And The Stockings Were Hung By The Chimney With Care

Our house is ready for Christmas.  Is yours?

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from The Mr., The Mrs., Thing 1 & Thing 2.

Happy Easter!

We have a lot of news to share that has occurred over the past couple weeks. Until I am ready to share, here's some pictures of the boys enjoying Easter.

Painting eggs:

The Mr. sprinkling the eggs with glitter:
The finished product:

The boys outside posing for pictures after church this morning:

The baskets the Easter Bunny left for us to find once returning home from church:

Happy Easter!

Weekend in review - Easter style!

*The Mr. arrived home from his business trip very early Friday morning - try 2am! He insisted that he had to go into work on Friday. I thought he was nuts. Any employer that would make me take a flight causing me to arrive home at 2am is crazy if they think I would then show up to work that day!

*I worked half a day on Friday, meeting The Mr. for lunch and then to Build-A-Bear to purchase a gift for Thing 2's birthday. (Thing 1 has two animals from there, which Thing 2 loves to play with). I then went to do my weekly Target shopping. I remembered everything that I needed and didn't have any unnecessary items. I was about ready to check out when the fire alarm went off. I was very upset! I had items in my cart for both boys birthdays as well as all the items we were running low on. I was told by the Target employees to exit the store. Once in the parking lot, I waited around for about 10-15 minutes until I realized they probably weren't going to let us back in anytime soon.

*On Saturday, we took the boys to an Easter egg hunt at our church and also to have their picture taken with the Easter bunny. Thing 1 really enjoyed himself. He made lots of crafts and found many eggs. So we ended up with tons of candy that we don't need and I will probably end up eating!

*We then took yet another trip to Target. This time the whole family went. I forgot some of the items that I needed and even purchased some frivolous items. One point for Target, I guess, and zero points for me!

*Saturday afternoon, Thing 2 took his first unassisted steps around the house! We were very excited! He knew that he was doing something great, too. He had the biggest smile on his face while taking those couple steps!

*Sunday we took the boys to the first mass at church, in order to beat the crowd. The one thing I remember praying for when we walked in was to have quiet, calm children during church. That prayer was not answered. They were horrendous! Thing 1 kept talking really loud throughout the service and talking to the people behind us. He was also dropping all of his cereal on the floor, which I kept bending over to pick up. Thing 2 was very squirmy. He wouldn't sit still and would holler each time it was quiet! I was glad when it was over!

*The boys discovered that the Easter bunny had arrived at our house while we were in church. Thing 1 was excited to find his basket full of goodies. Thing 2 really enjoyed playing with the ball he got.


*Yes, I do know how scary the Easter bunny looks in the picture. He must take horrible pictures, because he didn't look that scary in person!

It's A Jolly Holiday

We had a good time together. We didn’t travel anywhere this year, which is unusual for us. Pretty much every year, in the almost 10 years since we have been married, we have traveled somewhere for holidays. Since Thing 1 was born, we tried to switch off, Thanksgiving with the in-laws, Christmas with my family and then the next year we would switch it around. This year, with Thing 2 being born, and having to travel to Illinois twice – once for a friend’s wedding and once for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary – there was no money to be had for traveling for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I didn’t mind it much but it bothered The Mr. I am used to staying home for holidays. When I was growing up, we always stayed home and if people wanted to come visit us, that was great but we weren’t going to travel anywhere. The Mr., on the other hand, is used to being around tons of family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I actually enjoyed being able to relax at home instead of spending time in a crowded airport, running from one gate to another, hoping to arrive at my destination on time.

Anyway, the boys seemed to enjoy themselves and even though we didn’t have tons of people around, it was still chaotic when it came to present opening time. Thing 2 had a great first Christmas. He particularly enjoyed the wrapping paper. Thing 1 got the one gift he was begging for all season, an umbrella, as well as many other gifts that were pretty much surrounding superheroes (Spiderman and The Hulk to be exact).
I hope everyone had a great holiday and that you get to relax before going back to your normal daily activities. Merry Christmas!!

Sitting with Santa

We took the boys for pizza with Santa at our church today. At first I thought we weren't even going to leave the house as Thing 1 was having some difficulties. He was very whiny and wasn't listening, even when we told him to put his coat on. We did decide to continue with our plan to have pizza with Santa, which I think in the end was a good decision. They had lots of craft projects for the kids to do while waiting for the pizza and Santa to arrive. Thing 1 did 3 craft projects while we were there and actually completed one all on his own. He was polite and cooperative the entire time we were there. The only thing he wasn't too sure about was Santa (which required me to sit in on the picture).

Oh, and Thing 2 was much more interested in the lights on the tree next to him than in the guy in the red suit.

**We also noticed after we sat back down at one of the craft tables, that Thing 2 had a handful of Santa's beard in his hand!

Thanksgiving To Christmas In One Weekend

We had a pretty quiet Thanksgiving. We didn't travel anywhere or see any extended family. We did get to spend a lot of time together, just the 4 of us. It was nice. There is so much hustle and bustle of a regular week, that we don't get to stop and actually spend time together. The Mr. arrived home from his business trip on Wednesday evening on schedule, which was a huge relief for me. I was afraid he would be stuck in Utah and I would be taking care of 2 kids by myself on Thanksgiving! On Thanksgiving morning, The Mr. took care of getting the kids breakfast and allowed me to sleep in (which means I was up around 7:30am. It's amazing how the meaning of sleeping in changes once kids are around to wake you up!). Thing 1 'helped' The Mr. with the turkey.

As the turkey was cooking and The Mr. prepared the sides, we watched various holiday movies together. I think we actually watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving a couple of times.

Thing 2 was able to eat certain Thanksgiving foods for his first Thanksgiving. I think he had more fun playing in the food than actually eating it. We had to give him a bath afterwards as he had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce in his hair.

Our afternoon was pretty relaxing. Both boys took a nap, which was wonderful. The Mr. and I cleaned up the dishes and then just relaxed. The evening was pretty uneventful. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred. It was just really nice to spend some quality time together.

Friday we did go to Target in the morning to do a little shopping but mostly stayed away from the crowded shopping centers.

Saturday was the day we spent putting up our Christmas tree. Thing 1 really enjoyed helping and was very excited to put all the ornaments on the tree. He wanted to put all of the ornaments on the same few branches so we had to keep reminding him to spread them out all over the tree. Thing 2 slept through the decorating but really seemed to enjoy the lights when he woke up.