Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

First of all, I will warn you that this post has a picture overload!  Too many great pictures of the family during our time in Indiana!  I'm even hoping to add some more in the next couple days, so I apologize for those of you who are overwhelmed with pictures of Alexa. 

Kyle has been working at 5am since Thanksgiving (Monday through Saturday!), and the week before Christmas he had to stay until 5 or 6pm every day, so needless to say, the trip out to Indiana was wonderful not just because we got to see family, but because we got to actually spend time together with our little family!  Though the over time is nice for tuition payment, I’ve missed that!  There were quite a few nights where I would get home from work at 7 and Kyle was already falling asleep, so he would go to bed before Alexa and we’d get all of 30 groggy minutes together.  Alexa is becoming needy for mommy these days because she wasn’t around Kyle a lot those last few weeks, so it was nice to have more daddy time over Christmas. She had a GREAT time playing with ALL her cousins, and it makes us excited to add a sibling to the mix so that she’ll eventually have someone to play with here at home.  I’m so glad that Ben and Maria stayed at mom and dad’s because she loved having Maria as a playmate, and she also loved her play time with Grandma and Grandpa.

We celebrated Christmas on the 23rd before we left town...

Alexa was sooo excited that her stocking basically consisted of 2 boxes of fruit snacks.  Kyle dumped it out on her lap and she squealed "CANDY!!!!!!" It was hilarious.

Curious George Jack in the Box.  She loves it!  Whenever he pops out she squeals and gives him a hug :)

Mom and Ben trying to fit Alexa's new bunny in her stocking in Indiana

Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa!  She quickly learned the words "Santa" and "present!"

Getting ready to go sledding for the first time!  Thank you Joy for letting Alexa borrow snow clothes!

LOTS of snow!  We got about 13 inches Christmas night.

Maria and Alexa

Daddy the sled driver. She cried and kept saying "sled!!" when I brought her inside even though her hands and face were completely frozen.

Carra and Alexa

Alexa loved this bouncy horse, as well as play time with Chase and Jeffrey.  My favorite was when we were playing Hide and Seek and Whitney taught her to say "sneaky!" so she walked around repeating it while we were all trying to be quiet and hidden.  At one point, I had her in the closet with me and she kept whispering "sneaky! sneaky!"  haha

Reading books before bed

Giving Caleb the chunkster a kiss goodnight

Playing with Anne and Roan.  She loved chasing and petting Tucson the kitty while we were there.

Coloring with Jack, Jenna and Allison. She LOVED George the dog and Rupert the bunny, and gave them tons of hugs and kisses, but wasn't so sure about Martha the dog (had more energy than the others :).

The Ellettsville Sweenys pushing Alexa around in the laundry basket all over the upstairs.  She tried to do this on her own yesterday, and quickly tipped the basket into the wall.  She wasn't happy about it.

It was great to swing over to see the Beasleys before we left and meet cute Peter!

Kyle and Jeremiah.  Alexa would just laugh and laugh with Jeremiah, and she enjoyed pulling him around the house. What a trooper.

with Grandma, Eliza, Joy, and Grandpa

Great hug from Eliza. Also, proof that she has hair.

Alexa doing another favorite thing--sitting on laps!  She's on Eliza's lap, who is on Grandpa's lap.  She would often try to sit on Maria's lap while Maria was standing up, and also tried to sit on Tucson the cat's lap at Anne and Jason's house.

Had a fun time at the IU Basketball game with Anne, Jason, Corbin, Wylah, Grandpa, and Ben.  We even got to eat beforehand at Bub's per Kyle's request.

Alexa did really well on the airplane.  We didn't even go through the full arsenal of stuff that we brought to distract her.  Some great ideas that we tried were bringing a pillow (shoved with her blankie and puppy when not in use) for naps, silly putty (new toy), a slinky (new toy), pages to color, stickers, 4 of her favorite books and 2 new ones, a mini DVD player and headphones to watch Baby Einstein and Little Rascals, playing Peek-a-boo, looking out the airplane window, favorite snacks (and not letting her have them for a while beforehand), suckers (last at least a good 20 minutes of no cry no talk time), new apps on the iPhone, etc.  We would even have her get down and stand in between our legs while we read books and play "up down up down" where she would squat and pop back up to get her wiggles out.  And we walked lots during our layover, especially up and down the cool escalators.

This Christmas some of the big gifts were that Kyle is building me a bathroom cabinet as a complete surprise.  I'm so excited, and will post pictures once it's done.  I also got a Kindle from my parents, which we've already been using lots of.  Kyle got fun new tools like a nail gun, air compressor, circular saw, etc.  Alexa got a big bean bag chair, Lego MegaBloks, and some fun sing along CDs.  That just scratches the surface, and we're grateful for all the wonderful gifts and love from family this year!

Lately, Alexa loves playing with shoes (i.e. walking around the house in other peoples’ shoes that are way too big) and coloring.  She’s such a pro at stairs and walking that we took down our baby gates a few weeks ago.  We realized that we hadn’t used them in a while, Kyle was sick of tripping on them, and I was sick of trying to fit the laundry basket through/over them.  One random thing that the crazy child does is ALWAYS take off her socks when we lay her down for a nap?!  She then proceeds to hide them (under blankets, or shoved under the mattress or crib, etc.).   She's learning faster than we can believe, and will help me fill in the blanks to count to 10, points out/matches/names colors, fills in the blanks for nursery rhymes (especially Mary Had A Little Lamb) thanks to a new book from Peggy, knows the words for a lot of her books, asks for specific ones by name, and occasionally tells us what's happening in them or what page is coming next (using real words!), can actually ask for what she wants (*usually), etc.  Such a cute girl!

I was kind of in charge of helping facilitate the first visit from Santa to our office this year, and it was a fun little party.  Our chef dressed up as Santa, and since Alexa knows him, I totally thought she would be fine to sit on his lap.  Nope!  Not a fan of the wig and beard I guess.  His own kids came and didn’t know he was Santa (he was really nervous), and his 4-year old didn’t want to sit on his lap either because he was scary, haha.  Finally, the youngest child actually figured out it was his dad but the older kids didn’t even realize it.  Anyway, Alexa was just fine after she got a cake pop that she tried to put all in her mouth at once.

It was great to have everyone in the Swingle fam on Skype while talking to Craig (Elder Swingle) in the Netherlands.  Gotta love technology.  Kyle and I commented that it was so fun to see everyone while we visited!

We got home from the airport at 8:30 on New Year’s Eve, and then had a few friends/family over at 9 to eat and play games while we waited for the ball to drop.  Kyle and I were like zombies by the time midnight came around, and very glad to sleep in our own bed last night.  

Alexa "helped" me pull stuff out of the crawl space to get ready for Baby Bambino coming in approximately 6 weeks.  She proceeded to put her blanket in the bassinet and rest while I crawled around.  Usually, she really is a good little helper these days, especially putting things in the trash and helping empty the dishes, put away silverware, pour things in while baking, etc.  She's my sidekick.

I donated 11 inches of hair to Locks of Love right before we left for Indiana.  Here's the before, and the previous Christmas pictures above kind of show you the after.