Little Man Nuttiness

Just a few facts I don't want to forget about The Little Man this Christmas season:

1. While building gingerbread houses with his class before Christmas break, I realized that The Little Man still cannot say "Candy canes" or "Pretzels". Instead he says "Candy canes" and "Kretzels".

I love it.

I will not correct it.

In fact, I have been offering him "Candy cakes" and "Kretzels" as snacks from time to time.

2. Somehow, he has decided that he would like a roller coaster for Christmas.

Yes, a full size roller coaster.

When I asked him where we would put such a gift he said we should just set it up in the back yard.

So, I let him in on a little secret: We live in the 'burbs, therefore, our whole cul-de-sac isn't large enough to house a roller coaster.

Oh. Small details.

Thankfully he changed his mind. Instead he would like bumper cars.

Apparently his trip to Disney has forever changed his reality.

3. We've recently had a fierce resurgence of "Baboo". I won't lie. I am kind of helping this along. We've created a little song that we sing to him at nap and bedtime. Baboo has also been known to tell me that he loves me.

Hubs is not impressed at all. He wants to know if I am going to break out his old paci soon.

I am trying to convince him that it's just a short lived sweet phase, and I will be totally guilty of soaking up every last drop of it.

Besides, it's hard to think that he's reverting back into babyhood when he is always saying (in a deep voice I might add) "Ah ya, baby!" and "Do you want a piece of me?" followed with a "Saweeet".

In Which I Return all Christmas Gifts and Save a Ton of Cash

I have been noticing this for a while, but nothing has made it more loud and clear than recent events. I realize that this isn't a news flash for many of you, and it really isn't to me either, but again, sometimes you just need things to be spelled out for you in order to really get the message, especially this time of year.

OK, here it is:

KIDS DON'T NEED YOU TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON GIFTS FOR THEM TO BE HAPPY.

Sure gifts make them happy, but so do lots of other things. It's like that phenomenon that happens quite often when a child opens the gift, is thrilled to bits to have a gift to open, loves the gift, but then twenty minutes later is found having a blast with the box it the gift came in, while the toy lay in and amongst all the other stuff they have.

Not that this is the box the toy came in, but these new treasures were relatively free:


Here's a closer view:


The Girl's new treasure:


The Hubs gave the kids his old beat up Crackberry's that he had laying around his office that no longer work. Instead of pitching them, he gave one to The Girl, and one WITH a holster type carrying case to The Little Man. The happiness that the kids have with their new phones is more than I would have ever imagined. They have played with these things for HOURS.

People, THEY DON'T EVEN WORK. THEY ARE BUT A BLANK SCREEN.

Yet, every morning, they pick them up off their night stand and bring them with them to breakfast. The Little Man clips his to his jammies (which, practically fall off with the weight), and The Girl carries hers down with her as well. When it's time to get dressed, they have those things transferred right on over to the new outfit. I do make them leave them at home when we go out of the house, but upon returning the other night, The Little Man squealed with excitement as he was reunited with his Blackberry, crying out, "Ohhhhhh! My Blackberry! I am so happy to see you!"

I am so close to returning all the gifts we bought this year, pocketing the cash, and then dig around some more in our "junk" piles to see what other kinds of happiness we can conjure up.

Meanwhile, I got this this morning:


The Little Man did this all by himself. The little smarty pants! He knows too, sometimes free equals precious!

New Age Santa

Well, I caved a bit. I don't normally push the whole Santa gig on the kids (The Hubs totally takes care of that). We don't visit him at the mall and I don't threaten them with "Santa can see you being naughty!" I try really hard to balance on the fine line of keeping Christ central to Christmas and the whole reason for the season, but also keeping Christmas magical. I always thought that it would be a relief when the kids found out the truth about the big guy.

Then, The Girl told me a boy in her class was telling her the truth about Santa. Now, it's non-stop with the questions. Somehow, we've weaseled around them very delicately without lying to her. I just want to know why she has to ask these questions in front of her brother? NEVER has she asked while we were just alone. I have to say, I am bit sad knowing that part of the magic of Christmas will be gone for her soon.

Then!

Then, I found the Portable North Pole. All you do is fill out the info, and they will have Santa himself email your child a video message. When she saw her email, I am telling you, it was like some kind of happy I have never seen! The excitement was like that of the Disney surprise...except it was free!

I wish I could share them here on the blog, but they contain some very private and personal info on the kids (which is why she totally freaked out).

Go ahead, try it out for yourself or a kid you care for...

You're welcome.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

You all know I could go on and on about our current weather. HELLO! Temperatures that fall below zero should be illegal! Yesterday, the carpool for The Girl's school was canceled because it was too cold.

I thought that should mean that they were going to keep the kids overnight.

No such luck.

It just meant that I had to get out of my warm car and go into the school and get The Girl. Then I had to return to the cold to get back into the car.

They said it was to protect the kids.

Hmmmmm. I think not. The kids still had to go outside. The only people that didn't have to go outside were the teachers who usually run carpool.

Then this morning, school was on a delay because of the subzero temps. You know I am ALL OVER missing school and late starts, but starting school an hour later didn't improve the temperature at all. Maybe it helped the buses? Who knows.

Besides the crazy weather, you know Christmas is quickly approaching because the kids had Christmas concerts at school. I love watching Christmas concerts (or if you are at The Girl's school it's called a "Holiday Concert"). The only problem is, this past year, I have been plagued with not getting very good seats for taking pictures. It happened in Disney, and it happened at both The Girl and The Little Man's concerts this year. Even with my zoom lens on my camera, I was painfully far from the action. I still got pictures, don't worry! I just got pictures of everyone else's kid too.

They were all just darling.

So here's a pic of the Little Man after his concert eagerly awaiting some serious cooking eating:

Here's The Girl and a few fellow classmates:

(this pic here, is actually a very small crop of the original...)

Here we have some video of both concerts:






I know, it's difficult to hear what they are singing.

I still have no clue what The Little Man sang.

Maybe next year, I'll be more prepared?

Probably not.

A Happy Heart

I know in years past, I have been rather grumpy about Christmas cards and mailing labels, but this year, the Lord has been merciful to me. I was not only able to pull up last years labels, but I was also able to make adjustments AND print them out without one single glitch.

This Christmas season is already starting off with small wonders and miracles, and I am full of joy.

It's the little things.

Cold Busted

In the colder months I have an article of clothing that is a must. OK, there are a couple of "musts". They all fall under the category of "Cozies", aka clothing that is warm, comfortable, and quite frankly could possibly be slept in. And, if I am going to be totally honest with you, it does get slept in.

Usually, when I come home from being out in the cold, I will immediately go to my room and change into my cozies. Some warm fleece pants, and my favorite, a v-neck fleece shirt to go over the top of whatever shirt I am currently wearing for the day. This way, if I need to go back out, I just put my pants back on and take the fleece shirt off, and it kind of feels like I didn't have to get all the way dressed again because I didn't really get all the way undressed. See? It sounds crazy, but hey, that's the way it is in my brain. Crazy.

So, I have a few v-neck fleece shirts. I usually get a new one each year because they get worn so much that they can look a little tattered. Plus, have you ever worn new fleece? It is the definition of cozy. So soft, so warm, and just plain snuggly.

Somehow, this year, I have allowed myself to come to the belief that if the fleece shirt is newer, it can totally be worn out in public, and not just as cozy jammies at home. This new belief came about because there have been days when I just can't part with the cozy. There are days that I just have to take it with me.

So here we were, on one of those days. It was just too cold to change out of the fleece cozy shirt, but we were headed out to grab some quick dinner. Mind you, it wasn't a nice restaurant. Not even close. So, I decided that it wouldn't be necessary to change out of my cozy jammy shirt. As I sat down to eat, I slipped off my coat. It was then that The Little Man decided he would take note of my outfit.

"Mommy! Mommy! Oh goodness, Mommy! You forgot to take off your jammies before we left the house!" he proclaims loudly enough for the four or so other booths around us to hear.

As I tried to hush him, and convince him that the shirt was not my jammies, but just a shirt, he corrected me with the same volume of voice he made his first announcement with.

"No, Mommy! Those are your jammies! You came to the restaurant in your jammies, Mommy! Why would you go to a restaurant with your jammies on, Mom?"

At this point there really was no point in arguing. The whole section of the restaurant was very clear on the fact that I did indeed show up to the restaurant in my jammies. I just calmly asked him to use more of an indoor voice for the rest of dinner.

Hubby just laughed. Sweet.

My Halls are Decked

Here's the deal: I am having a very difficult time wrapping my brain around the fact that Christmas will be here in 25 short days. TWENTY FIVE DAYS! Doesn't it seem like just yesterday I was complaining about how could the summer was?

Oh wait, that probably was yesterday.

Anywho!

With a couple of significant snow storms under our belts already this year, and 95% of my Christmas shopping DONE (since SEPTEMBER, can I get a woot woot!), I still can't believe that Christmas is upon us. The worst part is I really can't figure out why.

I have been listening to Christmas music all weekend, have my house totally decorated (which, hello, takes me usually a full week, and I had it done in three days!), and my kids have watched The Grinch, Elf, and Polar Express so many times it's nuts.

(Not that they can watch the same movie over and over, but that they have been allowed to watch that much tube since Friday.)

Usually, our annual Polar Express Night kicks me right into the Holiday Spirit. This year, I fell asleep before the movie ended. Oh, the movie ended at eight. So, if you are doing the math, I was asleep BEFORE EIGHT.

Actually, now that I think about it, THAT might be the problem. I think I have been too busy to really feel my days. I mean I feel them in the sense that I am dog tired at the end of them, but I mean I am not really living my days.

I hate that.

The worst part, is I think I have been doing this all year.

Try as hard as I might, I, my friends, am a task oriented type of a gal. Unfortunately, what that looks like is I jump from one chaos filled project to the next without taking the time to soak in the ride along the way. I am sincerely hoping this will change somehow, someway because guess what? Tomorrow is the first day of DECEMBER of 2009. I feel like I am still stuck in 2008 somewhere.

This past weekend, we didn't have huge Thanksgiving day plans. I didn' schedule any shoots, or any programs. There were no activities, or play dates, or get-togethers of any sort. I got totally caught up with work (because my Hubby RAWKS hard core), and then I took a deep long breath.

It felt good.

So good, I want to take another.

And another.

This month's focus: Breathing deeply, loving fully, living in the present, and soaking in the life that is around me.

Next month's focus: Rinse and repeat.