I'm going to take the password off my blog for awhile. Try it out. See how it goes.
I'm kind of hoping that it won't bother me anymore that just anyone can read this. But I'm also kind of hoping that some people have forgotten about me being here. :)
To be honest, it makes me a bit nervous.
And, also to be honest, my kids have dressed in matching outfits twice over the last few days.
No relation to the above. But it makes me feel a litte bit better. :)
Tom left Tuesday afternoon for the D-III National Tournament. The Saints lost today so the season is over, which is always sad but we'll be glad to have Daddy back at home tomorrow.
Wednesday night the kids and I took a trip up to my hometown for dinner at my parents' house and Big Wheels night in the school parking lot.
Max loved it, Vivi hated it. We got there right when it started, and the HORNS and SIRENS, OH MY. We went last year too and I don't remember that, but I think went a little bit later last year. We'll remember that if we go back, it's better to wait until about a half hour in so that the air horns have run out by then. :)
Vivi played on the swings instead.
Someone is obsessed with her new Dora sunglasses.
Thursday night Tom's parents took us out for pizza which was great because I never really feel like cooking when it's just the three of us.
My mom had been telling the kids on Wednesday that her ice cream/coffee shop was opening this weekend. So on Friday when I picked them up from school, the first thing Max asked me was "can we go visit Grandma Michele and have ice cream?" I didn't really have any plans for Friday night or Saturday, so I said sure, why not. My sister was there so we could see her, too. So we ran home quick, the kids stayed in the car watching their movie while I threw some clothes in a bag, and we were off again. A quick stop at Subway for dinner and then we drove straight to the ice cream shop. :)
Today it was really nice out, so we played outside a lot, listened to the baseball game, and made ONLY two trips to the shop, once in the morning for muffins and once in the afternoon for more ice cream. We ate lunch and dinner outside on the deck and Max even ran through the sprinkler for awhile.
Max slept with me Friday night and while I was laying there with him, he told me he had a joke for me. He's been kind of into jokes lately (we have those popsicles that have jokes on the sticks).
Max: Mommy, what's a cow's favorite number?
Me: I don't know, Max. What?
Max: One hundred.
Me: Uhhh... I don't get it.
Max: Wait, wait, that was wrong. I'll try again. What's a cow's favorite number?
Me: I don't know, Max. What?
Max: Star!
Me: Uhhh... I still don't get it.
Max: It's a JOKE, Mom (laughing).
After that I tried to teach him some knock-knock jokes. Anyone have good jokes for a five-year-old? I think our comedic skills need some work. :)
Max turned five last Tuesday. We celebrated by going to Texas Roadhouse (his request) for dinner with my parents and then went back to our house for cake and presents. Oh, and he got to bring cupcakes to school and was pretty excited about that... FULL-SIZE cupcakes, the store-bought kind with the AMAZING Angry Birds/butterfly/dinosaur ring things on top (no, they did not have enough for us to get more than six of the same kind)... I'm sure his teachers loved that.
The Legos were a gift from my parents. Vivi got him a glove which she gave to him that morning, I think before he even got out of bed. :) We had our friend Gabe make him a new set of golf clubs, and then the day before his birthday we went bike shopping over our lunch break... when we found a used bike with a number sixteen on it (Tom's baseball number) I knew that was the one.
We hid it from him in the back of the vehicle we picked him up in that day. So sneaky. ;)
Trying out the new clubs:
I had to buy a store-bought cake because my oven wasn't working. I kinda liked it. The kids were also big fans of the sugar dinosaurs.
And the requisite family picture. Such a classic.
He's having a little party on Sunday; he invited four friends from school. I'm trying to keep it really low-key because he's never had a friend over, other than his cousins and Niki and Justin's kids, and I'm a little concerned about venturing into playdate land for the first time with some huge party. I think at least two of the parents are just dropping the boys off, and I'm not sure on the other two. It'll be good, all of the boys are VERY excited. They're kind of a little clique at school. Okay, I shouldn't even say KIND OF... they are totally a clique. Max calls them his "buddies" as opposed to just "friends" (friends being any other kid in his class). It used to be just four of them, and then one day Max was talking a lot about Tommy all of a sudden, and I was like, oh, you are playing with Tommy a lot now? And Max said: "yeah, he's one of US now." OMG. Do you think there's an initiation? Something to do with spit or slapping butts or something?
(I say that because we recently had a conference with Max's teacher, and he actually had written on the sheet, "likes to slap butts." I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud at seeing that... I swear I'm a fairly mature person, but something about it being written there on paper, in his "file" so to speak, struck me as funny. Apparently slapping butts is all the rage among the Junior K II boys and, obviously, some of the other kids/teachers are not huge fans. So we've had talks about this and I haven't heard about any butt-slapping going on lately, thankfully.)
I should also note that Mr. Mike said he "loves Max to death." So there was mostly good news to be had: Max is ready for kindergarten, and when I asked about the clique, he said that even though Max has his best buds, he's still very nice to the other kids, which I was glad to hear. I'm not really nervous about him starting kindergarten - school has been SO GOOD for him that I think he'll do a great job. Okay, I'm a little bit nervous. But really excited. We went to Kindergarten Round-Up back in March and met the three teachers and visited their classrooms. Unfortunately none of his pre-school friends will be attending the same school, but we saw the name of one of the kids from another class at his current school on the list. Plus, t-ball starts soon, and maybe some of the kids on his team will be going there, too. I think for Max, even one familiar face would go a long way.
Tom got kind of suckered into coaching t-ball... we had originally asked if Max could play coach-pitch, because he's been hitting pitching since he was about two. Tom said he'd coach a coach-pitch team, and the league said that would be fine with them. But then a few weeks later they called back and said that we couldn't do it because the cut-off date for insurance purposes is five years old by May 1... and Max is May 8. So, he's back in t-ball, and now Tom is coaching that instead. Which he's not too thrilled about. Tom STILL talks about how LAME t-ball was when he himself played it, what, 28 years ago or something? I am reminding him to be patient, but he's used to coaching nearly grown men who are as obsessive about the game as he is. So, yay. Looking forward to t-ball. ;)
Max is intense about baseball. It's always been kind of creepy if you ask me. He goes to practice with Tom and is happy to hit balls or play catch for three hours. He's FOCUSED. He's always been like this, so I don't know why his limitless attention span still surprises me, but it does. I guess the reason I say "creepy" is because it's like I live with two Toms. Is baseball hereditary?
(When I asked Tom for ideas about what I needed to remember about Max at five, one of them was "he's starting to catch the ball halfway decently.")
If you ask Max what he wants to do when he grows up, he tells you he's going to play college baseball. He idolizes those guys (and they are so good about playing with him and making him feel special). We bought him Nikes for regular everyday shoes and he was THRILLED because that's what the Saints wear. The other morning, he found his Saints cap and then he was looking all around the house for his sunglasses. We couldn't figure out why... then when he finally found them, he put them up on the bill of his cap and told Tom that's what the Saints do. :)
He's a really, really good big brother most of the time. Vivi's definitely acting like a two-year-old right now, and while he sometimes can't resist fighting with her or egging her on, a lot of the time he tries to help her out by explaining to her why she can't do/have something. He explains stuff to her a lot, actually. And to me sometimes: the other night she was throwing a fit so I put her in her crib and left her to cool down and he said to me really sagely, "that's just going to make it worser, Mom." One day I put them in the car and she was screaming, and he offered her some of his goldfish crackers, but she was freaking out way too much to notice; he looked at me and shrugged and said "I tried the goldfish on 'er." HAHA... me too, Max, me too. :) But when she's not throwing fits, they for the most part get along really well and I think a lot of that has to do with him.
Some of the other things he says are hilarious too. He'll say "this dinner is delicious!" and "the yard looks wonderful!" In some ways he very much sounds like a polite 80-year-old lady. He's sweet: on Mother's Day, he told me Happy Mother's Day about ten times, and tonight when I was tucking him in after we got home, he said "I really had fun at Big Wheels, how about you?" He also asks me questions CONSTANTLY - hard questions that I don't always know how to answer and make me feel not very smart. Sometimes more scientific-type questions like about thunder or lightning or helicopters, that will just make my brain hurt so I just give him some vague answer even though I should probably remember something from science class, right? Or sometimes questions about God or "what came first, the chicken or the egg?"-type questions that sometimes I just answer with, ummmmm, heeey... do you want to go to Sunday School? But then we also get a lot of "I know, Mommy" and "I know, Daddy" when we're telling him to do or how to do something. He's been very independent lately. Which is great sometimes. Kind of a bit sad for Mommy at other times. :)
He does still want us to lay in bed with him for a few minutes every night. No matter how long I lay there, even if I think he's already sleeping, when I go to whisper good night, he whispers back "two more minutes." Every night. I lay there for a little bit longer and then he always wants another hug and kiss. So I'm trying to enjoy that for as long as I can. He's growing so fast, only about a foot and a half shorter than I am. We measured today and he almost comes up to my armpit. :)
He's just such a good kid and I feel so, so lucky that he's mine.
(with his birthday tree.)
And the little video I made for his birthday.
Love you, Max.
I didn't really "get" anything for Mother's Day, gift-wise, unless you count our new range, which we just so happened to pick up yesterday. Although each of the kids did bring me home a little box of chocolates from school along with various pieces of artwork.
The best gift came from Vivi, who stayed dry the ENTIRE weekend, and then trotted off to school today in underwear and NAILED IT, you guys. I'm probably jinxing myself here, but then I did buy a new pack of pull-ups on Saturday because I knew if I did so, she wouldn't need them... I know how this stuff works.
Max went to get me breakfast in bed for Mother's Day, bringing up three opened (not frozen) freeze pops. So I giggled for quite awhile about that while he was making my second (more specific) request of a bagel with cream cheese and hot chocolate. :)
We took a family walk on the lakewalk. Our new five-year-old rode the bike he got for his birthday. Then we had brunch with my parents, went to pick up the new range, and my dad hooked it up for us. We switched from gas to electric. Our oven hadn't worked for three or four weeks... I was getting by making meals on the range part which still worked and we were eating out a LOT which is our usual routine during the last couple crazy weeks of baseball season. I'm ready to bake something. Probably cookies first.
And we finished the day with a takeout Sammy's pizza because the oven wasn't quite ready to go yet. And because I thought maybe another gift would be not having to make dinner.
And then I went grocery shopping, by myself. :)
It was a nice day. I hope all of you moms had a good one, too.
It's been a long, long Monday.
We woke up to snow. Just an inch or two which isn't much considering people farther inland from us got anywhere from 7-11 INCHES, but STILL. Work was long. I had a mid-day workout with my trainer, and I had asked him to make a new plan for me... we did legs and abs today and I can tell there's no way I'm going to be able to walk tomorrow. Tom left right from work for baseball and won't be home until early morning Wednesday. My children were a HANDFUL tonight to say the least. I think it was partly me. I am cranky and having a glass of wine or a beer sounds kind of good but I know that will make my workout tomorrow that much harder. So I am having water and trying to figure out something that sounds good to eat that isn't leftover Easter candy.
Okay, enough whining for one day.
I wanted to do something a little bit productive tonight other than just collapse on the couch, and seeing as I already had some pictures from our mud room project I figured I would just post them. Vivi called our mud room "the new house" for the longest time and sometimes when I want her to go put something in there, I still tell her to go put it in the new house. Because it was kind of cute and now I'm a little sad she doesn't always say it anymore. :)
Our house was built by the previous owners, who were empty-nesters, and so it wasn't really built with children in mind. Like it has a master bedroom upstairs with a fairly small bedroom next to it, and the third bedroom is three floors down (it's a split level). It also doesn't have a lot of space in the entry. It has a smaller closet, and space for a little bench by the door, and that is it. So this area of our house was always a DISASTER. And we knew it was only going to get worse as the kids got older and had backpacks, sporting equipment, etc to bring in. Tom and I started talking about adding on a mud room into our garage last summer, I think? We drew up some plans to add a room off of the current door into our garage. Luckily my dad is VERY handy and offered to do the entire thing for us, other than the taping and mudding, which we hired out for. And even nicer, when we took our trip to Vegas in January, my parents, my sister, and her boyfriend stayed at our house (while the kids stayed at my in-laws) and built out the room.
We got the updates via text:
So the door on the left goes into our house, and previously there were stairs going down into the garage. This is the first stall of our garage. We have a three-car garage, so there is still room in there for both of our vehicles even though we took up part of the first stall. If we ever had a small car, it might even fit in that spot, as I think it's about six inches too short for our CR-V. The room is about 8x8, I think.
The stairs got moved out:
It was kind of nice that it worked out that the kids weren't around for the initial building, but they loved the whole process. I let Max help me take out the tile spacers and paint one day, and he was such a good helper.
This one is from a day they were at home with my parents while Tom and I were at work. "Helping" Grandpa.
We cut into the back of our existing closet, so we could use it from the mud room as well.
Those two crack me up. :)
So, it was really hard to take pictures of the new room because it's so small and I just don't have that wide of a lens, but I tried.
So this is the old door to the garage, and the closet on the left (that the kids are standing inside above, from the back).
And this is the view now, where we used to look into the garage.
My dad built us the wall unit, too.
He signed his work on the back side.
The wall across from the door has big hooks for hanging wet stuff, or just more coats (and I will admit that all the coats are usually mine... I'm a big coat person :). I want to hang a sign or something above them but haven't figured anything out yet.
The backside of our closet. Now we don't really ever need to open the closet door that's inside the house, so it pretty much always stays shut which I LOVE because it always used to be open and messy. We didn't put a door on this side because I figured we weren't going to be out there looking at it anyway, and I just wanted it to be easy to access.
The new door into the garage. I'm still trying to figure out what we should do about rugs in this room... I don't know if I should get a runner-type rug that would go between the two doors, or a smaller one that would go in front of the door to the garage, or what I should do. Right now we just threw in a couple little ones we had lying around somewhere.
And, the view back into the house and our "old" entryway! Excuse the vacuum and Pledge, it was cleaning day. :) But I am soooo happy that we no longer have piles of stuff there.
And that is it! Thanks again so much to my parents, especially my dad, and Kelly and David for helping us with this project. Time for the couch collapse now. :)
The kids and I decorated eggs Saturday morning before Tom's game. After that was over we packed up and drove to my parents' house. Saturday night we did glow-in-the-dark eggs... pretty sure I must have gotten the idea from Pinterest. We had a bunch of those glow-in-the-dark bracelets left over from Halloween, and I put them inside some plastic eggs, then we turned off the lights and hid them, some more obvious for Vivi and some where you could only see a very faint glow. The kids thought it was so cool... they made us rehide them a bunch of times. :)
Easter morning we did the egg hunt first thing...
...and Easter baskets. Vivi got a Tiana doll in hers... she is obsessed with Tiana right now. She has no idea what The Frog Prince is, and none of us have ever seen it... but the Disney princesses are on her pull-ups. Ha.
My mom's basket had these, I thought they were cute!
I made Max wear this shirt for church and he was horrified. And then, of course, I made everyone sit and pose for BORING pictures. As Max would say.
Such a tough life.
And how do I get these children to stand still for, oh, about 45 seconds so I can take a posed photo?
By telling them they can use silly string my mom put in their Easter baskets when they are done. Because what is Easter without silly string?
They got me.
And Tom.
After that we had Easter dinner and watched The Masters. It was a lovely day. And then I ate egg salad sandwiches for the rest of the week. :)
My blog, that is.
Does anyone else remember this song? Yeah, I do. I think I need to make a playlist of 90's slow jams, for real (and OMG, the VIDEO).
I've been thinking about my blog and where I should go from here... it was nice to have a little break from blogging. I didn't let myself feel guilty about it. But then today I was looking back through my posts and I just LOVED reading them. They all made me smile. So I think I need to make more of an effort to keep posting here. I have thought about doing something different to inspire me to post more... maybe just start a new blog or redesign it or even just take off the password so I might get some new readers/commenters. Just something to make things a little bit different so I'm excited about it again. But I do like not having to worry about who might be reading it, or being able to post more personal stuff about things like work (although I don't do that much ever because: BORING) or the kids' friends at school. I guess I'll have to think about it a bit more.
Since I haven't been blogging here, I've tried getting back up to date on the kids' photo blog. And... I've been scrapbooking. Which is crazy. Now. I have NEVER been a scrapbooker and it has never really appealed to me. But I do read a few blogs by professional scrapbookers, and I really kind of loved the idea of Project Life, which is a scrapbook system where you put photos and memorbilia and other scrappy stuff into pockets. It seemed so much less intimidating to me than just making something from scratch out of paper... like it was basically a photo album, but with more writing and memorbilia, if that makes sense. And one thing I am HORRIBLE at is printing out my photos and putting them somewhere my family can enjoy. So I decided to just give it a try. I emailed Nicole (because I was still so overwhelmed with how to begin) and she gave me ideas of where to start. And then I found Liz Tanamaha and I was like THAT'S IT. That is what I want to do. Simple. Nothing with a lot of embellishment and fancy fonts and layers upon layers of paper, which would be way out of my league. I guess I never felt like doing something so simple would be... okay? Haha, it sounds so weird. I decided to do this as cheaply as possible. I bought a used mini printer on ebay (because I knew if I had to order/pick up prints, I'd never follow through). I bought a plain black ring binder at Michael's for 40% off and then bought the actual Project Lift page protectors. And then just white cardstock, and some digital downloads that Liz had for sale.
I didn't worry about starting from the beginning of the year or anything. I just jumped in where I could, and it happened to be right around the time I last blogged. So I figured if I shared some of my Project Life here, I could sort of fill in this blog gap that I have going.
My very first pages:
* We sat in a suite at a hockey game with the other coaches and families. We brought Max and he LOVED it
* We did work on the new mud room - tiling, painting, etc (I have to post pictures of this!)
* We took the kids to Adventure Zone (which is where we all tried fitting in the photo booth - hilarious)
* Baseball season started (hence the picture of Tom asleep on the couch!)
See, I love having a place for these pictures that would otherwise only reside on my phone (or maybe Facebook/Instragram).
The next week:
* More mudroom work
* Just a little note and pictures to remind me of Vivi's doctor appointment and how much she weighed
* Max's favorite show is Wipeout (which he tries to recreate in the living room!)
* We watched Torii while Tom's parents were on vacation
* Just regular daily life - lunch out, shopping, etc - some of my favorite stuff to document. I wrote down Vivi's wish-list from our trip to Target... 'draw-bees, naners, and bruberries' (strawberries, bananas, and blueberries)
Feb 6-12:
* I had a super crazy busy week at work
* Some Vivi quotes. She wrapped Tom's sock around her neck and told us it was her scarf... when I was covering her up with her blankets, she told me "my feet can't see!"
* A great Saturday we had as a family, including haircuts, a trip to the mall, and a candlelight dinner
* The finished mud room project
(Another picture that would probably have never seen the light of day otherwise :)
Valentine's week:
* The Valentines the kids picked for their friends at school, and one we made for Tom
* A visit to my friend Michelle who was on bedrest in the hospital
* My half birthday ;)
* A black tie wedding we went to that weekend
Last week of February:
* Some other daily life stuff, including yummy food from that week and the game Tom and I were playing with each other on our phones
* Our new gym and personal trainer that we have at work - I was SO SORE the first couple of weeks
* A couple of the things I love to wear lately (my stars scarf and red lipstick)
* A spa trip Niki and I took over the weekend, and some snaps Tom sent me from his phone of what he and the kids were up to while I was away... sort of an indoor fair thing with rides and DORA!
February 27 - March 4:
* A snow day at home with the kids
* The kids watching one of Tom's games online... they played at both the Metrodome and down in St. Louis
* A trip the kids and I took - to stay with my parents in a hotel in Edina while they were buying for their store. We did Edinborough Park, the Children's Museum, and Chuck E Cheese. And visited Anne's family, too
That's it for now... the rest of my weeks are still in progress (see, I'm behind on this too!). I'm not exactly sure how I will keep up with both this and blogging, but I'm going to give it a try... it seems like when I devote "me" time to something, everything else I want to do does not happen (like last week when I read The Hunger Games series and barely had time to brush my teeth). I guess that's probably because I have about fifteen minutes of "me" time a day. :)
Sooo... not doing so well keeping up with my little blog lately. :)
I just wanted to post quick about our trip to Vegas earlier this month. We flew out on Thursday the 5th, the day after Tom's 32nd birthday. The kids stayed with Tom's parents for the weekend. One thing I love about going to Vegas is the flight directly from Duluth. SO nice to just drop the kids off, not have to leave the night before or anything. Our friend Justin dropped us off at the airport, and Tom's dad and Max picked us up, so we didn't have to pay for parking. Tom even worked in the morning before we left... I stayed home to pack because I'm a procrastinator. Just so much more relaxing than the usual flight out of MSP.
We stayed at the Palazzo, which was gorgeous. Probably one of the nicest hotel rooms I've stayed in.
(These pictures are a random mix of iPhone/Instagram pics and point-and-shoot ones.)
I LOVED the bathroom... it had it's own flatscreen TV. Totally necessary. And I fell in love with the dressing table. I think I need one for my bedroom at home now. :)
We had dinner at Tao, which was probably my favorite meal of the trip.
Our waiter told us he could get us into the club and we wouldn't have to wait in line or anything (and the line for Tao, both times I've seen it, is crazy). We figured we'd try it out, but we had dinner pretty early, so we sat at the bar and had a couple drinks while we waited. Eventually we decided to try going upstairs... the guy working the door was like, um, sorry but we're not open yet... it's like 9:30. We laughed at ourselves because we were probably the first people trying to get into the club... we're sooo cool. Side note, there's after hours places on The Strip that don't even OPEN until 5am... I would never make it. :)
We decided to head over to The Palms instead.
Love being out in the open air at night in January!
The next day, we got up and walked for miles.
And then went downtown to the old casinos to do some REAL gambling. :)
After we got back from downtown, I decided to head over to the mall to do a little shopping while Tom did a little more gambling. It was actually a lot warmer there than I thought it would be, and I had only brought sweaters and stuff, so I bought a t-shirt at the Gap (and a few other things from Zara ;). I slept wrong on my neck the first night we were there... and it kind of ruined my day, to be honest. When I got back from shopping I tried a bath in our room, but that didn't help all that much.
But was still nice for my tired feet. :)
We got dressed up that night to go to Scarpetta for dinner.
It's in the Cosmopolitan which is new since we've been to Vegas. I'd love to stay there next time... it was pretty amazing. We had some great pasta and the view was pretty incredible.
[Our Vegas celebrity sighting: after dinner, we went into the bathrooms outside of the restaurant. When I came out, Tom said that we had to wait here a couple minutes, because there's someone famous in the men's room. Apparently Tom was washing his hands and this guy came in with two security guys, and Tom knew he was SOMEONE famous, but wasn't quite sure who. So we waited so I could see him. Our conscensous, after Googling photos with my phone (because we couldn't be SURE) was that it was Dave Grohl. Kind of cool. So Tom can say he talked to Dave Grohl... because he had to ask him to move in the bathroom so he could get some paper towels. ;) ]
At this point I went to one to one of those people that give you chair massages outside a bunch of restaurants/shops in NY-NY. Sat on the chair in my short dress, didn't care ONE BIT. Felt waaaay better. And then I think there was more gambling. Pretty sure we were kind of lame this night because we were tired.
(Us, tired, back at the hotel.)
The next day we did a lot more walking. We checked out Aria, which we also hadn't been to, The Wynn and Encore, which Tom hadn't yet seen. We got drinks at Margaritaville and just kind of hung out. Had lunch at Nine Fine Irishmen in NY-NY.
The shops at Aria/CityCenter... the shops at The Wynn are the most amazing of all the amazing shops, I think (i.e. Alexander McQueen), but the shops by Aria are pretty close (Stella McCartney). I can't even imagine shopping at those places. I think I'd try it, maybe once, if I won the Powerball. :)
We went to see Zumanity by Cirque du Soleil that night. It was okay... not as good as the show I saw with the girls last time we were there (Le Reve). Then I think we ended the night with a little more blackjack, roulette, and some fast food... because we're classy like that.
Tom ended up coming home up four or five hundred dollars. I lost maybe a hundred (and spent some at the mall... oops). Overall though, we didn't have to spend too much of our own money while we were there. Always nice.
We flew back home early the next morning, so we got back early Sunday afternoon, which was perfect... we had some time to hang out with the kids and get ready for the week.
And, while we were gone, my parents, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend stayed at our house and built out the walls for our new mudroom! It was kind of like a mini Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. :) It's still a work in progress but it's looking great so far. Cannot wait to have that done. So that was great to come home to! I'll have to post some pics of that soon.
We stayed in on New Year's Eve, as we have for the last couple of years (we never have a babysitter and struggle to just stay awake until midnight :). We had a nice, quiet dinner after the kids were asleep, but before that, they had macaroni and cheese (per request) by candlelight (A BIG DEAL) while we sat with them and chatted about our favorite parts of the past year and what's to come in 2012.
When we asked Max about his favorite part of 2011, he immediately said Christmas, then also came up with baseball camp... the waterpark... camping. We were trying to remember some other high points, when Vivi piped up from across from the table, 'Santa and toys and GO SWIMMING!'
Well, that pretty much covers it. :)
Two weeks in to the new year and I'm not doing so bad on my list... Tom and I spent a long weekend in Vegas, I joined Jen's challenge to eat better/exercise more, I cleaned out my underwear drawer, our mudroom is in the taping/sanding phase (we bought paint and tile yesterday!), and I decided, today, that I'm taking up a new hobby... scrapbooking. YES. I am completely and utterly insane. And ready for bed.
Finally caught up to it!
On Christmas Eve Eve, Max and I went down to Bentleyville for the second time, this time hoping to visit Santa. It was fun to walk around just the two of us. We waited at least a half hour to see him and Max did SO good; I was very proud of him... he kept hugging me and I couldn't figure out why at first, but then I realized he was trying to sleep standing up in line. :)
He doesn't look very happy in the pic, but he was really excited. I'm still kind of shocked when he even wants to do this kind of thing. He told Santa that he wanted 'hockey stuff'. Mission accomplished. Then I gave him a LONG piggy-back ride to the car and he fell asleep before we were back on the freeway.
On Christmas Eve, we met Tom's parents at church. We don't go to that often, which was made apparent about fifteen minutes in when Vivi noticed the priest (a large, older man with a white beard) and shouted 'SANTA!' She did not let him out of her sight for the rest of the mass. :)
After church we went over to Bob and Karen's house for dinner and presents.
Cheese. Ball.
Then it was home for a reading of The Night Before Christmas and leaving out some milk and cookies.
Christmas morning was great. Santa filled the kids stockings with crayons, markers, coloring books, socks, card games, and a Saints t-shirt.
Santa also brought Vivi a book and a LeapFrog My Pal, which is so cute (she had asked Santa for a 'goggy' i.e. 'doggy'). He brought Max a Wild jersey (satisfying the 'hockey stuff' request) and a Lightning McQueen remote control car.
(And Santa was also planning on bringing the kids a sled... but Tom gave that to them early when they decided to go sliding on Christmas Eve. :) I like documenting what we got them, I think it's fun to look back on.)
We saved the rest of the presents to be from us. We got Max a Joe Mauer Twins jersey, an Angry Birds board game, some PJs and pants from Boden, a football, and a USA map puzzle.
And, a REAL hockey stick.
Vivi got a couple Weebles sets, some clothes from Boden, and a wood puzzle.
We also got them a LeapPad to share. I figured that since they're on our iPhones all the time, this could be something similar just for them. Originally I had wanted to get them both one (to avoid the inevitable fighting over it - even though I know Vivi is too young for it yet). But I could only find one. I'm glad now I only bought one of them because there hasn't been much fighting over it at all. I figure if the time comes, we'll think about getting another one. Max seems to really like it and I don't think he's even gotten to see half of what it can do yet... it seems right on the age range (4-7 I think?). I've been pretty impressed with some of the apps. Hopefully, they continue to like it.
Tom and I were not planning on getting each other anything, like we haven't for the past few years, but then he let me in on the fact that he WAS getting me something a few days before Christmas. So I went out (on Christmas Eve!) and bought him a Keurig coffee maker. He's always doing so much in the mornings, like getting the kids up and ready since I'm NOT a morning person (and I don't ever drink/make coffee). I thought maybe it would make his mornings a little better. He totally surprised me (and he is NOT usually into surprising me) with a weekend away in February - with Niki. :) He and Justin got together and planned got us a Saturday night at a spa along with massages, dinner, and breakfast, and are planning on booking us a room somewhere else for Friday if we decide we want to go shopping somewhere or do something else. I opened this huge box and it had a letter in it telling me that a month into baseball season I was going to need a break and that is what he got me for Christmas... and some other mushy stuff that made me cry. So now I'm thinking we may need to start buying each other presents again every year? :)
After cinnamon rolls, we headed up to my parents' house for Christmas Day with them and my sister. And - this is SO out of character for me - I FORGOT my camera. So I don't have ANY pictures of Christmas Day, really. Which is okay. I do have one picture from my phone of our little princess:
We opened gifts again and then headed up to my grandma's house for Christmas with more of my family. My parents got an Xbox with Kinect for our family, so we spent some time playing that - very cool. We stayed over and went sliding in the morning and up to my grandma's for leftovers before we headed back home. Anne and Pat came over that night and we played with the Xbox. The next day, we were back to Bob and Karen's house for Christmas with Anne, Pat and the boys... where I didn't take many pictures, either. Other than this one of Max and Ry in their matching Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa:
Bet they'll love that when they're older. :)
So, Christmas was GREAT this year. Well, four DAYS of Christmas? Was maybe a TINY bit much. Mostly because I ate so much, probably. :) But overall, it was great. The kids are still talking about it, which is the most important thing. I loved watching them this year. You know how you can plan out everything and buy the perfect gifts, and at this age, your kid could just kind of be having a bad day or something and sort of... well, not seem happy with it? And it's not really your fault, but it's just kind of frustrating? I was just happy that both kids this year, even Vivi, looked at almost everything they opened (even clothes) and seemed to be happy with it. And in Max's case, even seemed really appreciative. That totally made my Christmas. Love those kids.
