Happy Festivus

For all of you non Seinfeld fans, Festivus is a holiday for the rest of us. We did not have a traditional Festivus dinner. I don't think Frank would consider Pizza Hut appropriate for Festivus and there were no Feats of Strength. I was too tired from shopping. I do have a few grievances to air. I'll start with the Jonas Brothers, who thought today would be a good day to go shopping at North Park, at 3:00 in the afternoon. Two days before Christmas, really?
Blake and I were there to pick up a couple of last minute things. It never seems like Christmas to me unless I do some shopping the last couple of days before Christmas. I need just a little of the madness. I did not need a couple of hundred screaming tweens chasing security with their phones trying to get pictures. I also did not need entire sections of the mall blocked off while they walked from store to store.
On the up side, I did run into one of my dearest friends, whom I don't get to see nearly enough of, so there was a bright side to my trip. I also ran into a neighboor who had the same shopping idea I did and we both wondered why we were so far from home and who really cared about the Jonas Brothers. Later it was a little exciting. Our little brush with fame.
There, grievances aired. Happy Festivus and Merry Christmas Eve, Eve.

Pictures with Santa

We have seen Santa twice this year. Once at Breakfast with Santa at Campbell's school and once at Safety Town. Both times Campbell has been excited to go and wanted to see Santa, until we got there. She has yet to tell him what she wants. I assume he will bring her what he thinks she wants (and I suspect it will be something she loves). I've decided not to drag the kids to mall, since I know Campbell won't sit in his lap when we get there. I am considering taking Blake on Wednesday, so that we have pictures of his first Christmas. Here are our pictures so far...


Breakfast with Santa - Blake was asleep and Campbell did not want to be there


Safety Town

Can I pull this?

As good as it gets

Trail of Terror

This morning I sat down to quickly catch up on my emails and track a couple of things that I ordered for Campbell's birthday. I needed less than ten minutes at the computer. Campbell was upstairs playing Barbies and Brandt was cleaning and vacuuming, yes vacuuming (with a Dust Buster, but still vacuuming) his room. I put Blake down to play with some toys, about two feet in front of me. After about five minutes, I realized Blake was gone and I went in search of him. This is what I found...

He had been under the tree

And in the laundry room

Hi mommy

And he was off to the bedroom

He won't be getting toys for Christmas, he prefers to play with the doorstops

Brandt and Campbell both always preferred to play right where we were. I've never had an explorer child, but this one will not stay put. You can't take your eyes off of him for even a minute. I guess it's time to baby proof the whole downstairs.

A New Look

After almost a year, I decided it was time for a change. There are so many backgrounds to pick from, it took me forever to choose one and I did not realize how many other things it would effect. I had to change all of the font colors so that you could still read everything, change the banner (which I am still not happy with), and I changed the font to one that I think is a little easier to read. It does not help that all of the code to change things is written in a combination of HTML and Java. My knowledge of both is self taught and I have to look up every other line to see where my error is and how to fix it. I'll get it all fixed in the next few days and we'll have a whole new look.

Gingerbread Houses

The teachers have come up with some pretty creative ways to get through this last week before winter break. Yesterday the first graders got to build gingerbread houses at school. We spread frosting, stuck on graham crackers and put lots and lots of candy all over. We also spent a lot of time trying to keep fingers out of frosting cans, candy out of mouths and the crackers stuck on the houses after the candy was on them. The kids had a great time and most of the parents did too. Our house made it until after dinner before the kids started to disassemble and eat it!

Spreading the icing on

Checking out some friends work

The finished house

Brandt's Class

The silly pose

Time to eat it

Movin' On Up

Monday night Blake moved upstairs to his crib. It was a long night for Daddy, who was the one who had to get up with him every time he woke up, but we made it through. Last night he woke up less and went back to sleep on his own. Now he has been sleeping for 12 hours and is still asleep. I even went to check on him to make sure he was okay and breathing and he is fine, all curled up on his tummy in the corner of his bed. Our worst sleeper may turn into our best sleeper!

Elfie Is Here

Some genius (who obviously has small kids) created the Elf on the Shelf. At Christmas your elf comes to live at your house and watches you during the day and then at night goes back to the North Pole to report to Santa. He will tell Santa if you have been naughty or nice then he comes back to your house and the next morning is waiting for you in a different place. You can talk to him and tell him your Christmas wishes, but you can never touch him or his magic will go away. The kids have seen him move or wink no less than ten times in the hour and a half since they spotted him. You have to give him a name and we settled on Elfie. They are so excited to see where Elfie will be when they wake up in the morning. If this works, next year Elfie may come shortly after the 4th of July!

I'm Spying On You

Will has a habit of falling asleep on his back, which is fine until I want to go to sleep. Then I have to get him to roll over so that he doesn't snore. As long as he is not flat on his bask, he rarely snores. The problem is, he is usually somewhere in between sleep, dreaming and semi-awake when I start nudging him to roll over. Sometimes I get lots of grunting, sometimes I get a mad What?, sometimes he just rolls over. The really fun times are when he is dreaming and I get part of the dream. Things like "Did Taylor get a new high school?" and "Why did you put an outlet there?." It's usually a question or a sentence or two as he rolls over and it never makes any sense.
Last week he looked at me dead serious and said "Are you a spy? Don't take our cheese fry technology." I started laughing and couldn't stop and he got mad at me for laughing at him (but he did roll over). He never remembers these conversations in the morning, but I get some good laughs. And watch out - your cheese fries are at risk!

Weekend Over, Finally

Tree up and decorated, check
Outside decorations up, check
Campbell's Star of the Week Poster, check
Pipe cleaner Eiffel Tower for Brandt, check
Breakfast with Santa, check
7 year old birthday party, check
Christmas party and dinner with girlfriends, check
One tired weekend over - We had one busy weekend, but it was fun. October, November and December are always crazy busy months. I was behind on getting Christmas decorating done and this weekend was Campbell's school fundraiser - Breakfast with Santa. In a moment of weakness I volunteered to be the craft room coordinator, which meant I spent Friday setting up the kid's crafts rooms. Breakfast was fun, but Campbell wanted nothing to do with Santa. Afterwards we cleaned up the craft rooms and rushed over to a birthday party for one of Brandt's classmates. In the middle of all this, I was still trying to get this Christmas decorations out.
Sunday we finished the tree, Will did the outside decorations and we did our school projects. A Star of the Week "All About Me" poster for Campbell and an Eiffel Tower out of pipe cleaners for Brandt's study of students and cultures around the world.

It took about five minutes for Blake to find the tree

Can I play here?

Waiting to see Santa - Blake was asleep

I will not sit with him

Merry Moose Antlers

Who Says It Doesn't Snow In Texas?

December Is Here

Yes, December is here which means Christmas is right around the corner. My neighbors have all been busy putting up their outside lights and many of them have Christmas trees in their windows. I would guess that many more have Christmas trees in their family rooms where we can't see them. And us? Not one decoration, not one light, not a thing. To tell the truth, my Halloween decorations are still sitting packed in their tubs in the dining room, waiting to be put back in the closet. My storage closet has a couple of Santa presents between the door and the back of the stairs where the decorations go. I need to clean up the closet (when the kids are not around) so that I can switch out the Halloween boxes for the Christmas boxes and get started with decorating the house. That's a good excuse, right? And our tree is still in storage.
The kids ask everyday when we can decorate, so today I let them do a craft to buy myself some time. They colored and decorated ornaments that I bought at Michael's. We put their name and the year on them, so that in ten years they can look at them and ask why I am still hanging them on the tree. I'll always think they're adorable.