Christmas trip

We had such a wonderful time visiting family last week. Thanks to a small battalion of neighborhood children we were able to leave the rabbits for an entire week and not worry about them starving or about the snow piling up in the driveway. We are happy to report that the Hannah Montana party, if the pet sitters and the snow removal boy did indeed have one, was cleaned up without a trace.

So we had plenty of time to settle in before Christmas. Jim and I gave ourselves an early gift -- our first night out without Molly since she was born. A little overdue? Uh-huh. We waited until Molly went to sleep (which of course took way longer than usual) then met David and Anna and Kim for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We had SUCH a good time. We gorged ourselves on fried ice cream and sundaes, and we didn't leave until the place was about to close. It was so strange to be wearing something other than PJs at 10 p.m. Jim and I both had our cell phones on the table and were checking them constantly for messages from my mom, who graciously agreed to stay home with Molly, but we needn't have worried. Aside from a little coughing, she didn't make a sound.

Molly's holiday festivities started Christmas Eve with Oma's family party. (I just posted some photos). She stayed up an hour past her usual bedtime but didn't quite make it through the whole party. She really enjoyed meeting Bonnie, her golden retriever cousin -- lots of panting, the baby sign for dog. She also enjoyed opening her gifts and playing with Lucy and the rest of the family.

Talking via Webcam with Luutsen and Annie.

Playing with Grandpa's trains.

Christmas day (see photos here) started with presents at Grammy D's house.

Then we went to Oma's house for presents.



Then we went to the K's for more presents and dinner, then to my mom's family's big party for even yet more dinner and dessert.

Molly was as full of energy at the end of the day as she was at the beginning. We had a hard time getting her to focus on opening gifts, especially at Oma's house. She and Lucy kept wandering off to other rooms and the guys had to go find them and bring them back. At one point somebody set up two chairs to block the hallway. Molly marched right over, pushed one chair down the hall and walked into the blockaded room.

Molly did find the focus to eat tremendous amounts of ice cream, frosting and probably many other naughty things I don't know about.

We had a lot of fun watching her play with her new toys. And of course there was the moment the next day when we noticed that she was surrounded by new toys and what was she playing with? Four used plastic cups and a string of old raffle tickets.

I did a lot better this trip with keeping the right gear on hand wherever we were ... until the last day or two. It was all down hill from the morning at the diner when I realized I needed a bib and didn't have a clean one with me. I realized I had a diaper bag as big as a suitcase and nothing useful in it. The low point was the day we were driving home when Molly woke up from a nap and her diaper had leaked, soaking her clothes. I had no clean clothes to put on her. We ended up putting in the wet clothes in the dryer and taking her to lunch that way, dirty but dry.

Now that we're home I'm trying to reintroduce her to vegetables and catch up on sleep. On that note, time to go to bed.