Christmas Eve dinner

My family does not really have a tradition of making a certain meal on Christmas Eve (or Christmas). Each year we try and come up with something fun to make that evening. Last night I came home from the afternoon at my parent's house and told Chris...

Me: Guess what? My mom and I decided that on Christmas Eve, we will have a make your own pizza bar!!
Chris: What? That's like having a make your own oatmeal bar!
Me: What are you talking about? I think it sounds fun. You like pizza!
Chris: Yes, but this is what it will be: 80 different vegetable choices and 1 meat choice.
Me: It will not!

While I pretended to be shocked at his reaction (although it was pretty funny), I guess he is right. We wouldn't have 80 vegetables, but I don't envision us having tons of meat choices. I guess it's back to the drawing board. :)

delightful

My mother-in-law gave me a few of these to try on our last visit. They are really tasty. They are richer than regular pudding and much better, in my opinion. They are only 60 calories too, which is hard to believe. :)

cold and rainy

I have SO much respect for stay at home moms who live in places where it either rains all the time, or is at least cold enough to not go outside (for a lot of the year). Yesterday and today have been cold and rainy. I have to say that I would LOVE right now to just snuggle up with a cup of hot chocolate and watch a movie. But that is never an option during this phase of my life (except after they are in bed).

So what have we done to keep busy??

*Yesterday we went for a walk and had another scavenger hunt. It was SO cold and as we approached our house, I was excited to get inside. Nope. Time to ride the bike! As I debated letting him ride, I thought, "It may be cold, but at least this occupies us for a little longer!"



*Today we set up some trains all over the kitchen floor.



*We played "Food Detective", where I gave him different bites of food, making him cover his eyes. He had to guess what I put in his mouth.



Exciting, huh?

laundry

As we were folding laundry:

Chris: "Maybe you could take care of folding Kendall's clothes. They are kind of like fitted sheets to me. I have no idea how to handle them...on top of the fact that I have no idea where to put them because I don't understand your system."

In all honesty, I don't even understand my system. I also have no idea what to do with fitted sheets. Who actually folds those???

today in the car...

Chris: I have something I want to throw out there. I just want you to think about it and be open to discussion.
Me: Ok... (in a slightly concerned voice)
Chris: I want to talk about a 3rd child.
Me: What??!!!!??? (my disclaimer to this is that even before Kendall was born, we had officially decided we would be done at 2 kids...so this was very out of the blue)
Chris: Haha! Just kidding! But really, I did want to talk to you about something. I think for 2010, we should talk about doing a budget.
Me: Oh (in a less than thrilled tone of voice).
Chris: See, compared to suggesting a 3rd kid, this is nothing! Right?? It's not that I think you spend too much. I just think it would be a good idea to see where our money is going.

So we went on to discuss why it would be a good idea to start a budget. I'm honestly very open to the idea and agree that it would probably be good. I just HATE budgets. We do budget our eating out as well as Chris's golf, because those are the areas that could possibly get out of hand. But for some reason, I am VERY non-excited about having to keep track of every penny I spend on groceries, necessities, etc. I always look for the cheapest food prices and I rarely by clothes for myself or do things like get my hair done. However, when I really think about it, I probably do spend money on things that aren't necessary. For this reason, a budget would be helpful. So come 2010, looks like we'll be giving www.mint.com a shot. Hopefully I'll get used to it and it will become second nature to record everything.

today

This morning I had Cam skip school so we could go over and make Christmas cookies with some of the girls from my mom's group. He was quite excited, especially considering I told him there would be sprinkles involved. Unfortunately, he didn't do so well. He felt overwhelmed most of the time. He didn't cry, which is such a great improvement for him. However I could tell (by certain things he did) that he was feeling very anxious. So we had to come home early. I'll be honest and say that I was pretty discouraged. I think I had my hopes built up that we were more passed this type of thing than we really are. But after a good pep talk from my mom (and I didn't cry at all when I called her...well, maybe a little...well, I guess quite a bit...) about focusing on all the huge progress he HAS made, as well as a fun time decorating just the two of us when we got home, I was much better.



This afternoon I used an idea from a book I had borrowed, entitled Bright Start. It has great ideas of activities to do with kids. I created our own little scavenger hunt. We went on a walk and checked off each thing we saw. It was kind of fun and made the walk a little less mundane. :)

last Christmas

I've mentioned before that car rides can be pretty stressful if Kendall decides she doesn't want to be in her seat. When she cries, Cameron cries. It's all I can do to not cry myself, so I make double sure I have lots of distractions for her when we are on the road.

One thing that sometimes works is to listen to upbeat music (and she likes it when I bop back and forth). There is one particular song that not only does she seem to like, but Cameron loves and often sways and claps to the music along with me. The problem is that it is one of the most annoying Christmas songs out there. If you listen to 103.5, you probably have heard it about 50 times a day. It's called, "Last Christmas", by Wham.

When I can tell she is about to blow, I'll say, "You know what time it is, Chris?" He'll sigh (in a joking way), turn on the song, and the dancing begins. If you have never heard it before, click here. :)