Tag: holidays (Page 17 of 19)

Boy, this week is flying by, which is strange because I have almost nothing going on. A comprehensive house-cleaning regimen was formulated a week or so back, but I’ve only done a few things on it. Why get the house all sparkling when you’ve got kids who will just mess it up again before the guests arrive? Expect mad cleaning to occur Friday night, Saturday morning. Cookie baking, too. I’ve been reading a lot, which has been fun. Baring something crazy, I should get to, if not slightly beyond, 20 books for the year. My status as an elite reader should remain intact.

Below, a couple stories about the girls. Because they are tiny tots and their eyes are definitely aglow.

Last Thursday, I took the girls for an afternoon walk. I couldn’t write down everything M. said, but here’s a rough approximation of what words tumbled out of her mouth while she tagged along behind C. and I.

M.: Oooo, a stick! Hey, where all da doggies go? Daddy! A pine-cone! Another stick! It windy! Daddy, it windy?
Daddy: Yeah, it’s windy, come on.
M: Want more sticks, daddy? Here another. Ohhh, a school bus. Hi school bus! It close, daddy.
D: Yes, it’s close, come on, move it.
M: Where M. house? Where it go, daddy? Dat not M.’s house.
D: No, it’s not M.’s house. We’re taking a walk, it’s around the corner. Come on.
M: Hey Daddy! It slippery! (This is what she says anytime we come to a section of sidewalk that is angled towards the street. She stops and acts like it’s icy. I’m not sure where this came from.)
D: It’s not slippery, it’s ok. Come on.
M: Daddy, where Christmas go? (She asked this when we came to a house that has a bunch of Christmas lights, which were turned off, of course, during the day.)
D: They’re still there, they’re just not on right now. Keep walking.
M: Christmas go bye-bye?
D: Sure, Christmas went bye-bye. Come on.
M: Bye-bye Christmas! Oh, there’s a doggie. Hi doggie! Woof, woof!

You get the idea. Oh, and everything above happened in about a 20 foot section of our walk. And was pretty much repeated over the entire half hour we were walking. Meanwhile, C. just sat in her stroller and played with her toes.

This whole repetition of words thing is making S. and I crazy. I swear she said “pizza” 60 times a minute for a half hour this morning when she was playing with a puzzle that she thought looked like pizza. We’re really looking forward to having relatives in the house this weekend so they can listen to her and we can go sit in an unoccupied room and just enjoy the silence.

Speaking of C., she’s reached the great stage where everything mommy and daddy do is great. Anytime she catches our eyes, she smiles and laughs and tries to initiate contact. Thursday night, after M. had gone to bed, C. wasn’t quite ready, so I put her on the floor next to me with some toys while I watched The Office. She knocked her toys around for awhile, making herself laugh silly, then would intentionally roll into me, grab my shirt, stuff it into her mouth, and start laughing. I took this as a signal that she wanted to be tickled, which sent her into even more fits of laughter. Friday, she had a stretch where she laughed at almost everything for about six hours straight. She’s a funny kid. She’s getting up on her knees and rocking, doing a few army crawls, and making moves that seem like she’s close to crawling. Boy do they develop fast. Finally, she and M. are turning into terrific playmates. They get each other giggling and can’t stop. Last night, while I was fixing dinner, I heard laughter and looked in to see C. writhing uncontrollably in her exersaucer while M. tickled her toes. Good sounds, good times.

We must be living right. Tonight, at 6:30 PM, we took a walk with the kids to see the Christmas lights in our neighborhood. We all had jackets on, with the girls also wearing hats. Ten minutes into the walk, I felt like I needed to ditch the jacket. The sky looked like snow all day long, the only problem was the thermometer was pushing 70. There wasn’t even a chill in the air tonight; it felt like a nice April evening. I’m a big fan of the white Christmas, but you can beat spring-like weather for the holidays.

We had a sitter Saturday night, so we ended up having a big night on the town. We had plans to meet some friends for drinks at 9:30, so before dinner, we hit the mall and Target and knocked out most of the last few Christmas purchases we needed to make. Some nice Indian food to follow up our shopping, and then we hit the bar at 9:00. We grabbed a table, ordered our drinks, and sat back to watch the Dallas-Atlanta game until our friends arrived. Right at 9:30, the DJ cranked the music up. They had been playing random stuff at a reasonable volume since we arrived. Suddenly, S. and I couldn’t even hear each other talk, and we were seated right next to each other. We ended up with a group of about ten and conversations were truly brutal. We got at least four incorrect orders from our waitress because she couldn’t hear us. We all agreed that we’re old, and don’t have the ability to carry on conversations in a loud bar that we all used to have, but this was ridiculous. I was talking to my sister-in-law, and she asked if I had a cold. I said, “No, I just don’t go to bars anymore.” After ten minutes, I sounded like I used to sound around 3:00 AM after a night of drinking and yelling at people over the bar music. But we had fun, which is the only important thing.

Some other stuff:
I know he had a crappy day Sunday, but Vince Young is an outright phenomenon. I saw him a lot in college, and saw him do all kinds of crazy things when he was at Texas, so I figured eventually he’d turn into a solid NFL player. But what he’s done over the last two months just isn’t fair. How good is he going to be once he figures out the pro game and they put some more tools around him? He’s going to be everything Michael Vick was supposed to be, because he seems humble, willing to learn, and just a better person all around. I know the Texans passed on Vince and Reggie Bush because they argued you have to play defense to beat the Colts, but Vince is 1-1 and nearly went 2-0 against the Colts this year. For all their efforts, it seems as though the Texans have fallen behind the Titans in the battle to challenge for the AFC South title in recent years.

C. was baptized Sunday. It was a fine event, although a bit unusual. C.’s godparents were also baptizing their five-month-old son in the same service, so we had six people standing up together. Unlike M., who was lucky enough to get baptized in a regular mass, this time the kids had a separate ceremony with only family present. So that was good, but I think the priest rambled on a little since he wasn’t trying to squeeze the ceremony into a normal mass. He did quote Mick Jagger, though, which was cool. I’m not sure if he knew one of the parents (me) was a heathen and was trying to bridge our the gap between our beliefs, or he’s just cooler than I thought. I’ll leave it at that, because I don’t want to get my girls in trouble with the nuns before they even start Catholic school.

Less than a week until Christmas. We’ve been slowly stoking M.’s Christmas fires. She loves our tree, is really into our manger scene (she tells Baby Jesus to go to his room a lot. He must be a bad little savior), and likes looking at lights when we drive around. I’ve knocked two of my four Christmas movies out, and have a couple more on the DVR to review this week. Now, if we could just get a little snow. Thanks to that request, we’ll probably get a foot on the 23rd, when most of our out-of-town family will be flying or driving in. They can thank me later.

The 2006 tree went up last night. Looks pretty damn good if I say so myself. Pretty much like the last three trees we’ve had. Oh well, a sure sign the holidays are upon us.

We’ve been working with M. so that she understands what Christmas is really about. She surprised S. the other day with this conversation.

“Christmas is the baby Jesus’ birthday, M..”
“Oh! We get cupcakes and party hats and we sing?!?!”

In many ways, I think the girl has her priorities perfectly placed.

Wrapped up the school year without too much stress. My test Tuesday took about 15 minutes. Actually got to bed at midnight Tuesday, rather than the 3:00 AM of the previous night. Think everything went well, and I’m just awaiting word from my advisor to figure out what two classes to take in the spring to be done with the program.

Now, a month to chill with the family, clean the house, read some books, and watch some Christmas movies. Someone needs to have a party so I can really get into the spirit of the season.

Pics uploading to Flicker as I type this up. M. was a pink octopus. She LOVED her costume. C. wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as M., but she was a fluffy chicken. M. went to six houses and got a pretty decent bag of candy. We immediately dumped almost all of it into our bowl for passing out to kids. She got to keep a lollipop and all the M&M’s she got. She struggled with the concept of trick or treat. She marched up to doors, opened her bag, but then started commenting on any pumpkins that might be in view, or any decorations she saw in the house that she admired. Some friends who have twins have a pic of the twins near the front door. Instead of “trick or treat,” M. pointed and said, “Two kids!” Of course, as soon as we left a house, she started saying “trick or treat” over and over while we walked to the next house.

Not sure if this will upload correctly, or play, but I wanted to share because it makes me laugh. My sister-in-law was taking pics for us, and accidentally switched our camera to the video mode for a second. Since she thought she was shooting pics, it’s turned 45 degrees from horizontal, but I think it captures what a two-year-old thinks about Halloween. In case it doesn’t play, M. says, “Oooh! I got treats!” as she examines what she brought home.

Edit: Typepad sucks. It won’t upload the file. Another argument against paying for a blogging service. Here’s a different method. Hope it works.

We put our tree up Saturday, a very good looking Fraser Fur. The best part was M’s reaction. She had been staring out the window at the lit tree in our neighbors’ yard for a week saying, “Tree! Tree!” so I knew she’d be excited about a tree of her own. Before we put the lights on, we laid them on the floor, plugged them in, and checked for burnt out bulbs. She shrieked and ran up and down the line, clapping for them. After I had checked the entire length, I pulled the plug so we could start winding them around the tree. She got a confused look on her face and started frantically touching her finger tips together, the sign for more. We put three strands of lights on the tree, and each time she asked for more lights. Very cute. We tried to put any breakable ornaments too high for her to reach. She has gone after the low-hanging ones several times already, but since it’s been so cold (13 as I type this) we spent most of our waking hours this weekend in the basement. I’m sure we’ll really have to watch her once the presents start appearing underneath.

It was a strange day for us, so I didn’t have time to get a pre-Thanksgiving message out for most to see. Our power went off for two hours this morning, so M. and I sat around watching the snow fall until S. got home, then we headed out to get breakfast. When we got home, the cold I’ve been fighting grabbed hold of me and I took a nice three hour nap. If I’ve not mentioned it before, our couch in the basement is the best napping couch ever. You can not be tired at all and all of a sudden you’re opening your eyes after a 90 minute slumber. While I was still trying to shake the cobwebs and determine if my cold was getting better or worse, I got a call about a family emergency that threw a wrench in the day. I won’t go into details here, but all is well for the time being but we’re very concerned about someone very close to us and are working to help them through a difficult time. Tonight, well this afternoon, we had our own mini-Thanksgiving dinner. We cooked a ten pound turkey breast, made some excellent “smashed” potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, and rolls. We didn’t stuff ourselves, had more of a normal sized dinner, and then packed away the rest (I think we cooked for about 20 people for some reason) for leftovers for the coming week. Tomorrow we head over to my in-law’s for proper Thanksgiving dinner.
By now most of my loyal readers have signed off until Monday, but I’ll still be thinking good thoughts for you all so your travels over the next few days are safe, your gatherings are filled with love and joy, and your bellies are full. I’m thankful for each one of you being a part of my life. Enjoy the holiday!

Oh yeah, beat those ‘Clones, Jayhawks! Get a cheesy bowl game for us to be mildly proud of.

We hosted our first big Easter dinner today. Nine people were seated around our tables for an early afternoon meal. We dropped the obligatory honey ham on them, two quiches, pasta salad, deviled eggs, two fruit plates, and a lemon cake for dessert. For some strange reason, I decided I needed a nap at around 3:45. Next thing I knew, it was 6:00. So there’s little chance of me getting sleep anytime in the near future tonight.

As an added bonus, we’ve taken on a four-month-old for the night. We’re babysitting for some friends who are out of town just for the night. Unfortunately, the poor guy isn’t nearly as healthy nor as happy as M. is. It could be a long night.

I have to say, once again, my daughter is completely hilarious. Consensus at dinner today was that she’s going to be a politician or some other person who does a lot of public speaking. Her new favorite thing is to sit and “talk”, loudly, and for a long time. While “talking”, she will wave her right arm like she’s trying to make a point forcefully. She’ll hold her left hand palm up, as if she’s pleading for her audience’s support. She’s convinced me to vote for whatever she’s pushing.

Finally, I was feeding her tonight just before her bedtime. At the same time, I was trying to watch the very end of the Michigan State – Kentucky game (the only 10 minutes of basketball I watched all weekend). I noticed she suddenly got very quiet; there was no more slurping of that tasty Similac. I look down, and she’s staring at me with a big grin on her face, and formula dripping down each cheek. As soon as my eyes met hers, she completely loses it. For the next five minutes, anytime I looked at her, she giggled hysterically. It is moments like this I wish she could express herself. I would love to know what makes her so giggly.