Santa Visit '08

We had our Santa visit last night at the Mall of America. I would say "annual Santa visit", but last year we didn't make it as CJ refused to go. Can I say how much I love the MOA Santa? First, you can make reservations. 2 years ago when CJ was 2 1/2 we waited in line for 2 1/2 -3 hours to see this Santa. CJ was kept busy with the toy area and the movie Polar Express they had playing, it was well worth it. Starting last year you could make reservations, what a brilliant idea. There still is "the other Santa" at the MOA, but he isn't quite the same. For the past few weeks, CJ has been telling me how his Santa visit is going to go. "Mom, I'll just stand by Santa and you can tell him what I want. I'm not sitting on his lap, I'll just stand by him while Nicky sits on his lap and gets his picture taken." Well this Santa spends about 10-15 minutes with each family. He starts by sitting on the ground with the kids giving them high fives, asking what they want for Christmas and all the other Santa questions "have you been good?" "do you listen to your mom?" "do you eat your vegetables?". Then he goes into photo mode and whisked Nick in before he could realize who was holding him and get crabby. Even CJ sat on his lap and smiled for a picture.

While we were waiting for Santa we found out the boy in front of us was also named CJ and this was his 10th year of coming to visit this Santa. "MOA Santa Groupies".

I was hoping to also have other pictures because you can take your own photos too, but Charlie got in charge of photo taking and got 2. He was immediately fired from future photo duty.

And of course you can't go to the MOA without going on some rides.

Nick's 1st Haircut!

Nick had his 1st haircut today, he looks like such a big boy now! So sad to lose that little baby hair, but the "wings" were starting to drive me nuts.

Towards the end we had to use a sucker for a bribe, he SCREAMED bloody murder for the last 5 minutes when she was using the trimmer - no pictures of that!

After his haircut at home, (and a nap so he was happier!)


Now...I know some of you are NOT going to believe me but check out this unplanned oddity. Here are pictures of CJ's first hair cut - can you believe they are wearing the same shirt. And I SWEAR I didn't plan this, I just grabbed the first shirt I saw this morning from Nick's closet which happened to be a hand-me-down from CJ.

Also, check out the size difference between the boys! CJ was just over 10 months in this picture. Nick is 11 months today.

Cookies!

As promised to Tonja, here are some pictures of the cookies Sara and I decorated yesterday. While it wasn't quite the spread that Tonja and her family created, we had fun decorating our sugar cookies. We both HATE the rolling/cutting/baking portion of decorated sugar cookies so for the last 2 years we've had Charlie bring home Best Brands pre-made sugar cookies, and they are quite good too!

Here are some of our masterpieces.

And of course some gingerbread men (or I guess in this case man)...

We'll just call this one creepy..."Dude, what happened to your face?"

Sara made this one, we decided it looked like Lightening McQueen - so she sent it home for CJ (it's actually a broken Santa)

And my most favorite of all, you've all heard of the Christmas Macaw haven't you? "macaw, macaw"- I can't take credit for this one either, Sara's creativity and decorating skills far surpass my own. (It's a Santa on it's side - we decided we didn't like this Santa - too hard to decorate) (The Christmas Macaw is far more entertaining) (and who can resist saying "macaw, macaw" in their best bird voice"

Nick's 1st Spaghetti Dinner

1st Snow

December 3rd was one of our 1st significant shovelable (is that a word?)snowfalls. CJ loves to help shovel (i.e. play while Mom or Dad shovels). Nick was supposed to be taking a nap, but more wanted to be part of his 1st snow, all bundled up in the stroller he watched from the garage.

CJ's realized his bike is not so well suited for the snow.

Thanksgiving Weekend (in pictures)

What a weekend! Since I'm far too tired to write about the whole weekend here's the quick nitty gritty and some pictures.

Wednesday-

I worked 3-11

Thursday-
went to Mara's around 9
Thanksgiving dinner at 12 (yum)

work at 3

bed at midnight

*it's hard to get all 4 cousins to sit still - here's an attempt* (notice Reagan holding Nick's head still!)

Friday-

up at 4:15 am

Kohl's, Target, Rosedale Black Friday shopping - not as many deals as years past but still a great time

the guys went to the Wild game

I tried to take a nap! - not much luck

Lots of Wii playing



Nick loves to eat!

The kids played the Wii alot - but then we kicked them off so we could play. 4 person Mario Kart was fun, 4 person tennis was hilarious!

Saturday-

Great-Grandma's came for brunch

went home

I spent a good amount of time playing with Emily's camera - after cursing my camera for the past year I've decided I'm switching to a digital SLR - can't wait to get it! I've decided its the camera and not me that sucks so badly with pictures. Although I need to get my receipt so I can send my current camera back - there is something wrong with it. *All the pictures taken in this post have been with Emily's camera* Thanks Emily!

Peek a boo!

Sunday-

I went shopping for 6 hours! I spent 2 hours in Kmart doing the coupon doubling they have going this week (and I HATE Kmart) (yes Mara time to grab the pencil). I saved $88 dollars in coupons - I won't need to shop for toiletries or cleaning supplies for months! I also bought myself some new clothes and did some Christmas shopping and grocery shopping. Charlie was more than ready for me to come home! We then set up the Christmas tree. CJ's amazing in his ability to remember exactly which ornaments we had from last year - "but where's the bear in the wagon?" Nick had fun jamming to Christmas tunes - this kid loves music. This isn't Christmas music but you can see him "dance".

Sleep!

Today Nick accomplished something he's only done a few other times in his life, sleep past 7 without waking to eat! I realize this is a milestone most mothers celebrate when their kids are 2 months old, not 10 months old...what the heck! Hopefully it will continue, but tomorrow we'll probably be back on our "real" schedule. Wake sometime between 2-4 for a bottle and up at 6:30 or so for good. Ick. Anyone have any good sleep solutions? Crying it out doesn't work, then I have 2 angry kids because Nick woke CJ up.

Nick's New Trick

He's on the go, he's been working on his crawling skills for a couple of weeks now, but finally mastered the task yesterday. Still a little slow, but he's got it down. Good thing I installed a gate on Sunday.

This one is cute, if you're wondering about the cat, she doesn't seem to be bothering him lately.

Lifetime Fitness Welfare

I had cancelled my Lifetime Fitness membership in October for various reasons... 1) It was getting too hard to get a reservation for Nicholas in the childcare center 2) It was getting even harder to justify the $80 a month dues for something I used maybe 1 a month or so 3) It was now getting cold out so we wouldn't even be using the pool like we were in the summer. So I cancelled, Charlie had me resigned up at Snap Fitness and I was all set. I was planning to rejoin this summer when Nicholas wouldn't need a reservation at the childcare center. Well then I got an email from someone at Lifetime Corporate that basically said, come back and we'll waive all the fees associated with rejoining, lower your rate to $39 a month for at least 6 months, and you will never have to pay the $5 per child junior monthly rate. Hmmmph, how do you turn that down. When the guy sent me the confirmation email I laughed because it came from "Lifetime Member Assistance" it's like welfare for my ass...too funny. So, now I can re-cancel that Snap membership and CJ is more than thrilled that he can now go back to the "kids area". And only a few more months and I won't need a reservation for Nick. Now if I can just have the cattle prod to get me there on a more than once a month basis I'll really be set.

I asked the guy if they offer this to everyone who cancels their membership (thinking I bet I know some other people who would like to go for much cheaper) he said no they only choose a few from each club. I laughed and thought, hmmm...they must have taken a picture on my way out and thought "better get her back".

If you love me...

Not sure why this popped into my head, but when Emily was a baby she had a bib that read "if you love me, don't feed me junk". If Nick had that bib it would read "if you love me, don't feed me eggs!"

This is the poor Nick after I tried feeding him scrambled eggs for breakfast. Since my camera takes CRAP for pictures you can't get the full effect but his chin, around his mouth and around 1 eye was red, rashy and swollen. His hands were bright red and swollen. After about 2 bites of eggs he started rubbing his hands together, then his face got really red. I think his lips got a little swollen, but he didn't seem to be having any breathing problems or else I would have called 911. So I quick cleaned him up and gave him a dose of Benadryl. Poor kid sat and itched and pulled at his ears for a good 20 minutes. So, no more eggs for Nick, or cake or cookies or anything with eggs in it. Thankfully Mom had some advice for a good egg substitute that you can cook/bake with.

Now he seems okay, he'll probably crash in a few minutes from the Benadryl.

Here's the bad picture, it doesn't do justice to how red/rashy he was. Now I can see his lips were a little swollen. Scary!

I called his pediatrician to see if I should give him the Zyrtec too, but she said to wait and see. She said he might puke - thankfully he hasn't done that!

Halloween Part 2

It took awhile, but here they are...

CJ as a ghostbuster!

Nick as a Frankenstein monster!

CJ and Dylan!

This is how the whole street looked, packed!

CJ LOVED trick-or-treating this year. We left about 6:30, Nick and I quit about 7:30 and CJ and Charlie didn't get back until close to 9:00.

Halloween Part 1

Here are some pics of Halloween Part 1, preschool party as Spider Man. Or "Bad Spider Man" as CJ calls him.

Money Matters

I read this headline today....Exxon Mobil shatters own record for largest profit from operations by a US corporation. Apparently they did quite well from the $4/gallon gas.

Now I admit I was a Econ drop out (from my short stint at UMD thinking I would be good in an accounting major) (yeah, I think that lasted 1/2 a semester)(what the heck was I thinking)(sorry Mara - no offense)(I think I'm better at wiping ass) but where is their "struggling economy"?

Speaking of economy, I watched an Oprah show on the thriftiest family in America and they had this lady on there called Coupon Mom. While I admit to being a coupon cutter, I've never taken it to this level. Actually matching up the weekly sales ads for Target, Cub, etc. and buying whats on sale combined with a coupon. (Okay Mara I know your gouging your eyeballs out). So, I've tried it and lets see I've gotten free toothpaste, cheap shampoo, any many a savings on groceries. So of course one click in coupon mom leads to a few thousand clicks later and there is quite the "thrifty" community out there. Found another forum where people post their Target deals they find, my most recent one I cashed in on was 10 pack Minute Maid juice boxes for $0.69! Yes, 69 cents for 10 juice boxes! What a deal, actually its more of a steal. I was able to pick up 7 of them yesterday, no coupon needed. We are well stocked for juice, although I think I may give them out to trick-or-treaters. If you really want the nitty gritty on the juice let me know.

If you need a good laugh...

Check out this blog called Cake Wrecks...basically they peruse the internet looking for cakes gone awry. Some of the stories to go along with the cakes are just as funny. The funniest I've found so far is this...Fireman Cake. I've added them to my ridiculously long daily blog tour.

Edited to add: On the right column part way down the page is a section marked "Fan Favorites" - these are pretty good. From the creepy baby cake to the cake that started it all - good stuff.

SOLD!

I've successfully sold my first items on eBay. What fun! Watching the frantic bidders at the last minute is pretty entertaining. I watched my breast pump go from $87 to it's final selling price of $139.38 in a matter of minutes. Today a stamp set sold (don't worry Jean and Michelle I'm only selling a couple on eBay) for $24.50 that I bought probably 6 or 7 years ago for $24.00, not a bad return on my money. The odd thing, the buyer - in Switzerland. She had asked earlier in the auction how much to ship to Switzerland - $17! She must really want this stamp set! Anyone have anything they need to sell on eBay?

Tall skinny boy

Nick had his 9 month check-up yesterday. He is one tall skinny boy!
29 inches long -90th percentile
18 1/2 pounds - 25th percentile
and I don't remember his head but it too was in the 25th percentile.

In comparison CJ at 9 months was
28 3/4 inches long
24 1/2 pounds!

Quite the difference!

We're also thinking Nick is allergic to the cat. Which brings in a whole other dilemma. Anyone in the market for a fat lazy cat? I think we might have to make her a downstairs cat only. I feel better about this option than bringing her to the humane society where we got her over 8 years ago. We don't bring Nick downstairs very often and we can close the door down there. While I feel bad she won't have free range of the house, she at least won't be confined to a cage like at the humane society. We'll make it one of CJ's chores to go have cat bonding time with China. We're also going to try Nick on Zyrtec to see if that helps his allergies/eczema.

Anyone have any other bright ideas for Nick's allergies? Anyone want a cat?

Amery scrapbooking weekend

Finally I'm getting some scrapbooking pictures up. While I didn't get much done as far as layouts go, I did learn a ton. Everything from how to "cut" a piece of paper to fit on a page to how to get photos to fit into a frame without the edges showing. Of course the non-scrapbooking portion was just as fun, little sleep, great meals and lots of laughs. I'm sure Emily will have MUCH better photos in her blog, but here are a few to share and some layouts too. Who am I kidding, "some layouts" these are ALL of my layouts. I'm sure in 5 years when I look back I'll be mortified, just as I am now when I look back to scrapbook pages from 5 years ago, but for now I'm pleased.

Emily found the benefit of sitting next to me, LOTS of scrapbooking real estate, see that laptop in the corner - that's my scrapbooking real estate. Of course sitting next to Emily had it's rewards too, being that she's a graphic designer and I am most definitely not!

Mojitos anyone?

Crab boil chefs...

Mmmmmm...crab boil...the definite food highlight of the weekend.

And for some layouts, if you are truly interested you may have to click on each one to see it larger.