Best Laid Plans

I last left you when I was about to embark on a cleaning frenzy while the kids were staying with my parents before Christmas.  Dan and I spent those 2 days cleaning like mad and putting together the boys' new train table Christmas present, as well as a good 4-hours-straight cleaning toys out of the playroom to make space for the new train table...  Have I mentioned that our kids have too many toys?  I felt good that we were able to get a lot done, and we actually sneaked in a "date night" the second night--we had a quick 30-minute dinner out at one of our favorite restaurants (who also supplied our wedding cake 8 years ago, by fun coincidence!).  It was only a 30-minute dinner because they were closing...but it was still nice to have a kid-free dinner out.  The house was perfect--clean, beautiful, uncluttered--when the kids returned the day before Christmas Eve.  Abby wasn't really feeling herself when she got home, but I thought she was just battling a little cold.  She had a fever when we woke up on Christmas Eve morning, though.

in their Christmas finery in front of our tree on Christmas Eve morning

We headed out to my parents' house on Christmas Eve for my family's big Christmas together.  My parents just moved into a new house, so this was our first Christmas at their new place--pretty exciting!  The kids just love it there, and we had a wonderful holiday celebration with my family--the kids got totally spoiled, but that's nothing new when grandparents are involved.  We got home around 10:30pm Christmas Eve night with three sleeping kiddos in the car--Abby most certainly wasn't feeling well as the day wore on...you could just see it in her eyes.  Dan and I carried the kids to their beds and got busy, helping prepare the house for Santa's visit.  I had to clean all the tracks and trains that I had bought from my sister's neighbor, and Dan got the job of setting all the tracks up on the new train table by the tree.  Having never had a train table before, I had NO idea how long the whole set-up would take...and it took a long time.  Dan was less than thrilled about the late-night work...around 2:30am, his project was complete and he went to bed.  I still had some stocking stuffers to wrap, so I was up until 4am making sure everything was perfect and Santa wouldn't have too much to do when he dropped by.  I thought I should check on Abby before I went to bed, so I slipped into her room with the thermometer and some Tylenol in case she was still running the fever.  I kept her lights off, and had to step into the hallway to see the reading on the thermometer--and my heart about stopped when I saw that it read 105.3.  What???  Is that even possible?  I took it again and the thermometer read 104-something...so the 105 reading was probably accurate.  I woke her up to give her Tylenol, and she answered me and seemed to be okay...other than that crazy fever.  I went into our room and woke Dan up to tell him--he wanted to take her to the ER, but I googled high fevers in children and read that the fever isn't really what you should worry about if the child is acting okay, and she was acting fine when I gave her the medicine.  I was irrationally exhausted--I didn't want to mess up our Christmas morning by having Abby at the ER and neither of us getting any sleep.  Is that a reason not to take your sick kid to the ER?  Probably not, but at 4:30am on Christmas Day, it's what I went with as I fell into an uneasy sleep.

exactly.

Christmas morning at our own house was actually wonderful and exactly what I had hoped for--Abby woke me up (still with a fever, but acting excited and happy), and she and Jake played so nicely and patiently while we all waited upstairs for Alex to wake up (a slight kink in the plan to all come downstairs to the perfect Christmas spread = Alex's room is downstairs).  When Alex woke up, I put a blanket over his head and ran him through the living room and up the stairs--he was not happy about that turn of events, cried hysterically, and wouldn't cooperate for any pictures at the top of the stairs.  Oops.  We finally ushered them all down the stairs to the awesome Christmas spread--Santa and Mommy and Daddy rocked it this year!

Merry Christmas!

The kids had a great time opening their presents (although truthfully, they weren't all that interested once they saw the train table...we kept having to redirect them back to more presents!), and they played so well together with their new things.  It was so relaxing and wonderful, and we got them all down for naps/quiet time before Dan's parents arrived for more festivities and dinner.  Despite being ridiculously tired, I managed not to stress about the food (it helped that we picked up 2 rotisserie chickens, so I really didn't have to do much at all), and we had a nice evening together.  We put Abby to bed early, because she still wasn't feeling well and we thought she could use the extra rest.  Dan's parents were getting ready to head home right as I was putting Alex to bed, and somehow, Alex managed to headbutt me not once, but TWICE in the exact same spot on my lip when I was trying to put him down...I emerged from his room with a massive bloody swollen lip, and waved goodbye to Dan's parents with an ice pack and blood everywhere.  What a weird end to a good Christmas Day.

I should have known things would go downhill from there...  I had a lot of ideas for how I wanted to spend our family time--Dan off work and Abby off school--after Christmas.  The new Children's Museum at National Harbor.  The snow at the Gaylord National Hotel.  The National Building Museum in DC.  Maybe some mornings out to breakfast at Einstein Bagels.  Just stuff that we don't usually get to do together with everyone's busy schedules.  But the day after Christmas, I figured we would relax and let the kids enjoy their presents.  My lip really hurt that next day and it looked like I had been in a brawl.  Abby was still running that fever and eventually started complaining that her ear was hurting, so Dan took her to the emergency room the evening of the 26th.  At 2am on the 27th, Jake was awake and screaming because he couldn't breathe...he had croup (an unfortunate Christmas gift from our neighbors, who unknowingly brought it to Dan's office Christmas party and passed it around like candy--Dan's boss' kids now also have croup...).  Medicine for his fever, a sit in a steamy bathroom, and humidifier set up in his room, and eventually we all went back to sleep.  Rounds of medicine for two kids all day on the 27th--antibiotics and Motrin/Tylenol for Abby, Motrin/Tylenol for Jake...and I'm starting to not feel so good.  At 4am on the 28th, Jake is awake and screaming that his ear is hurting him...so off to the emergency room I go with him.  Now I'm really not feeling good with the lack of sleep combined with whatever gunk I'm getting from all the kids.  Rounds of medicine on the 28th, and my parents pick up Abby (who is finally perking up a bit) for my niece's birthday party--we were all supposed to go and have a fun day together, but that clearly wasn't happening.  It's now the 31st, and we haven't left the house since the 24th (other than those pesky ER runs)--we're stuck in a quarantined, never-ending sickness hell that has hit all of us and made us miserable.  I feel like my head is underwater, have a constant headache, and can hardly hear anything.  Dan's throat hurts.  Jake can't shake the fever despite meds all day along with the antibiotic for his ears, and he just coughs, coughs, coughs when he lays down.  Alex just has a runny nose, cough, and fever at this point--Dan and I are taking bets about when we'll be in the ER next with him for an ear infection.  My parents ended up taking Abby back to their house after that birthday party, which is probably just as well--she doesn't need to be around this house of sickness as she is finally feeling better.  Our family fun vacation is quickly coming to an end with everyone back to work and school on Wednesday, and we have done nothing fun.  We are a hot mess.  And to top it all off, my house that was so magnificently, sparkling, wonderfully clean just a few days ago now needs another deep clean to get rid of these germs...once I get my head above water, that is.

Oh, and one other thing:  Why is it that I can't get some sort of nasty stomach virus that will help me shed unwanted pounds instead of a monstrous head cold that doesn't infringe on my holiday cookie eating in the slightest??

The Reluctant Hostess

I've been told that at least one reader (ahem...Shauna!) likes my blog because my misfortune spreads joy by making everyone else feel better about their lives.  And who am I to stop the spread of joy during the holidays?  I'm going to make a concerted effort not to focus on sad stuff anymore...enough ridiculousness happens in my days that these blog posts should write themselves!

I had a mini-breakdown last week when I realized that I would be hosting my in-laws for Christmas dinner...quite by accident.  Every year since we've been married, we've traveled to Virginia for the holidays to split time between our two families.  It worked out great because my family tradition growing up was to open family gifts on Christmas Eve (giving Santa all the glory on Christmas Day), and Dan's family tradition was exchanging family presents on Christmas Day after Santa presents.  So we always spend a few days leading up to Christmas at my parents' house, and then Christmas Day and a few days afterward at Dan's parents' house.  This was great until we had kids...when traveling on Christmas Day became something I dreaded about the holiday every year.  Not only do we have to rush the poor kids through opening their Santa presents, but I don't even get to enjoy watching them play because I'm so busy packing everything up to head to another house for a few days.  It takes me hours to pack and load, and then we have to yank the kids away from their new presents and take them to my in-laws' when we are all pretty exhausted from the morning's fun (and work, if you're me).  It's always fine once we get down to Dan's parents' house, but the lead-up puts me in a bad mood every year.  Now that we live in the same state, thankfully we don't have to pack up to stay at other houses during the holidays, but we did tear the kids away from their presents again last year on Christmas morning to go down to Dan's parents' house.

Abby on her first Christmas, 2006--the last time we spent Christmas Day at home!

This year, for the first time since Abby's first Christmas, we decided to just spend Christmas Day at home with our little family, enjoying the fun together and not worrying about anything other than freeing the new toys from their crazy packaging and making sure we have batteries and screwdrivers on hand.  Dan's brother and his family invited Dan's side of the family (including us) down to their home in North Carolina for the holiday, but we declined that invitation since it would have meant missing Christmas with my family and more traveling...exactly what we didn't want to do.  So the plan until last week was for Dan's parents to head down to NC for Christmas, and we were just going to see them and exchange presents some other time.  Then my brother-in-law and his family rescinded their invitation for Christmas, because they literally just moved into their new house down there on December 18th and clearly, it's not ready to host family for the holidays...something I wondered about when the invitation was extended, but I figured they were just way more organized during a move than I ever am.  Apparently that's not the case, and Dan's parents now had no place to go on Christmas.  Being the Good Daughter-in-Law that I am, I invited them to come share the fun at our house, totally oblivious to the fact that that invitation would also involve me cooking a big meal and "entertaining"...not something I'm good at, obviously.

three kids playing nicely on Christmas Day 2011

Once it sunk in that I'm now hosting a big family Christmas shindig (and Dan nixed my idea to have cereal for Christmas dinner...seriously, I threw it out there), I freaked out because our house is a mess.  Christmas crap is everywhere, wrapping paper is all over the floor, we're overrun by Abby's school papers yet again, I don't even remember the last time I vacuumed (or dusted...), and the kitchen is a sticky disgusting disaster.  I didn't know when I was going to have time to get it all done, so I asked Dan if he would take yesterday (Thursday) and today off work so that I could dedicate myself to playing Cinderella and not have to worry about watching the boys.  He obliged and took the days off, but yesterday didn't go as planned...  I got about 4 hours of sleep night before last--Jake woke up screaming right when I was getting ready to go to bed at midnight with a nightmare (apparently a "nightmare train" was coming into his room), and after I calmed him down, he informed me that his room is now creepy and he doesn't want to sleep there anymore...  It took me a good hour to convince him that he and I were not going to sleep on the couch downstairs together and get him back into his own bed.  By that point, for who knows what reason, Alex was WIDE awake in his crib downstairs--he was still laying down, but he was emphatically yelling at the top of his lungs, "WHOA!  LOOK AT THAT!  IT'S SANTA CLAUS!  IT'S AWESOME!" or some variation for almost 2 hours.  I thought for sure he was going to wake Abby up, since his room is right below hers and they share a heating vent that allows all sound to travel like they are standing next to each other.  Somehow she managed to sleep through it, but his shenanigans over the monitor in our room woke Dan up, and he irritatedly told me to turn the monitor off.  I couldn't sleep through all the noise, either, but I didn't want to turn it down--even though I was exhausted, his cute enthusiastic ramblings were making me smile, and I don't like to turn the monitor off in case he really does need me.  I fell asleep sometime after 2am, and was awoken at 6am because Alex was crying in his crib--it's not like him to do that, so I hopped up and trekked downstairs to see what the problem was and if I could get him to quiet down.  I picked him up and put him on my shoulder, and the front of my shirt was immediately soaked...as was Alex and his entire bed.  Great.  I had to strip him down, with him screaming and freezing because he was soaking wet, I had to wipe him down with cold baby wipes and get a dry diaper and fresh pjs on him.  He was screaming.  I then had to carry him upstairs with me to get a new crib sheet (he was not going to let me leave him room without him), and get his bed back together and also convince him to go to sleep without his favorite (now soaked) blankets from his bed...  That whole process took me about 45 minutes, and when I returned to my bed, I discovered that Jake was awake already--probably from all the screaming Alex was doing.  Ugh...

So despite the early start to my day yesterday, I was a zombie and didn't get much done--Dan, Jake, Alex, and I all took naps during naptime, which was kind of nice, but I totally didn't get any cleaning done.  I did make it to the grocery store to pick up some fruit and tried to clear the clutter in the kitchen so that I can start cleaning today.  Must start cleaning today...

I think this will be my last post before Christmas--clearly, I'm too good at procrastinating and will use the blog as an excuse not to do the things I'm supposed to be doing.  Today is cleaning and then dropping the kids at my parents' house for a sleepover this evening so that Dan and I can put together some gifts that Santa helpfully dropped off early, do more cleaning, remove toys from the playroom and the kids' rooms to make room for new Christmas stuff...lots to do before the kids come back on Sunday.  Then Christmas Eve at my parents' house, and Christmas Day here at our house, hosting Dan's parents.  Wish me luck, and I wish you and your families the happiest of holidays!  :)  I'll be back after Christmas with stories of how it all went wrong but we still managed to have fun...ha ha!

Christmas 2012

Too Much TV

It was a long weekend in the Christmas card factory, but all our cards have gone out in the mail...so the factory is officially closed until next year!  Hooray!  I meant to write a little more about our much-maligned Christmas card newsletter in my last post, but got sidetracked by the cards themselves.  I wanted to say that I love our newsletter, and refuse to stop writing it even though I know some folks think it's way too long (my own brother and sister-in-law included!) because it provides a way for me to chronicle each year in the life of our family.  I love re-reading our newsletters from previous years and remembering our experiences as a family--I don't journal or scrapbook, so our Christmas card serves that function for me...really, the recipients should be thankful that I somehow pare down 12 months into two pages.  :)  Also, I know there are other Christmas newsletter junkies out there, just like me, and I hope many of them are on our mailing list and actually do appreciate my effort!  Okay, enough about that.

We're in the middle of an unplanned experiment at our house.  I wrote previously about Jake's inability to get out of diapers, and my frustration with that problem...but I haven't yet written about my children's (and my) love of TV.  Moms everywhere will tell you that their kids don't watch TV, whether or not it's true...I am not that mom.  My kids watch way too much TV.  I admit it, and I'll give you a brief history on how this all happened.  When Abby was born, we had such high ideals for our parenting--I don't think we ever agreed out loud on no TV until she was 2, or only 30 minutes a day, but those recommendations were at the back of my mind as we embarked on parenthood.  Abby turned out to be a very clingy kid--Dan and I had very little peace, especially in the evenings (aka, the dinnertime witching hour).  When she was about 6 months old, we discovered Baby Einstein--more specifically, Baby Einstein's Baby Newton video (all about shapes!).  That darn shape clown gave Dan and me our first quiet dinner since she was born, with Abby happily engrossed in a totally different room than where we were eating (in actuality, she was less than 5 feet from me, but technically she was in the living room and we were in the dining room).  Dan and I didn't even speak to each other the whole meal for fear that we would break the spell--we just gestured excitedly at each other and were in awe of how that clown gave us back some of the space for which we were desperate.

I still know that song by heart, and the dancing clown still makes me so happy!  I'm tempted to show that clip to Abby now to see if she remembers it at all...that girl watched A LOT of Baby Newton.  After Baby Newton broke the ice, I allowed some Sesame Street in the house--it was okay for her to watch TV, as long as it was educational, not annoying (crucial for Mommy's sanity!), and on PBS.  I had some standards--no Barney for us!  Sesame Street was a daily staple at our house back then, but we were also super busy--Abby and I had a very active social calendar in our Ohio moms' group, so we weren't home to watch much TV.

Fast forward to Texas, and a 2nd baby.  We were home a lot more after Jake was born, in part because we had a newborn in the house, and in part because we knew fewer people and therefore had a less-active calendar.  We watched a lot of DVDs at this point (Strawberry Shortcake and princesses were a favorite for our 3-year-old...and still are now that she's 6!), and we branched out to a few more PBS shows--Sid the Science Kid became one of Abby's favorites at that time.  Again, educational TV...no junk.  We threw in a Clifford every once in a while, and maybe a Curious George.  Still not a huge variety of shows, but we did spend a good amount of time in front of the TV while I was feeding Jake and needed a way to keep Abby occupied.  What I loved about our house in Texas was that our playroom and our TV room were separate, so the kids could play without constantly asking to watch TV.

it was supposed to be a living/dining room, but it was the perfect playroom!

Fast forward to Virginia and a 3rd kid...there's a TV in our playroom now.  I knew it wasn't a good idea when we moved in, but we did it anyway because I wanted a dedicated kid space that didn't infringe on the adult space in this house (there's so little adult space here), and we bought new living room furniture...meaning I didn't really want the kids all over our nice new couch with food while they were watching their shows.  Around this time, my sister told us about a show called Team Umizoomi that we should check out--I was totally hesitant because it's not a PBS show, but I thought I would give it a try...branch out a little.  The kids fell in deep smit with that show.  Absolute adoration.  The first thing Alex says when he wakes up in the morning is, "Watch Bot?"  And I love it because it's educational (even though it's not PBS...)--Alex knows all his numbers because of that show (that's kind of embarrassing to admit. but it's true).  Our DVR is constantly 80% full of kids shows...Umizoomi, Clifford, WordWorld, SuperWhy, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mike the Knight, Doc McStuffins...we went a little nuts when we discovered other TV channels.  I try to limit the hours of TV, but sometimes when the boys are fighting and cooped up in the house, it's so easy to turn on a show and be able get my stuff done.  They don't watch any of the fluffy shows with few redeeming qualities (Spongebob or whatever those other annoying shows are), but I won't sugarcoat it: they watch a lot of TV.

Millie, Bot, and Geo--they have mighty math powers!

Now, what does all of this have to do with our current household experiment?  Well, last weekend, I told Jake that it was time for him to keep his diaper dry at naptime and bedtime.  I'm fully confident that he can do this--it's just laziness or a security issue, and I need to help him get over it and transition to underwear 24/7.  Without even thinking before I opened my mouth, I told him that he could watch his TV shows if his diaper stays dry...but not if it is wet.  We are now in Day 7 of No TV.  Seriously, the kid is stubborn.  The first day, it felt like I was punishing everyone--Abby was very upset to not see her Clifford during breakfast, and I thought my day would be ruined without the TV helping keep the peace.  It's not really fair to deprive the other kids of their beloved TV because of Jake's behavior, but really, it's just TV--it's not like I'm withholding all their food until Jake gets his act together.  There are worse things that could happen.  I just didn't really envision that Jake would hold out this long--he actually says, "I don't want to watch TV" when I try to remind him that if he keeps his diaper dry, he can earn his TV back.  (Oooh, that kid!)  I'm not sure this experiment is working, but I'm in it to win it at this point--I will outlast my 3-year-old.  I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how the TV-less days have been going--Jake and Alex are doing really well playing together (with the occasional screaming/hitting/crying fights, of course), and I'm happy to not have the arguing over what show to watch, whose turn it is to pick, and the constant noise.  I kinda feel like a better mother without the TV.  Of course, when Jake finally figures out this whole keeping-the-diaper-dry thing, I'm going to have to let them earn back some TV, but I think this experiment is teaching me that I can limit the TV time, and I should limit it...the world won't fall apart and we might all learn to get along a little better with less TV.  What's your bet on how many days this experiment will drag on before Jake is diaper-free?

The List vs. the Time Suckers

I wrote my list of things to do today last night before I went to bed...and I think I may have been a little ambitious.  I had sort of a dual-list going--I wrote down the things that I really wanted to get done that have been bugging me or that needed to get done today at the top of the list, and then I wrote down my hopefully-will-get-done tasks at the bottom of the list.  Then I realized that I had a few more things to add that needed to get done, but I had already drawn my line and there was no room at the top of the list...so I wrote those extra things at the bottom, and my list got all jumbled.  I almost rewrote the list entirely (yes, that's seriously how anal I am), but I opted to just go to bed and deal with an imperfect list.  The list was a good motivator this morning--I felt very on-task as I consulted the list and starting checking things off.  I wrote a few "gimmes" on there that HAVE to get done every day so that I would guarantee myself the satisfaction of crossing at least a few things off...is that cheating?  I hope not, because it felt great to cross a few things off pretty early in the morning!  I still have a lot pending on the list and the day is quickly getting away from me.

my 4pm progress...not great!

Even with the list, I've been distracted--Jake's train needed new batteries (both the remote and the train itself...where did I put the 9V batteries??), I posted a bunch of stuff for sale on the sale site here and people are coming by to look at things and buy stuff (very time-consuming!), and during Jake's nap time, he opted not to sleep and instead opened up his piggy bank and showered his whole room with coins.  So much for my getting-stuff-done time.  Just as I was coming back downstairs from that clean up effort, the biggest time-suck of them all arrived in the mail: our Christmas cards.  I knew they were coming (hooray for me for being on top of things and ordering them already!), but now they are here...and I have to open the annual one-woman Christmas card factory.  The factory hours are awful and the pay is literally nothing, but it's a dirty job and someone has to do it.  It's such a process--I have to print our (much made fun of) Christmas newsletter, fold said newsletter in a way that it fits well in the slighty-too-small envelope, write a personal message/sign each newsletter, stuff the newsletter and photo card into the envelope, address each envelope, stamp each envelope, seal all the envelopes, and mail them.  It is going to take me hours, and honestly, I don't even want to open the box and start the process!  The box is currently taunting me on the counter.

such a menacing little box

Despite all my protests, I really love Christmas cards.  I love sending them to 80 of our closest friends and family all over the country (and world!)--some folks we've known since we were born, some folks we've met at previous duty stations, some folks getting our card for the first time this year.  I write a ridiculous Christmas newsletter chronicling our family adventures by month for the whole year--Dan endlessly derides my efforts and says no one wants to read about our lives in such detail, but I don't really care.  :)  I seriously love reading other people's newsletters--I get disappointed when we get a photo card with nothing written on it...  I think Christmas cards should be personal--a (somewhat quaint) way to connect with friends and family in an impersonal world.  I love reading cards and getting a little glimpse into their lives and years.  When I visit my parents' house around Christmastime, I scrounge their counters for the Christmas cards that they have received, and then I read them--I don't even care if I know the people.  Cards are one of my favorite holiday traditions, so I guess I'd better open that box and get busy.  Hopefully I won't disappear into the black hole that is preparing Christmas cards for mailing...if you don't hear from me tomorrow, please send a search party to save me from my misery!  ;)

Holiday Fun

I'm a little lost with what to do with myself since the Challenge ended.  Trust me, I have plenty to do--but like I told you, I work better when I have a project!  I did invite Dan to guest column on my blog after he does a Good Husband Challenge for a week...not sure if he'll take me up on it, but wouldn't that be fun?  ;)  I know it would be fun for me!

Now that I'm less distracted by the Challenge, I'm focusing on all the other things that need to get done around the house and feeling the stress.  I totally love this time of year, but sometimes it all gets a little overwhelming!  Case in point: our Elf on a Shelf, Herbie, is visiting right now.  Every once in a while, that darn elf is so forgetful and doesn't remember to head back to the North Pole and then reappear somewhere else in the house after the kids go to bed.  It got so bad that I had to set a reminder timer for him on my phone...  Abby just informed me yesterday that she thinks Herbie goes to Elf School after she goes to bed, and his teacher is Santa!  Not one to miss an opportunity, I told her that we'd better make sure she gets to bed on time from now on, because we wouldn't want Herbie to get in trouble for being late to school.  Ha ha!  :)  Here's Herbie hanging out in Jake's room last week--his first foray into Jake's room (in two years) because Jake can't be trusted not to knock him down and ruin Herbie's magic...  I think Abby might faint if she came into Jake's room and saw him holding Herbie...not kidding.  She's super protective of that elf.  Herbie found a safe(ish) place to perch in Jake's room this year, and managed to survive untouched.  As an added bonus, Jake took a great nap that day because Herbie was right there, staring at his bed!  :)

above Jake's dresser...safe from curious hands!

I also have yet to do the kids' Santa video, which I do every year for them from the Portable North Pole--such an awesome thing to have to motivate their behavior...it cracks me up every time.  You can personalize all aspects of the message Santa gives, and I have had lots of fun with it over the years.  Abby has always been on the "nice list," and Jake has yet to make that list...two different children entirely!  Abby has her naughty moments, but she's such the responsible first born.  Jake obviously has his nice moments, but he's our high-spirited little monkey!  This year will be Alex's first video from Santa...I'm not sure if he'll be naughty or nice at this point.  He learns everything he knows from Jake!  The videos are obviously a project that I have to complete when the kids aren't around, so either naptime or after they go to bed...and I haven't gotten to it yet.  Maybe today?  Here's Jake's from 2010--absolutely the best one ever, because Jake was almost 2 and totally ornery with a BIG temper, and it scared him into shape!  Hysterical.

So it's Christmas fun that I've brought on myself that adds a little stress to this time of year...but I wouldn't have it any other way!  I don't remember Christmases being as enjoyable until we had our own kids, other than when I was a kid myself--it's just wonderful to see the magic of the season from their eyes.  We drove around looking at Christmas lights on our military installation this past weekend, and the excitement from all three kids was so much adorable.  I couldn't help laughing every time Alex said, "It's awesome!" or, "Those are my favorites!"  :)  So cute!  I'm probably going to pull about 20 late nighters between now and Christmas to get everything done--we still have to wrap all our presents and put together a huge train table because Santa delivered it a little early and we're doing him a favor by putting it together (you can thank us later, Santa), but I'm going to try my best to not let the stressful aspects take away from the magical ones.

Abby writes notes for Herbie to take to the North Pole--this was last night's!