Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was at Mike's parents house and it can be described in two words - UTTER CHAOS, caused by my child for the most part. Mike's mom had the house perfectly decorated and cooked a wonderful dinner but Tyler was just in sensory overload. He had never seen so many presents or eaten so much candy and junk food. He just went from one present to the next ripping off wrapping paper, sliding down the steps face first and just running around like a crazy person. He was a little out of control and then came a formal sit down meal at 6:30 p.m. Need I say mome? These are the parts of Christmas that somehow never make it in the Christmas carols on the radio... And Mia is going through a stage of stranger anxiety so she only wants me or Mike to hold her so by the time we got home Monday night we were just exhausted.

Tyler opening the last day of his advent calendar - every day he asked me a million times to open another day and I would say, "Tyler what is the rule?" and he would tell me, "one a day." And then ten minutes later, he would be asking again.




Tyler feeding the reindeer a carrot




Mike's parents' house with 10 people all opening gifts at the same time

















Here is a copy of the letter Santa left for Tyler


12.25.07

Dear Tyler,
Thank you so much for the milk and cookies! I was very hungry from delivering gifts to all the good little boys and girls and those cookies really hit the spot. I love drinking milk because it helps keep me big and strong. Thank you for putting out enough carrots for all of the reindeer - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner Blitzen and Rudolph. Your mommy and daddy told me what a good boy you have been this year and what a great big brother you are to baby Mia. I am so proud of you. I am going to be checking in with mommy and daddy all next year so keep it up. Help your mommy and daddy and make sure you listen to them. See you next year!

Love,






Santa

December 23

Carly, Mia's cousin and Mia at Willow Creek Church


Here are some family pictures before we went to church

December 19

Today was the second day Mia ate rice cereal. She has been showing so much interest in food that I was beginning to feel like I was depriving her. So yesterday I decided to give her some cereal and see what she thought. She took three huge bites like she had been eating forever and then proceeded to stick out her bottom lip and burst into tears. I have no idea what that was about but I think she was tired. Today, she ate the whole bowl. In the beginning with Tyler, it took a couple of days for him to get the hang of it but Mia knew how to eat immediately and seems to enjoy the boring rice cereal. In what I can only call a pure "blond" moment. I left the kids with Mike while I went shopping this weekend and asked him to give Mia her cereal when she woke up and he says to me, "So do you just give her cheerios with a little milk?" He was dead serious...

December 18

I started off the holiday season with ambitious plans to have a cookie decorating party for Tyler and friends but as the days passed and I got further behind in the shopping and decorating department, I decided to simplify this year. Next year we will have 20 crazy 3 year olds fling icing on the walls. This year we settled for making gingerbread houses with my friend Jen and her daughter Maddie.

Jen and I constructed the houses and then let the kids go to it. I think for every one piece candy that made it on the house two pieces ended up in their little mouths but this was our first go-around and the name of the game was for the kids to have fun. By the time they were done decorating the houses, they were on a major sugar high and spent the next hour giggling as they wildly chased each other around the house. Tyler is hooked. He keeps asking me, when are we going to make more gingerbread houses.

Two of Tyler's very two-year old quirks - Whenever he does something that could cause him bodily harm (with Tyler these incidents occur almost hourly) and he falls or gets hurt I say, "See Tyler, I told you that was going to happen." So now before I even get a chance to correct him he says, "See mom, I told you." The other very funny one is that when he says a word that I can't understand and I repeat the wrong word back to him he says, "Nope Mom. Try again." Oh how this little guy can just crack me up!

Gearing Up for a White Christmas

How different from last year. Last year at Christmas, I don't even think we wore coats, we were having crazy 60 degree days. This year, it seems like every day brings more snow. It's very beautiful and Tyler, of course, is in heaven. Although, by the time I have him dressed to go outside, I am in a full sweat. In case you haven't recently dressed a little one to go out in the snow, here is just a snapshot of how much clothing is involved: socks, undershirt, shirt, sweatshirt, pants, snowpants, coat, boots, scarf, mittens, a hat and a ski mask (because we live in the frozen tundra with nothing stopping the winds from here to Minnesota). He still doesn't get the concept of mittens and that he has to stick his thumb in the thumb slot. It takes about 10 minutes of cajoling to get him to do this and then by the time we get outside they have fallen off and we have to start over or he needs to come in for a diaper change. Then we will finally be all set and playing and Mia wakes up. It's a lot of work but it's really fun to watch him jumping, throwing and of course eating snow. Oh and if you are wondering, yes you can still ride your tricycle if you have 6 inches of snow on the ground. It just takes a little more work.




Ah, the sheer joy of a fresh white chocolate covered pretzel..

December 14

Today, Mike took the day off to go Christmas shopping and surprise Tyler at his last class of Kid Rock. Grammy Posch also came to watch Tyler shake, wiggle and sing. He was a little distracted during class since he is usually there by himself but it was a lot more exiciting to have Grammy and Mike there than to have Mommy and Mia.

Tyler is also become quite the singer. It is so funny to hear him singing Christmas carols and the Barney song. He just sings with such an innocence. I could listen to him sing all day...One of Tyler's funny new things is that if you say, "This is Tyler." He will say, "No mom, I am Ty."

Look Ma, I'm Ready to Crawl!?

If you haven't heard, we have been getting walloped with ice storms which means we have been having lots of "Just Ty, Mommy and Mia" days, as Tyler like to call them. I have another phrase that I occasionally use but Tyler's is much nicer.. Anyway, while we were stuck in the house all day, I was getting Tyler juice. We are working on manners because this is how Tyler asks for juice, "Mom, need more juice NOW!" Anyway, I digress. When I came back into the room, Mia had managed to get herself up on all fours and was rocking back and forth desperately trying to figure out how to crawl. I thought this was a fluke but she has been doing this all day now and when Mike got her up from her nap at 6:00 p.m (yes this has been a rough day) she was doing it in her crib. It is so funny to see this little 14lb, 4 month old baby trying to crawl. Her other feat these days is rolling over in her crib from stomach to back. She is then stuck there like a turtle and cries until I come in and flip her over. The other night we did this every 2 hours.. I think this is my punishment for letting her sleep on her tummy. I just wonder why this never happened with Tyler. I don't know if it's because she is so much more active or just her own little "issue" but we sure would like to get back to our normal 6-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The toys that suddenly seem exciting when you see your baby sister using them.

Best cookie to make with a 2 year old - Take a tube of peanut butter cookie dough. Make balls and dip them in colored sugar. Bake and then stick a Hershey kiss in the middle. I put Tyler in charge of opening the kisses and he literally spent 30 minutes doing this. This is a lifetime for Tyler. We might make these year around, every day :-)

Merry Christmas from 4 Little Elves

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1214747477

December 5

Mia had her 4 month well visit today. She weighed in at about 14lbs 24 inches long- 45th percentile for both. In comparison, Tyler weighed almost 18lbs at his 4mo. appt. so she is my little peanut. Everything checked out well. The dr thinks she is getting some teeth and confirmed what I was dreading - she maybe crawling at 6 months and walking at 9 months. Stay little baby, we are in no hurry for you to grow up!

December 1-2

This past weekend we took Tyler (and Mia tagged along) to have breakfast with Baby Jesus. Basically, it was an event at church with a live nativity scene and activities and songs for the kids to participate in. Tyler wasn't so enamored with Baby Jesus (who looked very similar to Baby Mia) but there was a live miniature horse in the scene and if you were to ask Tyler what the event was about he would tell you, "Ty pet horse." He wasn't so into the craft or singing but the horse was the highlight of his day. The rest of the weekend was a blur. We had a horrible ice storm and I had horrible stomach flu so it was one of those weekends where I don't think Mike could wait to get back to work on Monday morning.






These are the flowers Mike got me for our 5 year anniversary last Thursday. We were laughing as we thought about what has happened in the last 5 years.


Moved 4 times


Built 2 houses


Bought 3 houses and sold 4 houses


Made it through 2 pregnancies


Had 2 children


It's exhausting just thinking about it...

Here is Tyler in his new doggy slippers sent all the way from Grandma and Grandpa in North Carolina.