We Had Ourselves...

a merry little Christmas season.    Here's how we counted down the days till Christmas.  

Visiting Santa. But only once.  Whenever we encountered a Santa again at various events this season and I asked Holden if he wanted to see him Holden gave me an odd look and said "Uhh, no thanks.  I already did.  I told him I want Legos."    Can't argue with logic, I guess.

Making Christmas crafts.

Making impromptu Christmas food.

And purchasing some as well.  Mmmm, Peppermint milkshakes...

Having a Muppet Christmas Carol movie night/sleepover in front of the Christmas tree.

Partying with the family at a gingerbread house making party and cookie baking day.

Harper was rocking her Cindy Lou Who ponytail to add to the festivities.

Admiring Christmas lights

at the zoo (I am starting to look OLD, guys)

 and at random overzealous people's houses.

There was a preschool Christmas program that was so adorable I almost died.

And there was hosting Christmas Eve dinner/games at our house.

Later that night we prepared for hosting our next visitor.

And Santa did not disappoint.  Holden was so preoccupied with his Santa Pez Dispenser that it took him a good minute and a half before he said  "Oh, hey! A Bike!!!"

We saved the rest of our gifts for the present opening marathon with the family later that day.

Which proved to be just a little too exhausting for these two.

And on December 26th, we took it all down.  Because I love Christmas, and I celebrate early and hard, but when it's done I'm done.  Hence the unedited mash up of photos slapped into a blog post.  

Till next year, Christmas!

Thirty, Flirty and Thriving

 It's not every day a person turns 30.  It's especially not every day that event happens on a Saturday.  So when the stars aligned for Reo this year, we celebrated big...Okay.  We celebrated medium.  Here's what we did.

Opened presents.  Ummm, do you think Holden likes his dad much?

Saw Wreck It Ralph.  Along with some sort of ghost apparently.  Stupid iPhone.

We ate food.

A lot of food.

Here's Harper not understanding that no teeth = no pizza.  Poor girl.

Don't worry.  We saved room for cake.

And then we did it all over again the next day, at a joint family party for my sister in law Cami and Reo.  I have no pictures of Cami....Oops!  I do have one of Reo with his loot!

Happy Birthday Reo!

Nine

Fair warning:  This is one of those posts that really should be reserved for a baby book, since I'm not sure it's interesting to the general public.  But Harper's baby book exists only in my mind, and probably will for quite some time, so this is the easiest way for me to document.  Feel free to skip this one....I mean, look at the pictures first, of course.  This baby is adorable, guys!

Our sweet child is nine months old, and behaving more and more like a real live person every day.  

She's a tricky one.  She doesn't sleep.  Ever.  She's not a great eater.  She is developing a wicked case of separation anxiety that may have blackballed us among neighborhood babysitters.  But she is just so darn ADORABLE about it all, that not only does it make it worth it, you kind of catch yourself thinking maybe you are making it all up.

She's into everything, crawling like a maniac and cruising all over the furniture.  Her hair is wild, and reddish, and everywhere.    She is still totally toothless, although I accuse her of teething at least once a week.

She's 28 inches (65th percentile) and 20 lbs 11 oz (80th percentile) and the perfect little addition to our family.

We kind of love her.  A lot.

So, Thanksgiving Happened...

And I managed to take exactly one picture.  It was of the pie I made.  Shows where my priorities are.  At least it was good pie (Pssst: Hannah,  here's the recipe.)

All sorts of other fun things took place that long weekend.   Here's what my camera missed:

Harper had on a super cute outfit.
We had a visit from our Christmas Elf (he's a once a year deal and he almost forgot to come, so kudos to you elf on a shelf people).
I saw an Oscar winning movie (30 by 30!!)  and quite possibly the opposite of of an Oscar winning movie.  It was Rainman and Breaking Dawn Part 2, in case you were curious.)
We decorated our tree.  Probably good that we don't have pictures of that.  Our tree is more fitting for a college dorm room then a legitimate family house.  I've got big plans for the after Christmas sales.
We did lots and lots of Black Friday shopping.  On the internet.  That counts, right?

Hope everyone else's Thanksgiving was just as wonderful but more documented!

Things I Learned At Disneyland

1.  There is no one I would rather spend time with than these three.

2.  That being said, when it's Disneyland, the more the merrier definitely applies (that is not even close to being all of my family, you guys..There is getting to be a LOT of us!)

3. Who needs the gift shop?  All I had to do was raid my kid's closets to outfit them both in Disney paraphernalia for pretty much the entire trip.  For Harper, this even included her pajamas.

4.  Holden enjoys characters just the right amount.  This means he was more than delighted when we saw one, but didn't necessarily need to stand in line to meet them all.  I'm afraid next time we might not be so lucky with this little one.  You can't tell, but she was pretty smitten....

5.  I never would have thought that in November we would have to use the "resort to watching Muppet Vision 3D to escape the heat" technique, but it was pushing 100 degrees a couple of the days we were there.    I love the heat, so you didn't hear me complain...Much...

6.  Favorite Rides--

Reo-Space Mountain

Me- Tower of Terror

Holden- He will tell you it was The Little Mermaid, but that wouldn't explain why we went on Pirates of the Caribbean 4,000 times.  Or why during Star Tours you could hear him screaming with glee "Ahhh!!  Darth Vader!! Ahhh!!  This is awesome!! Ahhh!!"

Harper-  The Tiki Room.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that NO ONE's favorite ride is the Tiki Room.

(Not them on their favorite rides, but they look cute!)

Also, if you ask Holden what his LEAST favorite ride was he will say "I'll give you a hint" and start singing "Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah!"  Splash Mountain was the only ride he went on that he would not be convinced to go on a second time.

7.  Speaking of Splash Mountain--in my opinion, the ONLY time to go on Splash Mountain is right before the park closes.  You ride it over and over again with no line, can immediately go back to the hotel and change out of your wet clothes, and no one is around to judge your dorky pictures.

8.  Cars Land is awesome.  And Radiator Springs Racers is worth the wait.  Same goes for Peter Pan.  But the longest line I waited in was for the Nemo Submarines.  They were not at all worth the wait.

9  Holden makes a pretty lousy Jedi.  But it makes for lots of one on one time with the Jedi Training Academy guy.

10.  Not to brag or anything, but I pretty much became an expert at taking pictures of myself on rides.  Too bad they all look the same from that angle.  This is Big Thunder Mountain in case you were curious.

11.  You can always count on Reo to crazy eyes a perfectly good picture.

12. I love Disneyland Food.  I also love taking pictures of it.  A lot.

Despite all the delicious food, Holden played the typical four year old card and wanted the one item that least resembled actual food in the whole park.  He later declared this cookie disgusting.  I could have told him that.

13.  Disneyland is exhausting and neither of my kids has slept a whole night since we got back.

14.  But it is still one of my very favorite places ever.  Despite some very Un-Disneylike experiences (ask me about it if you ever want to make me cry), we had a great time, and as Holden said 

"Disneyland is just a magical place, mom."

My apologies for the picture overload, but when you spend 5 days at Disneyland and have about 500 pictures to show for it, it can only be narrowed down so much.

Also, 30 by 30 alert!

Public Service Announcement

Please head to your local Target at your earliest convenience and pick up this delightful treat.  

It has the festiveness of eggnog, and the deliciousness of a cross between a melted milkshake and cold hot chocolate.
I cannot vouch for the Red Velvet flavor, but that's because Red Velvet and I don't always get along so well, so we didn't try it.

Not necessarily at the same time (unless you want to, I'm not here to judge), please also make these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

It has the ease of the famous spice cake mix/can of pumpkin recipe, with a little extra oomph.  And it makes a million cookies.

That is all.  Have a nice day.

13 Days Of Halloween

So, remember last year, when I was all sick and pregnant and failed Halloween big time?  Yeah, me too.  This year I was determined not to repeat history.  I mean, really.  How often do you get to be the parent of a four year old during holidays?  Hardly ever.  I wasn't about to waste this.  So, I decided we would do a Halloweenish activity for each of the 13 days leading up to Halloween.  And we did, but I am sure not going to blog about it all.   It gets one photo collage, and that's it.

I spy with my little eye:  

Multitudes of Halloween baked goods, crafts and games.

Halloween Party with friends (sidenote:  We were Saved by The Bell characters, but apparently we were the only Superfans, because no one recognized us, even with our Bayside Tigers T-Shirts.  Oh well, still counts as coordinating Halloween costumes.  Also, if you look really, REALLY close you can see that I did in fact put blonde back in my hair.)  

Pumpkin picking AND carving...And a little Hallo"weenie" dinner to go with it.  

Celebrations at Preschool, Grandpa's office and the trunk of our car.

Also, regular Halloween happened.  Harper was not having her costume.  She wouldn't even be photographed in it without sitting on Reo's lap.   Holden loved his.  He insisted on being a zombie from Plants Vs. Zombies, even though I was quite sure no one would know who the heck he was supposed to be.   I was about half right.  Both of them loved their skeleton jammies.  What's not to love?  We've all been loving Holden's Halloween candy.

Pheww.. Halloween is exhausting!
Also, full disclosure, I still didn't decorate.