Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Our day was wonderful.... filled with food and Christmas movies and presents and memories. L was so excited to see that Santa had come for him and ever present he opened sent him over the moon with happiness. He also assisted in helping L2 and mommy and Daddy open all their presents! L2 definitely got it more than last year, but I think it was still a little overwhelming for him!

Stockings!

I spent most of my time helping the boys open their presents, and that was perfectly fine with me! As nice as it is to receive gifts, especially from my loving hubby, it's much more gratifying to watch my boys, and my hubby, open the gifts that I spent so much time and thought into. Especially when those gifts turn out to be a huge hit.... I just love it!

L2 was trying to get into L's presents and L was not having it!

His new monkey backpack.... picked out for him by Daddy!

This was L2's big present.... a musical trio.... and he really liked it!  When I was growing up we always woke up to a few presents, and one big present, all unwrapped that Santa had left us and I want to keep that tradition going with my boys!

Our house was a disaster after, with wrapping and boys and tissue paper strewn everywhere and toys covering pretty much available service. And now our house has been pretty much "De-Christmas-fied". I know that probably sounds pretty grinchy, and I hated taking everything down on Christmas Day, but we are leaving for California tomorrow and the OCD freak that lives inside of me just couldn't imagine leaving everything in disarray. Also, we have a live tree so we needed to get that fire hazard out of the house before we left! I was worried L might freak out about us taking everything down, and he had a few moments, but luckily he was pretty distracted by all his new toys!

Just some of the new loot!

I am so blessed and so lucky to have this wonderful little family to call my own. I hope everyone out there had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!

Off to Cali first thing tomorrow!

Christmas Eve 2012

The stocking are hung, all the presents are wrapped and my boys are snug in their beds awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus.

We have A LOT of presents this year. S keeps telling me I went overboard, but honestly, I didn't spend a lot of money. I just love them having lots of gifts to open and I love how much L gets it this year and how excited he is! So.... a little overboard? Maybe. But if you can't overdo it at Christmas when can you?

We started our morning by having our good friends and their son come over for brunch and mimosas and a present exchange for this kids.

Trying to get three kiddos under three to sit still, and sit together, and look at the camera without making a weird face is pretty much impossible, but we got a couple cute ones. And I had to include the one of just L and L2, because I think the look on L's face is priceless.

Before bed we upheld one of my old family traditions of letting the kids open ONE present and we did our family tradition of reading "The Night Before Christmas" in front of the Christmas tree.

L also took a minute to read their new book to L2. It was cute and I felt a little like a third wheel when I finally interrupted to read to them!

I feel like this Christmas season really flew by this year.... I can't believe tomorrow is the big day! We are all excited for Santa's visit tonight, although L keeps telling us he doesn't want Santa to come in our house.... he wants to go to his house!!!!

Merry Christmas Eve!!!!

A little heavy hearted

I've had several posts floating around in my head for the last few days. We have been busy, busy, busy with Christmas activities and all sorts of fun stuff that I've been meaning to sit down and write about. But I haven't, because the truth is my heart has been so heavy since the tragedy in CT on Friday I haven't really known what to say. I know that I have been holding my babies especially close the last few days. I've let L have an extra cookie and skipped the gym so we could stay home and snuggle and watch movies. I've been switching between watching the news because I have this need to know the details.... to know why, even though I know there will never be a good answer, and wanting to shut it out completely because it makes me so incredibly sad I almost don't know how to deal with it. I don't get political on this blog. And I don't know what the answer to these tragedies is. I don't know a ton about guns or gun control. What I do know is we need to be kind to each other. We need to teach out children how to be kind, how to love each other. In the end, I think policy and laws can only get us so far..... we need to make this world a less scary place and we need to teach our children how to be good people.

With all that being said, we have been trying to soak in as much goodness with our little ones the last few days. We always do..... but tragedy has a way of making you step back and count all your blessing. On Saturday S's work had their annual Christmas party. They do something different each year and usually try to make it family orientated. This year, for the first time in about three years, they brought the circus in. It was awesome and my boys loved it. There were contortionists and acrobats and elephants. It was a short enough show that the boys didn't get antsy buy it was jam packed with lots of cool stuff.

L's favorite were the elephants and the motorcycle performers.

L2 was pretty much just entranced by all of it.... from the show to the big crowd!

We also did a lot of Christmas shopping this weekend and L is getting very excited to seeing the growing number of presents under the tree. I know Christmas is about so much more then gifts, but I love buying presents for people!

And in other, un-Christmas related, news: This mama has gone to the dark side! I've been itching for a change lately so finally I just took the plunge. I've been majorly blond for my whole life. Like platinum blond. And now I am full on brunette. It's dark and different and I love it. I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull it off, but I think it looks pretty good!  I'm sure one day I'll go back to blond, but for now I"m loving having a new look!

(I don't think this picture even shows how dark it actually is!)

This is also unrelated to anything... it's just a cute and funny picture of Mr. L2 trying to escape through the baby gate.!

Less then ten days till Christmas! I"m planning on spending the next week shopping, and wrapping, and baking and listening to Christmas carols and watching Christmas movies!  Oh, and also doing as much of this as is possible:

I know this pic is blurry and dark, but it was the best I could snap of us during some early morning cuddles!

'O Christmas tree

This is how we spent our day today:

After two hours of driving to several different tree lots, S finally found one that met his (and my) specifications. As much as I wish we could put a tree up right after Thanksgiving with the rest of the decorations, I do like the we always get a real tree. I know it's not as perfect, or as easy, as a fake one, but it's a tradition I want to hold on to, at least for now!

And one of my favorite things about decorating the tree is pulling out all the ornaments and going through the memories that each one holds. This year L was asking me about each on so I got to tell him about all our dog ornaments (from before we had kids and our dogs were our babies!) And our first house ornaments, and L and L2's first Christmas ornaments. We also pulled out the dough ornaments we made last year with L's hand print and L2's footprint and it's amazing how much bigger they are now!

I love the contrast of his hair, the tree, and the Christmas skirt in this picture. My little red head!

L2 was very interested in the presents, even though they are all ones I've wrapped for family members that need to be shipped. He spent a good amount of time pulling all the wrapping out of one of the bags!

It really feels like Christmas now that the tree is up!

Glendale glitters

So (and yes, I know you are not suppose to start a sentence with so), the town next to ours, Glendale, holds this fabulous Christmas/holiday event every year. We have lived here for going on seven years and every single year I have talked about how much I want to go and how fun it sounds. And every single year, we don't go. I don't know why. We always plan to, but then the holidays get so busy and we just never have. Since the fabulous little shop where we did our Santa pictures is involved in this event, and we needed to stop by the shop anyway to pick up our pictures, we decided this year we were going no matter what.

And I'm so happy we did. It was like Christmas wrapped in cheer wrapped in Christmas Carols. You just had to ignore the pushy crowds, the vendors smoking cigarettes while trying to sell light up toys to children (I know, I was like what!!!!) and the overall craziness of the event. But seriously, all the secondary stuff aside, it was pretty cool. We went early and so for the most part we missed the crowd. It had just started getting crowded when we left and I was very glad we had gone when we did. I'm not joking about the vendor smoking the cigarettes.... but hey, it makes a good story, right?

It something I want to make an annual event and we will for sure be going next time. L and L2 were both entranced with the lights and the noises and the sights and the people, and it made my heart happy to see them so innocently into the whole thing.

Glendale Glitters.... and yes, it really did! They did a wonderful job with all the lights!

Bad filter on a few of these pics! Sorry, it was hard all the competing lights!

Is there anything sweeter in the world then a Daddy loving on his child? How lucky are my boys to have a dad who loves doing these kind of thing with them!

We will be definitely be adding this one to the Christmas to do list for future years!

Santa

You all know how much I love Christmas, and one of my favorite parts since having my boys has been taking them to see Santa. But, I'll be honest, I have a bit of a love hate relationship with it. I love the idea of taking them to see Santa. I love the memories they'll have, I love how excited L is now that he is a little older,  and what family is complete without a yearly picture of the kiddos on Santa's lap?

But there are also a few things I've hated the last few years. I hate that we have to go to the middle of the mall and wait in a line for almost an hour. I hate The stupid little "Santa's helpers" who freak out if you so much as a pull out a cell phone or camera anywhere in their vicinity. I mean seriously, last year they wouldn't even let us take a picture with my cell phone while we were standing in line! I hate that the kids only get about 60 seconds with Santa until they are shoved off. For us, this means that the pictures are always of the kids crying because it's a little scary to go sit on some strange mans lap and they have no time to get comfortable. And lastly, I hate that you have to pay something like $30.00 for the above mentioned picture of your kid crying.

That last paragraph probably make me sound like a scrooge... but don't get me wrong.... I still do love Santa visits, I just wish they could be a little different. A little friendlier, and jollier, and, well.......... merrier.

This year I got my wish time like one thousand.

A friend of mine mentioned that a local baby store near her moms store was doing Santa visits on two different night in December and that if we wanted to check it our her mom's store was giving out coupons so that you could get a free picture. So, we figured why not? If it ended up being a bust we would still have plenty of time to go see good old mall Santa.

But it was most certainly not a bust.

When we first got there we were pretty much the only people and L got very shy. I decided to go take him into the store for awhile to get him more comfortable. (Super cute store, by the way. If your in the Phoenix/Glendale area with kids check out healthy baby happy earth) Well, Santa saw that he was a little wary so he came in the store to introduce himself and try to get him to warm up a bit. And I kid you not, he then spent about 15 minutes talking to him; asking him his favorite color and his favorite food and questions about L2. It was amazing and it totally made L feel better. Then we did pictures and they had no problem with me snapping some cell phone pics as well. And one of the best things? The people who put on this Santa give ALL the money they make to charity. ALL OF IT. It ended up being free for us since we had the coupons, but they were selling some cute little stuffed dogs with that money also going to charity so I bought the boys a few of those.

I just can't get over what an amazing experience it was, for the whole family. I was literally almost in tears by the end because I was so happy. Please, if your in this area, support local business and charity and go see Santa at Healthy Baby Happy earth..... his next (and last) appearance is going to be December 18th from 5-8!

November

Wow.... I cannot believe November is almost over and we are done with Thanksgiving! I swear, I blinked, and this month was suddenly over! I had a lot going on this month and I did a fair amount of traveling, so it felt like I was gone more than I was here sometimes!

At the beginning of the month my best friend got married in beautiful (and freezing) Lake Tahoe. I made a quick solo trip and left S home with the boys. The wedding was on a boat so it was an adult only party and with the cost of plane tickets and because I was the "quasi" maid of honor (because of some extenuating circumstances they decided not to have a wedding party) it was easier for me to just go alone. I missed my boys but it was a wonderful trip and it was actually pretty fun to have no one but myself (and the bride) to worry about for three days!

So pretty....... so cold!!!!!

The beautiful bride and groom.... this photo warms my heart... you can just feel their love for each other!

For Thanksgiving we loaded up the car and headed out to S's parents house. It was a fun trip, but six hours in a car with a three year old and one year old is never fun! They did pretty good though. For Thanksgiving day we actually ended up going to S's aunts house, where I took a total of about five pictures! I majorely failed on my photographer duties!

L and his Uncle... I love this picture!

Besides Thanksgiving we just relaxed. The weather was beautiful, S got to catch up with old friends, I got in like THREE solid naps, and we got to spend time with family! I'd say the only downside to the trip was that because of the hour time difference L2 woke up at 5:30 every morning!!!

Riding the bike his Poppa got him!

L2 taking a little horse ride! He thought the houses were great!

And here's a little sneak peek at our Christmas Card Photo shoot.... obviously this is at the end when the kids were getting restless!!!!