Tis the Season

The two weeks or so leading up to Christmas are kind of a blur. What I love most about the holidays are all the opportunities to spend time with friends and family and this year was no exception! We hosted two dinner parties at our house (one of which may or may not have ended in a late night dance party in our living room, HA), one very memorable girls night out with my extremely fun Mom friends, holiday parties, a party at Connor's school, a visit to see Santa Claus, and getting together twice with Andrew's college best friend Geoff and his wife who were home for the holidays from South Africa. On one of those occasions Andrew and Geoff may or may not have stayed out too late (long after the wives went home to their sitters) and realizing there were no more cabs running in town had to resort to calling 911 for a ride home. Ridiculous, college style antics!

Our gingerbread house this year. Last year all four walls and roof fell, this year only two walls collapsed, not bad! Obviously constructing gingerbread houses is not one of my strong points but I do consider this an  improvement.

For Connor's birthday I was able to read a book to Connor's class. I read one of his favorites, "The Night Before Christmas" -- a good pick I thought since that is Connor's birthday! Afterwards I got a sitter for Leyla and he and I had a special lunch date. We don't get to do that very often (go out just he and I) and he thought it was really fun. I ordered coffee with milk and sugar and he (not missing a beat) ordered hot chocolate with milk and sugar. Funny guy!

Party at Mike and Sandi's house. I think these might be some of the funniest women I know. I love getting together with them! Our sons were all in the same class last year.

Sandi made loads of jello shots. I hadn't had one of those since I was in college. FYI, they weren't a good idea then and they really aren't a good idea now.

Daddy and his girl.

Cheesing it up on the front steps.

I made this wreath, here's Leyla posing underneath!

Leyla in her first pair of jeans!

We made these chocolate covered pretzels. As they were drying Connor kept sneaking in to check on them. He told me he was "just looking at them," not eating them. Hmmmmmmm.

All bundled up in front of our tree.

Connor's "Winter Celebration" at his school (FYI I think it's SO beat that they can't call it a Christmas party). They sang a couple songs including Jingle Bells. I really, really love Connor's school and teachers!

Trying to take a picture of Andrew and Connor, I said "Say cheese!" Bad picture of Connor but Leyla was (as usual) happy to cheese it up!

Connor and his BFF Drew. They are two peas in a pod.

On the Sunday before Christmas we had our friends the Genereuxs over for dinner. We had a really great time and being that we have 5 kids between us now (that all had fun and played really nicely together) we considered it a great success! Connor and their son Brendan both have December birthdays (they were born only two weeks apart in Tokyo) so we got them a little cake to celebrate. They took turns getting to blow out the candles.

 How cute are they??

 

Leyla really loves clothes, guess its a girl thing? Right now she's especially into pants, so she'll pull several pairs out of her drawer (even if she's already wearing them) and demand they be put on. Then she's so happy. Here she is wearing pants over her pj's, too cute.

 All dressed up to go see Santa Claus!

Posing in front of the tree.

Waiting to see Santa. I love Connor's sweet face here!

 Sharing snacks.

 On Friday night we had dinner at the Gursels' house (Andrew's best friend Geoff's parents). We had such a great time and this was our first time getting to meet Geoff and Lauren's (super cute) 11 month old son Jack.

 Andrew, me, Lauren and Geoff. It was so nice to spend this time with them!

All for now... pictures from Christmas Eve/Connor's Birthday, Christmas Day and the day after visit to NJ to come. Merry Christmas to all!

Happy 4th Birthday C Boy!

 

Our boy turned 4 today! I definitely don't feel like I'm old enough to have a 4 year old, and can't believe that it's been 4 years since we were in that crazy Japanese hospital; our lives forever changed! Connor has brought more love, joy, and laughter to our lives than I ever ever ever could have imagined.

He continues to be the very sweetest boy I know- kind and compassionate to everyone he meets. A recent example- a couple of weeks ago we were doing a playroom purge- boxing up toys to donate. I looked in one of the boxes that Connor had assembled and found his favorite toy police car. I said "Connor- are you sure you want to give this away? This is one of your favorites and you play with it all the time." And he said, "Mom there's kids out there that don't have any toys! Someone needs this way more than me" (which made me tear up a bit- because at not even 4 years old, my boy gets it.) Love him so much!

We've got a busy day ahead of us- lunch and birthday bowling. My Mom, Gerry and brother Derek are here now too so Connor's is even more excited. Then home for cake and opening birthday presents. We've got Christmas Eve mass at 5. My wish this Christmas (after peace on earth, ending hunger and curing cancer) is to get to stand next to Harry Connick Jr. at church again like I did last year. And if that's wrong I don't want to be right :) Lastly Christmas Eve dinner at our house followed by some last minute toy assembly. Sounds like a perfect day to me!

Happy Birthday to my littlest man and Merry Christmas Eve to all!

Picture with Santa

I have a boatload of random holiday related pictures to share but for now, here's this one- taken during our trip to see Santa at the Stamford mall yesterday. Leyla was less than thrilled to meet the big guy and we're pretty sure Santa was stoned but Connor had the best time! He rattled off his Christmas list and informed Santa that we will have food for both him and his reindeer at our house on Christmas Eve (food is always on Connor's mind). These pictures with Santa will be so funny to look back on year after year.

This Old House Before and After: Kitchen Wall

Just a quick before and after. We've recently completed a couple of home projects. One was to knock out some of the wall between our kitchen and living room. We have an older colonial home so its very compartmentalized. Our intention is to open up the space as much as we can. During our first wall knock out (this wall) we discovered that our water pipes were behind the wall so we couldn't take out nearly as much as we wanted (we had hoped to take the whole wall out). But we got at least 1.5 times the space that we had before and we're really happy with the finished product! It's also a perfect spot to display our holiday cards (I love holiday cards). The built in bookshelves, crown molding and paint in the living room is new too. Will have to take a better picture of those. And I'm so happy to have my kitchen table back (from Tokyo) to replace the card table!

Before:

After:

Thank you to my lovely model Andrew. Cheers!

Bedhead

Connor's morning hair always cracks me up! I texted these pictures to Andrew during his last Tokyo trip of our boy in the morning ;)
 Connor will sometimes wake up and say "Mommy is my hair crazy today?"

My Sweet Girl

Love that little face :)

Terrible of me (we were gym bound), but so cute of her. She has such beautiful eyes, just like her Dad and brother.

Connor's Christmas List

Last year for Christmas the only thing Connor asked for from Santa (and he asked for it all the time) was a red guitar. Christmas morning was so fun when he opened his guitar! This guitar got tons and tons of play over the last year being that my boy is a serious ROCKSTAR in the making.

Exhibit A:

Even Leyla got in on the action.

It was so easy to make his little dreams come true. Fast forward to this year, this is Connor's Christmas list:

*Trumpet (he thinks Daddy should get one too, so they can start a band)
*Pogo stick with his name on it (not sure where that came from)
*Bounce House
*Real racecar

I know we all want our kids to dream big but seriously... how do I work with that?!

Christmas Cheer

Christmas is in full swing at the Eich household! Some pics from our holiday themed weekend (very photo heavy post!)

On Friday morning I took the kids to the train show at the NY Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. Andrew surprised us by meeting us there! Apparently it's only a 20 minute train ride from Grand Central. 

The trains are all made of wood, glue and sand and are mini replicas of historic New York City landmarks. The kids thought it was really cool, and everything was their height (and both kids are pretty nuts for trains anyway). I thought it was pretty neat too.

 Little Miss Big Time.

Inside the show. Trains were going overhead and all around. How about that Leyla strutting her stuff in there.

 A replica of the old Grand Central Station.

 All the big NYC landmarks!

 Yankee stadium.

 This was just before Leyla climbed into the exhibit.

 Very little girl under a very big tree.

 Back at home. Naughty!

 But how can you be mad at that face (plus they were washable so it wiped right up)??

Friday evening was our town's Holiday Stroll, probably one of my favorite nights in New Canaan. The main street lights all it's trees, there's caroling, dancing, Santa and his elves arrive on the Old Faithful firetruck, the stores stay open late and offer discounts, some stores serve wine, hot cocoa and appetizers, yada yada yada... it's way cool.

Elm Street all decked out.

 The Living Nativity at our church.

We met up with our Tokyo friends Christine and Paul at the stroll. It's funny, when I first met Christine in Tokyo neither of us had any kids and now this is our stroller entourage of five kids! They just had their third four weeks ago!

 Leyla, Connor and Brendan.

Saturday morning- off to cut down our tree. Our friends recommended their favorite tree farm to us. They will be in FL for Christmas this year so they aren't getting a tree. They told us that next year we'd all go together and tailgate. We of course thought they were joking. But no- there were lots of families gathered at this tree farm and tailgating! Kids and Dads were throwing around footballs, people were grilling, there were hayrides for the kids, etc. We will be better prepared next near as the combination of two of my fave things ever- (Christmas and tailgating)- is just too awesome! Here's Andrew and Connor on the hayride.

 

 The kids were anxious to start hanging ornaments before Andrew could even get the lights strung.

 Leyla helping with the lights.

 Leyla makes a Christmas drawing (on paper this time).

Cheesy Mom moment- I busted out the Christmas jammies for the hanging of the ornaments. Couldn't help myself!

 And since they looked so sweet in them I got a little camera happy.

 I love this one.

Decorating our trees are some of my fondest childhood memories. So fun to get to do it with my kids now. Tada!

And there you have it! Decorations are up, outside lights strung, tree is trimmed, holiday music is a blasting (I'm really really loving the new Michael Buble Christmas album), our (somewhat creepy) little elf Tsyoshi is perched on top of our living room lamp eyeing our every move (he moves daily).

 Cheers!