Santa Train

Today we went on the Santa Train! A real (open air) train that took us on a little adventure and even included a visit with Santa and his elves. It was really cold and raining a bit but now that I am inside and warm again I am going to say that it was just part of the fun memory. We ended up going with two of Ryan's friends and their families which was lots of fun. Ryan loves trains and the fact that he not only got to see a real one up close but got to ride on one really made his day, I have a feeling we will be watching Polar Express when he gets up from his nap.

Pictures!

Here are some pictures we got back from our photoshoot a few weeks ago. I kept out the one that we are using for our Christmas cards so they would be a suprise. Enjoy!

SoapBox

I don’t often write about things going on outside my family on this blog, that’s not what this forum is all about for me. Today I read something that really made me want to vent… and the more I thought of it the more my reaction changed from anger to a need to understand and to do something about it. I figure that one of my goals of blogging is to give my children when they grow up I glimpse of what sort of person I was.. at least that is how I am going to justify this seemingly out of place blog entry. So here goes...

Know that I am not a very religious person; I am one of THOSE that think of myself as spiritual as opposed to religious. There are a few reasons that I am the way I am when it comes to the subject; I’m not going to go into that now because well, that’s not what this post is about but who I am and what I believe colors my opinion on the matter so I thought I would put it out there.

Earlier this week Elizabeth Edwards died after a long battle with cancer. I didn’t know her personally, but from everything I have read the consensus is that she was kind and full of grace. She lost her teenage son in a car crash, her husband publicly humiliated her and she had a very long, painful battle with cancer and yet through it all she continued getting out of bed, held her head high, and spoke kindly about others.

There is a church that is planning on picketing her funeral. This is the same church that pickets the funerals of fallen soldiers. My first reaction to reading about this church was that I would like to show up and if I could just get one good punch in I would be happy. Then I took a step back and realized that 1) I don’t want to end up in jail, 2) people do things for a reason and I maybe I should take a step back and try and figure it out.

Religion has always made me somewhat uncomfortable. I know, there are some people out there that agree with me and there are some that would like to show me the greatness of religion. But honestly I get it, I actually think that at the heart of religion there are really great things, if I can focus on peace, and love and goodness that seems to be the true message in religion I can get behind it 100%. It is when we as mere mortals get involved that we seem to mess it all up. We get scared or greedy or power hungry or whatever we do and lose sight of the goodness we should be striving for. Wars, sex scandals, terrorism and this story have taken the focus of the goodness in religion and replaced it with fear and skepticism.

After a lot of thought, here is how I am going to look at this church that is being so disrespectful as to picket a funeral, to if possible make the worst day of her children’s lives even worse. The leaders of the church get off on the publicity and fame of all of it; they get their few minutes of fame because they see any publicity as good publicity. They aren’t true Christians, they have found a platform in the church so that people will listen to them and they can feel important, shame on them. I feel bad for the followers of this church; they were looking for guidance and ended up at this place. Yes I think they should take responsibility for their grossly insensitive actions but I can see where they got off track.

I hope that they see the error of their ways and don’t end up at the funeral. I hope that they can find what they are looking for in a more productive way. There isn’t a lot I can do about this personally, any sort of attention that I would bring to it would just give them what they want (I learned this from my toddler). So all I can do is be the best person I can be, go out of my way to help others, be kind, have compassion and bring as much grace to the world as I can. It’s possible that my actions could influence others to do the same and that my children will follow my lead. This is how I chose to fight the ignorance and meanness these people are showing. This is how I chose to practice religion. This is how I choose to honor the memory of the Elizabeth Edwards.

IMMD

There is a website called It Made My Day... it's just little things people say and do that make someone else's day. It inspires me to try and make someone else's day when I can and keep an eye out for the little amusing things around me (with kids there tend to be a lot of them), a few days ago Ryan was the one who really made my day.
We were sitting in my bed flipping through the channels on TV, I stopped it on a music video station. Madonna's Like a Virgin video came on, Ryan looks at me and in a very serious tone said "Mommy, turn it off it's TOO scary!"

Family Picture Time

Today we got some pictures taken for our Christmas cards, I love getting pictures taken- well not the process but the end result. The bigger our family gets the harder it is to take a picture where everyone is looking at the camera much less looking good. Ryan has always loved getting his picture taken, he listens super well and can smile with the best of them so for the most part he isn't a problem and we have loads of great pictures of him. Audrey on the other hand is squirmy, doesn't want to look at the camera and if she does look at it refuses to smile. Then there is Don and I.... I swear we aren't trying to look odd it just happens.
Well today all the rules changed, Audrey was a super ham, she was perfect and smiley no matter what we dressed her up in. Ryan refused to do anything remotely like what we or the photographer asked him to do. I don't know what was eating him- it wasn't that he was upset he just didn't want to do it. I have no idea how Don and I looked... we were so focused on keeping children happy I think I forgot to think about how I might look.

I guess we will find out if we got any good group shots when we get them back!

Childhood Friendship

Nicki came back to town for Thanksgiving! I love Nicki, we met in second grade and since reconnecting some years back our lives have been strangely parallelled. The only issue we have is that she lives in Texas. Our first babies were born 1 day apart and our second babies were 6 weeks apart. It is great having someone to talk to who has a similar parenting style and kids the same age- it's hard to find and that's one of the reasons I hold this friendship very dear. Our oldest kids seem to get along great, they played together the whole visit and the young babies were just meeting for the first time. I wish we lived closer so we could do playdates like this EVERYDAY!

Thanksgiving Recap

I love Thanksgiving. Food, family and friends, it doesn't get much better then that. While it seems that the Christmas Creep is starting to pick away at my beloved Holiday I refuse to let it turn into "the first day to shop for Christmas discounts" and instead focus on what it is, a day for giving thanks, and I am very much aware of how much I have to be thankful for.

This year we only had one guest, our friend Jay but that didn't stop me from making enough food for 10! I went super traditional this year- Turkey (13 pounds for 3 adults), mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, candied carrots, rolls, green bean casserole and pies. Ryan was so enamored with Jay he followed him around and refused to let him do anything but play with him, when Jay had to go Ryan's eyes got teary and he made us promise to let him go to Jay's house soon.

It was a great, relaxing night. We are now preparing for Christmas, we have our tree up, stockings hung and advent calendar ready to go. I love Christmas too, mainly because I compiled a list for gifts for everyone a long time ago and so now this month is going to be spent eating cookies (and running them off), spending time with family and friends, listening to Christmas music and maybe a few other treats I will be blogging about as the month proceeds. I hope everyone had a great day!

Creative Solutions

Ryan used to (and sometimes still does) wake up at the crack of dawn. So we decided to do what we could to prevent him from waking up at the first hint of light by putting up a double layer of blackout curtains over wooden blinds. It has been working, well until recently. In the last month or so Ryan has decided instead of going to bed at night he will stay really quiet, sneak out of his bed and go watch cars pass by his window. He can do this for hours and we don't realize it until we look in his monitor hours later and he isn't in bed.

Ryan loves this game so much that he wanted to make it as easy as possible to see outside. The layers in front of the window were apparently a problem so he has found a way to "fix" the problem. Hopefully we will be able to fix his solution :)

Oh my... I fear for our house...

Thankful

In honor of Thanksgiving here is what Ryan told me he is thankful for this year:
- Chocolate Milk
- Polar Express
- Grandma
- Uncle David
- Mom
- Dad & Audrey (he insisted that was 1 thing)
- Grandma and Pepa
- Trucks
- Nemo

Our family has had an extraordinarily good year, I have great friends and family and I am so thankful for all of them. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Trouble

Here are some of the reasons I know I'm in trouble with Ryan:

1. Today while taking a walk a really nice sports car passed us, he looks, points and said "Niiiiiiiice car"
2. I went to pick Ryan up from school and his teacher said "Ryan has a girlfriend- he puts his head on her shoulder and they stare into each others eyes"
3. He has the best puppy dog eyes in the world. Today he bit me (it was a nip- he was mad- but dude, it was not okay), I put him in his room for an early nap. 2 1/2 hours later when he woke up and I went in to get him, he looks at me and says "Sorry mom, Ryan no more bite" "Ryan gives Hugs" and he sat in my lap and stared up into my eyes with his sad puppy dog eyes. I swear he could get away with bank robbery.

This is only going to get worse.... Cars, girls and manipulation

All I Want for Christmas

Me: Ryan, What do you want for Christmas?
Ryan: Santa to come!
Me: If Santa were to bring you a present what would you want?
Ryan: uh..... Uncle David!

4 Months Old

Audrey had her 4 month appointment yesterday. We decided to try out a new doctors office... I am starting to believe that all doctors offices have the same suck factor... I'm deciding whether or not to try yet another place. Strangely enough we aren't having problems with the doctors but instead the problem is with the nurses and/ or staff.

Here are her stats:

She weighs 12 pounds 10 ounces which is right at the 25%... they said that she has actually been at about 25% her whole life and the last doctors office just recorded it wrong (they said she was 50th).
She is 24 1/4 inches long which is 50%
and her head is 41 3/4cm which is 75%- which is still smaller then Ryan's was but she seems to be catching up!

Out of the mouths of babes

Ryan walked into the bathroom we are re-doing looks around the whole thing and says "Niiiiiiiiiice Room!".... He is out of control cute. I am going to start a list of the things he says, he is getting to that age where he says super cute things and doesn't even know he is doing it.

Family Visit

Don's family came to visit, it was the first time they were able to meet little miss Audrey. Ryan had a blast with all the attention. When they left he looked at me and asked "Grandma, Pepa right back?"

Take #1 of the group picture