Merry (Belated) Christmas :)

The last two weeks of December were a whirlwind of family and Christmas activities, which is my excuse for not posting anything new...I don't have one for the last week though.  My camera battery and charger went missing right before Christmas and so until the very end of the week we were in NY when my dad had a battery shipped to my sister's apartment for me, I couldn't take any pictures.  However, Justin has some on his phone that I will try and get posted at some later date.

We had a really good time seeing family this Christmas.  On Christmas Eve we flew to Buffalo and made it to Bemus Point just in time to have Christmas Eve dinner with Justin's family.  Last Christmas on Sunday we couldn't get ourselves together enough to get to church on time, but since this is the one time of the year when Justin's mom gets to show off Madelyn we went for the end of the church service.  In keeping with that tradition (who knew it was going to become one) we attempted to do that again this year when it became apparent that once again we were not going to get our act together in time to make it for the start of church.  We arrived at church an hour after the service started just in time for the scripture reading prior to the sermon...who knows what next year will bring.

Although there were a lot of highlights from our time with Justin's family, one of the biggest highlights was going to the fire hall and sitting in the fire trucks.  Madelyn's Poppop is a volunteer fireman and so he gave her the exclusive behind the scenes tour.  She thought that it was pretty great to pretend to drive the big trucks and was a huge fan of having the lights on.

On Wednesday we made the 6+ hour drive across New York from Bemus Point to Troy to spend the second half of the week with my sister, her husband, and my parents.  Wednesday while we were driving was the only time we saw snow around Christmas.  We took Madelyn ice skating for the first time, and although she couldn't actually skate she thought that having Aunt Becci take her around was a lot of fun.  She also discovered that her Aunt Becci is a lot more fun than Mommy...and so it begins :)

Madelyn traveled really well.  However, on our Christmas Eve flight there was a 4 year old in the seat in front of us who kept looking over the seat and talking to Madelyn, hanging her doll over the seat, and generally keeping herself entertained by watching what we were doing.  Madelyn was trying to take a nap, but under those circumstances it was relatively easy to understand why she wasn't successful.  The flight was less than two hours though, and Madelyn didn't get cranky, so while it made the flight seem longer to Justin and I it wasn't that big of a deal.  On our drive back to the Buffalo airport we talked about how much easier it would be to have Madelyn take a nap on the flight back, she was tired and saying she wanted to nap, and we figured a New Year's Eve flight would be pretty quiet.  After we got on the plane who should arrive in the same seat right in front of us...you guessed it, the same 4 year old.  There was no napping.

We made it home with significantly more luggage than we started with (and although Madelyn was mostly to blame I did get the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid which took up a lot of suitcase room too) and spent a quiet New Year's Eve in.  After all, there was no sleeping on the flight :)

I'll try and get more pictures posted soon, but here are some I got before the battery was lost and then  once the new camera battery arrived.