Time to pack up

It's been a great trip. Lots of pictures and stories to share. It's time to head home in the morning. Here's everything (plus a few other odds and ends) that needs to come home.


Needless to say, we'll be making some tough decisions and a few things will have to wait for Papa and Gram to bring down.

Santa Came!

She's going to flip.


-- Post From My iPhone

Katherine's Christmas Tree

The ceramic Christmas tree you see above has been in Katherine’s room for the past month. We turn it on each night at bedtime for her. My grandmother made it and I remember it being up in our house every Christmas as a child. I think I asked to have it in my own home very shortly after Ted and I got married and it’s been up every Christmas since. The ceramic has gotten brittle over the years and there’s a small chip at the back of the star that I wish could be fixed but I’m not sure how. The light on the base is quite loose however I recently discovered someone on Ebay who makes replacement bases (actually I think he makes the trees too so he might be a resource on how to get that chip repaired...hmmm put that on the "to do" list).  I’m keeping it until it completely cracks apart.

The Santa sightings continue. He stopped by school/daycare yesterday for a quick hello. I asked Katherine if she had a chance to talk to him and she said yes. “What did you say?” “I want a Transformer.” Talk about getting right to the point, dude better produce come Christmas morning.

My parents sent her a video email message from Portable Santa. Seriously, if you have little kids and have not heard of this sight you need to go there and do one. It’s free too! Katherine loves it; she’s viewed it multiple times and each time eagerly responds to Santa’s questions.

And she’ll have one more chance to see the Big Guy before he starts his journey around the world. He’ll be heading up to the Fawn Lake Community Center at Ted’s parents tomorrow night for story time. You know there will be one enthusiastic little girl in the crowd…who will probably yell out one more time that she wants a Transformer. Better safe than sorry!

Don't forget my suit!

The picture site is finally up to date. Go on, take a look, I’ll wait. Yes, I know there is no December album but December isn’t over yet, is it???

This week is going to fly or be slower than molasses, I can’t decide which. Katherine has been asking every day whether today is the day we’re leaving to go to Papa and Gram’s houses. This morning on the way to daycare I told her “two more sleeps” to which she promptly replied that she wanted to go to sleep. Right then. Clearly the kid is excited. We started packing the weekend and the first thing Katherine grabbed was her bathing suit…yes her bathing suit. There’s a story to this one.

You see both Ted’s parents and my parents have hot tubs. Being the great Grams and Papas that they are they gladly turn down the heat to make the water just right for a little girl. Katherine loooooves going in the hot tubs. Usually her swims occur in the warmer months, not once the weather starts to head toward the freezing mark. So naturally at Thanksgiving time I didn’t even think to pack a suit for her. However Ted mentioned (on the way there, way too late to grab anything from home) that it might be nice to take a dip in the hot tub. I had forgotten my suit as well but Gram had one I could borrow. Since we didn’t a suit for Katherine we figured she would be happy playing with Papa and Gram inside while the adults took a dip. Well, naturally Miss K took one look at the two of us in our robes, headed for the back door and well…you can kind of guess what happened next. She hasn’t let us forget it. So Saturday morning when suitcases began to come out she raced into her room and pulled out her suit. “Mommy I got my bathing suit out, you forgot it last time.” She upped the ante by actually putting the suit on and wearing it in the house for most of the day. Yeah, yeah, kid…we get it. We messed up (to put it nicely, put your own expletive in there). So it is a certainty that there will be hot tubbing this time around…at both houses. Which reminds me I need to pack her robe and flip flops as well.

In preparation for the Big Guy’s arrival next weekend I did some toy cleaning on Saturday. The main goal was to make room for the new arrivals but secondary to that was getting all the random toy parts in the toy box and in Katherine’s room back to their proper home. A few items here and there were tossed. Anything received as part of a Happy Meal or the equivalent is sadly, no longer with us. At the end of the day I had only one small basket of random “stuff” and the toy box is half empty. Not too shabby. Of course, all of this reorganizing meant that Miss K discovered toys she hasn’t played with in months so by Sunday afternoon the house was a mess again. At least it was an organized mess.

Ted and I attempted to continue a family tradition last night with our annual drive around town to look at Christmas lights. We thought Katherine would enjoy this since she asks to see Christmas lights every evening on the drive home from daycare. Ten minutes before we left Teddy fell over and smacked his cheek which resulted in lots of tears and some tlc time on me (he’s ok, just a little bruise). Recovered from that we hopped in the car in our pjs and turned on the holiday tunes. Two minutes after we left the house Katherine asked what we were doing and after the first street asked if we could go back home. We held her off through a few neighborhoods but just when she was starting to get into it, Teddy declared that he had had enough. I think we were gone 15 minutes at the most. Maybe next year will be more successful.

A Merry Griswold Christmas

We had our annual Holiday Walk at work on Friday and for the THIRD year in a row the Program Policy, Planning and Evaluation Section took first place for decorations! Clark would be so proud of us! Hard to see in the pictures but we had all the details, moose mugs, exploding turkey, even our own Clark and Eddie!















-- Post From My iPhone

The Sun was not shining, it was too wet to play...

I'm sitting here listening to Katherine "read" The Cat in the Hat to herself.  Its quite funny, I hate to stop her to tell her it's bedtime.  We've read it to her so many times she does know the story pretty well. I could probably recite the story by heart myself (hence the title of this post for those that have not read The Cat in the Hat in a while).

What have we been doing this week?  Keeping track of a little boy who wants to pull up ALL THE TIME.  I still don't have any pictures of him doing this because you can't leave him for a second.  Last week he perfected the pull up, this week he's already trying to transfer from one place to another, like from a chair to the coffee table.  We've prevented a few diggers at home but he already bumped his head once at daycare.  Actually the report from that day was that at one point he was so active they had to put him in his crib so they could change some diapers without worrying what he was trying to pull up on.  No matter to him, he just pulled up in the crib for a better look around.  Crawling is just going to be a passing fad with him.

You'll also see him try to hold on with just one hand while the other one is reaching to whatever object he wants dibs on.  I'm thinking cruising isn't that far off.  And you'd think all this activity would make a boy a. hungry and b. sleepy.  Naaaaa

Everyone around here is anxiously waiting to see what tomorrow's weather will be.  The morning is predicted to be nasty with snow changing to sleet and freezing rain.  Fun stuff.  Santa is supposed to come to school/daycare tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping things aren't so icy that we need to stay home.  At least it won't ruin the big Christmas party on Friday where the kids are going to be allowed to wear their pajamas for the day.  Katherine's been asking to where her pjs to school for months now so you know how excited she is about this!  Now if they'd only let us wear pjs to work...

Zebulon Christmas Parade

What a difference a week makes.  Last week at this time it was snowing, today it rained.  Last weekend was also Katherine's first time in the Zebulon Christmas Parade.  I know it won't be her last, this parade is a typical small town parade where every dance school, scout troop and civic organization participates.  I think we're in for many years of parades depending on the various activities she and her little brother chooses.

Miss K was very excited and quite happy that I was going to join in the fun as well.  I won't lie, it was cold....COLD.  We bundled up as best we could but there was no way to anticipate the one hour wait between when we all arrived at the appointed line up location and when our float actually started moving.  We kept the kids on the daycare bus as long as possible but eventually it had to leave to get to the end of the parade and we had to all get on the float and wait.  There's only so much you can do to entertain 3 and 4 year olds in the cold.  They were troopers though.  Katherine wasn't in much of a mood to wave to the crowd, she was content snuggling with me under a blanket with her lollipop (oh yes, we did resort to candy bribes).  But when it was all over she said she wanted to do it again.  Which got me thinking.  Why a Christmas Parade oh Town of Zebulon...can we change it to an Easter Parade instead????

Climbing to new heights

Teddy is starting to pull up. I totally did not expect this this soon, especially since he still needs to perfect his crawl. True, his current technique does get him where he wants to go but I have a feeling he has a desire to go a bit faster in order to keep up with his big sister or get to the cat before she runs away. Last week he started pulling himself up on his knees here and there, nothing consistent. But on Monday he did the whole enchilada, up on his feet holding on to one of Katherine’s little chairs for dear life. Of course he promptly toppled over with a loud thunk that startled me but did not seem to bother him all that much. Katherine actually caught the first pull up and she was VERY excited to be the family member that caught this first. I was working on dinner when she yelled for me to come into the living room. I caught sight of him standing for about two seconds before the fall. He’s done it a few more times since then, not staying up any length of time but you can tell he wants it. No picture yet, it happens too quickly for us to get the camera.

Unlike Katherine I have this weird feeling that he’ll be walking before his first birthday. He could prove me wrong though. Katherine got to be a very efficient crawler and saw no need to walk even though it was obvious she had the ability. I have the feeling this little boy has too much to keep up with to stay with crawling any length of time.

Speaking of pictures, I know I know. The photo sight as usual is sorely outdated. I hope to change that by the end of this weekend. Bear with me.

Recent Videos

Teddy crawling to his bath and this season's edition of Katherine sliding in the snow Saturday night. Their a bit blurry due to the lack of light each time.  Enjoy!

Santa

Before I even get to Santa, can I just tell you that it's SNOWING outside.  I mean, it's really coming down!  I took pictures of the kids out there when it first start but now it's actually starting to stick to the ground.  This is a rarity for December in North Carolina.  Luckily it should not effect the roads at (we all know what a mess that is around here) but it gorgeous to look at and really puts one in the Christmas spirit.

So last night, the Big Guy paid a visit to our town community center.  I heard about the event via the daycare and what really got me interested was that it was FREE.  We all know about Katherine's feelings about Santa Claus so I was not about to pay mall prices and deal with those lines to see him. But I wanted to attempt to get a picture of Teddy with Santa because I know this is probably the only year he won't cry at the site of him.  Free sounded pretty good to me. I told Katherine the plan earlier in the day and she actually said she wanted to go and see him.  By the time we got home from daycare she was excited, she wanted to wear her purple dress and Santa needed to see her shiny shoes.  I was cautiously optomistic.

Success!  She bought into it hook, line and sinker this year.  Just as we were headed into the building, there was Santa getting out of his truck.  "Hi Santa!!! I want a Transformer!!"  She happily walked right over when it was her turn and sat on his lap.  In fact, she would have sat there a bit longer if there weren't other kids waiting.  Mr. T was a happy fella too.  All in all it was a great experience, one that I hope we can repeat for years to come.  There was a steady stream of people there but it was spaced out enough that it didn't seem crowded at all.  They had Santa set up in one of the meeting rooms and each family went in individually so you weren't on display for the whole mall to see.  And the picture...well I think it came out better than any mall Santa picture we've had done and I'm not just saying that because my kids weren't crying.

Ok, I need to do some more work with the scanner, sorry for the small size.  Did I mention that picture was free?  Yeah, I've seen better Santa beards before but still. Considering I had NO expectations for this, I'm tickled with the results. We just better ensure that the Big Guy bring her that transformer or I don't think he'll be in her good graces anymore.

The Current State of Affairs

At our house. Hard to tell from the picture but it's really coming down.


-- Post From My iPhone

December

And so begins December, that last exciting, crazy month of the year. For this family its three weeks until we begin our Christmas travels which seems far away and Oh My God just around the corner at the same time. I’m feeling good about the “to do” list, our shopping is done, cards will be ordered today and the tree is up. We haven’t put up any lights outside, which I have to admit I’m not all that motivated to do this year, probably because I know they won’t be on for the actual holiday. But since I know how much Katherine enjoys them, we’ll be doing something in that area by the end of this week, even if it’s just some lights around the banister.

Katherine has headed into the holiday season with full gusto. And while I don’t think she’s still all that keen on seeing Santa in person she has made her one of her gift requests for this year known…she wants a Transformer. That’s right; girlfriend won’t be held down by any gender stereotypes, no sir. She’s never seen the movie or the cartoon, only a TV commercial here and there but I’m pretty sure they’ve made appearances at show and tell. Other than that every single commercial or walk by a toy aisle produces an “I want that!” type reaction. So after the Transformer is acquired, she’s open to suggestion. Tonight we open the first doors on the Advent calendars at home.

On Sunday Miss K will also be in her first parade! Our town holds an annual Christmas parade and the daycare has a float. She had the chance to ride last year but being pregnant, a nice afternoon nap was a lot more enticing to me than spending a few hours in the cold either watch her at the parade or riding on the float with her. This year, however, she’s taking the opportunity and I’ve volunteered to help out so there will be pictures! The boys will be hanging out at home.

I would be remiss without including a Teddy sleep update. We’re moving forward in slow increments. This also means we’ve bit the bullet and he’s been spending the majority of each night in our bed, after the first wake up. It allows us to give up the night time feedings more smoothly, he’ll put up with going right back to sleep as long as there’s paci and a warm body to snuggle up against. Call it the wimps “cry it out” method. As long as it get us sleep, I’m all for it. We’ll cross that “my God this child is still sleep in our bed” situation at a later date, in a later blog post.