G-pa Time & an Embarrassment Free C-mas Program

This video is a priceless pre-cursor to Dude's 2011 Christmas program recap, found at the conclusion of this post.

Grandpa V was in town for the weekend, which was a treat for all of us.  He and Diane generously bought us our piano for Christmas, thus the posed shot above.  The kids ate up the attention. Squirt cuddled with her G-pa a ton, which was very endearing. Tim loved the Dad time and extra set of hands, especially since I was struck down with a 24 hour bout of grossness. Tim's bro, Nick even made it for a night after a Vail skiing trip, which was a uber fun surprise. His little man, Chase, is only 3 days older than Squirt, so it was fun for him to see Rea Rea.


Tim, Grandpa, Dude and buddy, Trevor, all went to Toy Story on Ice Saturday, which was a huge 4 year old success. Although, when I asked Dude about the ice skating, he said, "None of dose pointy, ouchy shoes were dere Mom. Dey just wore gym shoes." Mmmm...I guess he figured they all just ran really fast and elegantly.

Now for Sunday's activities...we're proud to announce that Dude's 2nd Christmas program went off without any embarrassing Dude hitches. It was just pure cuteness this year. Well behaved cuteness. By that I mean, no bright lights causing him to stand, backward, the entire performance. Actually, the bright lights were present, but apparently he's mature enough now to squint and deal. Ok, so I kinda threatened him that if he stood backward he would lose his candy privileges for the rest of the month. Whatever.

 Grandpa held Squirt through the whole program.  She didn't make a peep, which was quite shocking.

Of course Maria caught his diggin' for gold.  And for sake of later in life embarrassment, it's going on the blog. 

The video highlights are below.  Unfortunately, the first part of the video (my favorite) is blurry, but you can still make out what's happening.  You'll know it's Dude when you see his sheep ears falling over his face like 13 times. He finally turns around and requests the assistance of Mrs. Williams, which does the trick.  He's also the kid that does NOT stop rotating his body side to side the entire time.  Standing out in the crowd is what we're good at.  Enjoy!  We sure did.  THANKS to Grandpa V for taking time out of a busy and stressful time to hang with us.  Grandma Di, you're in our prayers and we sure wish we could have wrapped our arms around you this weekend!  We'll be praying for very good things these next few months. 

11 Month Munchkin

These are the last 30 days we can call our Squirt a baby. Once they hit that year mark, they're really not so baby like anymore. Actually, the fact that she can say words, have quite strong opinions about things, climb stairs and trash our house might mean she has already passed up that "baby" terminology. But, for the sake of this Mama's heart, we're still going to call her a baby. Until January 7.

What is this little bundle of love up to this past month?  Where do I start....
*She's increasing her vocabulary past normal baby sounds.  We've mastered "up, uh oh, Mama, Dadadada, ball and buh bye." 
*We've also mastered stairs (the upward direction). 
*She adores anything she can cuddle with, especially her "Muddy Puppy" as Dude calls it. 
*Bath time is simply the best, especially if big bro is there to mess with. 
*She's developed an uncanny knack for halting all conversation in our house.  The high pitched scream makes it impossible to tune into anything else.  Fortunately for us, this happens when she's happy as well, so it's not just when she's furious. 
*She's napping about 2-2.5 hours per day and sleeping like a dream from 7:30-7:00 each night. 
*Eating is a super fun challenge as most of her food ends up on the floor and much of that is wet from having already been in her mouth, by the time it hits ground.  Her favorites are yogurt, cucumbers, peaches and noodles with Parmesan (well, really any type of noodle). 
*Dad is her main man and can get pretty much whatever she wants by flashing her 5 toothed grin to him.  He melts. 
*She and Dude are really starting to play together.  And laugh together, which is just awesome.
*Just the other night she stood up a few times without holding on to anything, so walking will come soon. 
*She's still orally fixated on anything she can get her hands on, but so is her almost 5 year old brother, so we don't expect that to go away any time soon.  
   

 I had to throw in some skin shots while it's still appropriate and "awwwwe" inducing.

 And these shots couldn't be avoided.  Look at this little outfit.  I couldn't get enough of it, so she stayed in it all day long. 

 The bow stayed on for the length of time it took to shoot this picture. 

This cheeky angel girl is the best Christmas gift our family every could have dreamt up.  Hard to believe she's gonna be one so very soon.  We love you muchkin head.   

My Hotty Toddy Girlfriends and Their Cookies

Cookies have been exchanged.  And, 6 days later, many of those exchanged cookies have disappeared.  A shocking number, actually.  This is my 8th year of hosting this Christmasy party for my gal pals and I still love, love, love it.  They come in their hot toddy holiday outfits, lookin' fine.  We chat, drink lots of wine, eat tons of salty appetizers and then load up Tupperware full of colorful, home made, tasty morsels of sugar and spice and everything nice.  And our husbands love it.  Just ask um.  Squirt got all dolled up for the party and then left with Dad 10 minutes later.  But come on, doesn't she look smashingly adorable?

 The Jansen/Syers women.  Abby is due any minute now!

 This is Annums.  She and I were a bit on the inseparable side all through high school and really haven't seen each other since.  She and her fam just moved to Denver, which is excellent news.  She brings laughter wherever she goes.

Dude wanted to dig in the second he got home that night, so I carefully told him which cookies were "really spicy" so he'd keep his grubby little paws off my favorites.  Its worked so far, although the Oreo balls are hard to keep away from him.  We did our chocolate dipped pretzels again this year, which ends up being a kid favorite.  Thanks to my darling domestic hubby for staying up late, dipping away. 

 Like I said, they looked smashing.  Sorry to all the single dudes that read my blog.  They're all married.  And no, I doubt there are any single dudes who read my blog.

 Neighborhood Mamas.  They're simply the best.

Hope you're able to get your hands on some delectable eats this month!  Stop on in soon if you want a sampling of the home made goodness my girlfriends have to offer!  Thanks for coming girls.  I do love ya'll oh so much.

Mama's Heart is Happy

I've wanted a piano since Tim and I got married.  I played most of my childhood but lost access to a piano when I went to college.  Haven't played since...until now!  We took the plunge, thanks to an early Christmas gift from Grandpa V, and bought a beauty.  We found it a a local thrift store for a total steal.  It's in mint condition.  And it sounds absolutely beautiful.  Even when being pounded on by my little musical geniuses.

Charlie is Up and Lookin' Fine

We collectively decorated our surprisingly pretty Charlie tree this past week (after we got through the stomach flu, a flat tire and a broken dryer). By collectively, I mean after Squirt was put down to bed. We snapped a few shots of her so she can be included in our photo memories, but she was excluded from the fun. Mainly because we knew she would eat ornamant hooks and choke on tree needles.

We're rather satisfied with the final outcome of our home cut tree. She's a charming little beauty. For nastalgia sake, I captured shots of our 10 year history of ornamants. I love going back to see what each year's ornamant represents. Mostly they represent moving. 

Look at the cheeks on this one.  She has not yet found enjoyment out of terrorizing the tree, to which we are quite grateful and pleasantly surprised.  I guess she figures she can't wrap her mouth around it and so, what's the point?

Our ornamants go back to my toddler years.  I love that my mama made this for me.  There's an angel on the back so as to add to my angel collection.  I have hundreds of angels in a box, waiting for Squirt to inherit some day.

Our very first house...little did we know we'd buy a new house every 2 years from that point on.

A move back to Chicago and then back to Denver took place in-between these two ornamant purchases.

This is the first ornamant we got "from Dude." 

Squirt's Adoption Day in Georgetown warranted the purchase of this moose family of four.

Ta Da!  Here she in, in all her glory. 

Our Love/No Love Relationship with the Man in Red

We haven't had the best of luck getting acquainted with Mr. Claus in years past.  The first two years Dude wouldn't come closer than 5 feet from the bearded man.  Last year we made some forward progress when he sat on the floor in front of Santa (back toward Santa) and yelled out his Christmas desires.  No contact was made, but we were thrilled with his new found sense of adventure.  WELL...as you can see, Duder has made it to the lap friends.  With no qualms.  In fact, he sat on TWO Santas laps last weekend.  One up in tree cutting land with Brady and again that night after our dinner date with the Foremans.  His wishes are Dumbo, Madagascar and Cars 2.  Brady requested mustard, which really should be on every child's list.

I was never taught about Santa, nor was my husband, but for whatever reason, we've decided to go with it for our kids.  We're doing our best to tie the fat man who comes into your home illegally with Jesus some how.  It's a stretch, but it's working so far.  Duder knows Christmas is Jesus' birthday and Jesus uses Santa to deliver presents to his children.  I know my mother is disappointed in this sense of "logic," but there is something to say for the magic of the whole conspiracy. 

Anyway, back to our photo ops.  We had such good fortune with Dude and his Santa pal that we ventured a try with Miss Princess.  We put her on one knee and our itty bitty friend Harper on the other knee.  Squirt's too young to really know what's going on, right? 

Mmmm...Santa finally told me that if I didn't remove her from her torture that she might never get over the Santa induced trauma.  I removed her, laughing all the while.  Ahhh, Memories.  Just like her brother.  But we have hope for the future! So much hope that we tried her again, this time with her brave, big brother. 

 She's thinking about maybe liking it this time....

And, no.  Not so much.  She lost it after she decided to look at who was holding her.  Come on, this is about the cutest Santa you'll ever see right?  He makes me kinda believe that he'll be coming down my chimney on Christmas morning, full of presents and Christmas magic. 

I'd like to showcase the Foreman children below, perfect in their Santa joy.  Some day.  Some day.  And finally, Duder and Tim spent 20 minutes on skates with Jack and Eric.  Much practice will be needed to master this particular hobby, but Duder loves it none the less. 

Enjoy the magic of your holidays!  We're taking it all in over here in beautiful Colorado.   

Oh Kinda Pretty Christmas Tree

Our annual trek to cut down the Vogel Christmas tree has come and gone.  We haven't missed a year in the past 8 (I think).  It's $10 for a permit and an hour and 20 minute drive up to God's country.  It's a process that causes bickering as we load up the Pilot like we're heading out for a solid week, but one that we hold dear.  The video way below will give those who don't have access to mountain terrain an idea of what we do on our yearly voyage to find the "perfect" Colorado tree. These aren't your Home Depot trees folks. These trees have character (aka, lots of space in-between the branches). Some years there's a ton of snow, which limits our hiking distance and some years it's totally dry. This was a totally dry year. And luckily, not frigidly cold. And Dude only threatened to puke in the car twice. That's a good year. 

Just like we did with Dude and Brady 3 years ago. 

These two love birds have gotten into the tradition too.  They found a tree right where we parked this year.

This is what Squirt's face looked like.  The entire time.  Our sad little puppy.  Between teething, lack of sleep and being unable to move an millimeter in her snow suit, she wasn't exactly chipper.

You can see how it's prettier when there's white powdery stuff. 

Our tree man about to cut us down a gem.

Our son likes to lick.  Everything. 

The men get the task of lugging the trees through the forest in hopes that we'll find out cars.  We do, eventually.  No thanks to my navigation skills.

 

Our little man is typically holding up the rear.  He explores with each and every step and is no hurry to get to point B.

Following the hunt, we chow on snacks in the back of our matching vehicles.

Mom and Squirt take a little walk to look for smiles that seem to be missing from our baby girl.

Video note....I do realize that we're pretty mean to our little man in the first clip of this video.  I think you'll see the reason behind our teasing and hopefully some day he'll forgive us for lowering his self esteem in the process. 

The Cutest 11 Month Olds on the Planet

Can I just keep her like this forever?  Please?