Sorry...once again

I'm sorry I haven't been posting again...that day of 4 posts should've held you in for awhile though, eh?

I have no good reason for not posting Tuesday other than we went to a playdate in the morning and then Dalton wouldn't nap...even though Easton took a LONG one.

Tuesday night I caught some sort of tummy bug and spent the night puking. Luckily it was just me who was affected. I'm thinking due to some sort of food poisioning? Anyway, Jason had to take off work yesterday morning so I could get past the lingering nausea and catch up on some of the rest I'd missed. He went in for some meetings in the afternoon but my poor children sufferred because all I wanted to do was lay on the couch. And mostly I did.

Oh well.

I'm better today but trying to wrap a few last holiday tasks so I must do that whilst the boys are in their rooms.

Christmas Tag

And I'm not talking about the kind you put on a gift...Kyla tagged me for a festive meme.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I prefer to wrap gifts but there are some things that just doesn't work well for.

2. Real tree or artificial? Yeah, I don't think a tree like this could be found in nature:

I'm too cheap to buy a real tree every year anyway.

3. When do you put up the tree? Jason likes to do it the first weekend in December. I'd prefer to do it the day after Thanksgiving so that we have our Christmas decor out longer than our Halloween decorations but oh well.

4. When do you take the tree down? I think before New Years. It's not too long after Christmas but we don't have a set day or anything. When I was little we'd sometimes have it up till, like, February...and it wasn't always a fake tree!

5. Do you like eggnog? I'll be honest and say I can't remember ever really trying eggnog. But the name alone tells me I don't like it. Sounds gross and looks icky too.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I think it is very very sad that I don't have an answer for this. I can remember a lot of things that I liked, but to pick a favorite? I just don't know...as a child, that is. As a grown up I really loved my Palm Pilot.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes we have one but we don't currently put it out.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Jason's not the easiest...this year he had to pick out exactly what he wanted and send me the link. Even clothes I don't pick out that well for him, "The pockets are too small..." "I think the buttons are kinda girly..." Nah, he's not that ungrateful, but I get nervous nonetheless.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Easton. I've got all kinds of good ideas for him, and he lets me know what he likes too.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Ummm...preeclampsia?!?! It began creeping up on Christmas Eve. Here is my puffed up face on Christmas Day 2004:


11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Uh, people don't really email Christmas cards do they? Well, anyway, I totally send mine in the regular mail...and let's look back on them, shall we?

2005:


2006:


2007:


12. Favorite Christmas movie? I guess I like Elf alright. I don't have, like, a "must see" seasonal movie. Should I? The other night I kept saying to Jason (from Elf), "What's a Christmas-gram? I want one!"

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Early enough, but I never get done ahead of time. I like to think of things all year long and keep running lists of gift ideas in my Palm Pilot. If I find something perfect, I like to get it right then and hide it away.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I can't think of anything in particular...but probably. If "recycled" means donating to chartiy, then yes, for sure.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Probably my mom's brunch. Her fruit dip and hash brown casserole in particular.

16. Clear or colored lights on the tree? Clear...but I say white. Is that not P.C. anymore?

17. What is your favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night. But I also love the music from The Nutcracker.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home? Well, it's important to me to have Christmas memories for my children in our own home and all that...but I like to see family too...my side of the family is pretty close and we travel the 45 minutes down there on holiday afternoons. I wish we could see Jason's half after a short drive too!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Well, I can name 9 but Jessica sent out a Christmas quiz with her cards and apparently there are a whole herd of reindeer and we only know the names of Santa's brown-nosers...oh yeah...and the red noser: Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen. Look it up. It really is Donder...not Donner like a lot of people (you???) think. :)

20. Angel on top of the tree or a star? A star for us.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Well, I always had the tradition of opening one on Christmas Eve but saving all the rest for Christmas morning. So, that's still what we do.

22. What I love most about Christmas? I love the whole family part of it...I love doing festive things together...I love picking out presents I think family will love, or at least like a little...I love eating with them...yeah, family. And I like traditions a whole lot too...yearly ornaments, yearly nutcrackers, trips to Santa, advent calendars... Okay, the question should really be what don't I love about Christmas. :)

So, who to tag? Who to tag? Let's see...we'll go with the private bloggers Amy and Britten (even though I gave you a similar one last year). And how about Kelly who should blog about something fun and festive???

And make sure you look below as this is now the fourth new post today. The one right under this is pretty special!

Who's Your Daddy?

I'm "Dada". Well, Dalton says so anyway. This is Jason posting because Kristin was too happily envious to do it herself.

Came home from work tonight, walked over to see Dalton, he looked right at me and said, "Dada!" I held my hand over to him at dinner, he looked right at me and said, "Dada!" We played games in the living room afterwards and he kept saying, "Dada!"

I don't know if it's officially his first word or not. He kind of says "ball"...makes the "mama" sounds...But never seemed to do any of it with much recognition or conviction...until now.

It's an honor when a human being's first words are your name.

I do feel bad for Kristin because she was a little pouty. But not to worry- if D is anything like Easton, then he'll be calling me "Mama" in a week.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Dalton is bear walking today as opposed to crawling on his hands and knees:


What a goof!


I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that he's not wearing pants and we don't have carpet downstairs. Or he just might be part bear, who knows?

He's also part conductor:

"We've got a mission!" for you Little Einstein fans out there.

Easton is being Buzz again today:


Dalton would rather not be Woody as it means wearing a cowboy hat. He keeps taking it off.

He has been "cruising" a little bit lately... taking steps while he holds on to something like furniture:


He came over to visit me for a little lap snuggle:


And then he crawled away and went on to play with his brother. Here is a cute video. Excuse my squealing.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Easton decided, "I'd better get a toy!" to encourage Dalton's crawling up the stairs. I seriously wish I had a big brother like Easton. He rocks.

Cookie Time

My friend Samantha from waaaaaaaay back (high school) hosted a cookie exchange at her house yesterday. Of course I went!

She has lots of friends, so even though I only brought maybe 2 of each type of cookie home, I still have a ton o' treats. Mmmmm.

My contribution was the very simple (and Jason's favorites) Peanut Butter Cup Tartlets:

You can make these any time of year, the key being the festive mini muffin liners keeping with the holiday theme.

Here's how you do those, get yourself some peanut butter cookie dough. If you have insane amounts of free time on your hands you can make it yourself. Otherwise, the store bought kind does quite nicely. Roll up a hunk of dough into about a 1" ball. Drop it in your festive papers in a mini-muffin tin and bake at 350 for about 9 minutes. While that happens you can unwrap Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

I learned I can unwrap 26 in 3 minutes--I needed 36 but whatever.

Anyway, once the baked dough comes out of the oven, pop a Reese in each...so the dough is still hot to melt the Reese into place.

Voila!

They are mighty tasty if I do say so myself, but the hit of the party was someone else's Oreo balls:
1. Take a package of Oreos and stick them into the food processor to make a crumbly mess.
2. Add an 8 oz. brick of softened cream cheese.
3. Roll into balls...maybe around an inch or so?
4. Chill 'em for just a bit
5. While they chill melt some chocolate...the girl yesterday used white chocolate.
6. Coat the ball in the chocolate and allow to harden, perhaps on some waxed paper?

There ya go. Not too hard, eh? And they were sooooo good. Definitely would've won the prize had there been one. When our hostess Samantha (Hi Sam!) bit into it she declared, "It's like there's little pieces of heaven inside!"

Jason says he doesn't like Oreos so I think I'll go find one to have right now as he won't miss it.

Yum!

Santa Babies

Sorry it took me awhile...we don't have a scanner so I take a picture of the picture, and I need natural light for that.

Then today during my Boy Break (aka naptime/quiet time) I had to fight with some credit issues. You see, my winning ex-husband got foreclosed on. And filed for bankruptcy. Now, I was off of that mortgage over a year before the forclosure. BUT, due to some error, my name was still attached to it when it got transferred to the foreclosure people. And they won't take my name off retroactively. Isn't that great?

It was a really relaxing way to spend their quiet times.

Not.

I got nowhere. Other than how to fax my dispute claim to the original loan people. Grrrr.

So, sorry for the delay in bringing you this picture:


No smile from my normally smiley boy D. Look at how he was just checking ol' Santa out.

I like how it was the same Santa as last year. That's how you know it was the real one. I also get hung up on how he positions his hands. I was afraid Dalton would fall off his lap because Santy-Pants wasn't doing much to hang on to him. Just posing with his gloves nicely splayed out. Look at last year's too...I noticed it back then. And now I see it even more. Silly Santa.

So, on the way there Easton was pretending to be sad and nervy:


But when we got there he was very excited. We peered over the balcony at Santa but he was about to go on a scheduled dinner break. So, we had plans to meet Jason for P.F. Chang's first anyway. We had dinner and then went back to see Saint Nick.

The line was long. Easton was dancing all about. I even hopped out of line with him for a pit stop in case that's what was making him so antsy. But no, he was just excited:


D was kinda "meh":


I already told you the rest...about the drums and a little Pablo for Dalton. Santa was listening even before last night because he's already dropped both things off here at the house and then some. Good ol' Santa. I love it that he only asked for one thing for himself and one thing for his brother. Bet that might not be the case next year!

Till next time!

Better

The pottying went much better today...poop went in the potty, no major "leakage" issues. Good stuff.

Whew.

Also, he did GREAT with Santa. He was sooooo excited as we were standing in line and walked right up and hopped on Santa's lap. I was counting on having to speak for him so I started to ask, "Easton what do you want..." right when Santa asked. And Easton answered Santa with, "A drum" just like he had planned.

Dalton was confused but did fine. He likes strangers. No smiles from him though.

The picture is pretty cute. I'll share it some other time.

A Little Off

Easton had a bad day. As far as potty success goes. I already mentioned how he was feeling a little leaky this morning and was lazy in hustling his booty to the potty right away.

Then, later he pooped in his pants. Hasn't done that in quite a while.

THEN, he had a pee pee accident too...even though he had gone really recently...sometimes if he's concentrating really hard he pees. It's like he doesn't even know he's doing it. So, anyway, he was doing some work on the laptop (no really, he was) and tinkle tinkle. Dang it!

I'm thinking he's in a bit of a weird place today and I'm not sure why. Of course I'm trying to figure it out and I'm hoping it's very short-lived, especially as it's causing a bit of a potty trained/training regression. I was thinking he might be getting sick. I've been ill the last week.

Or something developmental and testy. He had to have a timeout today and two back-to-back timeouts yesterday. Maybe 3. I can't remember. That's significant because we'll go weeks without any need for timeouts and then all of a sudden he requires a bunch of 'em and then we move on again for many more weeks. So, the recent slew of timeouts tells me maybe something more is going on.

Or, we're also talking about how we're going to see Santa tomorrow. We asked him the other day if he was excited to meet Santa this week and he told us he was a "little nervy". This later changed to full on nervous. Poor guy. :( Then we asked him again, "Are you excited to see Santa tomorrow?" and he said, "Um, just probably not."

Sometimes at bedtime he excitedly talks about going to see Santa. Jason plays the role of Santa and asks Easton's name and what he wants (a drum, he says...but he means drums). Then "Santa" asks what Easton's baby brother wants and Easton came up with, "Maybe his own little Pablo". So that's how it always goes.

But now that the reality of their actual encounter is approaching he's getting nervy. Perhaps (let's hope) that is why he's having an off day? It's not that we're forcing him to see Santa (well, we are still taking him but if he flat out refuses once we're there at the mall we wouldn't force him).

Although this is how it went last year, which you could potentially see as some sort of coersion. :)


Stay tuned for more after we go...

Time on Our Hands

You know how sometimes you'll see something and go, "Well that person certainly has too much time on their hands..."

Like this:


Or this (which I have always LOVED, by the way):


Well, here's our contribution that Easton and I did this morning:

Okay, it was mostly me doing it...Easton was too busy going through three pairs of p.j.'s due to wet spots...none of them being true accidents. Just feeling a bit leaky and dribbly today. *sigh* He's been doing awesome with the pottying, actually. It's really not a conscious thing anymore and he's initiating nearly every time that isn't already "scheduled" (wake up, before leaving the house, before bed, etc) with very few accidents. But sometimes he's just having too much fun to make himself stop and potty so he drip, drip, drips. I know this is very common. But it's still annoying.

And the nights?

Well, he used to be dry every morning. Then when we went to Texas that changed a little. And now the longest he's gone has been 4 nights in a row. He's in a diaper at night again now. Bummer.

Oh, the Weather Oustide Is Frightful...

Jason kissed us goodbye and left for work this morning...

...then he came right back upstairs and said, "It's snowing like a mo' fo' out there!" Yes, that's exactly what he said. :) I had already been downstairs to get juice with Easton and I knew this so I said, "Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you." Durr! How could I forget?

Anyway, he decided to telecommute today and the boys and I were going to go to a playdate on the other side of town but, a.) I didn't have directions and couldn't get a hold of the mom and b.) we started running out of time what with the snow, rush hour and all... I'm not too much of a snow wimp, I promise. Hellooooo!...I learned to drive in the winter in Colorado 14 years ago! But anyway, there were some other time constraints around the playdate today so we rescheduled.

Instead I made a pancake breakfast before Jason went to hide out to actually get some work done. Once Dalton took his nap Easton and I made some of those pre-sliced cookies with the decorations already in the dough:




Then we took up some cookies and milk to have with Daddy...just for a quick break. What's the point of working from home if you can't enjoy a little bit of cookie-- warm from the oven--with your wife and son?

After Dalton woke up we made a fort:




Eventually we called Daddy down for lunch and then made Easton go shovel the driveway:




Oh, okay...he had help:


And Diddle and I looked on briefly:


After that Easton fell asleep during his "quiet time"...he's still in the middle of the puzzle he was doing. Very cute.

Dalton's in a very cranky mood still today. It is not so fun. I gave him Motrin and a nap and he's already awake. Boo. I'll leave him in there for a bit and see what happens.

Plus, I found some more pictures for you on the memory card. Easton found the perfect spot to wait for Santa:




Blitz likes it too:

Can you believe our cat likes to try to eat our FAKE tree?

And we did another one of our fun foam art projects, a reindeer bucket:










Also doubles as a hat for when you want to play bucket-head:


Easton helped Daddy do some work around the house:


And Daddy tried soothing Dizz a bit one particularly cranky afternoon:


Feeling better at some other point:






That is, until he hat to put on his coat and hat yesterday:

He is not a fan of the hat. Easton wasn't at that age either. Oh well. Not like he'll freeze to death walking from the car to Target.

Okay, well...I guess I'm done. I'm so at a loss for words lately, even though this is long and all, it just doesn't quite feel like me.

Anyhoo...

I'm out!