The Wrap-Up (minus photos)

So Christmas was awesome and I thought I'd write down a few highlights to remember it by. We flew out Christmas Eve day, which actually would have been great because of the lack of people at the airport. Unfortunately, our plane was delayed by all the weather that's happening pretty much all over the country and we had to stay in the St. Louis airport for a good 7 hours. Fortunately there was a family on our flight with a four year old boy and one year old girl that Charlotte fell in love with and played non-stop for those seven hours. Unfortunately the new environment, new friends, and new foods made her forget to tell us about needing to poop. Three times.

Christmas Eve was great. We ate dinner and then settled in for the talent show portion of the evening. Our little family sang jingle bells which Charlotte did pretty well on. And then I revealed my talent which was that I actually finished our Christmas stockings, including the one for our little boy to come. This was a very cute way to reveal that we're naming our next little guy Daniel Gregory, to be called Greg for short. That's my dad's name and I'm pretty sure he blinked out a few tears when he put two and two together.

Christmas Day was awesome. I had been worried that we didn't get Charlotte very many toys, but it seems that everyone got her a little something and she was overwhelmed with gifts this year. I'm going to have to cull out some of the old toys to find room for the new ones. She actually at one point decided that she didn't need to open any more presents because she was too busy playing with the already opened ones. That didn't last for very long though. I can't wait until the three extra boxes of presents we had to mail home arrive on Wednesday. I think it'll be like Christmas all over again. And this time I'm going to let her play with all her toys. I only let her pick a few out to play with over vacation.

We spent a day driving up to Logan to see Daniel's brother and family. Other than the terrifying drive up we had a great time. Charlotte picked up a few new things from her cousins that are pretty cute. None of which will make sense unless you already know what they do so I'm not going to write them down. Our drive back was considerably less scary and I found out that Daniel and I can still talk to each other for three hours and not get bored or run out of things to say. That was a nice little perk of being in the car.

The flight back home was also delayed because of snow. We didn't get home until about 2 AM Saturday morning and fell right into bed. When we got up we did an inspection of the house and found everything in proper order thanks to our diligent friends. What we also found that did not make me happy was "evidence" of mice all over the house.

So that tipped the scale and on Saturday afternoon we went to the Humane Society. We arrived half an hour before it closed and picked out a kitty that we wanted to have. Unfortunately the couple right in front of us picked that kitty to take home. So Daniel said, "I've always thought calico cats are pretty. Can we look at that one?" She was two years old (and named Scratchy) so I had completely passed over her as a possibility, but the lady brought her to us and Daniel instantly fell in love. She does "everything a cat should do" (his words, not mine). She curled up on his lap and started to purr as soon as he started to pet her. Then she licked Charlotte a few times and we were all sold. So now our family is larger by one tiny two year old cat, which we named Suzie. We think she'll be a good mouser, but we're not letting her downstairs at night in case there are still some mice scurrying around with poison in their tummies. We had already cleaned up all the poison that had been out for the mice before we brought her home.

So now I just have to get unpacked, cleaned up, and back on track. It would go a lot faster if I hadn't had to take Charlotte to the doctor this morning. We found out that she has a bit of a yeast infection so I'm glad I took her, but there was very little unpacking done in the mean time.