We had busy but memorable holidays this past month, and my favorite part of all of it was announcing to the world that Baby T 5 is officially named...Opal Marie. Not only did we put her name on a stocking (and then order a full-family's worth of matching stockings), but also on an ornament and our Christmas card. Announcing our baby's name as soon as we have official gender confirmation has been a tradition we have put in place since losing Luke. When we were pregnant with Luke, I compromised with Will who wanted to have our first child's gender be a surprise. Being the planning type myself, I had wanted to know the gender as soon as possible but I figured we could compromise the other way and find out the gender with our next child. After Luke died, I lived with serious regrets - not only did I feel that having our unborn child be a surprise made some serious assumptions that he would arrive safe and sound and give us a lifetime of knowing him, but also that with all of the ultrasounds we had with Luke that we were at that point playing a game to keep the surprise. I wished that we had officially called him by name for as long as possible with him alive with us, and not only after he had died. Once we know the gender of our baby, it is a relief to me to have our baby officially named, as I feel like at least, no matter what happens from here, our baby is named and therefore an official member of our family. One of the great things about Christmas time for me, is all of the opportunities to see all five of my children's names together. On our Christmas card, on our ornaments, and even on our stocking line up. Since I will never be able to have all of my kids together on earth at the same time, having their names together is a small gift to me. And as I told Will after we hung up Opal's new gingerbread girl ornament - wow, we are just a few cookies short of a full sheet!
Since we had Luke, it has also been a tradition that the youngest sibling names the new baby. We didn't plan it that way, but it seems to have worked out that way and I haven't been disappointed yet. When I was pregnant with Lucy, and even before we had an ultrasound that revealed her gender, Luke told me in a dream that I was going to have a healthy baby girl named Lucy. When we found out that Lucy was in fact a healthy baby girl, there was no doubt in Will's and my mind that her name was Lucy. Flash forward two more years and Will and I are having a hard time agreeing on a name for our newest baby girl. One Sunday afternoon about two weeks after the ultrasound revealed Emma was a healthy baby girl, I spent my morning in church praying to God to give me a sign for our littlest baby's name. Will and I were sitting with Lucy later that day while she drew pictures at our kitchen table. When I asked what she was drawing, she told me "Emma." At first I thought she said "mama" and after she kept insisting "Emma", Will and I then thought she was saying "Elmo". She finally got through to us that it was a picture of "Emma" and patted my stomach. Will and I smiled at each other and knew without a doubt that we had received our sign. Flash forward three more years and now we are catching on to the trend of the youngest sibling naming their baby sibling. When we found out Violet was a healthy baby girl via ultrasound, we kept asking Emma what she thought her baby sister's name should be and she kept insisting over several weeks that her name was "Purple Flower." Finally, after some tweaking, we agreed that Violet Rose would make a beautiful name. Now, flash forward four more years and Violet is the sister potentially given the liberty of naming a baby sibling. Unfortunately, because she is older than Lucy and Emma were when they named their baby sister, that means Violet is not as immune to the opinions of others like a younger child could potentially be. Her initial name choice was Ella Bella, but she was soon influenced by her older sisters. Lucy got it in her mind that the first letter in each of her and her sisters names could spell L.O.V.E. if only they had a sister whose name began with the letter O. The timing was surely interesting, as we had just finished reading the book "Because of Winn Dixie" where the main character's name was Opal. And then of course, as the news of having a baby sister was settling in at the end of this past summer, the girls watched the movie "Because of Winn Dixie" too. Before they even knew that Opal was in fact a girl, they had collectively and unanimously named their baby sister Opal. At three months pregnant, we had a blood test that said Opal was probably a girl. This was all the three older sisters needed to hear, and they began calling their baby sister Opal from then on. After weeks of telling them that we would not name her until an official ultrasound showed that she was a girl, I gave up on correcting them when they called their baby Opal. When I was almost 5 months along and we finally arrived at our official ultrasound, can you believe my surprise when the receptionist who checked me in was wearing a wedding ring inset with not diamonds, but three opals. I called the girls over to see her ring, and they were shocked to find out that opals were a gemstone and not just someone's name from a book they liked. Exclamations of, "It's so beautiful!" and "It looks like glitter and rainbows!" and "there are three of them just like Opal has three sisters!" made me realize right then and there that if our ultrasound in a couple of minutes confirmed that Opal was a girl, we would officially call her that. I love that each of my kids has a story behind their name, and I am so grateful to Luke for this tradition of each sibling reaching down to the next that has managed to live on and has resulted in the most beautiful names I could never think of myself - or that Will and I could agree on!
After officially naming the youngest member of our family, we proceeded through the rest of our holidays with magic, busyness and "mostly" joy. Here the girls and I are below making cinnamon applesauce ornaments. I made far too many and wrote on a note that I tucked into a Christmas bin after the holidays that said, "Never Double a Christmas Recipe. Never." Will intervened, and ended up throwing half of the ornaments into the garbage, releasing me from the stress of finding something to do with them. Bless you, Will.
I think because my food choices are so limited right now, that I threw myself whole-heartedly into all of the Christmas crafts that have been on my Pinterest radar for years and decided to make them all this year. In one day. Call me crazy. My mom and sister were recruited to pull off the below craft, and we had a fun and memorable afternoon making citrus dried wreaths and ornaments. I would have been a complete grump by the end of this project if it wasn't for their enthusiasm, and even still, I may have been slightly cranky by the end of the day.
The last craft on my Christmas bucket list was stringing cranberries and popcorn for the birds. The girls and I did this on the first day of winter to give as a gift to the neighborhood birds. They turned out lovely, and we even had friends over that afternoon that joined in on the fun.
In the top left photo below, Violet helped me wrap presents, which I was annoyed with at first, as I was on deadline, but ended up being one of my most favorite memories of the holidays. Her little chubby hands and her level of excitement to be genuinely helping me with just her and I in the room was such a happy experience, and truly, was the first time I felt like I was experiencing the true meaning of the holiday this season. With my over-zealous craft endeavors behind me, I really did stay in the spirit of Christmas and the family helped me stuff, seal and mail out our Christmas cards in record time (top right-hand picture below), in the bottom right-hand picture below are Lucy, Emma and Violet proudly standing behind our new stockings, and finally in the bottom left-hand picture below are the girls excitedly and proudly putting the presents they bought and/or made for their family members under the Christmas tree.
We celebrated St. Nick's Day this past month and since the girls never got a chance to officially sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas this year, we had them each leave a note in their shoe for Good Ol' Saint Nick. He took their notes, and left in their place oranges, chocolate coins, a Lego advent calendar and magically, a playing card to the game Sleeping Queens that Emma had lost the day before when she threw it in a fit of anger. We had gotten the game from a friend just days prior to Emma throwing and losing the card, and so in my annoyance I told Emma that there would be no TV until that card was found. We all turned the house upside down and still could not find the card. St. Nick gave a gift to all of us when he located that missing card! Enforcing no TV for an indefinite amount of time would have probably made me eat my words, or at the very least, severely regret them! The rest of the pictures below show us making Christmas ornament bead art to decorate Luke's grave blanket with. It was nice that Violet was able to participate fully this year in our annual ornament making for Luke.
On Christmas Eve we decorated Luke's grave blanket with our new ornaments as well as the ornaments that have lasted from previous seasons. We then visited Luke's grave at the cemetery and I had a good cry when the weight of my missing our firstborn hit me, multiplied by the fact that it has been a decade now of Christmas Eve's spent at the cemetery.
I would never have picked this path, missing one of my children so immensely that it can take your breath away. However, just like the naming of my children has been out of my hands, but has resulted in the most beautiful stories and fitting names, I do feel as though my beautiful life, although mostly out of my hands, has been better than I could have ever planned. Here I stood at my son's grave, yes, with tears falling, but surrounded by my best friend and three daughters with another daughter wiggling around in my belly. It hit me that in the course of a decade, so many highs and lows will inevitably happen, but when looking back at those ten years, I cannot believe how truly blessed I am. The rest of our Christmas Eve was lovely. It is probably my most favorite day of the entire year, especially with young kids. We attended Christmas Eve mass at our church - got there 45 minutes early and were fortunate to have the very last pew in the church, came home and after pictures in front of the Christmas tree, got into our most comfy clothes. While Will and I made a simple yet favorite meal of sloppy Joe's the girls read Christmas books snuggled on the couch. After our Christmas Eve dinner complete with sparkling cider and fresh chocolate chip cookie bars for dessert that the girls and Will had made earlier in the day in order to have some cookies to leave out for Santa, we all snuggled on the couch for a couple more Christmas stories before bed.
The girls slept pretty good for the most part, and didn't wake us up too early on Christmas morning, which was a gift in itself considering the last couple of nights Will and I had stayed up way too late making the play tent in the below pictures. This was another Pinterest inspiration to fulfill the tradition of Will making something out of wood each year for the girls for Christmas. In true Will fashion, he waited until the week before Christmas to plan his gift and as I stress more about it than he does, I helped direct him to the play tent, as there seemed to be just simple dowels involved. I didn't realize however that the vintage sheet draped over the dowels in the Pinterest tutorial was actually quite a sewing feat that ended up taking me three very late nights to complete. I shook my fist at Will until I realized that he was perfectly capable of helping me pin and iron and feed the giant piece of fabric through the sewing machine. It turned out really cute, but Will better not wait until the last minute next year! Also note in the top, right hand picture below our garland of cinnamon applesauce ornaments. Pinterest, I don't know whether to love you or cut you out of my life completely!
Present opening was a fun and chaotic experience, made happier by the fact that it was snowing the most beautiful, big, soft snow flakes throughout the entire morning outside our windows. That, combined with the smells of Christmas breakfast bacon and cinnamon rolls and the Christmas music playing in the background made for a very delightful morning.
The girls all got what they had asked for, and were happy with the surprises that came as well.
Violet's favorite Christmas present I believe was the chocolates left on the table by Santa, Lucy was enthralled with her magic marker maker (something she asked for) and her fashion design kit (a surprise from Santa) and Emma was pleased with her locket and snow globe (both of which she asked for) and Violet also got the snow globe she asked for.
We all received some fun movies and puzzles, and Will was intrigued by the present that he mistakenly thought was addressed to Muttoney and I had to laugh and explain that my sloppy handwriting had written "To: My Honey."
In the aftermath of wrapping paper, new toys and breakfast crumbs, I settled into the couch with a cup of hot tea, a new book and the joy of having my family happily and harmoniously playing inside with their new gifts while Christmas music continued to play and the snow continued to fall so beautifully outside my window. Truly, this is the stuff Christmas dreams are made of.
We spent Christmas with Will's family a few days before Christmas, and had a lovely time with Will's parents, brother and partner, and his great-grandmother.
Highlights included playing a stacking game with red pom-pom balls that Will was the reigning champion of, me receiving a black and white photo of Will's grandma bathing his mom as a baby in the very same enamel basin that my Christmas gifts were presented to me in, and a giant cinnamon roll cake for dessert.
We spent Christmas afternoon with my side of the family, and enjoyed present exchanging, and general cousin rowdiness.
We finished off Christmas evening with Christmas carols sung and played around the piano while the cousins danced their hearts out.
Will's time off of work this year created almost two full weeks of vacation time AFTER Christmas. This was pure stress for me leading up until Christmas as I had to get everything in order while still managing school and Will for the most part at work, but it did create a lovely and relaxing two weeks after Christmas. The weather was unbelievably cold, and so for the most part, we hibernated and played with our new toys. Legos, games, puzzles, Play Doh, snow globe making kits, gingerbread house kits and books left us content indoors for the most part.
On New Year's Eve, I decided to embrace the extreme frigid temperatures, and the girls and I filled up balloons with water and food dye combinations of their choice and then convinced Will to line them up outside on our porch railing. We had a nice quiet evening at home, with another special meal complete with sparkling cider and this time, brownies and ice cream (and butternut squash with maple syrup for me) to ring in the new year.
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