quite understand about Santa Claus bringing presents and such. We got up and got ready for church and went to Sacrament meeting. When we got home we went downstairs to the basement and changed back into our PJs and then got to go upstairs and see all the treasures that Santa Claus brought. He brought her a little purple tent and blow up chair and sleeping bag set. That was pretty exciting for her. She also got a stocking filled with fun toys and treats (three of those sour Altoid packs which Caelan is highly fond of). Then we went into the other room and opened presents. Now this part Caelan totally understood. She went from one gift to the next tearing open the paper. When she was done with her own she started helping everyone else open their presents. She got some cute clothes, a water drawing set, play dough, a Nemo blanket, Cinderella (the animated DVD), slippers, a Dora DVD, chapstick, a Care Bear that glows in the dark, some other stuffed animals, etc. She enjoyed playing with all her new things for the rest of the day. It was so fun to watch her get excited with each package that she opened. It makes Christmas even more magical once you have little kids that enjoy it as well. She wanted to watch all of her movies over the next couple of days. We drove back home to Utah on Tuesday. We rented a minivan with a DVD player, so that kept Caelan fairly occupied on the journey. Besides sticking a DVD in the wrong slot at one point (so Dad had to buy a teeny screwdriver and unscrew the system from the roof of the car to get it out), she did pretty well. She was happy to be home and not in the car anymore. On New Year's Eve we went down to Dan and Natalie's house to spend the holiday. Once I told Caelan that we were going to play with Sam and Julia that was all she could talk about for the rest of the day. We played with Silly string and had pizza and ice cream cake and played with lots oftoys. When it was time for bed we made a little bed on the floor next to Sam and Julia. We wondered how much playing would go on before the kids had to be separated or finally fall asleep. Once the stories were read and the drinks were had and the lights were off, not one of those little ones came out the door. They all went straight to sleep -we actually didn't even hear any talking or anything. They were very good. It was quite amusing to listen to Sam and Caelan talk together. They are both fairly clear in their speech for two and a half year olds, but there are still times when no one besides a Mom or Dad could understand what they are trying to say, and yet they could totally converse with each other and completely understand what they were talking about. It was cute. Anyway the entire holiday season was wonderful. Caelan did the best at escaping the raging cold that hit every other member ofthe family while were gone. She just got a teeny version of it (runny nose but no fever or anything else -and it really didn't slow her down a bit). Now we are on to a new year and all sorts of new adventures.