Holiday Montage –12 Days of Christmas-ish…..

12 minutes it took to open presents at Nanny’s house Christmas Eve

11 fans of the Portland Pirates (12/28)

10 for Christmas Day dinner (12/25)

9- average number of minutes it took for an adult to be annoyed by a child’s toy

the bull horn (THAT is still annoying..those batteries are going to “die” soon)

Sing-a-ma-jig  (actually Erik and I love it…we annoyed my parents with it!)  :)

can you help me put my skates on?

how do I put the crane up? (more like the number of times Alec asked us to put the crane up)

8 players of Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii

7 of us fighting colds

6 grandchildren together

Can you find them????

5 minutes grandma lasted in the “blizzard” (12/26)

 

4 days it took Alec to open all his presents under the tree…

Christmas day (thrilled Santa put Cheetos in his stocking)

the 26th-plugging along

 

the 28th- more arrived

The 30th- finished it up!

 

3 thrilled brother-in-laws

2 happy grandparents

 

1- thankful little boy who loved spending time with both sides of the family this holiday season!

Merry Christmas!

The Whisper of Sweet Notions

On Monday we went to visit the Todd girls. They are lucky to have woods and paths behind their house. At my request, we took a walk down to the stream and on the way back, spontaneously, M and Alec grabbed hands.

Doesn’t it look like he is going to whisper in her ear or give her a kiss on the cheek? In reality he was probably telling her his escape plan to run off and leave me behind. I prefer the idea of sweet notions being whispered in her ear so I will choose to believe it is that! So very cute.

I believe….

Santa visited me yesterday.

I woke up with a headache, Alec was cranky about going to daycare, I was frustrated and irritated about Christmas plans and a few surprises were waiting for me at work. It was not shaping up to be a good day. I had a little (some might say big) hissy fit. I gave myself a timeout. I left work early (thankfully I have a very flexible job) and went home. I sat…I tried to get some perspective. And for a half hour I did nothing but try to change my attitude (BTW- It was hard). I came up with a game plan for the rest of the evening.

I ran a couple errands and picked Alec up. He was in a great mood. Awesome. My plan (since Erik was out and about for the evening) was to take him to Applebee’s for dinner and then we would go pick out a present for Erik from Alec. He was great at Applebee’s. Golden child. He ate, he chatted and he was well behaved. Wow. We strolled over to Kohls.  He listened. He helped. We were silly. We laughed. He flirted with the college girls that were in front of us in line. I scratched a ticket and got an extra 20% off our purchase.  I was starting to feel good again…and then Santa paid us a visit.

As I was putting Alec in his car seat and a lady came running out and started yelling (strong word but I can’t come up with another- chasing sounds crazy too) after us. She asked me if she she could give Alec a truck?!  She explained that she bought this truck for her grandson and she found out he already had it. She bought it in Massachusetts and wasn’t going to drive back just to return it. She said she saw us walking around Kohls and knew that she just had to give it to Alec. She was the sweetest lady. I asked her if I could pay her or was sure she didn’t want to give it to a charity. She said – nope this boy looks perfect for this truck…. And so she takes it out of her trunk. She’s right. It was. Alec gave her hug. Merry Christmas she calls out.  I put Alec in his car seat and look over to way goodbye to this lady. And she’s gone. The car is gone. Did I just dream this?

Wow – what a way to end my day! (Now I need to ‘pay it forward’).

Winter Wonderland

It finally snowed here last night. Alec was so excited when I showed him it was snowing. I’m glad I made the effort to get him out to play in it while it was falling because it’s already gone today. I was kind of hoping for some…I was ready…until it happened…and then I remember all it takes to deal with snow. Boots, snow pants, shoveling, snow blowing, driving in it and now….I’m all set until next year!

(guess I should have put his snow pants on –huh?)

It was fun while it lasted.