Holiday Pics

They say this past Monday was Blue Monday. Apparently, people get depressed this time of year for many, many reasons, including the holiday credit card bills arriving in the mail, blown New Year's resolutions, crappy weather, and spending way too much time trapped in a small, cluttered, toy-overridden home waiting for a rude cable guy to come 2 hours late and do half the job he was supposed to do. Actually, that last one is just mine. Anyway, so here's my cure...posting some pics of the holiday madness. The 2009 holiday madness, just to be clear.

Let me start with Thanksgiving weekend. We kicked off the weekend with a kick-ass decision to coordinate our flight arrival in Michigan with Scott's flight from the West coast. Fannnnnntastic idea. Riding in mom's car with 4 (not small) adults, 2 kids in carseats, 4 suitcases, and 1 improperly attached, borrowed cartop carrier was a great way to get into the holiday spirit. It's all about quality family time, isn't it.

Once we got to Mom's house, though, we had a great time. The cousins spent Thanksgiving Day playing hard and making a hell of a lot of noise. When it was time to go around the table and say what we were thankful for, Carly looked down, thought about it and then grinned and quipped, "I'm thankful for coming." So damn sweet. Also sweet was Grandma Rita's attendance at dinner and the warmth & respect her great-grandchildren paid her. And, proving that her memory is not, in fact, gone, she stunned us all by inquiring about the origins of the beautiful silver on the table (it was hers). Oh, smack!

Of course, Greg again refused to let the 7 and under crowd win a card game.



Can you say p-o-o-p-e-d?





We returned home to the thick of the holiday season. It was time for me to step up and bring the Christmas treats to the 3 year-old preschool class. Last year, I royally screwed up the Easter treats and then made them worse by trying to decorate them, so I decided to stay in my comfort zone this time. And, I have enough self-confidence to admit that this includes baking with marshmallows. Again.



Sully, is that a green food-coloring stain around your mouth?


The Friday following Carly's preschool Christmas Spectacular (suffice it to say that our showboat did not disappoint), Carly and I had a very fun outing to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. Carly picked her outfit (including the purse and pearls) and many of the night's details. We took the subway just for kicks (excuse the pun), we ate a massive cup of donut holes at the show, we went out for ice cream afterwards, and we thoroughly enjoyed the magic of the show. (One of us is still talking about the dancing Santas.) The main excitement for me, however, didn't really come until after the show when Carly entertained the entire ladies restroom line with her own version of high kicks and holiday singing. She had one lady in tears laughing so hard. I, on the other hand, actually a bit embarrassed and trying to calmly get the situation under control (why did I allow all those donut holes?!).

Of course, after getting her feet wet with the restroom line audience, she did the same thing on the subway ride home. This time, the crowd wasn't feeling it as much, so she decided to up the ante with some fake sightings out the window. "Look mom! I see Santa outside!!!" she said as she cranked her neck around to see who was listening. (No one.) Without much response, this quickly escalated to "Look mom, I see POOP out the window!!!!". I was mortified, but trying hard to swallow away my laughter. Well, you can imagine that this got the attention of the other riders. Mission Accomplished.





As we were making our way home that night, the snow began. WINTER STORM 2009. It was lovely, it was festive, it was magical.....while it was snowing. It killed our New England holiday travel plans, however, and let's be honest....getting snowed in with two kids and a large golden retriever loses it's romanticism after 48 hours.




If I had to pick the most excited family member....I would have to pick Sully. He is still looking for some of those snowballs we threw.

Sucks to get wet in the snow.

And, by the time Christmas rolled around, we were exhausted. It felt like we had done a lot of prep work this season. We made homemade wreaths for our bedroom doors (wouldn't advise using the glass balls that break into 8 million pieces when they inevitably fall and break), met with Santa, attended holiday parties, read endless books about Santa and baby Jesus, collaborated on gifts for cousins, picked out and decorated our tall & skinny tree....okay, this is admittedly sounding very vanilla and lame, but when you have a 1 year old and a 3.5 year old...they provide all the magic you need. And the drama. :)






Cheers to 2010!! xoxo Sara

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday T-dog!!


Ole' little man. That's right, Teddy had a very big week this past week. Thursday started off with a celebration at our local Mexican restaurant (we are 4 for 5 as far as 2009 family birthday celebrations go and I'm not feeling optimistic about Sully's chances at the sombrero and fried ice cream combo). As I mentioned, Teddy recently has become intrigued with silverware and his birthday night was no exception. It isn't easy to eat rice with a fork, but damn it if he didn't give it his best shot. The spoon/ice cream combo was much (much) easier.






On Friday night, we co-hosted a birthday bash for Teddy & Henry and 12 of their closest 3 year-old pals at a local hot spot. Okay, it wasn't a hot spot, but it was entertaining.













The ball pit was both fun and terrifying as Teddy realized it was deeper than anticipated.











And, then we headed home for a few gifts. Carly decided that she wanted to get Teddy a teddy bear for his birthday. Suspicious. She picked it out, wrapped it, and opened it for him. Later that night, when Teddy was already in bed, I found the new teddy bear tucked safely under Carly's sheets. When I quizzed her about it, she said that the teddy bear was going to sleep with her that night. I don't think Teddy has seen it since. And I actually doubt he minds. The big hits were the magnet set from the Pietrosantes, the fire truck from Nana, and the basketball hoop. Santa is going to have a tough time reinventing Teddy's wish list.





And, never ones to rush, we had Teddy baptized on Saturday. It was something of a guerrilla baptism with neither of the bicoastal godparents present, but that was the least of our worries.



Turned out, Mr. Fancy Pants couldn't handle his new shoes. He proceeded to use them as a drum set through the entire ceremony. Have you ever heard saddle shoes hit the sides of a wooden pew in an empty church?



And, not to be outdone or forgotten, Carly staged her own not-so-silent protest of the baptism. It was a bit unclear what the problem was, but she was definitely not happy when the 4 of us (Nana, Greg, Teddy and I) were asked by the priest to step onto the altar.

The drama continued, long enough for the priest to make a comment about children often not attending mass (I am not making this stuff up) and well into the post-baptism celebration at the same bar where we celebrated Carly's baptism.







All's well that ends well I suppose.

IMG00208.jpg

Saturday morning view. I love when fresh snow covers up all the flaws in our lawn.

Updates at last

I've had some requests for updates. Mainly from Carly, but that's cool.

We had preschool conferences a few weeks ago. Carly's teachers described her as a "social director." They also mentioned that she's the kind of kid that "would be fun at a party." As a parent of a 3 year-old, I thought that was sort of cute. Later that night, when I thought about what that meant for Carly's future, I had a panic attack.

Teddy is fascinated with putting things in containers and using utensils. As Carly mentioned to Nana on Thanksgiving, we are used to the boys in our house (Greg, Sully) being very messy, so this gives me hope that he will join the Clean Team (I'm president). He is a terrible eater, but just plop a tomato wedge on a fork and he will flash his million dollar smile and throw it down the hatch. His obsession with the trash can, while fun at first, has completely lost it's entertainment value. I'm fairly certain we've lost a toothbrush, a few packages of instant oatmeal, and at least one book to it. And Teddy, I hope you are listening, this does not help your candidacy for the Clean Team.

Sully continues to be an overly-energized pain in the ass.

...cont.

Did I forget to mention that Carly went as a butterfly cowgirl magician? If nothing else, the girl has her own strong opinions.

T-dog was happy to be an octopus. Even if his costume was dirty as hell after biting the pavement a few times, he wore that bad boy like a champ.

Guest Blogger: Carly

A Halloween story, in Carly's words:

Once upon a time, there was a witch, a good witch. She blew away with no broomstick. She said "why is the broomstick so fast?". The wind was blowing hard and hard. Then it got sunny. There was a rescue frog named "Ga" and Ga was on the broomstick with the witch. The witch fell on the ground and that hurt her. The rescue frog's house is in Mexico. The rescue frog and the rescue Carly saved the good witch in Texas because she was on the ground and her hat blew away.

THE END.

She's Crafty!

Oooooh la la! I bet you are thinking that this little crafty Halloween owl cookie lollipop delicacy is the work of my creative direction. You are dead wrong. Carly brought this little gem home from preschool today, only further reinforcing my insecurities in the area of all things crafty. So, it is really no surprise that Halloween costumes stress me out. On one hand, I love the idea of spending hours putting the perfect finishing touches on a simple (yet brilliant!) homemade idea. On the other hand, who needs to spend $75 on materials and then spend hours sewing or, in my case stapling, an ugly outfit together.

The Halloween excitement began early this year. I blame the ghost display at the library, but it just as easily could have been the candy corn I was forced to rescue from CVS right after Labor Day. In any case, we have been discussing Halloween costumes every time Carly gets knee deep into her dress-up clothes, which is daily. Of course, she doesn't think any of her dress-up clothes are good enough to be Halloween costumes, so this has been a hot topic. About three weeks ago, I began to get nervous. Old Navy costumes were selling out in her size and we had no concrete concepts. Dr. Carly Quinn Medicine Woman? No. Ga? No. Super Carly? Definitely not. But, then one evening before bed, she finally announced that she wanted to be a monkey. Sweet! Ahh, not so fast...the next morning, she declared that she would be a butterfly. At this point, the important thing was that I knew she had a vision of herself as a successful trick-or-treater buried deep within. We were moving in the right direction.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I decided it was action time. I began trying to get a final answer out of her, which was tough. Finally, one morning while getting ready for preschool, I told her it was time to make a decision. I needed to put the wheels in motion. After much deliberation, she announced that 2009's Halloween costume would be......a butterfly! Off to school she went, and off to find wings I went. I scored. I found $6 wings and came up with an idea for creating a fuzzy butterfly body and antennae. As a bonus, the butterfly wings came with a butterfly wand. We were good to go.

That is, until I picked up Carly from school. When I announced that I had wings in the car, a major meltdown ensued. MAJOR. "I want to be a monkey!!! I am goooooing to be a MONKEY MOMMY!!! NOT. A. BUTTERFLY!!". As the temper tantrum escalated, I decided to sweeten the deal by bringing out the butterfly wand. I could see the temptation in her eyes...the girl wanted to play with the wand. I mean, who wouldn't? It had streamers, sparkles, and a sweet little butterfly at the end! She grabbed the wand and I brilliantly suggested that she could be a magic butterfly for Halloween! No dice. A butterfly magician!? Not happening. So, I did what I had to do: I sent her to her room to calm the sobbing and I went downstairs with Teddy to reevaluate.

So, about 10 minutes passed and slowly I heard the crying and hysterics come to an end. There was some shuffling in her room. Then I heard the pit-pat of feet coming down the stairs. Carly confidently walked into the living room, grabbed her wand, and announced, "I know what to do mommy. I'm going to take my magic wand and I will turn my butterfly costume into a monkey costume!". Round one: Carly.

to be continued...