Christmas 2011

This year, we celebrated Christmas Eve with a morning church service at Grace, followed by a low key afternoon. Dad & Linda arrived late afternoon and Jackson had the best time chasing, tackling, running and lovin on them. After dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to Poppy (again) and to Baby Jesus.

We gave the boys a bath, sprinkled the reindeer food on the lawn, left homemade cookies & a glass of milk out for Santa & then climbed into Jackson's bed to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on the iPad. Yes, the iPad. We were unable to find our authentic hardcopy and not being one to break tradition, we downloaded the e-book version. It was sufficient and definitely more elaborate than the old school format, complete with scurrying mice, chuckling Santa & flying reindeer.

After the book was read, Santa's little elves spent the next few hours assembling train sets, bikes & stuffing stockings. I think we were more excited for Christmas mornin than Jackson was!

Christmas morning rolled around and it was fun to see what Jackson ran to first. Upon hitting the first floor, he immediately ran to the breakfast table to see if Santa had eaten his cookie & milk (which Ben had). When I asked him if Santa brought him any presents, he looked at the stack of wrapped gifts that had been under the tree for weeks and nodded excitedly. Only then did he notice the huge train set in the middle of the living room floor. And only after additional prompting did Jackson notice his new Lightening McQueen "big boy" bike.

He also got a slew of other things from Oma & Opa and us, including a new pair of cowboy boots that fit, a baseball glove, a new lunchbox and a little compartment suitcase for his matchbox cars.

Weston pretty much chilled out and just took in all the chaos. Santa brought him lots of books, stuffies, jammies & baby toys. Poor little thing has all the hand-me-downs so its super hard to buy for him.

Santa also brought us a Wii, Ben a new 18V drill, me a keyboard for my iPad and the promise of an iPhone 4s in February when my contract is up.

We packed up and headed to Conover to spend Christmas night with Mom & Bruce. Which meant yet another round of presents. The boys were thrilled to see his Uncle Mikey & Aunt Jenn.

Jackson scored an awesome remote control car from Bebe & PopPaw and he had a ball figuring it out.

The day after Christmas, we took the boys on their inaugural trip to Claremont Cafe, a local dive that has been around for decades (without so much as a face-lift) and still uses a saran-wrapped calculator to add up your bill. Cash only and don't dare ask to see a menu. True to form, we ran in to several people we knew while there, including my Uncle Kenny and Ben's high school friend Rudy. Gotta love a small town.

After lunch, we went to see Ben's friend Austin & his family, then we stopped by to see MawMaw, who has been doing well since she left her post-surgery rehab. Back at Mom's, we had an after-dinner marshmallow roast in their fire pit. Sounded like an awesome idea but cold weather + dangerous fire + sticky marshmallows + no afternoon nap for Jackson = very short-lived activity.

And I do realize that Weston's precious face is seriously lacking in most of my blog postings. Its not that we don't take lots of pics of him (well...), they just all look the same. Same chair, different day. So I'll leave you with this precious one. This little boy is such a joy.

And I'm now realizing that we didn't get one single family picture of the 4 of us this Christmas. Nor did we get ANY of Bebe with her grandsons. Seriously, I need to do better!!

"Rusty"

We welcomed our own little Santa's helper into our home by giving him the redneck name of Rusty. It is pronounced "Rrrrus-teh". He is not exactly mischevious, per se, but he does like to hang upside down from lights, eat (and share) powdered donuts and even went rogue and returned from the NP with some snow one morning, complete with an elf-sized shovel.

And on Christmas Eve morning, Rusty surprised us with some sparkly reindeer food to sprinkle in our yard that night. How thoughtful!

The concept of Rusty reporting naughty or nice feedback back to Santa didn't exactly eliminate naughtness as well as we had hoped. The threat of the wooden spankin spoon still gets the job done in half the time.

We did enjoy having the daily "Where's Rusty?"....certain nights, I'd forget to relocate him and Ben would do so on his way out in the morning. Then both J and I would be scouring house for Rusty...and which point I would frantically text Ben demanding hints in order to avoid a meltdown out of frustration. Only once did Rusty spend the night in the same spot two nights in a row.

Now, 3 days post-Christmas, Jackson is highly concerned as to Rusty's whereabouts and doesn't understand that his elf buddy will be taking an 11 month sabbatical.

Happy 60th Poppy!

Today, my Dad turns 60 years old. That use to sound down right ancient but now 60 is the new 40!

We celebrated 2 weekends ago by spending the weekend in Blowing Rock with the fam. It was a relaxing trip and we managed to get a little Christmas shopping done too. We enjoyed singing & blowing out the candles on the birthday cupcakes and enjoyed a great dinner in downtown BR. 

 After a napless afternoon, I was worried Jackson would be less than well-behaved at a nice restaurant.  However, after his disco-nap in the car, he woke up fairly happy and munched on oysters, shrimp, trout and then nawed on some lamb as well.  Classy.  Weston slept from start to finish.

For Poppy's birthday, we gifted him with a camping trip to take place sometime this spring or summer.  Linda's idea of camping is the Holiday Inn so its been a while since Dad's slept in a tent.  We don't exactly rough it...we take enough modern conveniences to make our load quite large. 

Unfortunatley, there wasn't much snow up there.  They were blowing snow on the mountain but there was only a light dusting for Jackson to play in, despite the multiple layers & cold-weather accessories I decked him out in.

Clark Griswold would be proud

Rewind back 3 years ago. December 2008. Alisha & I hear about this amazing, over the top Christmas decorated house that is truly unbelievable. As in the local news stations routinely feature them every holiday season. So we decide to take the hubbies on a surprise date and they are less then pleased about our idea of a surprise date.

Fast-forward to 2011 & 2 kids later. Ben suggested we track down crazy Christmas house and take the kids. So we did just that. Saturday night, we had pizza at our friends Allison & Garrett's house then we all headed over to Mauldin to see crazy Christmas house. And for the record, it's still crazy 2 years later.

The two guys that live there spend the better part of 5 months unpacking, displaying then repacking holiday decor. Over 80 inflatables, 250,000 lights, arbors, trees, you name it. And the lights are synced up to Christmas music so it's like a mini light show. Santa was there, along with free popcorn & hot chocolate. Cars line the neighborhood and the line to walk around crazy Christmas house was about 60 people long. Seriously.

The best part of the night was when we caught Jackson & sweet Emerson kissing under the mistletoe.

I heart art!

Still being obsessed with Groupon/Living Social/Deal Chicken daily deals, I am such a sucker for getting a great deal.  Well, I ran across the best one yet. 

There is an art studio called C.A.T.S. (Creating Artists for Tomorrow) that I drive past several times a week.  Its a purple bungalow that has paint splattered on the exterior, sidewalks, etc.  I never gave it much thought, but lo and behold, they advertised via Living Social and opened my eyes to the best ever pre-school activity!

Hello, Table Time!  For $15, I got Jackson 3 sessions of messy, amazing free-play with an array of arts & crafts mediums.  We walked in and were shown the various stations & given the directive to make as much mess & have as much fun as possible.  If paint gets on the floor, walls, anywhere, its all good.  The stations for the day included a jumbo easel with lots of paints, pre-cut contruction paper strips to make a Christmas Tree along with glitter & confetti, balloons resting in bowls of white paint to be used as stamps to make snowmen on black mat board, tubs full of sand and cookie cutters for indoor sandcastles.  Plus bottomless hot coffee, juice & fresh fruit.  Each day, the activities change.

Jackson beelined it for the Christmas tree station after eyeing the scissors that are typically off-limits.  The owner, however, took the time to show him how to properly hold the scissors and cut some paper (which were not plastic nor did they have rounded tips).  After realizing his new found skill, Jackson pretty much spent the hour cutting, then decided to try out the other activities. 

{Thoughts in my head: Of course my child chooses to do the one activity - cutting - that I can easily do at home with very little mess.  Why not hit up the paints, or glue, or sand???}

We left after an hour & a half, with several masterpieces in hand and lots of paint on the play clothes.  We had a fabulous Mommy & Me date and I can't wait to go back.  Word on the street is that they let the kids paint the building & sidewalks on pretty days.  Sanctioned vandalism sounds fun to me :)

The cost of a night out

This morning, I woke up to another "snowfall" in Jackson's room, a result of last nights baby powder flinging. I spent the better part of half an hour wiping & vacuuming his room before I would let him go down for breakfast.

The backstory: Last night, I attended a Christmas party with my former company. I have been looking forward to this "night off" for a few weeks now and I was excited to get dressed up, see old friends and enjoy some adult time away from the kiddies. Ben stayed home with the boys. I am grateful for a hubby who's willing to do "Daddy Night" while I regain my sanity. It's hardwork managing 2 little ones...and still clean up, give baths and put them down at a reasonable time. And Ben totally sees how much work it is being home with these little rascals all day. I'm so thankful that he respects how hard my job is. Not exactly sitting around popping bonbons.

When I got home around 10 last night, Ben had just gotten the boys down and was crashed on our bed, clearly pooped. The house was a wreck - dinner plates still on the table, books scattered, dirty diapers rolled up but still perched on the various changing tables. I'm not one to be okay with going to bed with a disorderly house, so I couldn't just leave it. I resentfully cleared, loaded, wiped, sorted and put our house back in order. And this morning, I did it again once I discovered the mess in Jackson's room. (Ben had warned me about it last night).

I really am trying not to use this as a forum to nag or complain, but I have to vent in order to keep my sanity. I feel like I have to pay retribution for my night off. Does that make sense? It makes it almost not worth getting a break when it's more work to get my house back in order afterwards. Is it even worth it? Am I the only one who feels this way? How can I make it easier on us as a family for me to be away for a few hours without the chaos?

Next Monday, I have a girls night with ladies from small group and on Tuesday night we have our neighborhood girls night. I am so thankful for Ben to willingly (and happily, actually) be okay with me having 3 girls nights in 1 week (actually 3 nights within 4 business days as Ben pointed out). Something's gotta give so that he can actually enjoy spending precious time with our boys and I can come home refreshed rather than overwhelmed. Any advice?

All I want for Christmas...

"...is presents." 

I took the boys on an impromptu trip to the mall last week and we decided last minute to see Santa.  Boy was Jackson excited!  Thankfully we were the only ones there so we rolled right in to Santa's workshop.  J was so excited when he saw Santa and crawled out of the stroller & ran right up to him and said, "Hi Santa!"  Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he said, "Presents!", quickly followed by "shoes".  (He must take after his Opa) 

After chatting it up with Santa, we added Weston to the mix & he was surprisingly pretty chill.  He didn't exactly smile a ton, but after about a dozen snaps, we finally got a pic where both boys were looking at the camera & relatively happy. 

I hate Ben wasn't there for the photo shoot but I figured we may as well check this off our list while it was so convenient.