Christmas Favorites

The Christmas craziness is coming to a close. We arrived home from a super fun-filled weekend in NY. We laughed a lot, drank a lot and ate way too much! It was great- tons of nerf gun wars, jumping on the beds, air hockey, ping pong, retrieving remote control helicopters from the neighbors roof, oh, and LOTS of present opening!

Some of the kids favs this year were LEGOS (we now have almost as many as the lego store) for Aidan and Easy Bake Oven, (a mock) American Girl Doll and Barbie Princess Charm School movie for Clare. I got a beautiful diamond necklace and Sean got some new socks!

The best part is we still have the other half of Christmas to celebrate with the Healey side!

Church Santa

Clare refused to leave the arts and crafts to get in the picture, so I volunteered to take her place!

A Christmas treat

Last weekend, Maun and Ellie came down so we could take the kids out for a Christmas treat. We went to a horse rescue farm and they got their pictures taken with the horses. It was one of the best 20 minutes of this Christmas season. The kids loved seeing the horses, sitting on "Doc" and feeding him an apple.

Santa #4 & #5

I went to the mall the other day by myself and saw the Mall Santa - my #4 Santa.

Today, Aidan and I were driving down the road and we saw a Santa waving people into a Coldstone Creamery. (My #5, Aidan's #4) Clare went to see the Nutcracker this afternoon with Aunt Patra and she saw her #3 Santa there before the show started.

Where have all the Santa's gone?? I thought for sure we'd be racking in the Santa sightings at this point. I guess the Jolly Old Elf is becoming a little more scarce than in years past. Oh well, still a fun search!

A "Pouch" of Cows (correction not patch- pouch)

We pass by a few farms everyday on the way to work. One in particular has a herd of black angus cows that roam around the fields. Every morning/afternoon they are in a different spot, some days close to the road, some days far. Yesterday when we passed by Clare says, "Hey Mom, look all those cows are in a big pouch today. I bet the ones outside of the pouch might have scratched their noses on a hard piece of grass so that's why they aren't in the patch anymore." (Wait, WHAT??)

I think it's really cute that she calls it a pouch of cows and I'm not quite sure what the correct word would be to tell her, so I'm gonna let her go with pouch for awhile. I don't have to heart to tell her otherwise.

Christmas Card AHHHH!!!

Every year as the Christmas cards start arriving in our mailbox, I am stricken with another round of guilt. I wish I were one of these prepared people I so strive to be. The ones who take pictures of their beautiful children with no food on their face in adorable little outfits that look so "un"posed but posed at the same time.

Oh and I am also envious of those who dedicate enough time to catalog all the great times they had all year. I know those big milestones are floating around someplace in this mush ball I call a brain.

I am jealous, what can I say. Green isn't my favorite color for no reason people!

So I'm going to do it this year! Below you will find the Christmas card I would send out this year if today wasn't already December 12.

We had a fantastic year here in the Healey household!

Sean had another successful year with his business. He works so hard all the time and we couldn't be more proud of him. He traveled to Iowa to the State Fair and actually saw people eating deep fried sticks of butter. He got stuck on a plane next to Newt Gingrich. He traveled back to Haiti for Catholic Relief Services to make another documentary on the improvements they have made there. He has also been busy in his personal life as well. Sean took a huge step this year for himself and our family and completed the RCIA class to become Catholic. What a wonderfully emotional experience that was for both of us. He also competed in not 1 but 2 triathlons. The first one I competed with him and the second one I got to be the cheerleader. Words can't explain how awesome it was for us to cross the finish line holding hands after swimming, biking and running together. Simply amazing!

Aidan turned 5 this year. He got a new set of "superhero teeth". (because his God given ones were a MESS!) He played his first season of lacrosse in the spring. He graduated from preschool. Aidan spent the entire summer underwater in the deep end of the pool fishing for things we'd toss in for him. I swear that boy is part fish. This fall he started Kindergarten, played soccer (and was pretty darn good at it) and got his finger run over by a shopping cart that his mother was driving. (YIKES!) He's also totally into legos now. It seems like he's grown up 10 years in the last couple of months. He comes up to my shoulder and weighs about 65 lbs, but I can still carry him up to bed if he falls asleep on the couch.

Clare turned 4 this year. She took ballet/tap classes til May. She learned to swim on her own without a life jacket or swimmies and she too became a little fish! We could hardly peel them out of the pool this summer. Clare started in the "Bears" class at Noah's Ark and played soccer this fall. She's got an attitude a mile long with Sean and I but when it comes to other people all we ever get is compliments on how sweet she is. She's totally into everything, art, glitter, fashion, baby dolls, barbies, books, you name it!

As for me, well I've had a busy year too. I got a promotion and I'm actually loving it. I do miss being in the classroom with the kids but it's nice to be able to help the staff and feel productive in other ways. I ran a couple of fun races, a 10k in February with my nephew Connor (he beat me but I only finished a few minutes later), a 10 miler with Maureen on a beautiful country course here in Edgewater, and another 10 miler with my pals Maureen and Kel in Baltimore (which in my opinion is the best town to run a race in). All super fun events but the best was the triathlon Sean and I did in Harrisburg, PA. Then I went into semi-retirement. I still haven't raced since July and I have to say I miss it a bit. I'll get back on the circuit. But for now I'm in resting/nesting mode! We're having a BABY in June 2012! We're very excited to meet Healey #3.

So there's my Christmas card letter I would write on really pretty paper and if I had some extra cash I would've ordered these really cute cards from this website that said "LAUGHING ALL THE WAY" and I would've used the above pictures to prove it!

One way to look at it...

This morning on the way to Mass we were talking about our Elf on the Shelf (named Claden). Aidan mentioned how he hadn't found him yet today. There was some talk back and forth about where he's been in the past, bathrooms, bedrooms, etc. So Aidan says, "Yeah I remember when he was on top of the rusty star on the wall in my room. And how he was under the lamp on your side Mommy next to the little tree. How do you get those little trees under there anyway?"

Allow me to explain, we have glass bottomless bedside lamps in our room that I put different things under. At Christmas I put these little glittery trees under them. So I say "Oh yeah, I remember that. Well I just pick up the lamp and put the trees underneath because they have no bottoms. I don't think that Claden could lift those lamps though. He must have used his magic to get in there."

Aidan's quick response was, "Well, I think he made a portal to get in."

Sean's reply, "Aidan, you're a weird kid."

Santa #2 and #3

Santa #2

We went to our church for pizza with Santa yesterday morning. They had lots of fun Christmas crafts for the kids to do and then we (Aidan and I because Clare could not be peeled away from the craft tables) got our picture taken with Santa. Sean was excited because he and Clare got to each make a Santa out of popsicle sticks.

Santa #3

This Santa was on the fire truck tonight. We got to see him twice because as we walked home his truck was sitting on the corner by our house so we waved to him again.

Aidan finally made us a chart last night, probably because he's winning!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...well on the outside of the house at least. Sean has turned in his normal Scrooge McDuck attitude this year for some serious yule tide spirit! I pulled in the driveway yesterday and there he was hanging over the side of the roof clipping on Christmas lights. When I got home in the dark later on with Clare we were greeted by a lovely white light display!

Santa #1

Our first siting was last Friday. On our way home from a fabulous afternoon in the Nation's Capitol we drove through Homestead Gardens to get a closer look at the spectacular light display. When we drove past the open doorway, there he was. Walking through the store in his infamous red suit and hat.

Aidan was the the one who spotted him right away. First one down, question is how many more to go. I'm going to make a chart this weekend (at the suggestion of Aidan) so we can officially track our findings.