December 28, 2006

Nifty Gift #1 for a 1 year old...

I know...I KNOW...I wasn't planning on BabyT getting this for Christmas...but he LOVES LOVES LOVES his TMX Elmo.  I cannot state enough LOVES it (we already had HokeyPokeyElmo, how can any VT grad not have this?)...and he loves Sesame Street and loves Elmo, so it's a natural hit.
 
BUT also a hit is the plain stuffed Elmo THAT DOES NOTHING.  IT'S JUST A STUFFED ANIMAL.
 
AND the Sesame Street Singing Popup Pals (see ToysRUs, not Amazon)...This is also a HUGE hit.  We got 2, and instead of returning 1, I'm thinking of taking over to my mom's.

December 27, 2006

One of the best presents we received...

we got from hubby's dad and wife...we LOVE it beyond words...



Coming up later, some of the hits with BabyT for all my readers that have little ones just slightly younger than he is.

December 26, 2006

oh, and by the way...

Recently, I find myself looking forward in time a bit, when the kids are a tad older and parenting is supposed to get easier (or at least less so physically draining - chasing a 1 year old is EXHAUSTING)...
 
BUT there is nothing better on this earth than the look of pure happiness in a 4 year old's eyes when he wakes up and realizes that CHRISTMAS IS HERE!
 
Son came RUNNING out of his room yesterday morning and met me on the stairs by his room - "MOM! IT'S CHRISTMAS!". He was so excited.
"Did Santa leave any gifts under your tree?" I asked (Son has a 4ft tree in his room).
 
The look on his face, once again, PRICELESS.  The yelling and exclaiming over the couple of gifts Santa had left in his room is only topped by the look on his face when he walked into the family room to look at the bigger pile of loot Santa left.
 
PRICELESS I tell you, and makes me want to have dozens of children, so that Christmas magic hangs in the air every  year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday and got everything out of the day that you wanted!
 
Hubby and I got the best gift ever - BabyT learned how to put himself back to sleep, so now we get uninteruppted sleep!  BEST GIFT EVER (more on that back story later!).

December 20, 2006

i am such a dork...

I am so happy for Mare, I keep going back to her site, to re-read her posts and get all teary-eyed again!

omg!

please go over and say congrats! and wish Mare luck...her story is AMAZING.  She was an "infertile blogger" long before I found her - and I'm so happy she got a surprise pregnancy - there is no better Christmas gift!
 

December 19, 2006

Santa Claus!

WOW....Last night was interesting!
 
The Santa at our local mall is apparently quite popular...Hubby tried to go last Monday at 1 p.m. and the line was so long it was already closed - then again Sunday night (same deal, too long)...
 
So yesterday, we see his hours are 2-5 p.m., then 6 - 9 p.m.  I tell hubby I'll go get in line at 5 and sit thru his break so we're first (or near first) at 6 p.m. And he'll bring the kids about 6 so they don't have to wait.  I get there at 4:50 p.m. and we are 10th in line for the next shift!  By the time it was 6, the line wrapped all the way around the Santa display TWICE and then back down a wing of the mall.
 
But Son was SO excited he was beside himself and he stood and waited w/me for the 9 people in line before me to have their turn.  I saw that Hubby and BabyT are sitting in some chairs directly across from Santa so hopefully BabyT will be used to seeing him by the time we plop him on Santa's lap.
 
I comment to Son and the other kid Son is talking too...Look, Daddy's in that big chair over there and MOMMY is having to stand here in line!  How unfair is that!
 
The other kid gets all wide-eyed and amazed looking...he looks at Son and says "YOUR DAD IS SANTA?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (because the only chair they'd noticed is the one Santa was sitting it)...It was so funny!
 
Then it was our turn.  I handed BabyT a lollipop and put him on Santa's lap and ducked and ran to get out of the shot.  BabyT was HORRIFIED. So horrified he couldn't even cry.  His poor little eyes totally filled w/water but nothing came out.  He couldn't even cry.  Luckily, the girl took the picture the second I dropped him down on Santa's lap, while he was still happy w/his lollipop and that pic turned out pretty good.  So we got our pic!
 
Oh - and the picture girl!  There was a 4 or 5 month old girl having a FIT so the picture girl puts a reindeer covered in bells RIGHT IN THE BABY'S FACE and shakes it, trying to get her to smile.  I don't know if this tactic worked w/some other kid, but I cannot see how it could ever be successful.  If I'm scared and upset, ringing bells 3 inches from my face isn't going to calm me much.

December 17, 2006

By the way, Microsoft, I hate you...

Stupid ^$#$%#%#^^ Microsoft included IE7 in their nightly patch upgrades.  So now both our damn computers run it.  AND I hate it.  So F-You Microsoft for upgrading me on the sly.
 
The new version sucks so far...They copied some good features from Firefox.  I see nothing original in it, except they took away the File, Edit, Favorites menu.  So I HAVE to spend some time playing with it just to figure out where they stuck my goddamn bookmarks (which, btw, on the laptop are f-ing GONE...nice move Gates)...Ok...the 'star' button = Favorites.  Of course, it's easier to leave pages open (like gmail and bloglines) and refresh them every so often if I could find the freaking refresh icon.  You would think the toolbars on the two machines would be the same, but NO.  This one doesn't have refresh/stop icons, but the computer upstairs does and I can't figure out how to get them back.
 
Any software/hardware person knows you don't upgrade people's software w/out telling them.  As soon as I have time, I'm downloading Firefox and getting the hell away from IE7.

December 14, 2006

Well, hello there!

Whew!
 
BabyT (he'll be ONE on SUNDAY! should I change his name to ToddlerT??) slept thru the night last night - thank god!  Apparently there is a sleep regression at about 1 year that has hit us like a truck. A big truck.  A REALLY big truck.
 
Son is adorable - his school's Christmas program is next week and we are SO EXCITED.  But we got the note that there will be NO PICTURES allowed, which is AWFUL.   All because some parents can't stay in their DAMN seats and get in everyone's view during the show, now NO ONE gets pics during the show.  Thanks alot.  This part sucks and hubby and I are quite infuriated about it.  Any suggestions?
 
21w5d this week!  In the past 2 weeks, my belly has really popped the hell out and I look huge already.  Luckily, it still seems to be all belly, as my size 4 maternity jeans still fit!
 
Christmas shopping is coming along...man, when did I get so many people to buy presents for?

December 11, 2006

Christmas Spirit...

Every year my son's preschool (the school is Lutheran, we are not, but I love the religious stories and themes they are teaching him) does an Angel Tree for underprivileged kids in our area.
 
I instructed Son and Hubby to select 3 angels off the tree last week - 1 for each of our children.
 
Imagine my surprise when I took Son to school on Friday and the tree is STILL covered with Angels.  It seems that a lot of parents AREN'T taking Angels.  This is so sad.  By no means is my son going to an expensive preschool.  My mother lives in the neighborhood where a lot of the student's live - where the smallest house (~900 sq. feet) is going for about $500,000 (minimum).  The rest of the students (most of the rest, I'm sure not all) live in the area in NICER areas than my mom (she lives in the most-run down neighborhood that feeds into this school - all the houses are 50+ years old, etc).  I do not understand why there are still Angels on that tree and it is really bothering me.  There is no shortage of fancy cars in the pickup line to pick up the kiddies (BMW, Mercedes, GMC Denalis, etc.).  The Angels I've glanced at are all asking for simple things (puzzles, blocks, UNDERWEAR, SOCKS) so it's not like the kids have everything and are asking for WIIs/PS3s.  How can there still be Angels?  The presents are due back Friday, so there's not a lot of time left - I had hubby grab 2 more today.  Hopefully other parents will do the same - we are all so blessed, with happy healthy children, warm homes, etc.  It is so sad.
 
I don't know what happens for the children whose Angels don't get chosen.  It is too sad.

December 06, 2006

and we gave it a try!

So last night we did it - we took the kids out to dinner!  We haven't taken them out since BabyT was much littler and happy to just sit in his carseat.  Now that he's mobile (did I tell you he's WALKING?!  I think I may have forgotten that tidbit!) we weren't sure how it'd go, being stuck at the table for at least 45 minutes.
 
Well....it went GREAT!  We sat down and there was so much going on BabyT was fascinated and happy to just stand on the booth seat and look around while we fed him fruit cup while waiting for the waiter to bring dinner.  Then we put him in the highchair so we could eat and took turns feeding him bits off our plates (cheesesticks, quesadillas and a burger!)...  He handled it like a champ!
 
And of course, the older Son was a darling like he always is inside of a restaurant, so no problems there.  He even ate the apple that I brought for him!
 
So now we can go out to eat once in a while!  YAY!

December 04, 2006

Busy busy busy!

We are SO BUSY we don't even have time to stop and think.  When we only had 1 child, we THOUGHT we were busy - we had no idea we could be so busy (it's like trying to tell people who have no children how much work they are, you just can't do it - expressing how an extra child takes more than double the time doesn't work either)...
 
This weekend we had so much to do!
 
We had to dress/shower for my company's holiday party Saturday night.
Feed children breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks both days.
Do dishes and clean up after all of the previous item.
Put up outdoor lights.
Go to Target for massive spree ($500!!!!) (includes 2 new fabulous stoop trees that then had to be assembled and put up).
Acquire and put up 4 foot tree in Son's room.
Decorate said tree.
Put up Christmas town on our large buffet.  Realize need to return to Michael's Craft store for fake fluffy snow.
Finalize plans for BabyT's one year birthday party next weekend (invitations?! No - I just called everyone on the list)
Try and Christmas shop online -be totally unsuccessful.
Shower both boys at least once.
Spend an hour retrieving husband's car from dealer.
Attend my company's holiday party.
Clean up so father-in-law is not appalled at the state of my house when he arrives to babysit.
Try to rearrange things this weekend for next weekends party.  Husband feels using the dining room as extra storage space will not look nice for the party, go figure.
Make sure BabyT doesn't pick up/eat/choke on anything crazy (this is a full time job)
Watch and play w/both boys a lot.
 
Exhausting!!  What the HELL are we going to do when we have THREE CHILDREN?