Newport

As I've fallen quite behind on posting a few things that I want to post, I thought I'd tackle them one at a time.  I couldn't let Jim and my trip to Newport that we enjoyed about a month ago now pass without mentioning it.  As I've said before, Jim and I have decided that once a year, no matter how we do it, we need to spend some time away together--without children.  When Lilly turned one, we went off to Italy for a week.  The next year, it was to London.  And this year, it was a quick little trip to Newport, RI.  While a beach in Mexico or a trip to Paris would have been a bit more exotic, I came back from our trip to Newport with the realization that it doesn't matter where we go.  It's amazing to get away, stroll around a new place together, holding hands (because there's no stroller to push or little ones running ahead wanting to play games) and talking.  We explored some of the Newport mansions and enjoyed the cliff walk along the waterfront.  We walked around the entire town for as many hours as we wanted.  We were out enjoying dinner at 9pm, sitting there laughing and chatting with no end in sight.  We had no bedtimes to get home for; no children needing to be fed.  It was just us, and it was wonderful.

The Breakers--The Vanderbilt Estate in Newport.  A really amazing place to visit!

The fireplace in our room.  Heaven.

Growing up in the Stephens family, we had many discussions (at the time, we may have called them lectures) at the dinner table.  As we've all grown up, whenever we get together, we sit around the table chatting for hours.  Sometimes it's over endless cups of coffee in the morning.  Other times, it's with never ending bottles of wine at dinner.  I find myself thinking of these discussions often.  So much of who I am and what I believe in today arose from dinner table conversations.  Over the past few years, relationships, in particular, have played an important role in our discussions.

In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, it's easy to get caught up in chaos (even if it organized chaos). Between taking care of two children and being pregnant with a third, in addition to trying to take care of myself, it's easy to push my relationship with Jim off to the side.  It's easy to take each other for granted as we know what roles we play as parents.  Mum and Dad have always stressed the importance of our relationship.  After all, it all started with Jim and me 13 years ago in college.  And in another 15 years, we'll have kids heading off to college and sometime after that, it will be Jim and me, alone again.  While I can't deny that our children are important and we love them unconditionally, I remind myself often that Jim and my relationship has to come first.  I don't want to look at Jim in 15 years and wonder who this person is that I married back in 2007.  Hence our little trips away.  They're special and give us time to be us.  I'm surrounded by relationships--some that I admire, but many that I do not.  I see many couples who barely acknowledge each other when they're together.  Unless you knew them, you wouldn't even know they were married.  I'm by no means an expert and I don't pretend to know what works for other people, but I know that relationships take work, and unless you keep working at them, it's easy for them to fizzle out and die.  Before you know it, the love that was there when you got married however many years ago is gone.  In its place are houses and children and jobs and money.  It's easy to push love aside, and much harder to work to make sure that it's always there.  When I'm 80 years old, I want to be able to look back on my relationship with Jim with a smile on my face, and know that I love him more in 2061 than I did when we were 19 and fell in love.

I write these things down because I want to pass them onto our children.  I want them to know what's really important in life.  This is something that I believe in strongly, and something that I believe many people take for granted.  I know we'll have lots of discussions with Lilly, Jack and little Clark #3 down the road (and I'm glad we've got many years before the real relationship discussions start happening) but for now, I get to write it down so I know it's there.  It's what is truly important.    

Snowmen, Snowladies and Snow Cakes

Today was a much needed day of nothing in the Clark family.  We're all (mostly) healthy again.  We made it back alive from Boston yesterday, where we drove through a snow storm and had moments where we didn't know how we were going to make it back to Fairfield.  But, we made it, and promised each other that today had no obligations.  We did what we love to do; we stayed in our pajamas for most of the day; we had pancakes and coffee and apple juice all morning; some of us watched football while others napped; we enjoyed new Christmas toys and read and listened to music; we played in the snow; we loved every minute of our Sunday.  Well, Jack didn't really love the snow too much and lasted about five minutes before coming back in and keeping me company.

Not a bad way to end 2012.

Jack didn't like his boots, didn't like falling over in the snow, and really, really didn't like his mittens.  

Very proud of their snowlady!

time for snow balls!

much happier to be back inside :)

I love this one 

Next came the mini snowman, for Jack!

rolling around in the snow :)

....and this is Lilly's snow cake! 

"Da-aaa"...Jack's little expression whenever he wants you to hold something.

One of my favorites!!  When Papa stayed with us, he taught Jack how to put his "armies up high" and then "tickle, tickle, tickle".  So now, Jack does it to himself!  He puts his arms up in the air, and then tickles his tummy and starts laughing :)

decorating her snow cake 

Who doesn't love a snow cake with sprinkles?

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I sat down almost two weeks ago to recap what had been a fantastic month so far.  Ellie's visit from Guatemala, Thanksgiving in Villanova, Mum and Dad visiting from Singapore, Jim and my trip to Newport and Jim's vacation from work.  Then, without warning the flu struck the Clark family, and yesterday was the first day that we are all (almost) back to normal.  All in all, it took about 10 days to run its course--and it was a long 10 days.  But today, on Christmas Eve, I'm not going to write about flu.  It's too special a day.  Here we are this time last year.  And I can't even begin to imagine what next Christmas will bring.

29 weeks!

Our house is alive today!  The usual happy energy has been restored--with a little help from Uncle Joef who is in Fairfield for Christmas.  Lilly was excited to put her second to last cotton ball on Santa's beard and have her last chocolate from her Mr. Men Advent Calendar that was a special present from Gigi and Papa.

Lilly has one book left to open--we had 25 books to countdown to Christmas this year and it was a fun tradition that we will continue.

Our Christmas Tree is sparking with lights and ornaments and smells wonderful--nothing says Christmas like cutting down our own tree!  We went to a local tree farm this year and wandered around, picked our perfect tree and 'helped' Jim cut it down.  It's been almost three weeks since we brought our tree home and it hasn't started dropping pine needles yet!  Truly and amazing feat and one worthy of cutting down our own tree every year.  I didn't know how Jack and a Christmas Tree would go together, seeing as he loves touching and pulling and throwing things.  Just as Lilly did when she was little, he was intrigued by it for the first few days.  He pulled off a few ornaments around the bottom and then would try and put them back on the tree by holding the ornament up to where he pulled it off.  Now, he'll stop and ring some of the bells or touch a sparkly start, but for the most part, he leaves the tree alone.

We have our wall of Christmas cards from friends and family that always make us stop and smile.  The ones closer to the ground have the unique role of being carried around by Jack.  His favorite is one with the family dog on the front, which he pulls off the wall every time he passes by and walks around laughing and woofing at the card.

We have Lilly's gingerbread houses livening up the kitchen counter.  One of the houses, Lilly made with Jim, and the two of them seemed to have more success than last year.  Lilly ate just as much of the icing as she did last time and probably half the candy pieces went straight to her stomach without even touching the gingerbread house.  But the creative sloping roof and lack of walls made the house sturdier this time and prevented the sliding walls that Jim and Lilly ran into last year.  The other gingerbread house was a school creation, and as Dad said, looks like it was built to withstand Hiroshima.

Lilly's Gingerbread House, created at school

Lilly and I baked cookies for Santa today.  Jim and Joseph cooked up a batch of ribs--we celebrated Christmas Eve Texas style tonight!  

 

Lilly set out cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots and milk for the reindeer (at her request).  Lilly decided that the reindeer would probably like their carrots peeled, especially since she practiced carrot peeling at school, so she got to work.

"Noooo, Uncle Joef.  Santa doesn't want zucchini!"

I hope Santa and his reindeer are hungry!

The little ones are sound asleep and have been for hours, with one very excited three-year-old anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival, and a little one-year-old who hopes there's food among whatever else awaits him under the Christmas Tree.  

I can't wait for tomorrow morning!  There's something so special about seeing your children's eyes light up--it really is magical.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!