I’m still not sure how it’s already almost Christmas.
We have presents, some of them are wrapped. Some are still hiding in plain view. Luckily the kids haven’t yet gotten the snooping bug, because then Rick & I will have to get more creative in where we put stuff.
Our tree has ornaments on it, and Carson has already added, removed and re-added the candy canes (at first they were in one big cluster in one spot, now they are on every lower branch of the tree…it’s hysterical).
Mallory’s last day of school for 2011 is tomorrow and they get to wear their pajamas to school. How come I don’t remember ever getting to wear my pajamas to school when I was little?
The kids are excited to go to the “Ooger Bowl” (as Carson calls it) in “You Norleans” (as Mallory calls it). Mallory was acting like a teenager last week and I threatened to leave her home with Grandpa and Cooper. She asked if I would tell her who won when we got home.
We got to see Santa twice last week. We took the kids to the mall one night, and Carson – who is in the process of potty training but has yet to actually go poop on a potty (he makes us put him in a diaper so he can go poop) – filled his diaper LITERALLY as we were walking up to see Santa. Santa asked the kids how they were doing and Carson greeted Santa with a hearty “I’m POOPY!”. Mallory asked for an American Girl Doll, and Carson asked for a football field. And when Carson got down from Santa’s lap, Santa did a quick scan to make sure Carson didn’t leave him a present, if you know what I mean.
We got to see Santa again on Friday night at a party at Rick’s work. They had REAL REINDEER outside and we could feed them. The kids were too scared to feed Blizzard and Nick, the reindeer so we just said hi and headed inside. After dinner we got to see another Santa, a Santa Mallory declared wasn’t real because he had black things in his white beard. Oh, I should also point out that as soon as Carson saw the football field all lit up – all he wanted to do was go run around. I’m really not exaggerating when I say he almost had a meltdown because he couldn’t go play.
The kids each got a Michigan Pillow Pet – which is neat since we’d bought one for Carson last month (and I thought it was going to be the BEST GIFT EVER). Well, good thing I still have the receipt so I can return the one we bought, especially since the two they got from Santa have sat – untouched – on our couch for five days.
We’ve been having fun with Arlo the Elf, on a shelf, again this year. We don’t do anything crazy with him, we just move him to different spots every night (mostly Rick, but I get to help out if I see he hasn’t been moved in the morning). He isn’t doing as great a job as I’d like because the kids don’t seem to be afraid of what Arlo will report back to Santa. But last week Mallory was having a rough time going in to dance class and all of a sudden she froze and leaned in and said “can the Elf see me right now?”. I told her yes, and she gave me a quick hug and kiss and ran into class. GO ARLO!! But then there are nights like tonight, where we had a meeting at Rick’s work to go over the stuff for the bowl game, and BOTH of them were (in my opinion) acting a little out of control (other moms reported that they didn’t even know they were acting up), but the kids were antagonizing each other and making it so I couldn’t listen and it was KILLING me. We came home and they both went straight to bed. We are all exhausted and excited about Christmas, but last I checked, that doesn’t give you a free pass to act like an a$$hole. I told them they better shape up or we won’t got on the bowl trip. I also told Mallory that we were going to have a code word for when she was starting to make a bad choice. She wanted to use “pizza” or “Christmas lights”. I told her that we can’t use a word that we would use all the time since then she’d think she was getting in trouble a lot. Then Carson starts saying “I spy Christmas lights!! Ma-wee ooo are in drubble!!!”. (FYI – I suggested using the word “pineapple” as our code word…we’ll see how that goes. And I also told the kids that I’m the only one allowed to use the code word).
So, my insanely busy fall is DONE. Now I get to deal with an insanely busy holiday for the next two weeks. I am excited to have some time off work and spend it getting to know the kids again (I’ve always noticed that I realize how smart my kids really are when I get to spend time away from our environment).
I’m excited to do up Santa for reals (except Mallory said she wants to live at the neighbor’s house because they have a fireplace…I think she is concerned about how Santa will get in our house). I’m excited to leave cookies out for Santa and food for the reindeer.
And I’m excited to see if Santa brings the kids what they asked for :-)
I’m also excited to be back in this space, oversharing on the internet again. I’ve missed you, little blog!