We Wish You A Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year

So, I've been on vacation for the past two weeks. I don't know about you, but we've had Christmas and New Year's around these parts, so these two weeks have been pretty busy. Before I jump back into work and the 154 voicemails and 642 emails that will await me on Monday, I thought I'd take a moment to show you what we've been up to.

There was cookie baking and fudge making. I conquered gingerbread cookies...finally. They had me beat until this year.


My taste-tester was satisfied with the fudge so it was taken to the annual Christmas Eve Eve bash hosted by this gal. That party was awesome, per usual, with the added bonus of the whole house singing Jingle Bells with my G, to her extreme delight, not once, not twice, but three or four times through.

We wrapped and wrapped presents. Giuliana adorned her handmade wrapping paper with glittery Christmas stickers and together we finished her gifts to her favorite people.

Christmas Eve was spent at Nana's house with family and the traditional seafood dinner.


Obviously, there was also the formal Christmas Eve Tea Party. Later, those two cuties in plaid gave a caroling concert at the piano as well.

There was also a candle-light service at church...our church this year, which was a nice switch, though I did miss seeing my nieces and nephew in their Christmas pageant.

After church it was bedtime for our little Christmas star and time for Mommy and "Santa" to get to work. "Santa" put together G's trampoline while I wrapped the rest of her gifts and spread the Christmas joy out under the tree.

Hmmm....maybe that makes me "Santa", but that wouldn't fit the song ("Iiiiiii saw Mommy kisssssing Saaaaaaaaaaanta Claus...") Oh, and I also discovered that I had inadvertently left my camera at my mother-in-law's. On Christmas Eve. Perfect. So, it was cell-phone pictures to capture those magical Christmas morn moments.


Christmas was indeed magical this year. Giuliana "got" the concept of Santa bringing her gifts. We sang Santa Claus is Coming To Town about 4,000 times and she walked around saying "Santa Claus, Ho ho ho!" for a week. But she also "got", at least a little bit, the significance of that little baby Jesus in the nativity scene. She pointed out Baby Jesus in every creche she saw. I think we balanced the two pretty well.

And Christmas morning? Once the grogginess of being dragged out of bed by two over-excited parents wore off, she had a pretty good time. She adored her "Ni-Hao, Kai-Lan" coloring book and her Dora, Boots, and Swiper figurines (it was totally a Nick Jr. Christmas at our house.) And she loved, loved, loved her trampoline. She got into the reggae spirit by jumping and bouncing to the "B is for Bob" CD early Christmas morning.

We packed up and headed back to Nana's for the rest of the day. We had a fabo brunch and much more gift exchanging.

Five gorgeous Giglio/Duvinsky kids on Christmas morning.

And, of course, there was a Jingle Bell concert, given by my little Jingle Beller herself...and anyone she forced the microphone upon.

There were other events I didn't bring a camera to. We had a great time celebrating Christmas again with Nick and Kate, and our friends most recently from Vermont, Jeff and Sarah and their two boys, as well as some of John's old high school buddies. John and I babysat for our nieces and nephew while his sister and her husband finally moved into their new house the day after Christmas (yes, they are that crazy.) And there was also a trip down to NYC for another doctor's appointment and a chance for Nick and Kate to spend all day with an energetic two year old (too late now, guys, you're already 6 months committed...you'll have your own two year old before you know it!) John got the news that he will be having surgery next week to implant a neuro-stimulator on his spine to try to relieve his chronic pain. Keep fingers and toes crossed that this works.


New Year's Eve brought the annual kid's sleepover party at Nana's with hats, horns and confetti at 8pm (that's 12am somewhere, right?) while we parents celebrated in a low-key fashion with dinner and a movie. BTW, Avatar 3D...awesome, but it totally killed me. My brain is not ready for 3D. I had a hang over all day on New Year's and it wasn't from the one margarita I had with dinner.

The snow on New Year's Eve/Day made perfect sledding conditions and that's exactly how we spent NYD. We drove over to my parents' house (who have been in Georgia this whole time visiting my brother's family) to feed their cats and sled on their super-duper hills.


And that, my friends, is how I spent my vacation. I promised it would be busy, but I also predicted it would be fun. I think I was right on both accounts. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa and a Peaceful New Year.

I'm feeling surprisingly and happily optimistic for 2010. I feel it's going to be a good year for my little family. So far, two days in, it's been pretty swell. Here's hoping that trend continues. For you, too!

Peace and Blessings!
XOXO
Kami

Let Christmas Begin

Every year, our Christmas week begins with decorating Christmas cookies at Nana's house and "Breakfast with Santa" at the Binghamton Club, courtesy of John's step-father. We brunch, we sit with Santa, there's balloon animals, and this year...dancing. Cute, enthusiastic Toddler Dancing.

I have to work tomorrow. Bummer, but it promises to be an easy day. My computer went completely ca-put the other day, and since I basically do 90% of my job on the computer...well, I'll be the one standing around the kitchen snarfing cookies. I will come back from break to a new computer, though. I'll take it.

I am off of work as of Tuesday until Monday, January 4th. The days are filling up with family celebrations, trips out of town and to three different doctors, helping my husband complete his letter of application to grad school, etc, etc. It will be busy, but it will be fun.

I'm looking forward the most (well, almost the most. I'm looking forward to Christmas morning with my daughter the most!) to those three days before Christmas. I'll be spending those days wrapping, baking, watching Christmas movies with G, and just generally getting holiday cozy with my girl and my man. I'm sure I'll be blogging some of our holiday moments with you.

Here's the beginning.


Quite a cookie artist, we have here.

Giuliana was not getting too close to Santa, no matter what promises of Christmas joys were made. We've been prepping her all week, too. No dice.

Rudolph the Orange Balloon Reindeer was a hit, though.


Four very adorable kids.

Our happy Christmas family.

And....I'll leave you with this: Merry Christmas from Us!

Circle Party

I don't know if you'll notice...

but we had a theme for Giuliana's second birthday party...



it involved lots and lots of circles...

Not shown: meatballs, round chicken nuggets, mini round pizzas, and multi-colored paper plates (also circles, get it?) stuck all over the walls.

And we also had one cute circle chick who didn't want me to take her picture.


She kicked the party off by playing blocks and dress-up with the first arrival of the afternoon, Cousin Rosie.

And running around in...a circle. This was pre-sugar ingestion.


The gift opening, was, in a word, chaotic. Which is how it should be, I guess, when you have lots of cousins who want to "help."



BTW, see that Little People "Pink Castle, " as it's known in our house? She likes to put the prince in the highest tower and then yell, "Help! Help! Ayudame!" She has the princess come and save him. I did not give her that idea, I swear. Just good parenting, I guess!!

The party was so very fun. Giuliana giggled and smiled ear to ear the entire way through "Happy Birthday To You!" She was absolutely delighted to have all her friends and family singing just to her. She leaned over and blew out her candles without any prompting (we've been practicing. We sing "Happy Birthday" to the dog on a regular basis.)

Life so far with a two-year-old? Bliss.

Family Roots

Partial Thurston family tree

Hello? Anyone still around? Sorry for the dust-bunnies and tumbleweeds floating collecting on the floors. I've been a little...busy.

Busy, you say? Work, motherhood, cleaning house, Christmas shopping, birthday party planning...that's probably enough to keep anyone busy this time of year.

But me? No, that wasn't enough. No, I had to go and loose myself in a new and time-consuming hobby. Remember how I told you about how I get a little "obsessed" at times? Yeah. I've found a new one. And we haven't even had G's big birthday party yet. Hmmmm... attention deficit much?

What was I saying? Oh, yes! My new hobby. I've fallen into the rabbit hole of geneology. I've always been interested in all things historical. History was my absolute favorite thing in school. A few months ago I acquired a book all about the history of Broome County, my hometown. I devoured it. I love trying to figure out where everything was/is located, what's there now. I relish reading all the details and secrets of long dead people's lives and the impact they had on my community. I frequently walk or drive past quiet neighborhoods lined with old, fading houses and wonder whose homes they were and what their stories are. But somehow the intrigue of geneology study had escaped me. Until last week.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I was at work, bored out of my mind. It was deathly quiet. Phones weren't ringing. Faxes weren't humming. Nobody seemed to need anything. My supervisor actually came into my office and said, "If you have Christmas shopping to do online, help yourself." That would have been a productive use of time. That Christmas list is collecting dust and I haven't done much about it. However, I had already been occupying myself online and by that point, I was long gone. Let me try to explain how I arrived at
Ancestory.com

This is vintage Kami. I don't know how you all surf when you have nothing else to do, but I tend to jump from topic and link to link as things pique my interest. So, I believe I began on The New York Times site, looking at the news. An article on the history of "Jewishness" caught my eye (the history thing, I guess, I'm not jewish.) From there I began researching an obsure Turkish empire in the Middle Ages called the Khazars. This led me to a very interesting article on the Samaritan people. On that blog site I stumbled upon an article about the history of a woman's husband's last name. Aaaaaaand, we've made it. She linked to Ancestory.com. I hopped over and was immediately absorbed in the surname message boards.

Arthur Thurston and his draft horses, circa 1925

By the end of the day I had done some significant research on my mom's father's family, the Creerys. I worked my way back several generations to an infamous guy named "Cherry Tree" Joe McCreery in Western PA. Apparently he was a friend of Johnny Appleseed and a real-life Paul Bunyan. I also solved the mystery of when and how McCreery was shortened to Creery. Turns out "Cherry Tree" Joe's son, Morgan Rheese Banks McCreery, was a dentist. When he moved to a new town and set up a new practice, the man hired to paint the office door mistakenly painted "Creery" rather than "McCreery." I guess it was easier to change his name than change the door. (Credit for that story belongs to my mother's cousin Clark Creery, who I stumbled onto online.) I was HOOKED!

I printed out a bunch of information and when I stopped by my parents' house to pick up Giuliana I ended up showing it all to my mom and pestering her to fill in some of the blanks. She didn't have all the answers, but she said she'd try to remember what she could and would dig up some pictures, too. We ended up spending all day at it on Friday.

I went home and set up shop in a corner of my kitchen with my laptop on the counter, and I remained there for the next 5 hours, lost on Ancestory, digging up whatever I could find on both of my parents' families. I came across some pictures of my father's parents when they were quite young and had no idea who had posted them or how they were related to me. I sent the woman a message and it turns out she is my father's cousin's daughter (second cousin? I never remember these things.) She and I have been corresponding ever since and she has sent me 40+ family photos and filled in many missing pieces about my father's family that even he didn't know. Turns out my family on his side has lived in Broome County almost since it was founded 1806. I had no idea. All of the sudden that fascinating book on the history of Broome County took on an entirely new meaning to me. This is not only the history of the area I live and love, it's my family's history. They were here and were apart of all of it. How incredibly cool is that?

Bessie Jones Thurston and Arthur Thurston and family circa 1922

Now that I've filled in most of the names several generations back, I've been focusing on my dad's family and the places they lived and worked. I've been driving around town, taking pictures of old houses that are still standing and empty fields where they used to be. I have a lot more work to do. John and I are off the week after Christmas and I have plans to spend a day at the Broome County library's geneology center. I hope to find birth, marriage and death records. I plan to dig up whatever I can find about my great-grandfather's company, Binghamton Warehouse & Terminal and the grocery store he owned later. I will look up deeds and census data so I can explore all the addresses and homesteads. (Might need more than one day!)

245 Clinton St. Binghamton, (one of) my great-grandparents' home

I suppose I'll have to squeeze a birthday party for a certain two year old and oh, yeah, Christmas in there somewhere this month. But for now I'm far gone and preoccupied (obsessed?) with my new hobby. Pass that deed book over here, would you?

...and how was YOUR weekend, Kami?

It's 8:20pm on a lovely Sunday evening and everyone in my house is asleep. Except me, obviously. But I am headed there quite shortly. You see, we have all been stricken with The Seasonal Cold Bug of Exhaustion and Snot.

I'm afraid I am most likely the offender that bought this Bug into our home. I began feeling a little achy and stuffy on Tuesday. By Wednesday evening I was in full-blown Head Full of Snot mode and John was already coughing up one or both of his lungs. He was smart enough to stay home from work on Thursday and rest. Not I. No, not I. I was "feeling better" and didn't want to waste sick time. So, I trudged off and have been paying for it all weekend.

Giuliana began with the Snotty Nose of Doom (trust me, 23 month old with a snotty nose=Doom, everytime) on Friday. Yesterday and today....have not been pleasant. And this afternoon I received a phone call from my mother. Uh oh! The Seasonal Cold Bug of Exhaustion and Snot has invaded their house! (Thanks to my carting my infected daughter over there on Friday. You're welcome, Mom!) I suppose I should have known this was going to happen when I woke up to hear her say "Daddy, tissue p'ees!" on Friday morning. How cute! I thought, till I went into her room to find that snot had completely obliterated her face! G-R-O-S-S! And, umm...still, I did not want to waste sick days. Hey, she was perky and in a great mood! How was I to know what was in store?!

This weekend has been: No sleep to speak of due to sharing my bed with a kicky, squirmy, angry little girl (she was even yelling at me in her sleep!) Loads of tissues. Indignent and whiney cries of "Daddy do dat!!" whenever I come near her with a tissue or try to fill her sippy cup or help her wash her hands or give her some ibuprophen or breathe. A pathetic looking child with red, runny eyes, blotchy skin, constantly flowing nose, and a raspy congested cough. But no fever, Hallalujah!

I snuck out of the house for a brief respite on Saturday to make a run to Target. I absolutely had to get invitations for G's birthday party, you see. To send out in a week or so. Had to. I also really did have to get G some snow boots, even thought it was 60 degrees outside. I needed to pick up a few stocking stuffers. They were good deals. And diapers! Oh, that's right! I needed diapers. See, I had to go. I felt like I was going to die after about an hour, and I'm sure my fellow shoppers were all so very thrilled that I shared my contagions with them (really, I can't still be contagious, right?! I've been sick for 5 days!) But, I did find a very cute pair of dangly black earrings for A BUCK! So, it was totally worth it.

Today, I woke up at 5:30am feeling like someone had poured sand and glass down my throat and filled my head with cotton and walked all over my back with soil areators and then jumped on me a few dozen times. I decided to give in and didn't even shower. And now, I am following suit with the rest of my family and going to bed.

So, it's 8:20pm on a lovely Sunday evening and I have already called in sick to work for Monday. So much for saving those sick days.

The Luckiest Ballerina

We had an enchanted Halloween! I hope you did, too.

In case there was ever any doubt about what a lucky little girl Giuliana is, I think yesterday cleared them all away. She was surrounded and adored by her very favorite people all day. Giuliana has some fantastic people in her life, and she is blessed for it.



The rain threatened, but ultimately held off until after our neighborhood Halloween parade. Our friends Kate and Nick (G's Godfather) and Giuliana's Nana joined us for the trek around the neighborhood. G was determined to walk the whole way...when she wasn't persuading "Uncle Nick" to "fly" her in the air (she's got mile-long eyelashes and knows how to use them!) The parade is sponsored by the West Endicott Volunteer Fire Department and the Ladies Auxillary. The firetrucks are out in all their bright red splendor and we gather at the station house at the end for cider, doughnuts, and, of course, candy. It's one of my very favorite things about the neighborhood.







After the parade and an irresistable romp in a pile of leaves, our exhausted ballerina took a break for some lunch and a rest.

We bundled up and braved the rain to Trick or Treat. We stopped over at Nick and Kate's house for a special Halloween treat then off to Nanni and Papa's for more holiday fun.


Finally, the "main event" of the evening. Nana's house for real Trick or Treating with her older cousins.


We got a little wet, but for the most part the rain held at bay. After the "short" circuit around the block the Luckiest Ballerina was pooped, her pumpkin was overflowing, and her ballet slippers were drenched. We walked back to Nana's while the other kids forged on, collecting massive amounts of candy at every stop. We dried off, changed into jammies, ate candy, and played with Nana and Grandpa until every one got back. The night dissolved into a chaos of scaring each other with ghost and goblins, tickling and running wild. A perfect end to a perfect Halloween.


Giuliana is a lucky girl. She is loved and adored. She is smart and funny and well-behaved and beautiful. As we were walking back to Nana's after Trick or Treating I reflected on how lucky, and blessed, that makes me. I could not ask for a better daughter. She is the joy of my life. She's got the world in her hands, can go anywhere and be anything she wants. She is joy and potential personified. She is love. And for a short time, she is mine. I suppose she'll always be mine. But not in the way she is now. And for right now, that makes me the luckiest mommy. I don't want to miss a second of this, this perfect moment.