Christmas

This is a long one because I simply cannot narrow it down. Sorry.

We headed south for Christmas for the second year in a row. I've always gone to PA for Christmas - always, but we've made it to PA and other family gatherings. Both of my parents decided to stay south this year, so that made the decision easy for us. My brother and step-siblings are there as well.

The first official Christmas celebration was with my dad and step-mom (Pop and Abi) and the whole Brady Bunch.

Little Man loved the airplane ornament on the tree. So much so that he was later convinced that my mom's Flounder ornament (the fish from Little Mermaid) was an airplane.Cousin Bird taught him how to be a duck.Did you know that sock monkeys have red hineys that match their mouths? Why is that?
Cousin Pickles (3 months younger than LM) should've kept a closer eye on his new cars.My dad's nextdoor neighbor has koi, those fancy japanese fish that look like giant goldfish. Many years ago the man of the house won one in a raffle, as I recall. The Mrs. was not pleased. I remember feeding the initial one or two koi in a baby pool on their back deck. Now the whole yard revolves around these now huge fish. We made a couple of trips over there to check them out.I used to babysit for this little girl. Now she's neighborhood babysitter extraordinaire.On Christmas Eve we exchanged gifts with my brother's family. Little Man shows Cousin E. his new schoolbus.LM tried on my grandfather's hat, but of course by the time I grabbed the camera he was tired of it. Christmas morning was spent at my mom's house. He checks out the gifts from his new rocker.For some reason he carried this gift off to open in private. See the empty manger scene in the background? We had to move its inhabitants to higher ground to protect them from the wrath of Little Man.
"I love scotch. Scotchy scotch scotch. See it go down, down into my belly."Play kitchen food! I love Melissa & Doug products.
Late morning we went to my brother's for a Christmas brunch pot-luck. Darn Cousin E and his constant red-eye in pictures. He's not evil, he's really quite cute.

They have some learning to do about toddler-proofing. Next Christmas, I predict there will be no bowl of glass balls in the middle of the room. Bye bye, Christmas balls.
And hey, Daisy went with us! She is unaware of dog protocol and refuses to sleep on the floor.

How Many Licks?

We STILL don't know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop.
We do know that it's very sad once that Tootsie Roll Pop is gone.

Christmas

I'll take me a while to sort through the pictures, and maybe months to unpack the gifts. So for now, just an image or two from our Christmas to get you started!

The reason for the season: greed. Just KIDDING. But it does start young.
It's the year of the Choo Choo!
And hey, it's us!

Santa

This morning we went to Brunch with Santa. Daddio is sick so Little Man and I were a twosome. Cute shirt, yes?
The man has arrived. We had a good view of the other kids having their time with Santa. We only saw one of the classic, screaming with Santa pictures, with a girl a little bit younger than LM.
Then our time came. I didn't get the screaming picture I was secretly hoping for, but I also didn't get a happy, awe-filled picture. We're not doing the whole Santa myth thing (sorry) so he hadn't heard that Santa was going to come and bring him presents. He knows who he is, though.

Let's zoom in and see how Little Man feels about this whole Santa thing.

Huh?

He's pretty pleased with the gift Santa gave him, though. It was fun to watch the kids run back to thanks Santa after they'd opened their gifts.

Not as pleased as he is with pancakes and whipped cream.
If you look at his right hand, you'll see that he insisted on taking those two carrots with us when we left.

Hope

Generally, Little Man loves Daisy but Daisy wants nothing to do with him. When he comes her way, she leaves. The other day she even growled at him when T. was petting her and he got too close. I've considered getting rid of her, but somehow I don't think "Bad dog, doesn't like kids or other dogs" is an appealing sales pitch.

While I was fixing dinner tonight Little Man was snacking on Cheerios and watching TV. I checked into the room and found this little relationship. Of course she's just using him for food, but it warmed my heart a little bit.



One for me, One for you. One for me, One for you.

Deception

Our Thanksgiving dinner guests brought us a bottle of wine and these Ferrero Rocher chocolates. I'm a longtime fan of the traditional hazelnut Ferrero Rocher, in the gold wrapper. Neither of us had tried the coconut (silver) or dark chocolate (brown) candies.


Please note that there's one of each left.

When we tried them, I tried a coconut first (tastes like coconut, yum) and T. tried the dark chocolate. I asked how it was, and he said, "Umm, I don't think it's dark chocolate. It's okay."

A few days later I was going to have a candy, and I said, "So the dark chocolate ones aren't worth it?" T. said, "No, too sweet." I don't believe in eating crappy candy, so I stuck with the tried-and-true hazelnut.

Last night, unprompted, he said, "I have a confession to make. The dark chocolate ones are the best. I ate 4 of them. I told you they weren't good so I could have them all. But now I feel guilty. So I saved you one." What?! Sue, did you teach him this deception? Noni, is this your influence?

Edited to add: T. just told me that he didn't have an attack of conscience at all. Actually, he was just proud of his cleverness and had to share it with someone.

He's right. They are the best.

T., you owe me. I will accept your penance in Williams Sonoma Peppermint Bark.

Recession Turkey

Yesterday I was at Kroger and I saw a big pink sign advertising their pre-cooked turkeys for $8. Down from $30 or more each. They also had sides like stuffing, sweet potatoes, au gratin potatos for $1.99. So I bought the biggest turkey they had and sweet potato souffle.

It's important not to think too much while getting every little bit of meat off a turkey carcass. You might go vegetarian.

Then, last night I was reading myself to sleep with the latest Williams Sonoma catalog and I noticed that they have turkey in their catalogue, too. A $150 turkey. I'm sure it's delicious. But could it be that much more delicious?

this is what a $150 turkey looks like

There's a recession on, people.


I read on, thinking what I'd really like is something different: ham. The hams at Kroger weren't on sale.

Neither are the hams at Williams Sonoma.
Mmm, Ham. $140 of ham. But my favorite part of the ham listing is, "For Hanukkah delivery, please order by 5pm (PST) Friday, December 12."

Man cannot live on meat alone. You need some sides with your meal. Add just cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and you're adding another $77. But for the bargain price of $199 you can have all the sides!

I'm not going to get into the desserts.

Except for you, peppermint bark. I'll see you at the after-Christmas sale.

Christmas Tree Farm

The Christmas Tree Farm near us was supposed to close its doors last year, but I guess you can't prevent the trees from growing, so they were open one day only this year. We headed out there this morning to pick a tree.

A few aspects of this trip were poorly planned:
a. I forgot Little Man's mittens.
b. Little Man needed a nap.

All was well as long as the tractor was in sight.
Bye bye, tractor! Yay tractor!

Daddy, hang up the phone and be Christmasy.


But then reality set in and the little hands started getting cold. I hate Christmas tree shopping!

We made a rather rash decision on a tree and jumped back onto the wagon.
And a photo to add to the collection of, not our Christmas card.

Pancake Day

Little Man and I were in the mood for pancakes this morning. He wanted to be "Up, peese" all morning so I decided he could help me.
He did NOT want my help stirring, and took his job very seriously.

The pancakes were delicious. Whole wheat with bananas and chocolate chips. Hooray for weekends.

Picture Day

Oh, school picture day. Remember the volunteer moms who attacked you with the little black comb whether you wanted your hair combed or not? Did they use a new comb on each kid?

In your school, did they put all the kids in the class together and get a picture of them?Or did they know better than to try and instead just compile everyone's pictures into a collage?
Well picture day has come to the toddler room (sorry, kid in the front, I took a picture of a picture and you got the flash).

Let's zoom in on Little Man.Dude, picture day is so lame.

I knew picture day was some day that week. You can pretty much pick out the one kid whose mom remembered picture day (sweater vest). I was not that mom. Camouflage shirt and too-small pants? Perfect.The background is really cute, though, isn't it? I'm sure sweater vest baby's pictures turned out great. My kid clearly realized that he was under dressed and refused to smile. Whatever, lady, my mom's not even going to buy these pictures.

No, Little Man, I'm not. But they're good blog fodder.