Merry Christmas!

At Christmas Eve service last night, the kids behaved fairly well. It was their first time going to the service with us; we usually take advantage of the Sunday school aspect of church and enjoy an hour of child-free worship. We sang lots of songs, listened to Pastor Kevin talk about a simple Christmas, and Kate even got to light a candle at the end. My favorite part: when the pastor asked for a show of hands as to who refuses to read the Christmas letters from friends and Luke enthusiastically raised his hand.

We let the kids open one gift on Christmas eve. In this case, it was an XBox Kinect.

The first present of Christmas.

We were up until midnight, prepping for Christmas morning and Christmas breakfast. We "set" our alarm for 6:15am so we could be sure to be downstairs when the kids woke up. I opened my eyes at 6:45am and jumped out of bed. Someone forgot to turn the alarm on, but we were the first ones up. I resisted the urge to check to ensure the children were still breathing. We made coffee, started breakfast prep, and waited. Luke was the first one downstairs, at just after 7am (a minor Christmas miracle that he slept in so late), followed by Kate about 15 minutes later. Luke hadn't realized anything was amiss until Kate informed him that his stocking was full. Then we had to contain them both until Claire came down.

Luke's big present: a new booster seat for the car.

Kate finally got her Blizzard maker, a year after she asked for it. Tim and I have placed bets as to how long it will last before it breaks. We're having trouble agreeing on the terms; we both think it will be busted by the end of the day.

Claire also scored big with another one-year-late Santa surprise: an Easy Bake Oven. Santa is so weak. He swore he wouldn't cave and give Easy Bake Ovens or Blizzard Makers, but here we are.

Luke got a puppy pillow pet!

And a crane truck he can take apart and put together!

The aftermath.

Santa, left in the dust.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas fun

It's been ages since I've posted here....I just can't keep up with my photography blog, this blog, family life and work!

Yesterday we made gingerbread houses. The kids loved it. Mostly the sneaking candy part, of course. At the end: stickiness on every surface, children giddy with sugar.

The afternoon started out great. Some tea, some quiet.

Then we moved on to gingerbread decorations.

And I moved on from tea to Bailey's and cocoa.

Building.

"Here, Mom. I don't want any more of these."

Snow on the roof.

Moving on to bigger snow.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Book and slinky.

Tearing paper.

Favorite toy.

Claire's favorite toy.

The girls woke up around 7am on Christmas morning, letting us sleep in slightly more than usual. They came wandering into our room, and played with their stuffed animals for several minutes before Kate realized what day it was. Then, excitement! Do you think Santa came last night? Did he eat his cookies? Let's go see! C'mon, guys, LET'S GO SEE!!!

There were big eyes and sing-songy voices as the girls saw the gifts under the tree, and the stockings full of goodies. It took hours to get through the presents, as we had to take many breaks to play the various games they got, and read some of the books they had to read Right Now. At one point, Claire started climbing the stairs, thumb in mouth. We asked her if she wanted to open more presents. Her answer: "No! I wat to seep!"

Kate joyfully sang Christmas songs all day; the most memorable: Rudolph the Nose-Red Reindeer. By far the favorite toys of the season: the $1 slinky for Kate, the Baby Chou-Chou doll for Claire, and the Sleeping Beauty Barbie for Kate. You probably could have given Kate a piece of cardboard with princesses stuck to it and made her day. Princesses rule, don't you know. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Helpful?

Not really.

O.M.G. Covered in Eucerin. You know that super thick creamy lotion made with petroleum jelly? That's the stuff.

It was everywhere. It will take days of washing Claire's hair to remove all traces. I later found out that the fun began when Kate helped Claire change her poopy diaper. By herself. Where was I? Vacuuming. Awesome.

Later that night, the first gift of Christmas. It's a good thing they're cute, or there might have been coal in some stockings.

Pretty sure

I'm pretty sure that:

1. The cat is trying to keep up with my weight gain. He is now officially on a diet. Since he's not having kitties or anything, I feel this is justified.

2. The Christmas tree is dead. There is a large pile of evidence below it every day to support my claim.

3. I need to purchase a gingerbread house kit next year for architectural and aesthetic purposes. This year's houses at least have better 'glue': royal icing. I'm also fairly certain I did most of the decorating again this year. The girls held up their end of the bargain by eating as much candy as humanly possible in the amount of time given.

Claire, who's house is pictured on the left, tried to replicate our Tucson house, a la the 1960s mostly-flat roof style. Kate went for the more traditional peaked-roof version of gingerbread houses.

Full moon fiasco

I'm not sure what it is: are we unmemorable? Do we not pay enough? Or, like I like to look at it, are our kids so good that we don't stick out in babysitters' minds? Clearly, this third observation no longer applies after last night. I jokingly told Tim yesterday when he got home that I hoped the babysitter showed up...and by 5:45 I was on the phone to our sitter, eating my words. It happened again: she had forgotten. In her defense (do I give her any? hmmm), this was her first offense; the other sitters who had forgotten were all in Tucson. But this was the third or fourth time in three years that a sitter has not shown up to our house, and it has always been for a semi-big engagement (two prior anniversary dinners, last night's squadron Christmas party).

After profuse apologizing on her part, she mentioned that she had a bit of a conflict: she is moving this weekend and her landlord was supposed to do a walk-through with her at 8:30pm. As I waited for her to tell me that she would call the landlord and reschedule (obviously we were on the books before the landlord, and also, the party was starting in 15 minutes), she hemmed and hawwed and asked if it would be all right if she took the girls with her back to her house for the inspection. *This should have tipped me off to future issues.* I said that wouldn't work, due to a plethora of reasons, and she said she would "work something out" and would be over "in a few minutes". I immediately called our neighbor, Jen, who's son, Douglas, has watched the girls before. Thankfully, Douglas was going to be around, so I called our sitter back and told her that he would watch the girls for an hour while she went back to her house to meet the landlord.

I present rule #1: if you have to work this hard to make the babysitter issue work out, you probably should just cancel your event.

Our sitter showed up at 6:15, with plentiful apologies, and I gave her the lowdown on how to deal with bedtime for the girls (they get to have the Christmas lights on in their room until they disobey enough times to warrant turning them off; they need to stay in their room; they need to be quiet; if they are not quiet by 8:30, put Claire back in her room in the crib). I asked her if she had heard from the landlord: no. I called Jen and told her that our sitter would likely call Douglas around 8:00. We left.

The oblivious couple enjoys a night out at the squadron Christmas party.

We had a good time. Before dinner started at 7:00, I called the sitter to see how things were going. "Fine!" Had she heard from her landlord? No.

At 10:15, as we were driving up to our house, I noticed the first sign of things not-quite-right. "Where is her car?" I asked Tim. Once inside, I noticed Jen's slippers by the front door. Jen came tip-toeing around the corner: "Shhhhhh. Don't wake them." She had a serious look in her eye. And she looked sort of frightened at the possibility of the children waking up.

"Why are you here?" I hissed. She said that the sitter called her at 8:15, Douglas was in the shower because he had just finished a workout, so she came over to watch the girls. She never heard from the sitter again. She just up and left, and did not return. Let me say this again, as I'm not sure it's clear: the sitter left and Never Came Back. And when said babysitter left, she did not give bedtime instructions to Jen.

Apparently, after Jen arrived, the girls decided to rejoice in the light of the full moon. Kate could be heard from her room: "Miss Jen's here!" They had to go to the bathroom. They had to read another book. At one point, not long after she had gotten them in bed, Jen could hear Claire wailing from their room, "Miss Jen!" When she went upstairs, she found Claire with her pants and diaper half-off. Kate had tried to remove them after she had taken her own pants off. The children argued about whether the Christmas lights should be on or off. They discussed the merits of having the fan on or off. Jen mentioned bringing bungee cords to the house next time to keep them in their beds. In other words, it was a disaster. When Douglas called, she told him to stay home for fear that his showing up would set them off again.

I am pretty sure Jen is never going to speak to us again.

After she left, I looked at Tim and mused, "I wonder what would have happened if we hadn't had Jen come over....Do you think...?"

Tim's response: "Number one, there is no way of knowing what would have happened, so don't ask, and number two, you probably don't want to know the answer."

Someone Stop Me

Christmas Eve dinner.

Bunny goes for a ride.

Little People Nativity set.

These bath toys taste great!

Exhausted. That's me, as I try in vain to get more out of every day. I'm 35 weeks pregnant now, and I swear this kid is coming out any time (I'll take your bet, James). But I'm not ready. I still have to paint the bathroom (I painted most of one wall last week, and have decided that the color is horrid and found a new color today. I know, I have a problem.), paint Kate's bookshelves, wash baby clothes, move Kate's clothes (and Kate) to her new room, put Christmas decorations away, find a futon cover, and the list goes on. Tim thinks I'm crazy. I know I'm crazy, but I can't stop myself. I did not go through this nesting phase when I was pregnant with Kate. Last time, if you stopped by my house, you'd see disaster, with me lying on the sofa watching bad daytime TV or napping. This time I'm frantic. I've probably started 8 projects, none of them are done, and I'm tempted to start more. ACK.

Christmas was great. We had a late breakfast and a late dinner. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, yams, the whole 9 yards. We played Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit and 24, the game (we have yet to figure that one out). We watched movies and played with Kate. Her favorite toys are her shopping cart from her Great-Gramma Donna and her My Little Pony singing book from her Great-Grandma Lorraine. We had a lot of fun with the shopping cart; Kate opened it at Jessica's house on Christmas Eve, and she was content to use just the yellow part as a push-toy before Tim put it together. Hysterical.

She is getting her first molar, and will not nap in the normal fashion. This is putting a serious crimp on how much I can get done each day. It finally cut through today, so I hope we're done with that for awhile.

Hope you all had a great Christmas! Relax, will you?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We spent Christmas Eve at Jessica's house, and Kate got to open her first gift. We'll see how the rest of today goes, but I think it's destined to be her favorite Christmas toy. She pushes it around everywhere, putting things like shoes (she's starting early) and her bunny in it.

Jess and Mike and Dad are on their way over for brunch and dinner later, and gifts. More stories later.

How big is Kate?

This is the best!

So True, So True

I get these weekly emails from Babycenter about Kate's milestones, and what to expect each week of pregnancy. This week, I opened the email about Kate and read the following:

Doing errands around town is harder than ever with a pint-sized explorer in tow. Being strapped down in a car seat or stroller is the last place your toddler wants to be: Expect an earful — usually accompanied by an arched back and flailing arms and legs — when it's time to buckle up.

Ha! So true! That arched back, the 'outside voice' screaming in protest at the horror of being chained into a stroller. The glare I get for putting her in there. Now, just add an 8 1/2 month pregnant belly and the crabbiness that comes with it to the mix, and you get some fun shoppers!

Kate had her 15mo well-baby check this morning, and is doing just fine, despite my concerns that she had lost a lot of weight during last week's illness. Nope. She gained weight over the past month (she's now 24lb 14oz). Must be the Christmas cookies. She had her first lollipop this morning after her shots; I felt bad for the screaming child and let the nurse give her one. Wow, did she love that. I think I'm going to have to wash the stroller seat cover now, it's so covered in sugary goo, but she was sooo happy until I took it away from her.

As for us, the house is a disaster (dis-as-ter, no kidding). Mike is finishing up the bathroom today (I hope), and I'll get to cleaning this place as soon as he's done. Dad's headed our way tomorrow, Christmas Eve dinner is at Jessica's house, and Christmas day festivities are here, including breakfast, gift opening and dinner.

Oh, and the Ducks got spanked last night in their bowl game. Ha! So sorry, Dad. Tim says they were still getting over their loss to OSU in the Civil War. =)

Nope, No Snow

Bummer. I was so hoping to wake up this morning to a light dusting of the white stuff. No such luck. But it was only 20* when I got up at 5:30, and even now it's like 45*. Mt Lemmon has snow, which I can see from my kitchen window - very cool. But Holy Mother of GOD it's still cold out there, with the wind whipping up a bit!

I think I am doomed to early mornings again. Last summer when I was pregnant with Kate, I woke up nearly every morning by about 4:30-5am and couldn't get back to sleep. Tim had to be in early this morning, and I couldn't fall back to sleep after he left, so I got up and puttered around the house. It's kind of nice at that time of day; no toddler pulling ornaments off the tree, no cat walking underfoot trying to kill me; just dark skies and a nice fire. Now it's noon and I need a nap.

I had my 34 week OB appointment today, and my doctor doesn't think I'm in danger of going into labor soon. Or, if he does think so, he's out of town for at least a week, so it's no harm to him if I do. He thinks I was just having trouble breathing yesterday because of the Braxton-Hicks contractions. Okay, I'll go with that. He did say that the baby had dropped, though, and she is head-down. So, my prediction is that I'll have her around 37 weeks, just like happened with Kate. Gawd, that's only 3 weeks from now. But! That means only 3 more weeks of heartburn! That sounds heavenly right about now.

Before I sign off, I must leave a note regarding the number of returned Christmas cards I have received in the past few weeks. People. If you're going to move, send out your new address. It's so much easier for you to receive mail that way.

Weekend Update

We had a busy weekend. We spent Saturday getting ready to have a few people over for games, cocktails and dessert, and since it was a Christmas party I wanted to have Christmas decorations up. We strapped Kate in the car and drove to a tree place that was advertising trees from Oregon. I think most of the trees here in Tucson come from Oregon, so we probably could have gone to Home Depot and saved $20, but the people at this one place were nice and they gave us a military discount. Kate loved wandering through the forest of trees and exploring the lot. She found a string of lights attached to a pole on the tent and stared at it for a long time. She loves Christmas lights! We drove home, put Kate down for a nap, and began decorating. We opted to leave all nice/antique/glass decorations above Kate-level, and so far we haven't had any problems. We'll see how long this lasts.

When Kate woke up, she wanted to help us clean up the house, so she grabbed the duster and started on the tree.

Right before people began showing up, Kate played a round of hide and seek with Tim under the table.

Where's Kate?

There she is!

On Sunday we went to base to see Santa taxi in on an A-10. Kate watched, fascinated, as the plane rolled up and came to a stop. She thought Santa was great, until she had to sit on his lap.

Mommy, I don't like this Santa man!

Last night I had Tim take a photo of me (just for you, Carrie!) and my 'basketball'. He thinks it looks like there really is a basketball under my shirt. I told him it feels more like an oversized beach ball.

33 weeks.

Oh, and Jess found out that they are having a girl! She also had her due date revised to 2 weeks later - early May. She seems fine with this. Me, I would not be pleased to hear that!

Cookies, Gifts and Snot, Oh My

How did I do all the stuff I did for Christmas last year? Decorate the house, get a tree, bake cookies, entertain Kate, send gifts and not fall asleep at the dinner table? Oh, right: I had a baby, not a toddler. Kate is into everything, and it's putting a crimp in my desire to be Martha Stewart this Christmas.

I started out by signing up to bake cookies for the base Cookie Crunch, a cookie drive that collects homemade cookies to give to the airmen living on base over the holidays. Since I was already making a batch of cookies, I might as well just go balls out and make a double batch of Peppermint Chocolate Chip cookies, then whip up some dough for the candy cane cookies, find a recipe for yummy mint brownies, and make plans for oodles of sugar cookies. Right? Right. To add to this recipe for success, I thought, 'You know, we should have a little holiday gathering, play games, eat, drink and be merry.' Got to get the decorations all up before then, clean the house, make some food, buy some alcohol, rearrange the living room to accomodate people, blah blah blah. Am I stressed? No. Just waking up at 4am, wondering when I'm going to get all this stuff done.

And then there's the crib fiasco. Target. I love Target, but they are a Gigantic Corporation and thus have their problems. The one I learned about over the weekend: they don't have the crib I want in stock, none of the Tucson stores do, and no, they can't order one for me. What?! We went to Tar-jay yesterday to look at cribs, and to order one because I figured they wouldn't have one in stock. That's why I waited till now to get one. Because I thought they would ORDER one in for me. Something about central warehouse/delivery issues and no they cannot order one in, but I can surely call them every week to see if they got one in recently, right? OR, I could go online and order the damn thing on my own, which is what I did. So sorry, Target. Hopefully we'll get the crib delivered by the new year...

Saturday was football day; the last day of regular season play for college ball. We (really, I mean Tim - I ran around the house like a madwoman trying to make cookie dough, clean, etc) sat on the sofa and watched USC lose !, West Virginia beat Rutgers (I thought it odd that Tim wanted to watch this game, but apparently there was a chance his team would play the winner in a bowl game), and then stayed up to watch the OSU Beavers play Hawaii. Okay, Tim stayed up to watch, I went to bed. The game didn't even start until 10pm! I watched part of the first quarter and then decided it would be better to sleep. Then at 1:30am he came into the bedroom and gleefully claimed victory over Hawaii. I cheered groggily.

We decided to go to the late church service on Sunday, but then thought better of it when Kate appeared to be coming down with a cold. We put her down for a nap instead of going to church, and were so glad we did. She didn't sleep, but she did vomit all over her crib and we were happy that she didn't do this in the nursery at church. Poor kid. Poor parents! Gross, cleaning that mess up. Thank you Kate for doing it when your daddy was home!

Now it's naptime and I need to get baking. Damn, there's a lot of cookies to make.

Getting to Know You

Welcome to the 2006 Christmas Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends! You know the drill. Don't be a scrooge!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog; I can drink hot chocolate any time of year. Unfortunately this year my egg nog will not be made with merry juice.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Um, hello. Isn't that part of the whole Christmas idea? Wrapping paper makes the season! Usually stocking stuffers are unwrapped, though.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I don't have a preference, but this year we have colored lights outside and will probably have colored lights on the tree. I don't know if we own any plain white lights right now.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I haven't found any in years. But Amy gave me this great gift many years ago: the famed Mistletoad. He gets hung with care every year. Sometimes we hang the Mistletoad Rules of Conduct next to him, but I think they need to be updated since Niki and I enacted them freshman year of college.

5. When do you put up your decorations? It depends on where we are living. Here in Arizona, you can't put a live tree up too early (see the pumpkin story) or it will dry out and is sure to catch on fire. I'm hoping we'll put the tree up within the next 2 weeks. Tim hung the lights on the house over Thanksgiving weekend, and we have some Christmas decorations up in the house.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Turkey and stuffing. Even though we have it the month before for Thanksgiving, it still rocks. I also love hot cider and egg nog.

7. Favorite Christmas memory as a child? So many memories, none of them so spectacular that it stands out. We went to the Nutcracker often when I was little, and although I liked the idea of going (maybe the getting dressed up part?), the ballet always put me to sleep. I remember going to the Domino's Christmas light show in Ann Arbor one year - that was pretty cool. It seemed that every year we saw our grandparents, though, and that was great.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I think around 3rd or 4th grade, probably from friends.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes, one.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? First we hang the lights, Tim usually following behind me and attaching them to the branches properly. Then we hang the ornaments. We have all kinds - some from when I was little and made ornaments in grade school, some from Beijing, some from many of the places we've vacationed together. This year will be interesting; will we be able to hang ornaments below waist-level? I'm starting to wonder...

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it, probably because I've never lived anywhere where we've had a lot of it. Driving in it is no fun, but it sure is beautiful.

12. Can you ice skate? Yes.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Thinking...thinking...last year Tim got me an MP3 player. That was cool. Oh yeah - he got me a pearl necklace a few years ago. Very cool.

14. What's the most important thing about Christmas for you? Spending time with family and friends.

15. What is your favorite Christmas dessert? Christmas sugar cookies and Tim's cranberry bread pudding.

16. What is your favorite Christmas tradition? I love decorating, and picking out the tree. And seeing Christmas lights around town. Making sugar cookies with my sister is also a hoot. Oh, and watching 'When Harry Met Sally' is a must. In my 20s I loved going to midnight mass. I don't think that is going to happen this year.

17. What tops your tree? Aaah, I'm not sure. I'll have to get out the ornament box to see if we have something.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? I love giving gifts! And I love the surprise of receiving gifts.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Linus and Lucy (Guaraldi) and Sleigh Ride (performed by the Boston Pops).

20. Candy -Canes! Yuck or Yum? I don't generally eat them by themselves, but I bake with them!