I guess kids don't feel like they're about to get hypothermia...

Unlike their parents, I don't think kids are bothered by the cold (or maybe I should just say unlike their moms, because Brian doesn't seem bothered by the cold either). I spent 3 days this week standing at the bus stop for 30+ minutes waiting for my bus when it was about 10 degrees outside (without taking the wind into account) and I seriously stood there and wondered a few things...how do you know you're getting hypothermia? At what point does frostbite set in? Will the bus driver still bother to stop if I'm laying in a frozen heap at the bus stop and at least have the courtesy to drop me off at a hospital on the way?



Fast-forward to Saturday, when we went to the Children's Museum, where Jake could not.be.torn.away from the water play area. Clearly, he did not share the same fears of hypothermia as his mother, since I had to drag him away from the water after 45 minutes when I realized that his teeth were chattering and his whole face had a slight blue tinge to it.



Needless to say, he loved the museum, we'll definitely be going back again!

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation (by Jake)

I love going to school every day, but I also love staying home with mommy & daddy! We did a lot of fun things.

Mommy had to work on the first day of my vacation, so daddy took the day off to hang with me & we decided to go to the zoo! At first, I was all "um...dad, it's going to be COLD!" but then I remembered that my favorite things at the zoo, the penguins and fish, live inside.



Oh wait, check out this video of me saying hi to my penguins:



I got a little scared there at the end of the video, some big wave came down into the fish tank! Man, they should give a warning bell or something when that's about to happen.

When I woke up the next morning, it was a Christmas miracle....Nana, PopPop & Aunt Amy were at my house! They came while I was sleeping...sneaky little buggers they are.



On Christmas Eve, my BFF Ben came over and that was awesome. Mom did a whole post about it...we exchanged Chrismakah gifts and played all afternoon. I know we're dudes & all, but we're in touch with our feelings and I miss him!

The next week, it was time for a ROAD TRIP!! I always thought that road trips involved loud singing and eating a bunch of junk food and drinking slurpees, but really, I just read some books then fell asleep in my carseat. Bummer. Anyway, when I woke up, we were at my Great Aunt & Uncle's house and I got to play with my cousins...they liked to jump and run too, so we got along well.



A few days later, we met up with GG and went to a place called Lilliput Town Center...it was awesome! Everything was just my size and they had tons of stuff to play with and even a big slide to go down.



The rest of the week, it was FREEZING outside, so we basically just hung out at home and played with all of my new toys, which was fine by me. On Monday, it was back to the grind at school. I know mom was a little worried that I would have trouble adjusting after being gone from school so long, but I was excited, I had missed my friends and teachers! I ran right in & started playing.

I hope everyone had as nice of a Christmas vacation as I did!

Hysterical Bathtime Giggles

Thanks for the new towel & washcloth set, Aunt Jodie...I think Jake likes them :)

Decade in Review

A quick review of things that have happened in the last 1o years:

-Met Brian (2000), got engaged to him (2005), then married him (2006) :)
-Graduated from college (2003)
-Got first real job after college (2003)
-Adopted little Gracie Lou (2005)
-Bought our first home (2006)
-Got pregnant (2007), had Jake (2008)
-Got laid off (2009)
-Getting laid off ended up being a blessing in disguise, got new job that I'm really liking so far (2009)

There's lots of stuff in between, both good and bad, but the things that I listed are some of the highlights that stand out for me. We've come a long way in the past 10 years and I can't wait to see what 2010 holds!

Christmas is a time for friends.

My other favorite part about Christmas this year? Our bestest friends were in town! :) They came over Christmas Eve and the boys exchanged Chrismakah gifts. Ben got a step stool:



And Jake got a sand & water table:



Then, there was a dance party.



Followed by some pizza eating.



And of course, playing!

A Very Merry Christmas

I have always been a big fan of the Christmas season, but this year I was even more excited. (so much so that I woke up on Christmas morning at 5am, too excited to go back to sleep and for once, wishing that Jake would wake up early!)

I was super excited this year for a few reasons... I knew Jake would "get it" a little more this year. Also, I was hosting! Brian and I have frequently discussed how lucky we are that we both love each others' families, as I have heard horror stories about terrible in-laws. So we're pretty lucky that our families enjoy spending time with each other, and we were able to have everyone here for the holiday (no traveling for us, score!)



As you can see in this picture, we had some problems stuffing the gifts under the tree due to the fact that the tree itself took up half of the room. I must admit, though I was a bit apprehensive about the huge tree when we first shoved it through our front door, I grew to love it :) (shhh---don't tell Brian!)



Jake understood the concept of the presents...but he had no interest in opening them. He wanted what was inside of them...he just wanted someone else to open them for him. So, much of the morning was spent with him saying someone's name and pointing to a present, indicating that they were the chosen one who got to open that gift for him. It was odd, but at least we didn't have to worry about him tearing into everything at once.



He got a lot of great gifts (thanks everyone!) and favorites included his train table, set of dinosaurs, a Build-a-Bear dressed in a Steelers uniform (and appropriately named "Big Ben") and race car track.



After the gift opening marathon, it was time to EAT! I decided to brine the turkey this year and it definitely turned out to be very moist! Jake was so impressed with the food that he promptly passed out at the table after eating a little bit of his meal.




I hope that everyone else had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did!

Turkey Coma

I have some blogging to catch up on and I promise to get our Christmas pictures up soon, but in the meantime, here is Jake eating our Christmas dinner. Notice that he has abandoned his fork, is diving in with his hands and eating in half of a coma.

Jingle Bells

Pants Off-Dance Off

From October, but worth posting, it was somehow overlooked on the camera prior to now :)

Piggy confusion

Jake knows what pigs are, as in real animal pigs. (of the oink, oink variety) He also knows that his feet/toes can be called piggies. Apparently, what he doesn't know is the distinction between them sometimes.

Jake was looking for a particular book the other day; the book was on his bookshelf and on top of his bookshelf is a piggy bank. This was what happened when he got the two "piggies" confused:

Jake: *wandering around the playroom, looking for his book*
Me: Jake, your book is on your bookshelf.
Jake: *blank stare*
Me: On your bookshelf, right under your piggy!
Jake: *lifts up one foot & looks under his 'piggy' for the missing book*

San-na! San-na!

We've heard Santa's name being chanted in our house over the past few weeks by a little elf named Jake. It started with an innocent viewing of "Merry Madagascar" when it was on TV (cute show, by the way); Jake loved it & started asking to watch "San-na! Animals!" I then picked up a few books from the library that were about Christmas; his favorite was a lift the flap book and he loved the Santa page and saying "ho ho ho!".

While he really enjoyed the idea of Santa and looking at his picture in books & talking about him, I didn't have high hopes for the actual meeting of the big man. During a trip to the mall this weekend, we made a stop at the North Pole. He was fine in line & was talking about Santa; however, as soon as we were within 5 feet of him, the kid was shimmying up my neck making terrified sounds and saying "no no no Santa!" FAIL.



After leaving the North Pole area, Jake was all, "Whatever, who needs Santa when they have fish at the mall?"



Santa's got NOTHING on the play zone!

Ugh, I can't take reading about the Steelers loss anymore!!

Elf Yourself!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Our family: 1, Christmas Tree: 0

Yeah, that's right....we defeated the Christmas tree, it's up in our living room (and doing so did not involve any blood or trips to the ER and very minimal swearing) As you read in my last post, I was a bit nervous about this tree....my fears were completely founded as it truly is ginormous. BUT, after getting the lights & ornaments on, it really is a beautiful tree.



Gracie drug herself off the couch long enough to pose for some pictures:



Don't you just want to squeeze her adorable little schmuffin face??

The true test for the tree will take place tomorrow morning, when Jake wakes up to find a shiny, sparkly tree with a bunch of presents underneath!

"That's not going in our yard, Russ..."

"....it's going in our living room".

Classic quote from "Christmas Vacation", or a conversation that took place in our own family today? If you guessed "both", you are correct.


Some of you may remember my post from last year about Brian having a longing to chop down his own Christmas tree from a farm (as opposed to my family tradition, which includes driving to the nearest Lowes and dragging one up to the cash register) I won't go into the details as to why I'm so opposed to Brian's tradition, I whined enough about it last year, so you can refer back to that post if you're not familiar with my case against this.

However, since I'm such a nice wife, I agreed that we could hike 3 miles in the snow (uphill, both ways, of course) and do manual labor. And I really do mean in the snow, it snowed here today! :) Now, I'm not going to say that the experience was all bad...it was very festive, what with the snow & all, everyone was all bundled up....if only it hadn't been so muddy!



Anyway---I think I said I wouldn't whine in this post, so back to my original story. We have a small house...our living room is a decent size room, but our big huge couch takes up the majority of the space in it. So what do we do? Why, we pick out the fullest tree we could find, of course! At first, I thought maybe I was just exaggerating the proportions of said tree in my mind....until we hauled it up to our car & everyone stopped to look, laugh and make comments like "wow, they must have a huge house!" as Brian was trying to tie it onto the car. Not to mention the fact that even the people who worked there said stuff like, "Holy cow, look at the size of that beauty they got!"



The tree IS gorgeous...and I'm sure it will look very nice once it's up (we lacked the energy to do anything with it tonight, so pictures of the decorated tree will come later) Keep your fingers crossed that we don't pull another "Christmas Vacation" move and bust out our living room windows while trying to put it up....

Happy Thanksgiving! (yea, I'm late, I know)

Better late than never, yes?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Any day that is dedicated to taking some time to pause & think about everything in your life that you are thankful for, is a good day in my book. Of course, I have a lot to be thankful for...supportive friends and family, a wonderful new job and an incredibly special & sweet little boy, who is happy and healthy.



I was also grateful to be able to spend the day relaxing at my parents house...the men took advantage of the decent weather & spent some time outside.



I'm grateful that we had someone to take a family picture of us, it seems like we are never able to get a shot of all 4 of us!



I'm also grateful that my brother is healthy....he had to have some pretty major surgery 2 days before Thanksgiving and though he was uncomfortable most of the time, at least everything is ok now. Here he is enjoying his "diaper hat" from Jake, it's very fashion-forward.



Jake says, "Gobble, Gobble!!"