Happy holidays!!!!

Happy holidays from our family to yours!!!! 

Years of Christmas Pasts...
2014 -- A Very Murphy Christmas
2013 -- I Triple-Dog Dare Ya!
2012 -- Dear Santa

Our letters to Santa

After the Santa debacle on the North Pole Express and because girlfriend really doesn't want trucks for Christmas, E sat down with her a couple of nights ago to write her letter to Santa.  And then once she was finished with her letter, she dictated Fish's letter as (being that he doesn't speak well enough to write a letter).  Hilarity ensued...

 

Dear Santa,                                  

I have been good.  I am sorry for

being sad and not talking to you when we

were on the train.  I do have some questions.

I help with chores and I clean up with Mom & Dad.

I don't cry when I go to school.  I always help put

decorations on the tree.  I don't eat everything on my

plate and I am sorry.  When we got to the grocery

store I know what to buy.  I need a lot of presents

for a girl so I am going to fill up the whole bottom of

this letter.  I don't drink beer.  I always take care

of the pets and I am nice to them and I pet them.

I drink my milk.  I like apples with peanut butter.  I

like to play on swings if your mom says ok but if she

says no, I am fine with that.  My brother is named

Fish.  I play with him nice sometimes.  I'm sorry

for not getting along with Fish.  It's my fault (do I still

get presents?).  I am going to try to eat better.  I

share my little ponies with Fish because I have a lot

of them.  I also wake up in the mornings.  I like

to watch TV and watch the Iowa Hawkeyes.  If I am

bad do I still get presents?  I like yellow,

pink, blue, white, purple, red, & black colors.  I

ate all of my chicken nuggets on my plate today.

Please, Santa, can I please have all

the My Little Ponies (the sparkly ones) like

Princess Celestia, Princess Selena, and Princess Cadence.

(I already have Twilight Sparkle so I don't need her), Barbie

Princess dolls, Magic Clip dolls, My Little Pony Castle,

real live chickens, I do not want trucks,

My Little Pony Pops, My Little Pony bags.  No

beer because I don't like beer.  My Little Pony books

because I don't have any of them.  Training wheels

for my bicycle, lipstick, fingernail polish (red, black,

white, yellow), suckers (lollipops), coloring books.  Toy

reindeer, princess play-doh, a playground for me to play in,

fruit snacks.  Thank you, have a safe trip.

Finn

(This letter is from Fish as told by Finn)

Dear Santa,

My name is Fish.  I am Finn's brother.

I am 1.  I bite Finn.  I like to color with

my sister Finn using crayons.  I eat all of my

food.  I steal toys from my sister.  I sometimes

pull the cats' hair, but my sister pets them.  I like

trucks, my sister does not like trucks.  I am

cute.  I am loud.  I promise to start not being

bad.  I will start to be nice to Finn.  She is nice.

I will be nicer and stop biting and pulling Mom's hair.

For Christmas, I would like more blankies,

trucks, dogs that are stuffed like a

teddy bear, my own Little Ponies (if not Finn

can give me her old ones and she can get new

sparkly ones), Christmas ornaments, and more trucks.

Fish

North Pole Express

Last night, the family headed over to New Hope and we were able to ride on the North Pole Express!  With this being our first winter out on the East Coast again, I knew that I wanted to ride the North Pole Express out of New Hope!  When we lived in Princeton 7+ years ago, we had been on the New Hope Ivyland Railroad once.  We had a friend visiting and we headed over there and took a ride on the rail.  The movie Polar Express had come out a couple of years before and so the whole "Polar Express"-type train ride was a big deal around the holidays.  And I had always wanted to take the North Pole Express but with no kids, I knew that I would NEVER be able to get E on that train.  But I had envisioned my kids riding it, never realizing that it would actually come to fruition years later.

Fish is big into big trucks and such.  He doesn't watch train videos as much, probably because we don't have a railroad that goes near our house, like we did on Lloyd.  Finn was a huge train fan in her younger days because we would wait on so many trains.  In fact, before Fish was born and when I was still working, she was in daycare and we had to wait for a train daily after picking her up.  On the days where we missed the train, she would be inconsolable and when I knew that we weren't at our regular pick up time, I would drive super duper slow to see if I could catch a train for her.

So I knew that Finn would be really excited about the train.  With Fish, I was hoping that the obsessions with big trucks was with big moving things -- not necessarily things with four rubber wheels.  I was right!  I tried to talk up the train ride for a couple of days before and we watched some train videos.  He was definitely excited about going on a train while we were driving there.  And when we arrived, his excitement couldn't be contained and E couldn't get him out of his carseat fast enough.  The train conductor was standing outside the front of the train and we talked to him for a moment.  I was pleasantly surprised that both kids went with him for a photo.  I thought that our Santa experience was going to be amazing this year.  I mean, if the kids will go to a complete stranger in a train conductor's uniform, surely they will go to Santa, right?

Upon sitting down on the train, Fish found a candy cane.  I figured it was left over from the previous train ride as they go every hour & fifteen minutes.  So E opened up the candy cane and the kids were munching away.  The Christmas music was playing through the speakers above us.  Felix the Cookie Man came around the minute the train pulled out of the station and started passing out cookies & hot cocoa.  I was immediately in Christmas heaven.  When they give you your tickets, they also pass out a piece of paper that contains a Christmas I-Spy list.  I thought that it was things outside the train car to keep the kids occupied on enjoying the scenery.  But when I read up on the list, one item was "5 candy canes".  E & I looked around and realized that all the I-Spy items were hanging from the lighted garland that was above our head.  We started laughing and we quickly tried to hide the evidence and for the rest of the ride, our car only contained five candy canes.

Santa came to our car first since we were the furthest back, we were the second ones that he and Mrs. Claus spoke to.  As you see above, Fish was quiet, curious, but not overly frightened.  Finn, on the other hand, was beside herself with fear.  I tried to get her to sit on the outside of the seat so I could get a photo with her and Santa.  She refused.  I tried to tell her that I could even hold her hand the entire time.  She refused.  So in the chaos of Santa and Mrs. Claus turning our way, I hoisted her over my head and plopped her down on the aisle seat.  She was amazingly funny.  She refused to look anywhere but my eyes.  And she didn't blink the ENTIRE TIME that Santa was standing there (which was at least 2-3 minutes).  She had her "deer-in-headlights" face going on.  It was quite comical.  I've never seen her not blink for that long -- I think she was trying to super-mind-trick Santa into going away.  But Santa gave each of the kids a bell (i.e. the Polar Express book) -- it was cute.

So we got a family photo with Santa & Mrs. Claus and we had to pay up the wazoo for it (of course).  When I got it home to look at it, I started laughing hysterically.  Santa & Mrs. look like they have spent some time in Florida.  E looks like he has a sunburn on his face, but his hands look like they have no blood in them.  And me & the kids look like we are on our last legs out in an ice storm.  I immediately started singing "I'm Mr.White Christmas, I'm Mr. Snow.  I'm Mr. Icicle, I'm Mr. Ten Below!".  Their camera settings weren't quite right.

Once Santa & Mrs. Claus left our car, the Christmas caroler came in.  He was a hit with the kids.  Fish was quite enamored with him.  But while on the last part of our train ride, I started discussing with Finn that we might have to see if Santa is going to be coming to our town before Christmas.  I explained to her that she didn't talk to Santa, so how was he supposed to know what she wanted for Christmas.  Her response and I quote "He can just get me whatever he wants."  Belly laughs all around.  Later in the evening, we were walking around New Hope and she began to complain to E about Santa's choice of gifts for her.  "Now he is going to get me a big truck."  So we will see if we can get her on Santa's lap for a semi-decent photo this year.  We'll just see...

Life Lately

Being that I did developmental updates on both kids, I figured I might as well complete the circle and do some updates on us as a family, us individually, the pets, the new & old house, and such.

In the past month, we have had E's birthday, Munk's birthday, and Thanksgiving.  E's birthday fell on a Sunday.  We didn't go much for it as he had an important meeting to prepare for the following day.  So the kids and I went out to grab some dinner to bring in to him.  One the way in, we stopped at the grocery store and bought some little cupcakes.  Once we got to his building, the kids & I had a fun time trying to "sneak up" to the building as his window in his office faces the parking lot.  And once we were at the door of the building (it's secured so we have to call him to gain entry), the sun had already set & I gave each kid a cupcake with a candle in it and lit them.  So when he turned the corner, all he saw was his two kids standing outside in the dark each with little cupcakes & candles.  It was really sweet.

Munk also had a birthday this month.  He turned the big 1-0.  It's hard to believe that he is that old already, but it's also hard to remember life without him.  We have recently switched his food to a food specifically designed for older dogs to help them "brighten their minds".  E thinks that it's all a bunch of hocus pocus.  But I think that I see him being more social with us and laying downstairs by us more.  The quality of the food isn't the greatest, but if I see improvement, I'll probably continue it for the time being.  He is getting more noise phobic in his older age and spends a lot of times upstairs on his dog bed (which is in our bedroom) because the kids are too noisy for it and it frightens him.  There are some days that he doesn't want to come inside (and you can tell it's because he is scared) after being out first thing in the morning.  So we let him sit outside and check on him regularly.  He usually stays in the same place and just lays outside.  Our new place has an underground system, but the driveway isn't included and he has always been really sensitive to that kind of training that we are just trusting him outside.

Thanksgiving came and went as well.  We had E's parents down for Thanksgiving as well as having one of the guys that works for him over.  It was a nice quiet Thanksgiving and it was wonderful getting to spend time with E's parents.  We didn't do any Black Friday shopping, but spent the evening before scoping out the ads and discussing the fall of TV prices.

Some upcoming things that we are excited about are taking a trip on the North Pole Express to see Santa, visiting the Macy's windows and Rockefeller tree, E & my 11th anniversary, spending Christmas with E's family at our place and visiting Iowa for Christmas.

Roaring like a lion!

The new house is all decked out for Christmas.  I was actually done decking before Thanksgiving.  I'm hopeful that I'll get either a little video tour done or some photos taken and have a holiday update of our new place.  The longer that we are here, the more that I get comfortable in this house.  And it looks quite beautiful with all it's Christmas bling up and on.

Speaking of holidays, our Christmas cards are finished and were ordered this morning.  So they should be on their way out on Monday morning (I'm hoping).  I had high hopes and high expectations from a lot of sources.  In the middle of the process of this year's card, I thought that I wasn't going to meet expectations.  But in seeing the finished product yesterday, I can finally pat myself on the back and say that I think they are pretty amazing.

We had to officially register Finn for next year at school and in doing so, we also enrolled Fish for school.  How is this even happening?!!?!?  Granted he is only 2.5, but we began Finn in a school setting when she turned 3.  He will be starting in their Step 1 program and going Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the next school year (i.e. fall) while Finn will be going Monday, Wednesday, & Friday to pre-K.  I'm not sure how he is going to do.  At the beginning of this school year, he was desperate to go to school with Finn.  But now, he doesn't even cry when she leaves.  He is perfectly fine being home with me and I love our mornings together.

Just a little nail update -- if any of you remember, when Fish was a wee one, he had issues with his big toenail.  It looked like the whole toenail was going to be an ingrown nail because his toes came up over his nail on every side.  He even went to an orthopedist who tried to stick cotton underneath his toenail to raise it up over the skin and ended up bending back his entire nail (needless to say, we didn't go back to that dude EVER -- even upon the suggestion of our old pediatrician when the ingrown-like nail came back).  Eventually, it worked itself out and the skin around his toe settled down and the nail started to strengthen up.  Well, the poor kid has just bad old luck with nails.  While at a Halloween party, he fell off a push scooter and his fingernail blackened immediately (and he screamed for about 3 minutes).  Just last week, his poor fingernail started to fall off.  I started freaking out -- but found it to be normal with severe nail trauma.  Well, today, the whole thing fell off.  Now the poor kid doesn't have a nail on his index finger of his left hand -- you can see if in the cat-hat photos (his fingernail is really red, that's because there is no nail there, only skin).  I read that 85% of the time, it grows back completely normal (I don't think he is going to have the luck on his side due to his previous experience with nails, but we'll see).

As you can see by the last three photos, we put on Fish in her old hat and put her new hat on her.  The results were too adorable not to share.

Fish Lately

This is extremely late -- he is already 22 months and I will probably be doing a 2 year update.  But I feel compel as I did one for Finn last month.

• Fish is weighing in at 28.2 pounds and is 34.5 inches tall.  He is currently in 2T clothes.  I like to tease that he has little chicken legs.  His feet and his hands are still big.  He is wearing almost a size 8 and he is not even 2 (Finn only wears a 9 and she is three years older)!  But one of his big issues with shoes is that he has a really high top arch -- like his feet are really tall (if that makes sense) and they have always been really tall.
• This boy is the apple of my eye.  He is amazing sweet (except for when he isn't).  If he feels like he has hurt you, he instantly turns around and starts smacking his lips to give you a kiss to make it feel better.
• Fish is a big sleeper.  He always falls asleep within 5 minutes of laying down for the evening and is always one of the last ones to wake up.  He also still takes a nap during the late morning/early afternoon.  His average nap is about 2 hours long.  Somedays, he can nap for up to three hours!  And he is a natural born snuggler.  He loves snuggling when he gets tired.

• Fish is also a big eater.  He loves to eat and he eats a lot.  He hasn't started to become picky yet.  But he does watch his sister and if she refuses to eat something, he will spit it out of his mouth and say "yuck" even if he has been eating it for the past five minutes.  His current favorites are grapes, yogurt (ultimate favorite), baked beans, & peas (!!).  We just found out a couple of days ago that he loves peas -- he even asks for seconds!
• He is a very mobile boy.  Lots of running and jumping and climbing.  He learned who to pedal a tricycle last weekend.  He doesn't quite have the smooth circle motion, but he knows that if he pushes with one foot, he moves.  And then he will push with the other.  Another one of his new obsessions is climbing onto the island or the table from his chair.  He likes to splay himself out on his belly on top of the surface.  He grabs for things sometimes, but not all the times.
• He is behind on talking.  He likes to tell stories, but it's all jabber.  He does say words, but his annunciation is a little off (as to be expected from a toddler trying to learn his words).  Words that he currently says are bye-bye, more, please, no, ball, doggie, cat, "ready!", "okay!", bug, truck, and car (although a lot of people wouldn't know the difference between certain words, ex: truck & car).  He knows the animal sounds for quite a few animals (cow, sheep, goat, cat, dog, pig, chicken).  And the kid understands EVERYTHING.  I think alot of his being behind on talking has to do with the fact that he doesn't want to do it.  If I ask him to say something, he will say "no".  I have taken to using it as a way to not give things to him he is doesn't try to say the word or at least try to say it (like a yogurt from the frig).

• He completely adores his sister.  I like to "monkey see, monkey do" and it fits him perfectly.  If she is doing something, he must be doing it as well, even if two seconds earlier I had asked him and he said no.  One example that sticks out in my mind:  We were going on a long trip and I asked him once he was buckled into his car seat if he wanted his shoes off.  He said "no."  And I asked Sister if she wanted her shoes off.  She did and I took them off.  Then a racket began on the other side of the car bc Fish wanted his shoes off as well.  This is cuter than a puppy until she begins to play with a toy and he decides that he either wants to play with that same toy or that he wants to play with her.  Finn sometimes doesn't understand that at times he wants to play WITH her, which causes great angst.
• His current favorite is trucks, but not just any trucks -- BIG trucks.  When we see construction vehicles or semis on the road, he gets so excited.  On our cu-de-sac, our neighbors have different garbage companies, so we have multiple sightings of garbage trucks.  We have to sit out on the porch (or watch from the window on yucky days) and watch the truck until it leaves from sight (if it's a good week, we can catch four garbage trucks -- two garbage and two recycling).  We also went to a Touch-A-Truck event and he was thrilled.  The event had tractors, fire trucks, semis, ambulances, cop cars, all sorts of construction vehicles and even a helicopter!  And the kids got to sit inside them and sometimes honk the horn! He had a great time!

Finn Lately

• Finn is currently 3.5+ years old, 33 pounds and 40 inches tall. She is fitting in 4T clothes quite well. We switched over sizes in September due to all her pants becoming high waters.
• She is NOT a sleeper.  Girl is up at 7:00-7:30am every day -- no matter what time she goes to bed.  We are usually in bed and done with books by 8:30 (on a good night) and she still doesn't fall asleep until after 9:30 (unless we did something major that day and she is physically exhausted).  We have officially given up our naps.  Womp womp.  She will only nap once every week or two.  I have pushed and pushed for her to keep these naps because I feel like near the early evening, she is like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  But even when it is time to go to bed, she doesn't fall asleep easily.  I think that she is just being a three-nager.
• Speaking of being a three-nager, the girl definitely is a Sass Master Flash.  We are currently trying to work on realizing that just because Fish doesn't play exactly the way that she wants him to or that he is touching toys that she deems unacceptable, the world will not, in fact, end (although she honestly thinks that it will).  

• She has a mean independent streak, until she doesn't.  She doesn't want help with anything if she says that she is going to do it herself.  But then the times where she does require assistance, if you are not jumping like your feet are on fire, then you are doing it wrong!  And she will tell you that you aren't going fast enough to help her.
• As you can tell by the last two bullets, tantrums & sass are a mainstay in our house.  But when she is not unleashing her beast, she has such a funny side.  She tells the funniest stories.  And while she thinks that her jokes are marvelously funny, we need to work on her delivery.  An example of her current joke repertoire:  "knock, knock..."  "who's there?"  "Orange."  "orange who?"  "orange you glad that it's not banana?"  (I'm sure you've all heard the original knock knock joke before)  Another favorite?  "knock, knock..."  "who's there?"  "Nothing."  "nothing who?"  "nothing, nothing"  One of my favorite things is to try and eavesdrop on her conversations that she has with either her toys or Fish.  Her imagination is something else.
• My only quibble that I have with her really is her eating habits.  She used to be an amazing eater, eating anything and everything.  But when I had Fish, we went for what was fast and easy and I think that it was right around that time where little toddlers' taste-buds should be experimenting, not getting the same thing over and over again.  Because after that time, she not refuses to try anything different.  We make her have a single bite out of something, and it's a chore for her.  She basically eats yogurt, cheese, milk, applesauce, meat, chicken nuggets, & donuts.  She used to LOVE bananas & oranges. This morning, she ate her obligatory bite and that was it.  I don't get it -- because even when I offer sweet food that is good for her, like the banana or orange, even after the bite, she won't eat it.  Frustrating.

• Finn is very smart.  She is currently in preschool three mornings a week (MWF) and she loves it.  The goal of her school year this year was to be able to write her name.  When they tried to write their names for the first time at school back in September, she was able to write the first four letters of her seven-letter name.  She can now write her entire name and is just working on the form of each letter.  Her school also offers "after school activities".  Once a month, there is Tales & Treasures.  She can stay for lunch with her friends and then they read a book and make a project.  The school also offers a four week "class" called Fun Frolics.  In it, they have lunch with friends and then stay and learn about an extra subject.  We missed the first one as I wanted her to adjust to school and not inundate her with too much school.  But once she was acclimatized, I always ask her if she wants to participate and she always seem to want to.  She is currently in the "Art" Fun Frolics, where they are learning about art and artists such as Henry Matisse.  Her next Fun Frolics which starts at the beginning of December is going to be Yoga! But she is most excited for the cooking Fun Frolics that will be sometime in the spring.
• She is very good at math already (for her age, obviously).  She can do rudimentary additional and subtraction (all under 10, so she can use her fingers).  But she understand the concept of adding and taking away things.
• Finn is also really good at recognizing letters, letter sounds & numbers.  If she doesn't know the letter or number immediately, she knows to go through her numbers on her fingers or her alphabet and in counting or saying the alphabet, she will recognize the letter/number.
• Her memory is amazing.  We read lots of books in our house, at least six a day (two before nap and four before bed).  And once I have finished reading the books, she will get to pick a book and read it to me.  She can read books that we haven't read in a long time to me, using a lot of the same words.  And if heaven forbid while I'm reading to her, I miss a word -- she will stop me and correct me.  And it's not like my flub will have changed the context of the sentence dramatically -- it's like me saying "in" and it should have been "on".
• I know that it sounds like I was tooting her horn this whole time, but we are very proud of her and if I can't toot her horn, who can?  Amiright?!?!?

Cue Linus & Lucy

Okay, it's actually Skating by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.  But we have come to that time of year, where the leaves are lightly falling off the trees like snow.  And while this song also reminds me of snow falling, when the leaves start fluttering down off the trees, it's the first time of the year that I start thinking about that song.  Then it sticks in my head until after the New Year.  

• We never made it to a pumpkin patch this year and I feel like a terrible mother.  Nor did we carve pumpkins.  Eeeeeeeeeek!  I feel like I've ruined their childhood for not keeping up with one of my favorite traditions of Halloween.  But weather and time factored into the demise of my envisioned pumpkin patch trip.  So to negate the awful feeling, I took the kids into our backyard (okay, not really our backyard, we made our way over by the goats, sheep & Mrs. Elderberry) and snapped some photos of them amongst the fall leaves -- our "autumn" photos this year -- not pumpkin photos.  Womp womp.
• I'm going to be posting updates on both kids tomorrow and Thursday.  I haven't updated on their personalities and development in ages and I feel almost back to our old selves after the move.  And the kids have really been neglected here.
• I have realized that I put too much on my plate in our move.  Reupholstering my entire living room might have been a little much.  But now that I'm down to one chair, which is naked now and only needs the new material put on, I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm super excited about the living room -- like pee-my-pants-excited.  Once I complete it, I'll be posting some photos of the new house.  A virtual house tour, if you will.

• If it's not one project, it's another.  It seems like I also bit off more than I could chew in projects in the recent months.  Fish & Munk's Halloween costumes were completely made by me.  I made Fish's military jacket and hat from scratch, which I'm really proud of.  But those suckers took me a long time to figure out.  And with the furniture that in the living room and our Christmas card outfits, my sewing machine has taken up permanent residence on our kitchen island.  Hopefully in the next two weeks, that sucker will be put away -- at least for the months of Christmas.
• We are still home owners in Cleveland.  Our house just didn't sell this fall and I'm afraid that we are going to be sitting on it until spring.  Cleveland isn't the greatest place to want to move to in the winter time.  It's been pretty stressful trying to keep up with the two houses and as much as I don't want to let go of our old house (the home that I will always hold in my heart), I'm ready to see it belong to someone else.  Tears well in my eyes as I say that (as I have a hard time letting go of all the memories), but it's time.  New homeowners, come find us!
• I can't tell you how excited I am to break out the Christmas decorations!  Probably next week if I can get the previously mentioned projected finished.  E is definitely NOT excited about it.  But the kids and I are going to love it!  Especially now that I have a new house to figure out where everything is going to go...