little bit of everything

We have our Elf flying all over our house. We find him everywhere. Every morning Daniel tries to find him.
Besides finding the Elf every morning we go through our ritual of opening doors to our advent calendar, playing the nativity ornament (story of Jesus's birth), putting a magnet on yet another advent calendar, usually we're running late because of all of this.
Daniel had a pajama party at school. I wish I could wear comfy pjs to work. Oh wait, I do on Mondays and Fridays!
We got our first snow! He was super excited to look out the window. It just melts my heart to see him get excited about things that I don't appreciate as an adult. He had to show his chuggers the snow too.
I ordered myself a little gift too. See a difference in these pics?
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I got myself a flash cover and love it! It gets rid of the flash look that you tend to get in indoor pictures. It forces the flash to go up instead of on someone's face.
I don't know why all the text is underlined.
We have tons of activities planned this weekend. Come back and read all about it.

HO HO HO!

We ventured out to see the jolly guy on Tuesday night. I was convinced there would be no line since it was a Tuesday, I was wrong.
Daniel did well standing in line considering it was over an hour. He approached him with a sheepish smile on his face, sat on his lap and said "mommy go take the picture". He's a bit bossy sometimes. We think Santa was hard of hearing because when D told him "I want a Chuggington Depot for XMas PLEASE" Santa had a confused look on his face, you would have thought he said "I want a Red Ryder Bb gun". Of course they try to hurry you off but it wasn't as bad as the kid in the XMas story but close. I was waiting for him to be kicked down the slide. HA!
And so we continue on with more Christmas cheer in the days to come.

Quote of the week

Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee.
-Stephanie Piro
We had a little power outage. We went treasure hunting. I made him lead the way...

Weekend recap

It's been a little crazy over here with me running around and trying to stay on top of my XMas to do list.
We didn't do anything exciting this weekend except for Sunday, it was my mom's bday but I didn't take one picture while at her house.
We did leave Daniel with my mom so we could go to ToysRUs and shop till we dropped. I did almost drop. The people, the heat of the store, all the boxes flying, I was ready to buy anything. On top of purchasing D's gifts we have a bday party this weekend and next weekend for kids in D's class. I could only buy one, it was just too much. I'm not a shopper, I wish 4 year olds would appreciate gift cards as much as I do. I won't be a grinch about it all but Lord do I appreciate that I don't have to exchange gifts with friends and my side of the family.
I was hired as the amateur photographer to take pics of my sister's kids for their X-Mas card. 25 takes and two teenagers that were ready to kill me later we had one winner.
The unedited version.
D got some rain boots and an umbrella from my friend after her son. We love hand me downs. He's ready for spring...only about 5 months away. SIGH!
Someone went potty before hand and tucked his shirt in. It was too late in the day for me to care.
We have some fun things planned for the next couple of weekends.

Cheers to December 1st

This morning we started a new tradition with my awesome purchase. Daniel was super excited to get going. He's been waking up earlier and earlier and asking "is it XMas today?". He also said to me this morning, in our dark bathroom, while going potty and my eyes were half closed, "mommy, I have an assignment for you" (assignments are given to chuggers on his favorite show Chuggington) my ears perked up and my eyes actually opened, "I want a depot, my chuggers sleep in there, I don't want a truck anymore". My only guess is he thought about this for at least 10 minutes before he decided it was important to come out of bed and tell us this.
I thought it was too precious BUT at 5am I did say "Ok Daniel, it's early, now close your eyes". I did smile and think he is growing up way too fast.
This season is different this year. I look at it more through his eyes and it's more magical, more meaning and way more fun.
Here is to starting off the count down to Christmas!!!!!

Quote of the week

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." Maya Angelou

Thanksgiving and weekend review in pics

Our holiday weekend started on Thursday morning as we watched the entire 3 hours of Macy's parade. Note to self: watch the last 30 minutes and you'll be just as satisfied.
Before heading over to my mom's we hung out with Ry's parents. They spoil us rotten with early X-Mas gifts. This year a nativity set and sonic power tooth brushes. My pearly whites thank you.
We took a few pics before heading out.
D and his beloved Emery, the chugger (it's a train for those that don't speak preschool).
We inhaled awesome food.
Even Kuba growled under the table for some scraps. He knows my mom is a sucker.
Friday morning with a major sinus headache I had to rally myself to put the tree up.
I survived.
D loves the tree. He just sat there and starred at it.
But he was more obsessed with the Dickens village I put up in the family room.
It included daddy's tree, we like mixing classic and science fiction.
Darth Vader made his annual debut along with all the ships of the galaxy.
Saturday we ventured out and picked up an additional piece to the village, Daniel's latest obsession, CLOCKS. Behold a clock tower.
He carried this thing all over the store. It doesn't even do anything but he loves it.
Since D failed to nap during the day I took advantage of putting him down early while Ry went out with a couple of friends. My plan to take a bath and watch a chick flick failed as I fell asleep before the little man did.
Today we went to Hallmark, our annual trip to pick one ornament out for D and one for our family.
A train and a candy cane (the candy cane was compliments of the store manager, he gave it to D and told him Santa would find him if he put it on the tree)
Then we saw this...
Disney clock ornament
It was perfect, this year was our first time going to Disney and then to put a clock in it, well...u know what happened.
He turned it
and turned it
and the tune will not get out of my head
He loves it. The train is ignored for now but it's so sweet seeing 4 years of ornaments that represent his interests.
2008-baby's first x-mas with a picture of a chubby baby (soft foods were his thing at the time)
2009-a fisher price school bus that reminded us of his obsession that seems forever ago
2010-CARS, how can we forget watching that movie over and over
2011-A Lionel train, our favorite past time which has also become annoying to hear
D: "you need to build me a new track"
Us: "we just built you a new one"
D: "OK tomorrow morning then".
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!