Hey, Y'all!

Some Shots

We've had a fairly ordinary week around here, but a fun one.  Christmas brings out the fun, you know.

Here's Dean as Batman pretending to be Lotso from Toy Story 3. (The golf club is his official Lotso walking stick.)  Several times a day, he suddenly stops whatever he's doing, runs to the tree, usually with a prop of some sort, and says, "Mama! Take a picture of me!"  We have an awesome collection of shots.  The flip side of this is that he has started to fancy himself a photographer. Marcus and I  have dozens of shots on both our iPhones like this:

This one's actually pretty good, as you can see his whole face.  Some are just of an eye, up a nostril, or like this one, which I actually think is pretty cool:

A little toddler hair, a stringless balloon and a juice box.  Nice one, kid.

We also end up with a lot of pictures of Marcus and me standing by the tree or by the cat or in the kitchen trying desperately to achieve the proper level of excitement required by our photographer.  Seeing how I, for some reason,  rarely wear clothes that match while I'm bumming around the house, these make for some greeeeeaaaaat shots.

 SMILE BIGGER, MAMA! HOLD YOUR HANDS UP LIKE A PARTY!

Chutney is making herself right at home.  You have to watch your drink or this happens:

I can haz dis water for da kitteh?

She also spends a lot of time like this:

Oh, to sleep like that.

I'm a little in withdrawal from NaBloPoMo, though some days it's nice not to have the virtual deadline.  Goodness knows there's enough going on this time of year to fill the days, though.  Today could have certainly been used to do some deep cleaning, since Dean has decided to take an epic nap. However, I'm spending my down-time watching Game Show Network, reading blogs, pinning things on Pinterest and eating Corn Pops all while watching Marcus play Disneyland Adventure on the Kinect. 

Dean's up now, so I must go and prepare a yogurt smoothie. The lazy was nice while it lasted.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I was a little girl, my dad told me he wrote that song. (He didn't.)  I believed it until we sang it in music class when I was in FOURTH GRADE and I saw the real writer's name on the sheet music.  He lies.

But anyway.

  Dean and Clifford helped decorate the tree this morning. Dean was more excited that EVER because he got to hang ornaments all on his own.  It was so much fun to watch his excitement every time he unwrapped or opened another ornament.  He asked, "Where's this from?" and we told him the story of all our special ornaments.  He mostly liked the ones that were about him, which is understandable.  We also pulled out the little Christmas tree that I've had since the mid-80s. I used to put it in my bedroom when I was growing up. It also travelled to college with me each year.  It now lives in Dean's room. I love that he enjoys it as much as I did as a little kid.

This morning, we made gingerbread cookies.

Believe it or not, this was my first try at gingerbread. I think they turned out pretty cute. Dean LOVED them and purposely decapitated several of the angels so I'd let him eat them.  He conked out for a nap this afternoon and I did some decorating.

The trees turned out to be super cute. 

I took off around noon and did a little shopping.  Our stocking were nowhere to be found in the boxes of decorations, so I sprung for new ones. Target was having a great sale, so I got Dean one with Lightnin' McQueen, Marcus one with a reindeer and me one with a snowlady.  (A snowman wearing a pink scarf is a snowlady, right? Right.)  I also got  us each a Christmas plate to make dinnertime more festive.

This is my absolute favorite time of year.  It was such fun this morning to laze around in my pj's listening to my Pandora Christmas station and learning to make a new holiday treat with my boy.  Marcus did his usual excellent job of making sure we had an even distribution of red and silver ornaments all over the tree. If it ever stops raining. we'll put out our light-up candy canes in the yard.  My silver jingle bell wreath is on the front door, the tree is lit and in the window, my kitchen smells like cookies, and my trunk is already full of gifts.  I watched The Family Stone yesterday (and criiiiiiiiiiied) and Love Actually is on my list of things to watch tonight.

Bring it on , Christmas.  Bring it on.

The Very Best

Today's NaBloPoMo writing prompt:  What has been the best moment o fyour life thus far?

Heh. That's an easy one.

It's In His Blood

Dean's preschool class toured the theatre where Marcus works/teaches today.  They crashed his acting class and got to go up onto the big stage, then backstage to see the costume shop.  After that, we headed down to the small studio theatre where they performed their very own play, The Gingerbread Man.

The set.

Dean portrayed one of several eagles. Here he is in costume:

Each group of animals tried to eat the Gingerbread Man, but could not catch him. It was a great show.

I love seeing Dean interact with his little friends and I adore his teachers.  He doesn't usually go to school on Mondays, but his teachers INSISTED we come for this special tour of the theatre and surprise performance.  I'm so glad we did.

Disney...On Ice!

Last night was a very worthwhile splurge for our little family.  A couple of weeks ago, Marcus heard a radio ad for Disney On Ice and decided we should take Dean.  Never one to turn down a night out or anything with the word DISNEY in the title, I wholeheartedly agreed.  He poked around online a bit and found that there was a 20% opening night discount.  Then he bought front row tickets, declaring, "If we're gonna do it, let's do it right." And boy howdy, did we.

"Mama, what's gonna HAPPEN?"

(Also, LOOK! Actual photographic evidence that I go places with my family! Who knew you could just hand the camera to your husband and make that happen?)

Dean really didn't understand what we were going to see prior to the event.  He just knew he was wearing special clothes, big boy shoes and getting to eat dinner in a restaurant.  He enjoyed his cheesey pizza, declaring it "kinda good."  In true Disney form, you were immediately bombarded with souvenier options, most of which were astronomical in price.  We settled for the least expensive, but definitely the cutest, option:

Flounder hat and cotton candy combo for the win!

When the show started, Dean was very quiet.  He didn't really react at first, unless you count the fact that his eyes grew to the size of saucers when Mickey and Minnie entered the rink.  However, even Mr. Cool couldn't resist a squeal of delight when these guys appeared:

TIMON AND PUMBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dean said, "Daddy, you see that?"  We enjoyed the Lion King portion of the show, except for the fact that adult Simba looked more like a Jellicle Cat than a lion.  We loved The Little Mermaid and Lilo and Stitch.  I realized around 3pm the day of the show that Dean had no idea who Lilo and Stitch were, so we watched some YouTube clips so he would recognize him.  Their rendition of "Burning Love" brought the house down. 

At intermission, we watched the zamboni:

I'm a sucker for a zamboni.  When I was in college, we hosted a Russian production of Swan Lake on ice, for which our students served as crew.  One thing they asked for were volunteers to stay overnight and make the ice stage.  I was ALL OVER that, mostly because I thought the job would involve driving a zamboni in the wee hours of the morning. Imagine my surprise when I was handed a pair of rubber boots and a garden hose and told to "walk the ice" every half hour. LAME. But I digress.

The second act was all Peter Pan.  Dean absolutely loves Captain Hook and Mr. Smee, so it was nice that they happened to spend a lot of their time addressing our side of the arena.

Overall, it was an awesome night and certainly money well-spent. I hope he remembers it forever.

Wordless Wednesday: Almost Time For Preschool

 

Three and Half

 
I think 3 1/2 is my favorite age ever.  Dean can carry on a whole, cohesive conversation that we actually understand, he can tell us what he wants and needs and he can crack jokes with the best of them.  His new favorite thing is to tell us something that is obviously wrong, such as "Cats eat pizza," just so he can say, "Noooooooooo! That's silly!"  We recently had a very long talk about dinosaurs and what they ate, explaining how some ate meat and others ate plants.  One night, he held up his T-Rex and said, "T-Rex eats cheese!"  I answered with, "Noooooo, that's silly!" then he held up a plant-eating dinosaur, stuck its neck in the T-Rex's mouth and said, "This Cheese.  See?  T-Rex eats Cheese."  Touche, kid.

 

Whenever I ask Dean how old he is at home, he answers with a hearty "Three and half!" However, if we're out in public and someone asks him how old he is, he looks at me with a confused face, then looks back at the person who asked with an expression that says, "I don't know how old  I am because the big people I live with don't teach me about things like age and SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEE!" Then the person usually shakes their head, judges me silently and walks away. Oh, well.

 

His love of the kitchen is still strong and he's branching out a bit with his cooking.  This week he has assisted me in making pasta with parma rosa sauce, onions and sausage, tea cakes and Danish wedding cookies.  He can tell you the entire list of ingredients for teacakes from memory, and the way he pronounces "vegetable oil" might be my favorite thing ever.

 
 

He starts preschool in 2 weeks.  We have orientation next week, first a parents' meeting, then an open house for the kids to meet their teachers and play together for a while.  I drove him by his new school yesterday and he got super excited about the bridge on the playground.  His teacher's name is Mrs. Walker, but he calls her "Miss Skywalker."  Let's hope she thinks that's cute.

 

I discovered something adorable about my husband the other day (in relation to Dean) that I need to document for you all. Marcus is not one to go on and on about how cute children are. Since becoming a dad, he will now comment on the cuteness or smartness or sweetness of a little kid much more than he did in his pre-parental days, but he's just not a gusher, even about our own child.  However, Marcus is a big ol' softie. Though he rarely comes right out and brags about Dean, I've noticed that, whenever he sees someone approaching who could conveniently overhear our conversations, he purposely asks Dean a question that he knows will get a cute answer. Last night a group of moms walking their infants approached us on the walking trail in the park and Marcus asked Dean (who was riding on his shoulders), "You ok, buddy?" Dean replied, "Yep, Daddy, I fine." All the young moms gave a collective, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw" and Marcus smiled.

 

He's brave, this boy of mine, completely and utterly fearless.  Just the other day we visited our beloved science museum and he rode a zipline like it was no biggie. He also experienced what I think may have been his first official adrenaline high because when dude got off the zipline? He ran for the maze and went through it so fast I had to take my shoes off in order to run and catch him.  That same day, he crawled over the top of our sectional sofa and got stuck between it and the wall. I asked what he was doing and he matter-of-factly answered, "I a monkey, Mama."  Duh.

 

Mostly I love that Dean is forthcoming with the "I love you's" and the hugs and kisses and I REALLY love his sense of wonder and excitement.  I think he may explode with happiness on his first day of school.

 

DC in a Nutshell

 
We were there for three weeks. We did a LOT. The boys had a blast.

 
My nephews are huge.

 
This water park? Was the bomb!

 
The water park was the ultimate place for Dean.  He could climb things AND get sprayed by hoses. SCORE.

 
Dean, Adam, Uncle Mike, Marcus and I went to the movies twice, on rainy days. We saw RIO and Kung Fu Panda 2 (again). It was great, great fun.

 
This little cutie pie is Lukas. Here, he seems to be doing his best Elvis impersonation.  It took him a bit to warm up, but by the end of our trip, he loved his Aunt Jen, especially when we'd sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" together.  Dean and I babysat him one morning and Dean kept asking, "Baby Lukey, you okaaaaaaaay?  Are you okaaaaaaaay?  He's okay, Mama."

 
Marcus turned 41 while we were there. We celebrated with ice cream cake, complete with blue icing.  He and I also went on a real! live! date! to see INXS.  Marcus was very bent out of shape because Berlin was opening for them.  I was actually excited because my inner-seventh-grader wanted to geek out when they sang "Take My Breath Away."  Marcus actually enjoyed them a lot in spite of himself.  He walked all the way over to the aisle when Terri Nunn walked through the audience so he could hi-5 her and get some phone pics.  INXS was great.  We are not huge fans of the new lead singer, but I mean, no one is going to replace Michael Hutchence, you know?  The highlight of the evening for me was watching the Farris brothers sing a beautiful accoustic version of "Don't Change." It was a blast to be out with my husband listening to some great music.

 
Pop Pop made bamboo cane poles for the boys. Neither was very good at fishing, but I think they appreciated the sentiment. They also had a really good time playing in all the mud on the bank.

 
My favorite thing we did was the Potomac Pirate Adventure. They load you up on a boat and sail you around the Potomac for 40 minutes while a mildly scary man teaches you to be a pirate. Dean The Dangerous was REALLY into it. We all had a blast being pirates and seeing the sites from the River.

 
The photo above was taken on what definitely qualifies as one of the top five hottest days of my life. So what did we do? Took the little fair-skinned children to the park!  They were pretty much done within an hour of our arrival. We did get them to hold out long enough to ride the carousel, which Lukas HATED because he had to ride with me instead of his daddy. But the park was pretty awesome, complete with tons of bridges, things to climb on and a really nice maze.

 
When it was time to come back home, Dean was a great travel buddy, doing a little light reading at the airport and taking a good nap on the plane.  We just barely made our connection in ATL and had our plane not landed at the next gate over from where we needed to catch our connection, we would have been stuck in ATL for SIX HOURS. Thank God for small favors.

When we got home, this had happened:

 
The good news is that it didn't fall on the house.  Dean is very concerned and keeps suggesting we attach the tree to Marcus's truck and pull.  Marcus cut a lot of the small branches off with his chainsaw today, but said he needs a bigger chainsaw to get the larger ones. He is seriously contemplating renting a chainsaw from Home Depot. (Raise your hand if you think THAT is a bad idea!) But we'll get it handled.  More than anything right now, we're happy to be home in our own beds with our own toys.  Chainsaws and all.

Good Morning, Baltimore

 
I've been to BlogHer. I've even met and talked to a few of my blog friends on my own, without the aid of  conference. I know the excitement.  I know how much fun it is to see the people you know only from their written words and pictures come to life right before your eyes.  I knew I'd be ecstatic to see Alissa today.  What I didn't know was how cool it would be to see our kids meet.

 
Um, mom, we're kind of on a conference call here. Could you check back later?

Alissa and I have speculated for quite some time that Dean and Liam would likely be great friends, two peas in a pod, and all such as that.  For two days leading up to our meet-up at the Maryland Science Center, these guys couldn't stop talking about each other.  Dean kept asking, "When we seeing my buddy? Wiam?"  When they first spotted each other, they made a run for it, crashing together in the cutest three-year-old hug ever.  Along with my four-year-old nephew, Adam, they were quite the fun bunch of boys. 

 
Whenever I read blogs, I always think, MAN! I wish I lived near THEM so our kids could play! But it's never been a reality before now.  I have to tell you--I'd happily forego any and all blogging conferences in the future if it meant I could spend that time and money hanging out with some of my blog friends and their families.  I think we sometimes forget how deep these friendships are, how much these people mean to us and how many things they get us through, even if we've never laid eyes on each other in real life. It was extremely cool to see one of these friends from this uber-important aspect of my life interact with my family.  Alissa and I talked about how much fun it would be to get the boys together every year on our annual trip to visit my in-laws in DC.  I hope that's a tradition that will stick.

 
The little guys had a blast in the kids' area of the museum where they caught fish and played in a submarine. They ran wild in the dinosaur hall and ate lunch at the Beaker Cafe.  After lunch, we walked down to a cute splash fountain where they managed to soak themselves.  It was great fun.  Alissa got to meet Marcus and his mom and dad, and we got a good amount of time to talk about Blogs and life in general.  I always feel so rejuvinated when I've seen one of my girlfriends and today was certianly one of those times. I feel as though my social battery has been recharged.  (Too bad I had to break out my "mean mom" voice when my child started acting a fool and tried to jump into the Inner Harbor.)

Super huge thanks to Alissa for making time to meet up with us and for taking us to the very cool museum.  I hope it's the first of many fun times together...for us and the little buddies.

 

 

Wordless Wednesday: One More Baby Picture