Christmas

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Celebrating Christmas

Note about Chicken:  So if you were to predict Chicken's due date by using a traditional due date calculator with the date of my last period (March 3rd - day of Woodlands Marathon) - Chicken's due date would be TODAY!  However, my cycle is longer than the traditional due date calculator uses (and my current doctor listened to me when I told her this fact).  I was 6 days later than the traditional calculator with Cash.  So, if I was a betting woman - I'd say Chicken will arrive on the 14th or 15th, but I'd be OK if Chicken waited until the 18th.  

OK, back to regular scheduled programing - CHRISTMAS!

Last night we celebrated Christmas with Liz and Jonathan.

When I arrived at Liz's house, there were about 10 beautifully wrapped gifts for me. 

 I was a little worried that Liz went a little far, and I was right.

She got me a gift card to the Lake Austin Spa, a wallet and cosmetic case - and that's the boring stuff.  

She also got me two semi-used La Madeline gift cards, a $5 Starbucks gift card, a frequent diner club card to Fudruckers (that expired in 2009), a California Pizza Kitchen 10% off coupon  (that also expired in 2009), a Manny Hatten's frequent dinner card (they went out of business a couple years ago), some chicken seasoning, a Sees Candy Gift Card (to a "Glinda"),  pepper and onion relish (left over from a gift basket Liz received last Christmas), some hotel bath products (from Liz's recent stay at the Four Seasons), a pony named Harmony with pink hair, and pickle juice (that one was from Jonathan).

Pretty amazing, huh?

I was a little overwhelmed by her generosity (I think she cleaned out her junk drawer and the wallet she used in 2009).  It's OK though because I received Liz's birthday present in the mail today and Buttin says that I win!  We shall see.

Cub and I went to the park this morning to visit some baby mamas.  Here are a few pictures. 

December

So, it's the first of December. In Texas, that means shorts and a t-shirt.

Looks like Chicken will be a December baby (at least, Chicken BETTER come in December).

Today the neighborhood down the street had a Holiday Craft Festival - with a train, petting zoo and Santa.

Cash had a pretty good time with the ducks.

Mormor Is In Town

So we put up the Christmas decorations!

Two Months Till Christmas!

Two months till Christmas and I'm extremely unprepared for Halloween.

Last year, I walked in to a Goodwill and found a costume for Cash within two minutes.  This year I have not been so lucky.  Cash doesn't really understand Halloween, but if I ask him what he wants to be - it varies from a cat to an elephant to a mommy.  I thought a "Fireman" might be cute, but I haven't been able to find a fireman costume anywhere (I have been able to find a "Fire Chief" dress for a little girl).  Yesterday, I walked into (what feels like) the fifth costume store or Goodwill I've been to and just bought something.  I think it's pretty clever, but Buttin wasn't so impressed.

I'll keep it a surprise for now and if Cash dresses up as something else, I'll share my very CREATIVE idea next week. 

This afternoon, Cash and I were outside playing.  He was cracking me up because he would walk up to every inanimate object (a rock, a stick, an acorn, a pile of poo) and yell, "My name is Cash".  

We took a couple self-portraits today (I'm trying to include me in more pictures) and although I'm not really in the picture, I love it.

Three Months Till Christmas!!!

He looks pretty excited about it.

Time really needs to slow down.

Merry Christmas!

Wonderful day.  Exhausting day. 

Playing Catch Up

We've been so preoccupied with moving that I haven't had much time to write about anything non-moving related.

On Saturday while Buttin was unpacking boxes, Cub and I went to check out the neighborhood Holiday Festival.  I was really impressed - they had Santa on a firetruck, a small petting zoo, a little train, bouncy houses and hot chocolate and cookies. 

Cub wasn't very interested in Santa.  He had NO desire to sit in his lap so I had to hold him for the picture (please excuse my hobo-esque appearance). 

 

Cub both loved and hated the baby animal petting zoo.

He liked the pig.

He wanted to take the goat home.

However, the bunnies were very stressful.  His distress signal was strumming his lips with his fingers.  It kind of cracked me up. 

Now, here's a picture from today.  He was playing at the mailboxes.

Presents!

I could spend about twenty blog posts detailing all of Cub's first Christmas gifts, but that might be a little boring.

We are taking the advice of a friend and putting away about 75% of Cub's new toys and bring one out every few weeks. If we do this, Cub is pretty much set for toys until college - provided he's OK playing with a tricycle in junior high.

One of the presents that I was most looking forward to Cub receiving was a little table and chairs set. He eats at a table at school and I was hopeful a little table would bring some consistency to eating at home (although we used to consistently feed Cub outside).

So far, he loves it even though his little feet don't even touch the ground.

Christmas Day

Since April 6th this year, every occasion has been the best one ever. This Christmas was no exception. Cub makes everything wonderful even more wonderfuller.

Holidy Card Photo

I'm not sure what to do for our Happy Holidays card photo this year. Usually, I just do embarrassing things to our pets. I'm sure this year's photo will include Cub in some kind of silly outfit.

We tried taking some photos near our new (non peed on) tree.

Inflatables Invade Our Yard

I love the tacky inflatable holiday yard decorations.

Since most of the ones I used last year got peed on, I bought some new ones today.

I'm starting to feel like an older person because I found myself saying, They sure don't make things like they used to, while I was setting them up. Just look at the Santa in the picture below - can't seem to keep him upright.

We put Graby in the front yard next to the inflatables, but he wasn't very impressed.

Don't believe me? Here's a close-up of his face.

Christmas, Gigi Style

Gigi visited a couple of weeks ago.

She brought a car load of Christmas presents (for Cub only) because if she didn't bring them up, she wouldn't have room for Nana (or my presents, because those are very important too) when they come for Christmas.

On the Saturday she was here, Buttin was installing Cub's new car seats in our vehicles. Cub and I were playing outside on the front yard supervising Buttin's work. Gigi drove up (returning from one of her many Barnes & Noble trips, no doubt) and I told her that since Cub was getting new car seats, we really needed one of those mirrors that played music and stuff so that he could be entertained.

Gigi said, wait a minute. And walked back to her car. She brought back an interestingly (as in, looked like her dog did it) wrapped present. It had no less than 500 little pieces of tape, but was still only partially wrapped. Cub didn't quite know what to do with it, but I helped him open it and whadda know? It was a little mirror with lights and music for his carseat! So this morning, I got an email from Gigi . . .

I loved your blog….Just wanted to say I am so happy that Cash liked THAT PARTICULAR little swing……

Cash had such a good time on the swing yesterday that we were planning to go buy him one this week. Turns out, we already have it wrapped (kind of) in Christmas paper on our guest bedroom floor. Apparently, all we have to do is think about a present for Cash and it magically appears via the magic Gigi Christmas mobile.

Gigi said we could go ahead and open it.

Here's present opening, Cub-style

Open Present

Inspect Present

Taste Present

Decide Present Is Fantastic

Eat Box Present Came In

Perturbed

I love Christmas.

I love Christmas lights -- so much so that I keep them up till February.
I love Christmas cookies -- especially the dough.
I love Christmas Cadbury Eggs -- doesn't Santa bring you Cadbury Eggs?
I love Christmas presents -- especially giving them (really, that's the truth).
I love the glow of our Christmas Tree.

I love sitting in our house with no other lights on except for those from the Christmas tree (well, that and the TV because it's just silly not to have the TV on). The tree is so important to me that a couple years ago I spent a little money on a nice, pre-lit tree. I also purchased a really cool canvas bag (because who can ever get the tree back in the box?) where you can just throw all the tree parts in, zip it up and store it in the garage or attic for next year (or in my case, five months after I put it away). Since we've already had two years with this tree and canvas bag I can testify as to the ease of use - the tree and bag make for super efficient set up and dismantling therefore maximizing tree-time enjoyment.

With all this LOVE of Christmas talk, I'm sure you're wondering why in the world I'm perturbed. I'm perturbed because I've just discovered that Cartman (king of all that is gross) has been using my wonderful, easy-to-use canvas Christmas tree storage bag as his PEE MAT!


A. Pee-free zone.
B. Pee-filled zone.
C. Steam-vac that we used to need when our whole house was Cartman's pee mat.

Ugh! I can't imagine what my poor, beautiful Christmas tree smells like now. Buttin says it's time to buy a new tree, but I think it's time to sell an old puppy (any takers?).

Now, here's a picture of the one animal in our house who I'm not currently perturbed with - Mouser.

I know the picture is a little blurry and Mouser looks a little crazed, but Cub and Mouser are just so cute together.

Even though Cub grabs, pulls and bites Mouser non-stop; Mouser genuinely seems to like little Cub. I had to leave the room to grab my camera (I know - shocker - I don't have it around my neck at all times) and Mouser didn't follow me, he stayed right by Cub.

Three Months Till Christmas

Whoopppee!!

Let the countdown begin.

To get my son back for his non-sleeping night, I put bows (Christmas) in his hair. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Happy Christmas In July

Yup - that's right, only 5 more months till Christmas.

This morning on the Cartoon Network - they're playing Christmas cartoons. I'm quite sure Cash loves them. I'm looking forward to Graby's first Christmas, but I can wait.

I had an OK run this morning. (This next part isn't quite appropriate for a post about Christmas, so consider yourself warned.) However, my body hasn't quite gotten back into the routine of going to bathroom BEFORE the run (no matter how hard I try). As a result, I left a little gift by some new home construction site. Oh well.

Now, here's a cute little picture of Graby and Buttin:

Picture Of The Day

Yes! We had snow yesterday.


And yes, those are still Christmas lights hanging from our trees.

Christmas Games

This year, my mother hosted our family Christmas celebration. (This is my cute mother, opening her favorite gift of deodorant from me).

We had to postpone Christmas by one day, but everything was wonderful. Our day was filled with many old traditions - as well as a couple of new things, that we may or may not do again.

One of the new things were three games that my mom decided that we should play:

1. White Elephant/Naughty Santa - this is the game that lots of people play in their offices. Everyone brings a wrapped gift, numbers are drawn and people open presents or steal presents based upon their number. This game was fun, but everyone was pretty satisfied with the gift they opened, so there wasn't too much stealing. The winner for best white elephant gift giver is my mother-in-law. My mom got stuck with this wonderfully obnoxious frog nutcracker (that my MIL brought). I wish I had a picture of it. I got a pooping reindeer - yeah! (My mother purposefully bought this one for me.)
   
2. Story Telling - for this game, we each told three stories about Christmases past. Two of the stories were supposed to be true and one was false. The rest of us then had to guess which story was false. This was kind of fun, except that my mother (who came up with the game and told us all about it WEEKS in advance) had the lamest stories. Honestly, one of her stories was - "When I was little, I liked to play the game Mouse Trap." She then quickly added, "At Christmas time." Really mom?? You liked to play the game Mouse Trap at Christmas time when you were little - that's a pretty lame-o memory. Poor Mommy. Did I mention that it was her idea to play the game?
3. Mitten Unwrapping - this game was the most fun. There was one gift that was wrapped and wrapped and wrapped (like duck tape, band aids, surgical tape, paper, plastic, aluminium foil, etc.). Everyone would roll dice and the first person to roll doubles would have to put on these HUGE oven mitts and try to unwrap as much of the package as they could. While they were trying to do this, the dice would go around the room and everyone would roll and if a person got doubles, then they would take over trying to open the present with oven mitts. This went on for quite some time. The person to completely unwrap the gift during their turn (meaning, before someone else rolled doubles) got the gift. We didn't even know what was inside, but we all wanted to win it. I think at next year's office party - we're going to play this game and wrap a $100 bill and TELL EVERYONE that a $100 bill is inside. That'll make everyone CRAZY, but in a fun way (hopefully).

Here's a picture of Bubie trying to open the gift, while Buttin rolls the dice.

We all had such a good Christmas. Although, we couldn't help but mention that this time next year things are going to be so different.

I got some very nice gifts from Santa (I was a very good girl) including a new camera (for taking lots of pictures of Lumpy) and some new (slightly bigger sized) running/waddle clothes, a shark for our hardwood floors and a panini grill.

Lumpy even got some presents too. Some new clothes, including a little "What Happens At Grandma's Stays At Grandma's" onesie.

Just a quick side note, I cannot conclude my Christmas post without mentioning my mother-in-law's gift wrapping technique. Here are a couple of pictures, just to demonstrate how nicely (and when I say nicely, I'm being sarcastic) she wraps presents.

All presents get either 1) One piece of tissue paper

or 2) One little bow

Such A Great Christmas!

We had a fantastic Christmas today in Boerne. Will write more later, but now . . .I must take a nap.

Merry Christmas, Fetus Friday - Week 26 and a Change Of Plans

First of all, Merry Christmas!

I've been counting down the months since September or October and I can't believe how quickly time passes. For us, we're making today another Christmas Eve (more on this later), so I'll have even more Christmas spirit tomorrow!

OK, so Baby Center has this to say about Lumpy this week:

The network of nerves in your baby's ears is better developed and more sensitive than before. He may now be able to hear both your voice and your partner's as you chat with each other.

I love the idea of Lumpy being able to hear Buttin and I talk during the day. It's good if Lumpy gets used to our strange behavior now - less for Lumpy to get used to when he/she is older. Lumpy and I have this new game we like to play. I lay down and put the remote on my tummy. I then watch as Lumpy kicks the remote. This makes it very obvious when Lumpy is moving.

Baby Center has this to say about me:

If your lower back seems a little achy lately, you can thank both your growing uterus — which shifts your center of gravity, stretches out and weakens your abdominal muscles, and may be pressing on a nerve — as well as hormonal changes that loosen your joints and ligaments. Plus, the extra weight you're carrying means more work for your muscles and increased stress on your joints, which is why you may feel worse at the end of the day. Walking, standing, or sitting for long periods, as well as bending and lifting can all put a strain on your back.

Seriously? I really should read ahead a couple of weeks and get prepared. This sounds exactly like what's going on in my body (and has been going on for a couple of weeks) - especially the nerve part. I feel better knowing that this back ache is more normal than I thought.

Alright, now for the change in plans. The original plan was for my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law (Nana) to head to Austin (from the Texas panhandle) yesterday. We were then going to go to Boerne this morning to spend Christmas with my mom, dad, grandmother (Bubie) and her fiance. Well - not everything works out as planned, least of all the weather.

Yesterday, a huge storm hit and dumped a huge amount of snow and ice right on my poor mother-in-law. She drove the two blocks to Nana's house and managed to get her car wedged in a huge snow drift - poor MIL.

So, because the weather did not cooperate - we are postponing Christmas by a day. This is exciting because it means another Christmas Eve and I love Christmas Eve. The plan now is for my MIL and GMIL to come into town today and we will make the trip to Boerne tomorrow morning and have our BIG Christmas celebration.

I can't wait!