Christmas

This is the loot that the kids came down to on Christmas morning, 99% courtesty of adoring grandparents. I think Justin and I got them each a toothbrush and a pencil.
 
 
Claire and Woody, who she says was her very favorite present. That's funny for a couple of reasons...one, just because, sheesh, Claire, people spent a lot of time thinking of really nice gifts for you and your favorite toy is a plastic 8 inch cowboy doll? But what makes it even funnier is that Woody was something Baba picked up from her elementary school, where he's been living in the lost & found for the last two years. I told Baba the kids liked Toy Story and she said she'd break Woody out of the lost & found (since his rightful owner obviously wasn't coming back for him) and bring him along. And lo and behold, he's Claire's favorite present.
 
It was difficult to get them out of the teepee to open presents.
 
Feather boas are always a big hit (she's also wearing two tutus here)
 
Reid's favorite was, of course, the wrapping paper and boxes
 
Preparing for their first ride in the Jeep (notice Woody again?)
 
Woody and Buzz, with their respective owners. I really wish Buzz didn't talk. It's been five days since Christmas, and I'm sick of waking up every morning to Buzz saying, "To infinity and beyond!"
 
Finally, Claire's turn at the helm. She's a much better driver than Hayden, but she jumped ship while we were out and neither of them wanted to drive home. We had to force them to get it and drive it back. What's wrong with that picture? Thankfully, the next outing went substantially better.
 
Me and my super cute little appendage.
 

Christmas Eve

The kids went sledding with Daddy and Grumps on Christmas Eve. Baba and I were at the grocery store, which is a good thing, because we might have both had heart attacks had we tagged along...more on that in a second.

Here's the happy duo on their way to sled at the park.
 
Daddy and Claire
 
Hayden, smiling happily after his near-death experience
 
So when my boy went for his first turn down the hill on his own, he hopped on the sled went so fast that he flew down the sledding hill, straight past his dad, his grandfather, the swings, the beach, and directly onto an inlet that happened to be frozen over. Yikes! Luckily the ice was thick enough to hold him and his daddy, who ran out to get him. I'm quite happy I wasn't around to have a heart attack over that.

Later that night, we made cookies for Santa. We started with cookie cutters and then we decided to go rogue and started making free-form sugar cookies. Santa got a lot of "worms," but they were delicious. I mean...I'm sure he though they were delicious.
 
Aunt Ashleigh arrived on Christmas Eve, too, and the kids loved having another person to climb on. She was here for five days, and went home very thankful to be childless.
 
 

Snow!

It snowed about a foot last night, and Claire woke up early begging to go out and play in it. We went out while Justin shoveled snow, and the kids and I (minus napping Reid) frolicked and played for, oh....about 15 minutes. We could only find one of Hayden's mittens, and both of the kids, for some reason, wanted nothing more than to throw the snow up in the air and have it land on their faces. Makes for a short, cold outing.

We came back in, shed our snowy gear, and made hot chocolate. Yum.

I love the first big snowfall, but it only takes a few weeks for my enthusiasm to take a rapid nosedive from, "Oh look how pretty!" to "$%*@!^# snow!" For now, we're all enjoying watching it fall, and we hope it doesn't infringe too much on Baba and Grumps' travel plans tomorrow!

 
 
He was so excited to drink "coffee."
 
Chocolate mustaches trump milk mustaches any day.
 

Better than Christmas!

We haven't had a dishwasher for over a month. And as much as that sucks, if that were the only problem, it would be manageable. What's not manageable is that, for some reason, our kitchen is rigged up so that if there's no dishwasher, there's also no hot water. That's right, no hot water! We've been doing a glorified version of camping the last few weeks, and I am so not a camper. We have to go into the bathroom down the hall from the kitchen, fill up a pitcher with hot water and bring it back and pour it in the sink.

But today...today, my friends...this arrived:

 

Take a moment and admire her beauty (and the kids' fingerprints).

I have never been more excited to load a dishwasher, and when I started her up, she purred like a little kitten. The happiness is indescribable.

Happy Half a Year, Buddy!

 
 

Totally cliche, but wow, is this ever going fast!

Christmas Card Outtakes

Ah, the annual Christmas picture...it's my favorite of the holiday traditions. There's nothing like posing a 4 year old, a toddler, and a baby and bribing them with ice cream and M&Ms to get them to stay still long enough to get one good picture. One freaking good picture, guys, c'mon!

 
 

Ho Ho Ho

We went to the mall this morning to get some pictures taken of the kids for our Christmas cards. That was a miserable failure (more on that after I've had a chance to have a few glasses of wine), but we figured that we might as well work a visit to Santa into the outing because it couldn't possibly go any worse than our visit to The Picture People did.

Hayden and I went down to check out Santa while Daddy and Claire searched out an elevator to bring the mule we travel with downstairs (it's really just a double stroller, but from the way we load her up, you'd think she was a mule). We listened to Santa and his elf talk about the Red Sox while we waited. Apparently, Santa hates the Yankees. Hayden waved at him from afar while trying to decide whether he was scary or not. He got closer and closer and when I told him to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, he shouted, "Presents!" from about six feet away. Claire and Daddy showed up then, and Claire is completely fearless...she would sit on the lap of Freddy Kreuger if he sat on a throne in middle of the mall. She climbed up and started telling Santa about Ariel and Peter Pan and all of her other favorite things, and then Hayden decided that Santa was probably okay. He stood next to him and asked for some Thomas the Train things, but he had no interest whatsoever in sitting on his lap. When it was time to take the picture, he only wanted to do it if Mommy and Daddy would be in it, too.

Oh, the things we do for our kids:

 

Preparations

We've spent the last few weeks sorting through the house and making a donation mound to rival Mt. Kilimanjaro. On Monday, a big van pulled up and took away 13 garbage bags and 5 boxes full of donations. I nearly kissed that driver. How have we accumulated so much crap?! And there is easily at least one more big donation pick up in our future.

All of this is being done in an effort to prepare for the big move. We close on the new house on January 15, and since we're hauling everything but the furniture ourselves, we'd like to haul as little junk as possible. Nana is coming up to help us by watching all the wee ones while Justin and I navigate driving a UHaul through Boston traffic. Hmmm...I wonder if UHaul has the option of hiring a marriage counselor to ride along with you. We are very excited to move into the house where we plan to live for a very long time (remember, we're Army brats...."very long" means at least 4 years).

In other news, Reid has begun eating "real food." I use quotation marks because I'm not sure pureed carrots is actually food, but he seems to enjoy it. He's very interested now in what everyone else is eating, as evidenced here:

 

Happy 5 months, Barnacle!

 
 
 

Yes, we can!

 

Bowling

You know what's a good way to burn off your kids' Halloween sugar highs? Bowling! Justin and I took the kiddos to a bowling alley on Saturday morning because they were, quite literally, pinging off the walls from the amount of sugar consumed the night prior.

A good time was had by all...well, until Hayden came crashing down from his sugar high and became a terror. And you know what's fun to do when your two year old becomes a terror? Going out to lunch! Don't ask what we were thinking...just know that he's not welcome at Chick-fil-A anymore.

 
 
 
 

It was ugly.

Happy Halloween!

From our elephant, shark (it was a shark princess, but she ditched the tutu and tiara), and frog.