Christmas - Phase 1

Christmas Eve morning we decided to give Dylan one of his gifts early.  It wasn't wrapped, and the only reason we decided to give it to him early was because Russell was working on it in front of him.  No, Dylan would have had no idea it was for him....but Russell was excited to give it to him and Dylan had enough gifts to open anyways.  The gift was Russell's old iPod, well...that and a dock to play the music in his room.  Russell had been working all morning on putting a playlist for Dylan on the old iPod (one for fun tunes and one for bedtime music). 

Once Blake was old enough we moved Dylan's CD player in his room to play classical music at night to sleep to.  We didn't think Dylan would really mind...in fact we didn't think he even cared about the music. Much to our surprise, Dylan started asking almost every night for it to be moved back into his room!  So we decided to get him a new player for his room so he could listen to his music at night.

After Russell finished the iPod he hooked up Dylan's headphones to it and had him put the iPod in his pocket.  Dylan thought he was the coolest! He tucked that iPod in his back pocket and strutted around the house with his headphones on.  He kept yelling at us "Hey guys! Dance!" We had no idea which song was on...yet we obliged. ;)  Then once we hooked it up to the iPod player in his room it was a full on dance party in his room.  

(He was pulling out moves we've never seen!)

Then we headed over to Russell's family's house for Christmas eve.  Dylan was counting down the minutes until he was able to open presents.

(Enjoying opening presents)

(Blake wasn't as thrilled...he just wanted his bottle...but he's super cute in his Christmas PJ's!)

(Dylan loving his Christmas PJ's..Spiderman)

 

(Really getting into the Spiderman PJ's!)

 

(Opening presents Christmas morning)

 (Opening up Bucky)

(And my favorite of all the Christmas pictures...)

Merry Christmas!  Phase 2 starts tomorrow night!

Our Visit with Santa

We took a trip to see Santa this weekend, and boy was it a trip!  We have always made the trip to Dallas to see a certain Santa at NorthPark Mall.  Its an amazing mall with an amazing Santa.  This guy is great...and he's so great with kids.  The problem is...everyone in Dallas & surrounding areas knows this.   Therefore, the line to see this Santa is insane!  You must get a ticket before you can ever even get in line to see Santa.  And the tickets are given out before the mall is even open!

 Every year I make the trip at the crack of dawn to the mall to get a ticket to see Santa and then go back home once the kids are awake, take them back to the mall, and then again, wait our turn in line to see Santa.  Its quite a process.  This year we'd planned the same, but after a very long night the night before, I was almost ready to call it quits Sunday morning and say "Let's just go to the local mall."  Don't get me wrong, the local mall is great. Its a huge mall and therefore, the Santa there is great.  It just that our tradition is at NorthPark.  All of Dylan's pictures so far have been there and they not only have a great Santa, they have the best setup and then there's the allure of the Trains at NorthPark (an elaborate, yet amazing, toy train exhibit) and the periodic plays of Scrooge & Friends puppets throughout the mall.  So when the thought crept in my mind of giving up and going to the local mall, I thought of all the other that we usually see and experience at NorthPark and just couldn't give in. 

So we made the trek to NorthPark, dropped the kids off at Russell's parents so that we could go and stand in line for our ticket.  You must arrive about an hour or more ahead of time to get a ticket and its not a line for kids...in fact there were no kids in line with parents.   Its boring, long, and early....a terrible mix for a kid of any age.  Russell and I stood in line for over an hour and received our ticket.  We made our way back to the mall at our designated time (about 5 hours later) and only had to wait about 15 minutes in line with the kids...much more manageable!! 

The outcome was well worth everything!  Dylan had been practicing his speech to Santa for a couple of days...."I want a McQueen race car remote!"  The look on Santa's face was priceless...a what?   In Dylan terms he's asking for a remote control Lightning McQueen.

We were so proud of Dylan.  Two years ago he absolutely freaked out crying when he saw him...last year was better...but not great.  He didn't scream & cry, but he just froze.  To this year having him go up so confidently and tell him exactly what he wanted...he was a champ!...and he knew it!

Telling Santa about the "McQueen race car remote"

We were really unsure of how the Blake would react to Santa. 

But after sitting there with big brother Dylan, he didn't freak out.  He was hilarious...the entire time leading up to it, he'd been pointing out every single thing he'd seen in the mall and saying "DAH!"....it didn't stop at Santa...you can still see the pointed fingers.

*Disclaimer...our professional pictures were much better.  With no Elmo in the picture and no yellow haze.  Apparently, I'm not so great with the new camera yet...and need some work!

We had no idea of what his reaction by himself would be, but his expression was priceless.

Looks like he's about to sock him!

After the pictures, Dylan was on Cloud 9 and Blake seemed unfazed.  We took the boys to the Trains at NorthPark and both loved it.  After all the time and effort for a very tired mommy & daddy, the whole trip was definitely worth every bit of it!

Tonight marks the end of an era...the Buddy era for the year.  Dylan was actually pretty upset to go to bed tonight.  He had been excited all day long since it was Christmas Eve.  He was excited for Santa coming tonight.  However when we got home and he finished putting out cookies & milk for Santa & carrots for the reindeer, he was sad when he went to lay down in bed.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me "I'm so sad that Buddy is leaving." I actually felt really bad for him...in a way, so am I.   Buddy was so much fun this year and I can't wait for next year.  I explained to him that Buddy would be back.  He's just going back with Santa tonight to get ready for next year. 

Here's what Buddy has been up to in the past couple days...

 

Buddy decided that he wanted to play with one of Dylan's favorite toys...Thomas the Train.

Buddy made a huge line of trains and took them for a ride!

The next night Buddy was getting ready for Santa's arrival and was ready to leave the house making a zipline for the door!

Tonight being the last night that Buddy is with us this year, he gave Dylan one of the things he wanted the very most for Christmas....snow!

Buddy made it snow before he left and I'm absolutely positive Dylan will love it when he wakes up Christmas morning! 

Buddy the Elf

Dylan was not feeling well the other night.  He was came into our room crying that his ear hurt.  I was certain that he had yet another ear infection.  He's been fighting a cold for about a week and typically what happens around this time of year is he ends up with an ear infection.  So all signs pointed to that.  He was very upset - he hates having his ears messed with.  After a lot of consoling I was able to put in some ear pain drops and a cotton ball.  He was not a fan of it at all.  The next morning he woke to find that Buddy had too fallen victim of the ear ache...

He too was feeling ill with yucky tissues & cotton in his ear...

After a quick trip to Santa's doctor (so he won't lose his magic at the regular doctor) Buddy was feeling better again and was found the next morning coloring Dylan a picture.

Then Buddy got pretty crazy. He decided to replace all the pictures with pictures of himself.  He even put pictures of himself in random places..

Finally, Dylan had his school Christmas party on Friday.  We were in charge of bringing the "goody bags."  When we brought in the bags this morning his teacher was so excited.  She told me she'd been telling the kids for several days "Be good, or you won't get one of Dylan's mommy's goody bags!"  Apparently, our "goody bags" have become a hit!  I love looking up new ways to bring fun stuff to class and Dylan loves helping me out with them.

Christmas Program & Buddy Update

Last night was Dylan's school Christmas program.  His class was singing Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, We Wish You a Merry Christmas & recited Twas the Night Before Christmas...kind of a lot for a group of four year olds if you ask me!  But Dylan did great!  He had been practicing like crazy.  Well, I say that but up until about a week ago we didn't even know he knew Twas the Night Before Christmas.  I found out from the school administrator that he knew it because she asked if he practiced as much at home as he did at school!  I couldn't believe it, I'd never heard him recite it at all.  She said "Oh my gosh! He does it non-stop here...he knows the whole thing!"  Well then...shows how much I know!  That night I of course asked Dylan to tell me it. He was shy at first but then recited it for both Russell & me.  He did a great job! The inflections in his voice were what got us the most.  He would go up & down in his voice with what was going on in the story.  It was the sweetest thing!

Dylan dressed & ready to walk in.  He was so impressed with his "big man shirt like daddy's".  When he walked into the school he had his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest like "Look at me!!"

Getting ready to sing.

Singing Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer...every time he'd get a glimpse of me or daddy he'd get this cute little smile and try to keep singing.

  He did a great job!!

Well, Buddy the Elf hasn't been up to a whole lot.  Dylan spent the weekend away again so Buddy didn't have a whole lot of tricks up his sleeves while Dylan was away.  Monday Dylan woke up to a very frazzled Buddy hanging onto the oven.

It seems as though Buddy meant to do something super cool, but heard mommy wasn't feeling well all night and ended up doing this in the morning.  It turned out great though, because when Dylan woke up we decided that Buddy must have been starting to make cookies when Dylan woke up.  After school when he got home, Dylan found this...

Good save Buddy!

Today Buddy must have been hungry when he woke up. He was found in Dylan's cereal.

Dylan was actually pretty amused by this one.  He assured me Buddy's "tummy was saying 'grrrgrrrggggg' like that! So he jumped in my cereal and ate it!!"   I love it!! :)

Fit for A Princess

This past weekend was a very busy one.  Russell had been begging me for ideas for gifts for my birthday for weeks.  I'm terrible at coming up with ideas and he (self-admitted) is the worst at picking stuff out.  So I came up with the idea for him to just take me shopping.  I wanted to spend the day shopping, grabbing a nice lunch somewhere while out, do some more shopping maybe grab a drink kind of day.  You know the kind of day you used to be able to do before you had kids.  I told him it wasn't really about how much we bought, I just wanted the experience of the day with him.  He was all in.  He was thrilled that we would both be spending the day together and he wouldn't have to stress out about finding me a present.

We dropped off the kids at his parents house and went on our merry way on Saturday.  We had not been able to get any Christmas shopping done yet so we had planned on shopping for my birthday as well as getting the Christmas shopping done for everyone as well.  That proved to be a much larger task than previously thought.  We spent the first half of the day looking for items for me because Russell insisted that we find my birthday gifts before shopping for everyone else.  I felt so bad for him.  I knew it had to be excruciatingly painful for him.  At first, he'd just follow me around every single store.  As I wandered around he'd be right on my heels....literally...on my heels.  I can't tell you how many times he stepped on the back of them!   He hates shopping.  But he was an absolute champ.  Never did he let on that he was having a bad time.  And any time I thought he might have been done, I'd ask him and he pep up so quickly and say "No, babe. I'm great!" 

(Taking a break from shopping for lunch at Mi Cocina....such a trooper and a great shopping partner he is!)

The day flew by and before we knew it, not much was purchased & we had to hurry back home to get ready for my company's Christmas party that evening.  We hurried home and made the trip out to the party.  We had originally only planned on shopping one day.  However, we just didn't get as much accomplished as we had wanted to.

The next day we decided to do it all over again.  This time we started out much earlier and had a great brunch at Ozona to get us going.  We had a lot more luck finding things to purchase this day!  We found more stuff for my birthday, gifts for the kids and even gifts for him!  We took a break at a nice little brewery in the Shops at Park Lane.  As we made our way back to the car to put in some more bags in the back, I noticed the entire back end of the car was completely filled.  I said "Now that's the sign of a great day!"  We made our way back to pick up the kids and made our way home.

The next day, Monday (my actual birthday), everyone made on their way like any other Monday. Kids to daycare, parents to work, etc.  Russell had planned on making me a great dinner and needed to go to the store to get a few ingredients.  I fed the baby and I was just starting to get him ready for his bath when Russell returned.  The next thing I knew there was a knock on the bathroom door and as I grabbed the baby Russell said Dylan has something for you.  I stepped out of the bathroom and there was Dylan with a bouquet of pink roses, a princess crown & princess wand.  He said "Mommy, you're my favorite princess in the whole world! I love you!" I absolutely melted.  He put my crown on my head and gave me my light up wand.  I had heard Russell asking Dylan several weeks earlier about what he wanted to get me for my birthday and Dylan's response was "ummm...something princess!!"  It was just the sweetest gesture in the whole world to me.  

  (My princess crown, wand & flowers Dylan gave me)

The whole weekend was befitting of a princess and that just topped it off.  This was definitely one of my best birthdays in a long time.  I cannot express how much love I had for my family in my heart that night.  From Russell sacrificing his whole weekend to take me shopping and putting up with my indecisiveness, all while telling me I'm beautiful in everything and making sure I had a good time no matter what; to seeing the joy in Dylan's face being able to make me "his princess"'  and then to snuggle up to my baby rocking him to sleep at night as he gripped me a little closer as if telling me in his own way "Happy Birthday".  It's making me tear up again just thinking about it.

The next morning I woke up with a nasty head cold (of course!).  I woke Dylan up to get ready for school and the first words out of his mouth were "Mommy, where's your princess crown?? You have to be my princess!" I looked terrible and felt miserable from the head cold, but again those words just made me melt. 

I have the best group of boys in the world.

Hug Your Babies Tight

The horrific events of today....I have no words for.   I cannot even begin to imagine the horror that went through those poor babies minds, nor can I even begin to imagine the terrible things that go through the parents' minds.  All I can do tonight is to send as many prayers as possible for the families of those affected in today's tragedy. 

Tonight, like many others across America, I will be holding my babies extra tight when we go to bed.  We decided after the events of the day that we would do something special for the boys.  We took them to the Christmas in Frisco Square.  They both absolutely loved the lights & carriage rides. I love these boys more than anything and will be sending additional prayers of gratitude for our family.

Hold your babies tight. Tell them how much you love them. Praise God every day for the joys you've been given.

Buddy Update

Buddy continues to amaze us....

(Here he is playing CandyLand with Woody & Buzz while enjoying a nice snack of goldfish & juice boxes)

 

(Looks like Buzz just got a good card!)

 (Elf doesn't seem scared...)

(The next night Buddy built himself a castle out of Legos)

(The next night Buddy was a little tired and wasn't up to his normal tricks...so he just hung out on the chandelier)

(Buddy decided to teepee the Christmas tree)

(Seems as though he's having a great time!)

We've Got A Screamer!!!

Don't let this cute little face fool you....

Behind that adorable little smile & beautiful bald head is a full-blown, ear-piercing screamer.  Lots of people say it's a "phase" and that "he'll grow out of it," but all we can say is "STOP!!!"  He has the most high-pitched, squeal-type scream and he has recently discovered how to use it.  He will scream at anything. And everything. Sometimes I think he's doing it just out of amusement.  Can you tell from my tone that everyone in the household is at their wits end with it??

We are not quite sure what to do about it.  We've heard everything from "ignore it and let himself scream himself until he passes out", "try baby sign language" and "baby chiropractors."  Quite frankly, I don't believe any of those are the best option for us.  We tried the whole "let him scream it out until he falls asleep" this weekend.  The little dude stayed in his bed screaming for 2 1/2 hours! How are you supposed to "sanely" put up with that kind of nonsense?!  The baby sign language sounds like a great idea, I'm just not so sure it'd work with Blake. 

But at this point, I'll try just about anything!!



An Update on Buddy

(Buddy must have had too much of that green milk and had to potty overnight)

(The next night Buddy replaced all of our stockings on the mantel with Dylan's underwear and was found hanging in one of the pairs of underwear.)

(One of the major "hits" to Dylan so far this year!  He thought it was hilarious!)

Buddy took a little down time over the weekend.  We all spent the night at "MiMa & Papa's" house on Friday because we traveled down for our niece's birthday party.  Dylan wasn't ready to leave so he ended up staying another night as the rest of us went home.  Upon his arrival back home he found that Buddy hadn't been up to a whole lot as he was found in the vase of ornaments on the kitchen island.

(However, Dylan must have never took notice to the vase before...because he is certain that Buddy took some ornaments off the tree and put them there!)

Lately, Dylan has been really into Spiderman and playing with him non-stop.  Last night apparently Buddy wanted in on the Spiderman action and decided to play with him as well.

(Dylan's "OH! MY! GOSH!" was heard throughout the entire house!)

(Needless to say...this was a major hit!)

Santa himself gave me express permission to give the details of Buddy's whereabouts tonight...

(Seems as though Buddy has taken up the sport of fishing!)