Christmas Eve Dance Off and a very unexpected SWEET Christmas

We went to our dear friends the Kwabi's for Christmas Eve where music and dancing is always a staple. Freda sure is the Santa Claus of her neighborhood. Every Christmas Eve she invites all the neighborhood children over to her house for quite the celebration then at midnight, she shares the meaning of Christmas with them and lets them open one gift from under her tree after they share something they are thankful for. At one point the kids decided to have a dance competition. It was so much fun. One of the little boys would bust into the splits and all the kids thought it was pretty cool. I begged and begged Radik to show him up with his splits. He finally took off his shoes and busted into the splits too. The kids thought it was pretty dang cool. I was so sad I didn't get a picture of it. After the dance off, poor Radik sat next to me and whispered in my ear that he didn't think he was going to be able to walk again. Ha! ha! I couldn't stop laughing. Oh, the things he does for me. ;-)

Radik and I shared such an amazing Christmas with my family last year (I've been blessed to have Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus as parents and The Calls' Home really is the place to be for Christmas) and I think we were both a little concerned about how humble this year's Christmas was going to be. It ended up being a very beautiful Christmas and even though my heart ached to be with my family it was a very sweet day.

We ended up opening two maybe three ;-) gifts each at midnight (I have no idea how my parents are able to resist opening more than one at midnight!) and were able to put the phone on speaker to hear my Dad read The Night Before Christmas to the fam in Idaho.

Thanks to my Mom's coaching the Turkey came out pretty delicious!!!


My cute friends Michael and Justin who were also far from Family joined us on Christmas, we played games, watched movies and ate so very much. Santa brought Monopoly for us (Radik had never played before and had been asking a ton if we could get it) and we ended the night with a game of it. I hadn't played forever and can't wait to play it with the fam the next time I'm home.

Brrrrrr Blizard

The roads

front of our house

the back and my car

the driveway

neighbors snow...tiger?

Eastern Market and National Tree

I couldn't believe I had never taken Radik to the Eastern Market. I use to go all the time and when we went a few weekends ago I had so many memories. Mom got me the cutest, funky purple bracelet when we went together and I remember once when I was there with Dad I noticed he wasn't standing near me and found him sitting on a bench feeding the birds. He's so cute. I remember wondering why he had wrapped some of his bread in a napkin and put it in his pocket after breakfast. ;-)

National Tree
Yule Log

One of Santa's workshops is right near the tree so we were able to get our picture taken for free with Santa! ;-) He asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I said to go home and got a little teary eyed. He gave me the sweetest look and then asked Radik what he wanted. Radik said to see her family and then gave one of his contagious laughs. Santa laughed and said good answer. ;-)

So THANKful!

One of my best friends Katie bought some Lotto tickets once when she was having a bad day and said it helped her remember there was something bigger than her out there. We cracked up about it but I knew what she was saying. ;-) So every now and then I will buy one and acutally often win a buck or two. Radik's gotten really cute about it and had always said when his right hand itches it means he's going to get a ton of money (if the left hand itches he says it means he is going to spend a ton of money) so a couple of weeks ago his hand was itching a ton and he demanded we run to the 7-11 to see if his theory was true. We ended up winning two bucks (off the one I scratched ;- ))!
Radik came down to D.C. to ride the bus with me to NYC for Thanksgiving (We bought a travel game and lots of snacks so the yucky holiday traffic wasn't that bad). We started our Thanksgiving feast with a hot dog! We were able to catch a few glimpses of the Macy's Parade but ended up seeing more of it in the Subway. While the crowd from the parade was breaking up I got a glimpse of this lady in a wheel chair. She only had one leg and it looked like two of her sons were carrying her in a wheel chair down some steps from where they had been watching the parade. My heart felt so heavy that I haven't been thanking God and all our family and friends for their support enough. I'm so thankful that my amazing Papa Bear and my beautiful Mother (right by his side the whole time) have been fighting such a good fight. It's so hard to believe that he has gone through such a scary battle and almost lost his leg to yucky Herman. I'm always amazed at the people that ask for money on the Subway and how talented they are. I was able to catch the below three guys on tape. I can hardly keep my balance standing and holding on to a pole or Radik while the train is moving and couldn't believe what these guys were able to do. It made me sad that the two little ones weren't at home smelling Turkey in the oven.
Richie came to pick us up in Brooklyn and then we spent the rest of the day with him and the fam and some friends. Thanksgiving was wonderful. Chrislynn really did an amazing job and the kids made it SO special.I love Richie's sweet little voice and I love how little Sophia lays down straight and perfectly still to let her little Richie tickle her and then give her a raspberry. Those two crack me up so much.