"It Smells Like Santa Has Been Here" aka Christmas #3

That was the quote of the day from Anna.

Anna woke up saying "Will. Some. Bod. eee. Come. Wake. Me. Up!" from her room. I got up there and she went to the bathroom while I went in to change Carter's diaper. She came into his room...

whispering...
"Mommy! Santa came and he brought me what I always wanted!"

What's that?

still whipsering...
"A rocking chair! And it's full of stuffed animals!"





Before we opened gifts Carter insisted on eating a breakfast bar.




Santa brought Anna a rocking chair, a singing barbie and a giraffe.

Santa brought Carter a walking dinosaur and a tool work bench.



Opening Stockings...


Make way for the dinosaur


Kevin had no idea I got him the Wii.




Merry Christmas to all and and to all a good night.

Christmas Eve aka Christmas #2

Christmas #2 was at my parents house on Xmas eve.

My brother Zach and his wife Kristen


Take note, this is how it looked when we started.



First present opened.


Carter's into it.


C'mon papa, can't you get it out yet!?


They are really fast.


And our work here is done.


Uncle Ben got the kids those cool cardboard blocks. Kevin and I loved these as kids. Carter seems to like them too...

This is what happens when you have a big sister

Project from last weekend

Here's the project my mom helped me with last weekend - hanging all of these photos up and down our stairs at the house.

Going down towards the basement.




Going upstairs.


At the landing.


Opposite.


Up the stairs.

You Are Going to Have a Baby

I know this is several videos but I think it's totally worth it.

Anna's Christmas play at daycare.



You're Going To Have A Baby...


Glory to God and Silent Night


Away In a Manger


The Wise Men


The Doves


Mary and Joseph asking for a donkey

Do you have a lot of birthdays in December?

Wow has it really been that long since I wrote something? Where have I been all this time?

Thursday my mom and I took Anna to see Seussical. Her first play. It was very entertaining. Cute show with cute lyrics and lots of music.

Friday I went to dinner with Lisa who was in town for www.kcsweaterparty.com. I didn't go to the party because I was exhausted and feeling really behind on all the Christmas hoopla.

Saturday while Kevin was hunting my mom came over and we hung all those pictures I framed. I had attempted to do this by myself and realized it was not a good idea. Kevin might have divorced me if we tried to do that together. Would you believe on Sunday my calves were sore from going up and down the stairs so many times? That's really sad. Really out of shape. I told Kevin maybe he should get me a treadmill for Christmas.

I also got the tree up on Saturday. Finally. We hung the non-breakable ornaments, started with the breakables and Anna broke the first one. I decided to hold off on those until they are asleep and I'll hang them up high.

Sunday morning Tassie somehow managed to get all the way behind the tree and then realized she might not be able to get back out. It was early and Kevin was still sleeping and I seriously had visions of the whole thing flipping over. Somehow, miraculously she squirmed her way out.

I then went shopping with Candi in an attempt to buy some presents before the weather freaked out. It started out as 61 and ended up at 16 in the afternoon. It is now frigidly cold. Have I mentioned how much I hate the cold? Is it May yet?

All this time Anna has been praciticing her songs for the Christmas play. She knows more words than I do, and songs I've never even heard of. It's all about baby Jesus. They are having a Christmas party on Friday at daycare. There is a list of treats you can sign up for. I signed up for pink lemonade. One of her teachers then proceeded to tell me she's baking two birthday cakes. To which I actually said, Oh, do you have a lot of December birthdays? And she said "It's Jesus' birthday". Right. She must thing I'm a moron. Or an atheist. If I got to pick I'd hope she just thinks I'm an atheist.

Today I finally ordered my Christmas cards. Right on top of things.

Grandma Central

This morning Kevin's mom left (thanks for watching the kiddos while we went to the wedding!) and tonight my parents came over after being out of town for nearly 3 weeks. They brought us dinner which gave me the night off (thanks!)

Kevin and I finally figured out what days we are doing holidays where. And we decided we should start buying some gifts since Christmas is just 2 1/2 weeks away.

I am so not prepared this year for some reason. So he knocked a gift off a list and I finished a gift for the grandparents and great grandparents. 2 down. Probably 10 to go, I haven't counted.

Not to metion that it is apparently EMAIL CRAZY week at work. I'm trying to get another person hired so I can go back to working normal hours. I have 3 interviews scheduled tomorrow. Good for getting someone else, bad for me planning to get much done.

I Am Officially Potty Training Again

Carter is starting to show real interest in potty training. So much so that I bought pull ups on Thursday. But training a boy is so different. He pees all over his hand. Which i'm only allowing because it's better than peeing all over me.

But so far he has gone EVERY TIME I have put him on the potty and when I remember to ask he has had a dry diaper.

Right now we are just rewarding with stickers and LOTS and LOTS of excitement from everyone and anyone who is around when it happens.

I hope this goes better than when I trained Anna. So far that was my least favorite "phase" (which lasted a year and a half).

College Reunion

We went to a wedding this weekend for one of Kevin's friends from college. It was a no-kids wedding so it was like a college reunion with no kids. Party On!


We are almost all married with two kids.

It was at Big Cedar Lodge so every room was FULL of dead animals like this.

Happy Bday Baby Boy

Carter turned 2 last Saturday. Happy Birthday my sweet baby Carter.

Today he had is checkup. I thought he would get shots but he didn't, so I gave him a dose of Tylenol for nothing. oh well.

36 inches tall - 90th percentile
29 pounds - 75th percentile
90th percentile for head size

At two you love...

...trains
...Mickey Mouse
...markers
...playing with your sister
...music and dancing, although your version of dancing is jumping
...grandma and papa
...the dogs
...reading books

At two you say...

...2 and 3 word sentences all the time
"dink peas"
"uh oh mommy"
"mo milk mommy"
"good morning anna"

...4 word sentences occasionally like
"I unt juice mommy"

... animals names by picture and say their corresponding noises. You like to tease me at the end of one of the books by joking that a dog says "oink oink"

... All of your body parts

You sing...

...Jingle Bells
...most of the ABCs although it's a little fuzzy after P sometimes

At two we are dealing with...

...your hitting when you can't express via words how you feel
...unexplainable mood swings I can only equate to a 15 year old girl
...taking away the binky

I love it when...

...you put your hand on my back when you're first laying down on the changing table in the morning. As if to say "good morning mommy"

...you cuddle with me on the couch

...you play so well with your sister, like two peas in a pod

...you wake up happy and playing in your crib

...you still let me rock you at night and lay your head on my chest with your blankie

When Anna turned 2 I was just pregnant with Carter. Not planning on doing that again right now. Of course, we weren't planning on doing that then either. ha. no seriously. not now.

It's Beginning To Look More Like Christmas

This morning the very first thing Anna said was

"I dreamed about Rudolph."

Maybe that's what did it, or maybe it was the fact that the sun finally came out, but I got the Christmas spark today.

We listened to Christmas music in the car and I discovered that Carter knows all the words to Jingle Bells. Guess what he must be singing at the daycare Christmas program.

I bought Kevin's present and a few things for the kids. I also got my nails done and a spray tan for this weekend. Kevin's mom comes tomorrow to watch the kids while we go to a wedding a few hours away for a college friend that Kevin went to school with.

This evening we put out the Christmas wreath and reindeer on the front porch, hung the stockings and put up garland. We don't have the tree out or any lights up but it's beginning to look more like Christmas.

Hello December

This evening Anna has been singing Christmas caroles from her program at daycare. They do a Christmas play and she is an angel she tells me.

I've been having a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit this year for some reason. I'm not motivated to buy presents, haven't gotten a single decoration out and haven't made my Christmas list. Even with our first snow on Sunday morning and having a snow ball fight with the kids and sledding down the hill in our mountain of one inch of snow, I haven't gotten excited yet.

But I was slightly inspired by the "pa rum puh pun pun" that Anna kept singing over and over and over and over while I was making dinner tonight. She also knows all the words to silent night and away in a manger. I was very impressed. I don't even know all the words to away in a manger.

Ali is doing a Daily December album. I had considered doing this and maybe I still will later after just documenting in the blog each day (although I missed yesterday but I could write about the first snow or Cyber Monday for my job - we sent about 750,000 emails) but with so many unfinished projects looking me in the face I decided not to start another.

Carter went "pee on potty" twice today and received a cute certificate for doing so.

NOW HERE'S something I'm excited about! Britney announced a tour this morning and tickets were already on sale. Thank god my friend Ramsey had emailed me about this - it was the first email I opened - scrambled to get Ticketmaster open and search for tickets - wait, what are premium tickets - how much are those - what are these packages - Candi, candi, I must call my friend Candi before I buy tickets. Whew - after all was settled I am happy with our Section 107 Row 21 seats. But imagine what we could have gotten if I had just received that email one hour earlier. Or turned on Good Morning America instead of the Today Show. Oh well. Now I just have to wait for April 2nd. Kind of like a Christmas present for myself I guess.