This is my last post this year about Christmas, I swear.

I don’t know how many of y’all already saw this the first time, but during Christmas 2006, I was about 8 months pregnant with Catie, and we had this little impromptu dance party in our kitchen.

This was right after a wind storm knocked out our electricity for NINE DAYS, so I think that Dave and I were still delirious from the joy of having working appliances and hot running water again. As for the rest of my family? Well, they’re pretty much like that all the time.

(As for the song credits: the first bit is me singing “Bootylicious” – I know, right? – then we’re all dancing to a “Staying Alive” remix by a band called N’Trance. I have a lot of dance/pop on my iPod for when I work out.)

Flash forward two years later, to Christmas 2008, and apparently Catie continues our Christmas dance party tradition:

The song is “Shippin’ Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys; you might recognize it if you saw “The Departed.” For some reason, that little Irish jig/punk rock combination makes her boogie every single time. She gets bored as soon as the guy starts to sing, she just likes the intro. That’s my girl – find the 30 seconds of a song that you like and play it over and over again. (Seriously, this video is just one of about 100 times we played the song. Every time it was over, she’d say “do again?”)

My favorite part of the video is around the 1:15 mark when she says “here goes!” and then launches into a full-on, spazzy, bouncy dance.

I have a few other videos from Christmas this year over on my YouTube page, which y’all are welcome to check out if you’re looking for some time to kill. Overall, it was a really great holiday.

My parents and brother drove home today, but Tracy’s plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow. Since we had an afternoon to kill and nothing to do (and since we’ve been vegging out around the house an awful lot lately), we decided that getting out of the house sounded like a pretty good idea. We loaded up the car and set off for the North Carolina Life & Science Museum in Durham.

The Life & Science Museum is a combination of an indoor science museum and an outdoor zoo. There was a farmyard area, a butterfly pavilion, a bear/wolf viewing area, and a train that goes around the whole park. The train was the part Catie was most excited about, until it started moving. Then she was a little unsure about the whole thing.

After the train, we had a bite to eat (which was overpriced, yes, but surprisingly really tasty) and hit the butterfly pavilion. Which was a major hit.

If you’re a local, I cannot recommend it enough. It was awesome, and we couldn’t even begin to cover the whole thing in the three hours we were there. I think we’re going to have to get a membership, since I imagine it will only be more fun as Catie gets older.

Tracy leaves early tomorrow morning, and we will be very sad to see her go. Especially Catie, since she absolutely loves her “Tray-ree.” Catie’s gotten a little bit used to having her adoring audience around her full-time, so going back to just boring ol’ Mommy and Daddy is probably going to be a rough adjustment for her. Poor kid.

My parents drove up from Mississippi on Sunday, spent Sunday night in Charlotte with my brother, and then headed over here on Monday afternoon. My brother is going to be driving over himself this evening (he had to work today), and my sister is flying in tonight. I’m very relieved that we’ll have everyone coming to us for Christmas, rather than having to travel ourselves. Flying with a toddler sucks, I did it last month, and I’m really not eager to repeat the experience anytime soon.

In other news, Catie is much better from her asthma attack, but she’s still a bit grouchy and congested. But she was super-excited to see her Mimi and Pop-Pop when they arrived yesterday, and she’s been giving both of them lots of hugs and cuddles. She’s also been showing off all of the language skills that she’s acquired in the past month – naming (and signing!) all of the various colors that she spots around the house, and using all of her Christmas terminology: snowman, Santa, reindeer, etc. Needless to say, they are mighty impressed. They already thought she was a genius, of course, because that’s what grandparents are supposed to do, but it’s funny to see her try to show off for their benefit.

The downside is that the grandparents are not allowed to tell her “no,” ever, under any circumstances. Today we went to the grocery store, and my dad pushed the cart while Catie rode in the front. She started to try to stand up in the cart (which she knows she isn’t allowed to do), and my dad said, “No, sweetie, you need to sit down.” Her lower lip started to tremble, and she burst into tears. I’ve fussed at her in way harsher tones, and she just laughs at me. But when it comes from the grandparents? THAT is another story altogether. Pretty funny to witness how differently she reacts to them rather than me.

Not much else going on, just getting ready for the big day. I don’t know if I’ll have time to update again before Christmas, but I hope y’all have a great holiday!

My in-laws left yesterday, and we were all pretty sad to see them go. It was such a nice visit, very laid back and easy. We didn’t do a whole lot, but it was great to have them around. It’s been a blast watching Catie bond with her Grandma, giving her lots of cuddles and snuggles. And even though she’s sort of skittish around most men, she kissed her Grandpa Roger goodbye before he left. So that was cool. Plus, as I mentioned before, I know that I’ve been totally spoiled by having my mother-in-law cook breakfast and dinner nearly every day.

On Tuesday night, we had our pre-Christmas celebration. We did this last year and enjoyed it, so we did it again. We basically just do the whole big meal and gift exchange as if it was Christmas, since they won’t be here on Christmas Day. It’s pretty fun, especially since this way, we get to do Christmas twice. Mags cooked all day, the most amazing stuff that I can’t even begin to recap. I think Catie ate about two bites of the meal; meanwhile the rest of us gorged ourselves to the point that all we could do was lie around and moan. (Or was that just me? I’m not sure. The food was awesome, is my point.)

For the gift exchange, as you’d expect, all of the adults each got one or two gifts, but the focus was on Catie, who seriously cleaned up. She got some clothes, a set of bristle blocks (sort of like this, but not exactly), a toy laptop, a singing caterpillar, some Russian nesting dolls (perfect for my girl’s need to sort and organize everything), and a toy British double-decker bus that’s also a piggy bank. Oh, then she cleaned her Grandpa Roger out of all of his American coins because she needed some money to put in her piggy bank. Naturally.

(You can kind of tell in this picture that she’s still a little bit sick. Something about the droopiness around her eyes.)

Anyway, we’ve been feasting on leftovers for the past two days, and I think it’s all just about gone, so I’m going to have to start cooking again soon. Sigh. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Oh, to follow up on that last post: I made and distributed the gift bags for the neighborhood kids today. Y’all are brilliant with the $1 bin suggestion, I never would’ve thought of that. What did people do before Target? Anyway, all the kids got a bunch of Hershey’s kisses, a couple of chocolate Santa’s, and two candy canes (one peppermint, one fruity). The girls got some Hello Kitty pens in fancy colors (green, purple, red) and a little compact with three lip glosses. The boys got a Slinky and a magnetic tic-tac-toe board. I hated to make a gender distinction, and yes, the girls would’ve been fine with a Slinky and tic-tac-toe, but these girls are all serious girly-girls, and I know them well enough to know that they most likely appreciated getting different stuff than their brothers got.

Of course, they mostly just freaked out about the chocolate. I was going to add some homemade cookies or something, but I didn’t really have time. And I think adults care more about the homemade factor than kids do; the kids just see “SUGAR!!” and they’re happy. So it worked out pretty well. Now if I can just get my Christmas cards in the mail…

First of all, I have to say that I really appreciate all of the phone calls, emails, texts, etc. from you guys while Catie was in the hospital. Seriously, y’all are so sweet. That said, I think all of you got pwned this afternoon:

Yesterday afternoon, we thought Catie was going to be staying in the hospital for a second night, so Dave had told me to go home so I could shower and get a hot meal before I came back to spend another night in the hospital. Soon after I got home, I talked to Dave on the phone and found out that Catie was being discharged. So rather than trek back across town, Dave handled the discharge stuff and I met them both at the house when they got here.

Meanwhile, Rebecca, a little girl who lives two doors down from us, knocked to see if Catie could come play, and I had to tell her that Catie was in the hospital. I knew that by telling just one kid, soon all the kids in the neighborhood would know, but I was surprised by how fast this happened.

Today, during Catie’s nap, the doorbell rang. It was Rebecca, her older brother Nick (aka Catie’s first official true love, she absolutely adores this boy), another girl from across the street (Morgan), and Jillian, the 7 year-old next door. They each were holding a present for Catie. This is the text from the handmade card that was enclosed:

Dear Katy (sp),
We love you so much that we got all of are (sp) money together and bought you some toys. Love, the [last name]’s, the [last name]’s, and the [last name]’s, and mostly Morgan and Becka. Get well soon.

Seriously, how adorable is that? They got her a little baby doll in a toy stroller, a teddy bear, and a ball with Winnie the Pooh on it. But it was the card that almost made me cry. Later, Meredith (the mom next door) came over and said that as soon as Rebecca left my house, the kids sat in her driveway and literally pooled all of their money from their piggy banks to try to make a Catie Gift Fund. She said she’s pretty sure a few parents kicked in an extra buck or two, but it was really almost entirely from the kids themselves. Oh my lord, the sweetness, it kills me.

So besides writing out thank you notes (which obviously have to be from Catie, not me and Dave), I also need to come up with Christmas gifts for about 10 kids ranging in age from 4 to 12. I’m thinking some sort of candy-oriented goody bag might be sufficient? I hope?