Advent, week 3

 Quite a busy week for us!  I'll be happy when things quiet down a bit.  Wish I had some time to just sit at home and relax.  I did take Christmas Eve off, but I think the morning will be willed with last minute errands and wrapping presents and then Bennett will be home in the afternoon.

Monday's Advent activity was to watch Frosty the Snowman.  I don't think Bennett was very intersted.

On Tuesday we opened this magic growing Christmas Tree that was supposed to grow to 6x its size.  (May take up to 72 hours.)  It's now been over 6 days and it has barely grown at all.

Tuesday night we got lots of snow, so when we got home from work/school on Wednesday Bennett got to help shovel the snow.  I stayed inside where it was nice and warm and took horrible photos through the window.  :)

On Wednesday Bennett also got to make Santa's beard out of cotton balls.

Thursday we brought Brit to the vet.  She's been loosing a lot of weight and isn't eating.  (She now weighs only 5 lbs.)  The vet took some x-rays.  She's constipated and likely either has irritable bowel or a tumor, but without further testing he can't say which.  We switched her to some different food which she hungrily ate the first day and has now grown less interested in, and also gave us a laxative to give to her twice a day.

As a somewhat related question, how do you decide how much testing to do for a pet who is 13 years old?  We can't spend too much more on testing and treatment.   I don't think she's in pain, but we also know she isn't healthy. 

When we got home Bennett watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

On Friday Bennett got to color one of those $1 craft packs that comes with a little coloring book, some crayons, and stickers.  I think after about one minute he had lost interest in it.

Saturday was a busy day.

 And not the best video, but it does show Bennett standing up and marching on his own.  He had been doing a lot more marching just before this, but of course I was late getting the camera ready.

After skating we went to the mall for the official photo with Santa.  It was definitely a popular day for visiting Santa and we ended up having to wait in line for about an hour.  Luckily everyone seemed to be in good spirits about it.

And here's a collage of the past years.  I love that it's the same Santa/backdrop in all of the pictures.

And as if our Saturday wasn't busy enough, we had friends over in the afternoon for the annual graham cracker house decorating.  It was a smaller group than usual this year as a few friends couldn't make it and others got sick en route and had to cancel.

Sunday morning we ran some errands doing some grocery shopping, etc.  The afternoon was full of baking.  I made 3 batches of fudge and Bennett made some cookies with Daddy.  Then later I made some Chewy Noels.  Another batch of Chewy Noels and another batch of cookies are still planned.

And that wraps up our week!  I hope this week will be a bit more quiet, but we will see.  The elves are busy in our house trying to get some gifts finished up.

Christmas adventures

Everyone loved Bennett's custom wrapping paper, with many people saving their paper.  Aunt Gentry got a piece with a pretty perfect looking footprint that she mentioned would be great for framing.  Glad to hear that it was such a hit.  I'll have to remember to have Bennett make some again next year.

On Christmas Eve Bennett wore his kilt to church.  Getting an active toddler to stand still for a picture is tricky!  He got lots of compliments from other people at church, both those we knew and some we didn't.  One we didn't know was a Scot who came up to us mentioning that he liked the kilt and saying he should have worn his, and that it was a good thing Bennett didn't have a dirk with him in church.

When we got home from church we changed Bennett into clothes that wouldn't matter if they got messy and it was time for him to eat dinner, open Christmas PJs, and leave milk & cookies for Santa.  We'd done some baking but hadn't actually made cookies.  (Instead we had fudge, bars, and some snack-y things.)  Good thing one of Chris' former students had mailed us some cookies that arrived just in time to put out for Santa.

Santa came and put a bunch of presents under the tree.

Bennett woke up at a normal time.  We changed his diaper but wanted to leave him in his PJs for opening presents.  Well Bennett is very routinue driven and was not happy about this!  Finally we convinced him to go downstairs.

He kind of looked at the tree and presents, went over and grabbed one and wripped the paper off.  Then he moved on to the next.  Wow, we got through presents quickly!  Maybe he went so quickly since we hadn't gotten many toys for him?  (We figured the swing set over the summer was a big enough gift to last for a while!  Plus he's too young to really know or care.)  His favorite gift was new sneakers, which we almost hadn't given to him.

After we all got dressed I got Mimi and brought her over for lunch and more presents.  She gave Bennett a bunch of dress-up hats: fireman, policeman, cowboy, pirate, witch...

After eating I brought Mimi back to her place while Bennett and Daddy napped.  Unfortunately Bennett didn't take a very good nap.  I was supposed to start packing the car when I got home but they were waking up by that point.

So instead Bennett helped us gather things to pack into the car.  Chris brought me my pillow so then Bennett brought his downstairs.  And he only tried a couple of times to take things off the pile and put them away.
We finally were packed (we packed way too much stuff) and hit the round around 4:00.  We drove for a couple of hours and stopped in CT for dinner, changed Bennett into PJs and headed back out. 

As an aside, the fine for littering in CT is $219.  Who came up with that price, and why?  Wouldn't a round number make more sense?

Chris and I took turns driving, although he probably did the bulk of it.  When we were going through the mountains of Virginia and into North Carolina we were going through snow squalls and pouring rain.  Not the most fun when sleep deprived so we took it nice and slow.  And I even stopped at a rest area shortly before dawn to take a quick nap.  It was around this time that Bennett was starting to wake up.  Luckily he stayed pretty quiet until I pulled out of the rest area and then he started chatting.

We stopped in South Carolina for breakfast (we meant to go to Steak 'n Shake but I missed the exit) and then got to our hotel around noon.  Phew, we were exhausted!  We got to Chris' parents house, failed to get Bennett to take a nap, so they watched him while Chris and I napped. 

Bennett dubbed them "Mama" and "Papa" (his way of saying Grandma and Grandpa) which led to some initial confusion as to Mama/Mommy.  He also was very excited about the 15-year-old "puppy" and quickly returned the routinue to take Brownie on a walk- where the leash went, that he needed to put on his shoes to go outside with Grandma, etc.

What was a little odd for him was the evening bath and bed routinue.  It probably didn't help that we did things a bit differently every night.  The first night we did bath at the house and then left to go back to the hotel.  The second night we tried putting him down for a bit at the house (took a while to fall asleep) but then moved him to the hotel, and of course he woke up when we transferred him.  Then the third night he had a sleepover (more on that later) and finally the last night we went back to the hotel for bed and there were lots of noisy people in the hall.  I would say that overall he was a champ and mostly coped with all of the changes.

We had brought some of Bennett's toys with us, and on Thursday the cousins came over and had fun playing with the trains and then taking Bennett into the backyard to check out the swingset.

Friday we went and fed the ducks at a nearby park, went for a walk, and checked out one of the playgrounds.

Then that night, as I mentioned earlier, Bennett had his first sleepover.  I'd been away from Bennett before for a work conference, but this was the first night that Chris had spent away from Bennett since his initial time at Children's- so since Bennett was 3 weeks old.  They started their evening with Bennett helping Grandpa make pancakes.  Bennett loves to help cook!  And then the report that Bennett had no problems at all going to sleep.  We'd warned them that sometimes Bennett wakes up in the middle of the night needing to have his blankets adjusted.  Because of this Grandpa had trouble sleeping and was up at 1am.  He checked on Bennett a few times and every time Bennett was turned around a different way in the bed.  But he slept soundly and didn't wake up until Grandpa went in shortly before 8am and turned the light on in the room.

Saturday we celebrated Christmas!  In Chris' family everyone takes turns opening their stockings, starting with the youngest and moving on up in age.  This means that Bennett gets to go first.

When it was Chris' and my turn he helped us, and then he went and helped Grandma and Grandpa as well.

After stockings we moved on to presents.  It was a bit overwhelming, which is rather understandable since there were 12 people!  And he wasn't too happy with me when I tried moving things aside that he had opened.  He wanted to play with them now!

Although he liked the train toy pictured above, I think his favorite is this fruit below.  There are two halves held together with velcro and he can "cut" the fruit.  He also got some other fruit that didn't cut, but that didn't stop him from trying.

Since Christmas isn't all about Bennett, I have to share this picture of his 10-year-old cousin, Dekota.  Dekota loves Legos.  In fact, other than a book that we gave him, all of the gifts he recieved that day were Legos.  And the book was The Hobbit to go with the Lord of the Rings Legos that we gave him.  But what he's opening here is a 2 gallon bag full of miscellaneous Legos that we got for him.  He was so excited and shaking because he was so excited.  I hope he finds some fun things in that bag!

After presents it was time to eat.  We also provided crackers for everyone to open.  We've had these in the past, but people still seemed a little confused by them.

After everything was cleaned up we headed outside for a family photo.  I think some people were a little upset with me when I told them they couldn't wear jackets, but I think this looks nicer.  I took about 20 pictures, and as luck would have it, in each one of them somone is less than perfect looking.  This one was the "everyone look goofy" picture, which I think is my favorite of the bunch.

After Bennett's nap we went ice skating!  At first all of the adults had said that they wouldn't be skating.  I think that maybe they were afraid of falling or making a fool of themselves.  Luckily, in the end, almost all of them gave it a try.  And better yet, they all had fun!

They had the walkers, which are both a blessing and a curse.  They help them stay upright, but then they end up doing stupid things- going to fast, or not doing things "correctly", so they end up falling.  Plus the walkers were too small for them.  By the end I made Dekota and Elizabeth stop using them, and they were doing ok.

Sunday morning we had everyone come over to the house again because we had forgotten to get a picture of all of the cousins together.  Then after lunch we headed home.

I mentioned that we missed going to Steak 'n Shake on the way down.  Luckily this wasn't a big deal as they built one in Augusta!  We ended up getting shakes from the drive-thru twice.  It might have been nice to get food, but the timing didn't work out.  Next time?

We also stopped at Sonic on the way out of town so that I could get a cherry-limeade.  It's nice being able to go to places that we don't have at home.  Now we just need to find ourselves a Taco John's!

I think one of the hardest parts of the trip was entertaining Bennett in the car.  On the way home he was interested in "reading".  We'd brought a lot of books, but not enough!  I'd give him one, he'd read it for a bit, then hand it back/drop it, and say "more" (mo-ah-- think Boston accent).  I'd hand him another and we'd repeat this.  We went through a dozen or so books until they were all gone.  I tried repeating books, but he wouldn't have that.  And he didn't want his cars and he didn't want to color.  I was running out of things to give him!  Luckily his fruit kept him entertained for a little while, and then it was time for dinner and bed.

We finally got back to MA around 8am, making much better time than we had on the way down.  He wasn't supposed to go to school on Monday, but we were exhausted so we called them up and asked if we could bring him in.  They were only open until 3 since it was New Year's Eve, but that was good enough for us!   We dropped him off and then went home to nap.

Since there was no school on Tuesday and it had snowed we knew we had to take Bennett sledding.  We decided to go to Sturbridge since we would also be able to go for a sleigh ride.  They had 1830's reproduction sleds and we all had a blast!

For Bennett's first time down the hill he went with Chris. 

After that he requested going in the Boba (backpack carrier).  I tried telling him that he couldn't because it wasn't safe, but he was pretty insistent.  So he ended up on my back and I did my best not to fall on him.  And he LOVED it!  So many giggles.

And finally, here's a video of Bennett and Mummy going sledding.  Hmm, he just needs to keep his hat on straight.  And there really should be sledding etiquette where you don't walk up the hill right where people are trying to come down!



So there you have it.  That's how we spent our Christmas Vacation!

The ones I couldn't show you

I think by now most people who we sent cards to have received them so it's probably "safe" to show these pictures.  I like to try to do something cute/funny rather than just using a standard photo.

Here's 2010, using a quote from the movie Elf.


Buddy the Elf taught me that
"We elves have four major food groups:
candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup."


and here's 2011.


"Santa, my Christmas wish is for Daddy
to get more hair than me in 2012."

 By mid-November I was at a complete loss as to what our "theme" would be for our holiday cards. I was texting with a friend about her card idea and mentioned that I still didn't know what to do.  She suggested "toy soldier".  I mulled that around in my head, trying to figure out how I could make it work.  Toy Soldier morphed to Nutcracker which then somehow ended up with Hermey the Elf from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I often kid that I must have grown up in a cave/ under a rock, because unlike most of the other people my age, watching Rudolph was never a holiday tradition in our house. Chris thought it was funny that this is what I came up with, even though I've only watched it a few times in more recent years.

In the end, coming up with the idea was the easiest part of the process, not that any of it was all that difficult.  The problem was that I was in the middle of making an advent calendar and December was fast approaching.  I knew I needed to get that finished up before I could tackle anything else.  Finally I finished that and I could turn my attention to sewing a Hermey costume.

My original thought had been to use the same pattern that I had used for Sir Topham Hatt, but then I realized that the neckline was all wrong.  So instead I found a different pattern to alter.  Having watched Miranda alter the other pattern I felt confident that I could handle this one.  (But she did help me by giving me a pattern to use for elf shoes.)  I still had a bit of a time crunch though and knew that this costume-making could drag on for a while.  I decided that rather than taking the photo at home we would have them done at the JC Penney portrait studio (where we go for all our other photos).  Fewer distractions, nice backdrops, perfect lighting, and I wouldn't have to worry about camera settings, etc.  So I booked an appointment. 

Booking the appointment was good because it gave me a concrete deadline.  I had 1 week to get the costume done.  It actually came together pretty well.  In the end I made the jacket a little short in the front, but given how long he had to wear it, I think I'm the only one who would care.  When I first booked the appointment, I had this backdrop in mind.

Then the night before we went in, I had Bennett put everything on just to get a final look at everything.  As he stood by our tree I thought how pretty that looked.

I knew Penney's had a tree backdrop so thought we might do some of the snowflakes and some with the tree.  (Turns out they have 2- this one, and this one.) But then when we got there and were checking in, we saw another backdrop that we thought would be even more perfect.  So here you go.  Here's our holiday card.



Happy Holidays
From your Misfit Friends
Rudolf and Hermey the Elf


We also had a coupon for a small portrait package, so we got this pose as well.

And we didn't buy this one since we were really wanting a picture of the whole costume, but I really do love it.

We did have pictures taken with the snowflake backdrop, but in the end, none of them were favorites.


As I mentioned in my last post, we thought it would be fun for Hermey to have his picture taken with Santa.  What's nice is that if you buy the "official" picture you can take your own pictures as well.  It's a good thing I did this, because when buying the official picture I was concentrating too much on selecting one where Bennett looked good that I ended up buying the one where Santa looks creepy.

Here's one of mine:

and here's the "official" photo.

And after all of that, I now have a pair of red tights to hand-down to someone, elf shoes that should probably go straight to the trash (they didn't turn out that well and the felt isn't holding up well), and a jacket and hat that will likely never be worn again (although who knows, maybe Bennett will develop an interest in dress-up clothes).