New Year's Rockin' Eve!

Happy New Year's Eve! We've got one down, one to go and I foresee us celebrating 2009 when Santiago or San Juan ring it in - around 10 or 11 eastern time! Little kids don't sleep in {ever} and I don't want to be hurting tomorrow. we did try to get a sitter for a party down the street but no luck. So we'll just have our Pom Royales and pizza while watching football and maybe a movie. Whoo hoo!

I didn't do too hot with my one "resolution" to take a photo every day in 2008, although plenty of photos were taken. I don't usually do resolutions, per se, but I guess I could throw a few goals out there.... I read 21 books last year, so I think I'll shoot for 25 in 2009. Got to save some time for blogging and a nap here and there! I want to run a race, at least a 5K, maybe even a 10K, by the end of spring. And last I'd like to finish filling out my menu plan. Right now I have a lot of repeating (everything appears again in 5 or 6 weeks) and I'd like to add some new "regulars" to that routine. Doesn't have to be 365 different meals, just enough variety so I don't feel like I just ate the same meal. There are lots of other things I'd like to accomplish, I'll keep a running list, I'm sure.

Now for some fun... when they ask to watch a video, most 3 year old kids probably want Diego or The Wiggles (which we like much more with the new Wiggle, btw) or Sesame Street. Possibly Spiderman, if you're Millie. But Miles? He wants to watch the Foo Fighters in concert. LOUD. He was watching some songs at lunch while I fed Audrey and I kept hearing the volume creep up. Our stereo is weird, the volume number goes in reverse, so lower = louder. We usually watch TV at 38. I went in and Miles had it up to 16 and then cried when I turned it "down" to a still boomin' 25. Takes after daddy.

Here he is as a one man mosh pit to the song "Monkey Wrench":

Merry merry!

Merry Christmas! I'm trying to get Christmas posted before the end of the year. Since it's New Year's Eve Eve, I'm doing okay. I tried to explain the "eve eve" thing to Miles today and gave myself a headache. Maybe him too. But he does get that we start a new calendar on Thursday. Speaking of calendars, the Advent countdown calendar that I made was a huge deal with Miles. He reminded me every day to put the new piece on and would tell us how many days were left until Christmas. Much easier than me answering him thousands of times a day "How long til Christmas?" So yes, he was excited this year.

Mimi and PawPaw came from Memphis to celebrate Christmas this year. They made it just in time for us to go to the children's mass at 4. We got to the church at 3:20 and the main sanctuary was already packed with 1500+ people, and the overflow was filling the family center across the courtyard. That ended up being standing room only with 5-600 people as well. We were lucky to get a row close to the musicians, as that is Miles's favorite part of the service. Erin, Josh and Eileen came in soon after and sat with us. We passed the time until mass started with hymns (carols) that would be sung during the service. When it was time to stand and finally begin Miles asked, "Is it over?" Hah! Not quite. But he did great and was especially excited to see his buddy Eli sitting a few rows behind us.

We got home, ate chili and got ready for Santa! We didn't have trouble at all getting them to sleep, and as usual Miles popped out of bed at a little after 6. We called Mimi & PawPaw to tell them to come on over from the hotel but they were already waiting for us in the driveway. Didn't want to miss a minute. We let Audrey sleep and Miles started opening his presents. (See the dark window above? pre-dawn). Santa brought him a cool Little Einsteins globe, more Diego stuff and puzzles and games. Oh and his favorite, Wall*E! We've taken advantage of winter break and watched it a few times.

Audrey finally woke but besides noticing a few new toys, didn't seem all that impressed. She was ready for her breakfast. She got some fun toys, but my favorite was the ballerina bow holder that I made for her. I made one for my niece Kate and liked it so much I had to make another. So cute hanging in her room!

A cool gift that we gave to the grandparents was a webcam and a Skype setup. We set everyone up over Thanksgiving and have worked out the technical issues now. It is so fun to chat with the grandparents over the computer and see them. Definitely holds the interest of the kiddos. If you have far flung family with high speed internet, I highly recommend it. (Dad, we'll have to get you a camera since your built in isn't working!)

Hope everyone has a fantastic new year and happy 2009!

We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.

This morning Miles helped me decorate cookies. We had lots of fun mixing up colored icing and picking what sprinkles to put on each shape. Our neighbor, Missy, gave us some cool sprinkles shaped like candy canes, snowflakes and twinkle lights, which were perfect for the shapes we made. Of course every minute Miles asked, "can I lick that?" or wanted to pour the sprinkles straight into his mouth. I finally gave in and we ate a couple of the first cookies. The sugar rush hit almost immediately and Miles was bouncing off the walls! He started pulling out all the sprinkles, colorings, cutters, whatever and asking if we were going to use it next. {"Is this one next? this one? can we use these? what about this one? oooh, let's use yellow next! can we use this next? etc. etc. etc.} Eventually he decided he'd had enough and left to go play with some new toys. So I got to make some cute cookies of my own, and even monogrammed a special one "M" for Miles.

He wanted another cookie after he ate his lunch (okay) and then again after nap (um, too close to dinner, bud). That last one was meltdown city. Lots of screaming, reaching up on the counter, clutching at my legs and finally a shouted "GIVE ME ONE NOW!!!". Um, no. But somehow he did calm down, we made it through a decent "real food" appetizer and he got a cookie. And yes, he still ate his dinner. Then wanted another....

At least he had some cool new toys to sneak away and play with. We had Christmas Round 1 *ding* on Saturday when YaYa and B came to play. They brought lots of cool stuff for the kiddos, and something fun for me, too. Miles was very concerned, though, that they brought something that he'd asked Santa for. He wanted to make sure Santa knew he already had it. I couldn't tell if his angle was so he wouldn't get a duplicate or so that Santa knew to bring something else!

We planned for all to go out to dinner, but a certain booger-bear was in no sorts to go out in public, so Wayne & I had a nice dinner at La Paz Chez Guevara. Maybe next Christmas. But thank you so much for coming to visit and have early Christmas! It was great fun for all.

Now we're waiting for the next round of visitors, Mimi & PawPaw due on Christmas Eve. Oh yeah, and that Santa guy. He's supposed to show up too. Merry Christmas to all!!

almost forgot...

at her 9 month checkup she weighed 17 pounds 2 ounces and is 26 3/4" tall. That is 16/18%iles, so she's a petite little thing, although she doesn't feel petite when I'm carrying her around all day!! Ha!

In the spirit

Happy Holidays! We're in full swing Christmas spirit. Miles is loving the advent calendar and reminds us every morning to put the next number on. He has also really enjoyed our trips to the mall, looking for Santa and trying to get more samples of the Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark. In fact, he loves the bark so much that I attempted to make some "Peppermint Candy" for us today (the WS version is $26!!). I think it turned out pretty tasty. He hasn't gotten to try it yet, we'll see what his verdict is. He also has planned for us to make gingerbread cookies and chocolate chip cookies for Santa. Good thing I rejoined the YMCA, I'm definitely going to need to pay them a visit or two.

Audrey has become somewhat of a diva in her dining habits. I've attempted to give her bottles of formula to see if she's ready to wean, but she is absolutely not interested. I don't mind still nursing her, but the occasional break for 1 three hour period in 9+months couldn't be too horrible, right? And tonight I tried giving her dinner as all finger foods: canned peas & carrots which are really soft, Cheerios and ...okay this one may be awful... turkey sticks {picture vienna sausage for babies}. She can feed herself and does quite often, but tonight the princess had to be spoon fed. Must be the 4 new teeth.

Ah yes, 4 new teeth, all across the top. They seem to have come in left to right, but it was so close together that none looks oddly bigger than the any other. But she was quite the little crab and woke us up a lot during the nights. I think we're past the worst, at least for this set of chompers.

Christmas show, part III

Here we are with another edition of the preschool Christmas show. This is the first year that I knew what they were singing, because Miles was singing these songs for the last few weeks. I love the first one, so cute and perfect for a kid.



Too fun. We didn't record the Pre-K performance that followed, but the star was the girl who played the part of... the star. She was all decked out in silver, had curly pigtails and bounce bounce bounce bounced for, like, 5 minutes straight. Towards the end when they'd brought out all the shepherds, wise guys and a whole bunch of animals, you could still see the top of her head boing-boinging behind everyone. She had to have eaten 7 pixie stix before the performance.

All I want for Christmas

Since this will be his 4th Christmas, I figured it was high time to take Miles to see Santa Claus. He already has issues with weird toys and things "looking" at him, so I was a bit wary of how he would deal with Santa in real life. We'd gone to the mall this weekend and peeked at S.C., but the line was prohibitively long. I thought I'd take him Monday during the day. At breakfast I coached him on what Santa would ask him (have you been good? what do you want for Christmas?). He seemed excited, so off we went.

There was a short line and as we waited I realized I hadn't taken him to the bathroom before we left. Great. I'm envisioning us being that family that shuts down the Santa line because of a wet lap. But I didn't mention it to him and he made it through fine. Whew. Audrey was entranced by the beard, but never grabbed it. I held her (and looked at the photos) while Miles told Santa his list. It included Wall-E, more Lincoln Logs, and a Batmobile like we got some friends for a birthday party this weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if he added Grape Chapstick. He's wanted that since Aunt Megan told him that it existed. He'd like to add it to the 5 chap sticks that he has collected and carries around from room to room, offering them to you as if on a wine list: do you want cocoa butter? blue? strawberry? guess what this one is? (yes, Mimi & PawPaw, we have your chap sticks).

Poor Audrey didn't get to tell Santa anything, but I have a feeling a few front teeth will be in for the holiday. She is cutting the top center left and the one to the left of it right now (joy) and the other top front one looks close. I hope they make it in fast, because teething is messing with all of our sleeps!

Too long...

Hi-ho, Nicole the absent blogger here. Sorry it's been so long, and sorry I left such an unpleasant topic as the top posting. Oh well, life happens. In the passing 2 weeks (!) we visited our families all over the state and back. Audrey and Miles were great travelers, although a lovely portable DVD helped on Miles's side of the backseat. I'm sure he would have been fine without it, but he saw the movie box and started asking right out of the driveway. Audrey graduated to the big convertible car seat. She was just too big for the carrier seat with her big winter coat.

Uncharacteristically, I forgot to copy the pictures from my parents' cameras before heading home, so I'm missing some really fun stuff, I'm sure. We spent a couple of nights with YaYa & B and got to play with the cousins. Wayne's sister had called me earlier that week, telling me I had to read Twilight by the weekend so we could go see the movie, so of course I did (and we did). I proceeded to read all 2550 pages of the 4 book saga in about a week, and I have just finished the unpublished revision of Twilight that's on the author's website. And yes, these are young adult novels! Sometimes you just need a little escapist reading.

After that stop, we headed on to Memphis to see all of my family. The kids got to play with both of their great-grandmothers (G.G.mama & G.G. in the rollie-chair, as Miles calls them.) We also go to hang out some more with Megan & Kyle. Miles gave Megan the full Aunt-initiation after Thanksgiving dinner. She was a true sport, playing catch, reading and being tied up in ribbons for his amusement. Thanks Megan!!

Wayne & I joined Kyle & Megan and our cousin Shannon and her BF Joey at Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, a new place in East Memphis. The food was absolutely delicious. I had the pasta fagioli and Maw Maw's ravioli and sopped up every last drop with the bread. Then we hit Windjammer for some beer and Karaoke. Megan rallied the ladies for a ear shattering version of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," but sadly we left before the boys got their chance to shine. We did hear a really great performance of Kanye West's "Gold digger". It's not easy to karaoke rap without practice. Someone tried to sing Proud Mary, so we had to call Tiffany... no one does that song like she does!

And now we're back home, trying to get switched over to Christmas mode. Not that it's very hard! Miles has been practicing his song for the Christmas performance, so look for that next week. We have the tree up, but not decorated yet... soon I hope!

Also to note, today is Audrey's 9 month birthday. She's such a big girl now! Her top two front teeth are micrometers from breaking the gum, and she is able to get around quite well with her army crawl, pulling herself around by her arms. She'll throw in a roll once in a while too. It helps that we have hardwood floors. Here's her 9 month shot with the bear. I gave up trying to take this weekly ages ago!