Christmas Eve Eve 2013

December 23rd was a very full day of activity.  Some fun, some to-do's and lots of anticipation.  Koen was off from school and I was setting about final preparations before my mom, dad and sister were to arrive in the evening.  Koen ended up being more helpful than I had planned on with keeping his brothers occupied and we got through some major tasks in the AM hours before Tav's speech therapy appointment.  I took all the boys to Children's, not my favorite destination before the holidays as it makes my skin crawl with the thought of the germs we were all in close proximity too, but oh well, what's a mom to do?  I just made up a new motto...when you see hand gel, use hand gel.  There's a hand gel dispenser every 10 feet at the hospital, so my boys just ran from one to the other and put it on every few minutes.  People that see us must think we are crazy, but I don't care.  I might as well try my best to keep us all healthy!  The big boys played on the iPads in the waiting room (germ petri dish) and Penn and I took selfies.

When I take Tav by myself to these appointments I usually sit in the room with him and the speech pathologist, but when I have the brothers with me, we sit in the observation room and listen on headphones.  Koen did that with me part of the time, but he also enjoyed playing Duplo blocks with Penn.

Here's a little glimpse of my Tav working with Miss Christal on the other side of the two-way mirror.  He was a little silly, but he still applied himself.  They are working on "s" sounds right now.  He does them really well when prompted at the ends of words, but he has to really work hard to get them out at the beginning of "s" words.  It is exciting to see when he breaks through and finds success or even the glimpse of it.  Christal is great at using helpful cues to get him to work at it and reach those successful moments.  Tavin and I are both learning a lot!

After speech therapy, we all went home for lunch.  Then Koen got to go out for a special afternoon with Miss Kylie, one of our favorite babysitters and dear friends.  I put the little guys down for their naps, meanwhile Koen and Kylie when to Phipps Conservatory to check out their holiday exhibits.  

A few shots with Miss Kylie and the gorgeous poinsettia on display.

Koen got to have some snacks I packed for him in "India."  Looks kind of like he's really there!

Then he went shopping at the market they have there.

He and Kylie also stopped and enjoyed the awesome train exhibit Phipps does every year at the holidays.  It's amazing.  So much of it is made from plant materials, it's really impressive.

After their time at Phipps, Miss Kylie took Koen out for some cocoa.  Look at the note they found there.  Koen was very intrigued about it and even made specific mention of it to me.

It was great that Koen got to be out of the house for the afternoon.  He needed the outing and I needed the time to think straight and finish off that to-do list before the very special guests arrived around dinnertime.  By the time Koen got home at 4:30pm, I was just about down.  Thanks so much for that special time for Koen, Kylie.  It was fun for him and so helpful to me!  

As I mentioned, Gramma and Grampa were due to arrive around 6pm and that they did!  The boys were jumping out of their skin in excitement (to the point where I thought they would break the front door down and perhaps scare their grandparents all the way back to NH with their screams of joy).  It was great to see the reunion of the grandsons (well, Penn hung back because he's timid around everyone for awhile).  They gave big hugs and immediately started talking off their grandparents' ears of course.  We sat down to a lively dinner.  It warmed my heart and immediately made it feel like Christmas to have them in our home.  And Aunt Abbie still had yet to arrive.  We put "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" on for the big boys to settle them down a bit and quiet the house as we waited.  They had no problem snuggling up to Grampa during that time.

She came right after 7pm, so I already had Penn in bed (not that he would've been that warm to her initially anyways), but the big boys were overjoyed to see their aunt who flew all the way to Austin to be with us all for Christmas.  Koen gave Abbie the sweetest, longest, real hug ever.  It was sweet for all of us to witness.  Soon after that we got the big boys to bed and then we adults hung out unpacking mom, dad and Ab and putting their presents under the tree.  We also had a brief, but special little toast for my sister as this is the first time we've been together since she got engaged back in September.  We all got a little emotional and it was a special moment to celebrate this quickly approaching major event in her life!  So, as you can see, a very full Christmas Eve Eve, but a wonderful one (especially at the end, I could've gone without a few of the hours of cleaning, but at least they were satisfying!).  Now on to Christmas Eve and Christmas!!