Christmas in Vermont

As I typed the title to this post, I realize that it sounds so quaint and wonderful.  Who wouldn’t love to spend a Christmas in Vermont?  Skiing, ice skating, lots of snow, sledding, hot chocolate, warm fires, fun times.  Although we go to Vermont every year to visit my parents, it’s pretty much as fun as it sounds.  Ok, so we don’t stay at a ski lodge (which is fine because I hate skiing) and Ivan and I sleep in the basement on a fold-out couch – but to us it’s perfect.  To tell you the truth, we love the basement because we get our own thermostat and can make it toasty warm down there.  And sometimes my parents have the hot tub turned on and the hot tub room is right off the basement living room.  We didn’t hot tub it this year though.

We had such a fun time this year and I got my wish:



A beautiful snow storm!!  Complete with 18 inches of snow!!!  Exactly what I wanted!  Unfortunately it was so cold that we didn’t take Evan out to play (plus he doesn’t have a snowsuit and it was pretty windy and blustery).  But he enjoyed the snowfall from inside the house.
It was Evan’s 1st Christmas, which was super exciting.  Holidays are SO much more fun with kiddos.  Because we are dorks we decided to do Christmas pajamas so Ivan and I had matching pants and Evan had a cute little reindeer onesie.  We searched and searched for completely matching sets, but I couldn’t find any.  I’ll have to start my search earlier next year.  I didn’t take a picture, so you’ll have to imagine it.  My aunt and uncle from New Hampshire came over on Christmas Eve and stayed through Christmas dinner, so that was extra fun.  My mom took lots of photos of Evan in front of the Christmas tree but I don’t have copies of those yet – so I’ll post them a bit later.

Evan had the time of his life.  He thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with Mimi, Papa, Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Barb, and Uncle Mike, and the dogs (Mishka and Kuma).  When we returned home he went through a bit of attention withdrawal I think – and he had to start napping in his crib again.  No more naps in peoples arms all day long!  He was very upset but has slowly adjusted.

Here is a photo recap of our time!

Spending lots of time with Mimi – he also loved bath time with Mimi, she played with him in the bath way more than Mommy ever does!




Taking naps with Papa – this is the same activity he does with his Daddy…




Hanging out with his cool Aunt Elizabeth.  Notice the above and below outfits – we made sure he fit into Vermont culture by buying him his own flannels shirts.




 And spending Christmas Day with his *great* Aunt Barb and Uncle Mike!




He also sat around while I worked.  Yup, I had only been back to work for three weeks before taking two weeks off for Christmas and I had some reports that HAD to get done before the New Year.  So, I did a bit of work while I was there – nothing too horrible and I finished it quickly. 




Notice how one sock is off.  That seems to be the case a lot these days.  He has finally found his toes and loves to take his socks off (when they haven’t fallen off already) and suck on his toes.
Hanging out by the fire.  This picture was taken from the couch above, it sat right in front of the fire place – a perfect place to hang out and read, nap, or chat.  Or just keep warm when the snow was falling.




Lots of naps in Mommy’s arms (or any of the above people’s arms).  He was totally spoiled and hardly ever took a nap in the crib in the basement.  But seriously, wouldn’t you just want to hold this little guy in your arms and look at him all day????




We had such a fun time in Vermont – got some great Christmas presents, played some games, went bowling, at Chinese, ate 5000 cookies, hung out with family, and just relaxed.  It was so nice and I can’t wait to do it again!

Oh, and did I tell you we brought our dog, Dolce?  Yup, the dog and the baby shared the back seat in our not-big-enough car.  And just so you know, Dolce is HUGE.  He weighs about 75 pounds.  It took us 12 hours to get to Vermont because it was raining pretty hard the entire drive.  We only stopped three times, which I think was a record.  Usually Ivan wants to stop a million times to eat and pee and eat some more, but this time we only stopped when Evan woke up and wanted to eat.  And then we also walked the dog.  The drive back took 11 hours, so it was a bit shorter.  Both Evan and Dolce were super well-behaved.  And Dolce even behaved with his doggie relatives at my parents’ house.



Yup, my parents have TWO white, fluffy dogs.  Dolce is in the middle, Mishka is on the left, and Kuma is on the right.  Dolce and Kuma are actually brothers – they came from the same litter…so they are both a bit on the crazy side.  Mishka is an angel.
I hope you had a great holiday too!