Breakfast with Santa

On Friday, we had breakfast with Santa. Well, we had two donut holes and an ounce of juice with Santa. Of course, we were running late, but made it on time, luckily. Ryan was stuck to his chair, being scared of both Santa and the people dressed up like Rudolf, Frosty, a penguin and a mouse. He sat and stared the entire time. He wouldn't sit on Santa's lap, only mine next to him and you can see the stress in his face. Emma did fine, no problems with her. She was happy the entire time to chew on her shoe sitting on the floor. Overall, it was worth the $10 to go and not have to pay the people at the mall!

Ryan had another snow day yesterday. Actually, the decided on early dismissal and just cancelled the afternoon preschool classes. We HAD to go to the post office to get our package off to PA. The trip is 5 minutes from my house, but because of an accident in the snow it took us over an hour. Plus I was waiting for something to be delivered that they had called me on, so I was just praying that they hadn't come while I was gone (they didn't luckily).

And after I started writing this post, I got a call from Ryan's school saying he was throwing up and to come get him. Of course, this is right after I got Emma down for a nap. So she's had a 10 minute nap in the car and a 15 minute nap in her bed - she's going to be tired. Ryan feel 'not good' from what he says. He is up in my bed watching a Curious George dvd. And I'm going to try to have him nap when its over (hopefully I'll get Emma down at the same time and get some packing done.

Emma is standing on everything. That is all she wants to do, which is making naps very hard. So I'm basically back to nursing her to sleep. Its the only way she seems to nap at all. Ok. I better go check on Ryan.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Well around here, we're almost ready for Christmas. I love the build up. I am probably one of the only people who loves shopping at the mall in the week before Christmas. Not that I have much to buy by then, but I love the atmosphere. The decorations, the music, the fullness of the space. At this moment, I have only a handful of gifts left to get and am looking forward to shopping this weekend. I am currently working on my christmas cards, which came in the mail yesterday. I wrapped all the gifts I had today while watching the Muppets Christmas Carol. In my choice of movies, this was the one I thought would least hold Ryan's attention. My other two, Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and Elmo Saves Christmas, should entertain him. I also have Rudolf and one about Belle from Beauty and the Beast, but I was going to just watch Rudolf on tv (if I can figure out when it's on!).

In the other news.... We bought our minivan right before Thanksgiving. Kris outfitted it with car seats last weekend and we plan to drive it for our Christmas trip to MI. Emma loves being in the convertable seat instead of the infant carrier, she really was getting too big for it, especially with a coat on.

Last weekend, we had a bunch of our friends over to celebrate St. Nicholas Day. We had a great dinner and lots of desserts including homemade ice cream by Kris. The kids got candy in their shoes as per St. Nick tradition. And everyone got to ice and decorate the cookies that Ryan and I had made earlier in the week. We had a great time.

Ryan is still loving school. Today was pajama day in accordance with the Christmas buildup there. He really didn't want to wear them, but finally let me put them on. He is talking so much, although I wish 'Mama play' wasn't still his favorite phrase. He had an evaluation for occupational therapy this week that was referred by his speech therapist. The therapist at OT said he was on the border line due to poor muscle tone. So he could use help, but we could just do exercises at home, which is what we chose to do. I really didn't need to have another appointment to go to (which just jogged my memory of the ob/gyn appt I missed this morning, whoops). Ryan has finally decided to start dressing himself. This week, after I had already dressed him, he added a zip up sweater and another sweater on top. Since our house is so cold, I'm sure it was nice to be so toasty!

Emma is standing up on everything she can. She thinks this is one of the greates things. She still isn't fully crawling, just a fast army crawl. The butt rocking on her knees is so cute. She cut her top two teeth in the last week. The second is pretty inflammed and was bleeding yesterday. But as opposed to Ryan, who relied on Orajel every night, she does better without it. I guess her pain tolerance is higher (which might explain why I'm constantly kissing boo boos of his). Yet, as you can see in the picture she is just such a happy baby.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We spent the weekend travelling to PA and visiting with Kris's family. We had a great time with everyone, with one exception. Evidently we are passing around some sort of stomach bug. Ryan had it the Friday before Thanksgiving, then I came down with it on Wednesday (thinking I had food poisoning). Kris then got it on Saturday. I'm actually thinking it was some sort of rotovirus and that Emma hasn't come down with it because she had the vaccine for it. Luckily it was only a 12 hour bug, but it wasn't pretty.

We were able to enjoy ourselves at Kris's mom's house on Friday, after Kelli and I went shopping. Saturday we had our Thanksgiving meal at Aunt Sharon's house (Kris skipped it), and then another at Kris's dad's house on Sunday after church. A lot of family time. Ryan had a ball, it didn't matter where he was, he wanted to play there. He did great with the travelling and sleeping away from home. Emma did ok with all the people. She was getting up once a night and a few times was up at 6:30 am for the day. That made her extremely tired by the end of the night. We left early Thursday morning for our drive, hoping she would sleep for a while, but she stared at Ryan for 2 hours, before falling asleep just as we were about to stop for breakfast. So our early morning adventures are no longer very helpful. We debated on coming home Sunday or Monday due to the storm coming through and ended up returning on Monday. It usually takes us 8 hours exactly to get there, but on the way home it was more like 9 1/2, not that the stop at Costco and the weather didn't help!

On a side note, if you're keeping track. I've given up on potty training yet again. After 3 months, Ryan was still fighting every single time of having to go to the bathroom. It gets tiring after a while. I kept it up for as long as I can and have decided now that I will not be embarrassed by a kid who doesn't want to do it. It will only embarrass him when he's 8 and he's the only one in a diaper. This is not a fight I can win and I've tried for so long hoping he'll just get used the fact of going. But I haven't won and am too tired. I figure at the end of school, when he is no longer on a bus for a 1.5 hour bus ride, I can put him in underwear and he'll get it, but until then he will have to be the one who initiates it. I'm tired!