Merry Christmas and then some.

One would think that because I have been off of work for the last 13 days, I would have had SOOOOO much time for blogging.  One would be wrong if one thought that.  Just sayin'.

We've had a pretty full couple weeks, what with pre-Christmas, Christmas and post-Christmas activities.  I'll attempt to summarize here.  So pre-Christmas...

A big ol trip to Target to purchase big boy "underwears" for Tyler.  He is worse than a girl when it comes to his wardrobe.  There were WAY too many choices - 6 different kinds - to pick from and I am pretty sure we were in the underwear aisle for 15 minutes.  At least it felt like it.  He picked Airplanes.  We started to walk away, they he said he didn't want that one.  We went back.  He picked Cars.  Then he picked Spiderman.  Finally, he walked away with a multipack of Cars, Monsters, Nemo, etc.  He tried to go back to exchange again, but I forbid him from doing so.  It was getting a little ridiculous.  I've since purchased him another pack of Mickey Mouse.  Now every evening, we have to allot an extra 10 minutes for him to select his underwear.  I've taken to only getting one pair out and then listening to him b*tch:  "I don't want these ones, Mommy."  Listening to that for 5 minutes is more bearable than the 10 minute select/deselect process.  

He has started to go a few hours a day at daycare with no pull up.  So far, he's doing pretty good, but I'm scared to pull that bandaid off completely.  Cleaning up poop out of "underwears" is so not my favorite task.

We've done a lot of painting with water as of late.  It's harder than it sounds to make it come out right.

On the 22nd, we made our way to Evansville for the start of our Christmas celebrations.  Our first stop was my Dad's grave stone in Elberfeld.  I hadn't been there in quite a long time - like since before Tyler was born - and I wanted to show the kiddos their Papaw Dan's grave.  I had a hard time explaining what the deal was.  I don't know why it didn't occur to me to have my story straight before I got there but I didn't.  

Lily and I picked up the flowers from Hobby Lobby a few days beforehand to make the arrangements for the headstone.  This tripped SHOULD have clued me in to get my explanation ready:

Lily:  Who are these flowers for?

Me:  Papaw Dan.  For his grave.  Where he's buried.

Lily:  But he's dead!  He doesn't need flowers.  

I may have had a minor breakdown in the middle of Hobby Lobby.  But I pulled it together relatively quickly.  Kids are such truth tellers!

Joel's Uncle Jimmy lives 5 minutes from the cemetery so it works out well to visit both in the same shot.  We had a really nice visit with several of Joel's extended family that we don't see very often.  The kids were super good.  Won the hearts of everyone with their unending cuteness - don't think anyone there would believe the tantrums these two are capable of.  Uncle Jimmy raises hunting beagles and had some pups to show to the kiddos.  Little Tyler-man holding Uncle Jimmy's hand - makes me feel all gushy inside!

After that visit, we headed on to Mom's house to join the chaos that comes with 6 kids, ages 5 and under.  We arrived just in time for dinner.  And playing.

Tuesday evening, we went to the park to see the light display - hoping to view it via carriage ride but the weather was questionable (at least it was rain and not snow).  To pass the time, hoping the horses would arrive, I had some snap pops for the kids.  We didn't end up getting to do the carriage ride, but we did get to see Santa!  Safely through the car window.  (Insert side note:  I didn't do the ceremonious "sit on Santa's lap" trip this year.  Both kids were terrified and I just plain didn't feel like fighting them - all for a crappy picture of two screaming kids.  Does that make me a bad parent?)

We got the annual night before Christmas Eve matching jammies photo with all the Fonner cousins.

And then it was Christmas Eve!  The kiddos had very patiently waited for 2 days to open their gifts.  Two days in pre-schooler time is probably like 2 years to adults.  So I commend them for their good behavior.  But then moment did arrive and chaos ensued.  Incredibly cute chaos.

And then, Lily got a hold of my phone and took about 50 pictures.  Here are the blog worthy ones.

Kenzie got a Frozen Sing-A-Long player from my mom.  I'm pretty sure Kenzie didn't really get to touch it much in the first 24 hours that she owned it.  Lily may have laid claim to it and sung "Let It Go" at the top of her lungs over and over and over.  It was pretty cute the first 47 times....pretty sure Lily will be getting this for her birthday.  I'm bracing myself.

And a few family photos.

Then it was time to go back to Columbus and get to bed so Santa Claus could come.  Hugs and kisses for Grams before we go.  (Poor Tyler couldn't keep his pants up to save his life.)

The drive home was pretty smooth.  The kiddos slept most of the way and went straight to bed once we got home so that Joel and I could get started on Santa preparations.  All was going incredibly smoothly.  We got to bed by 11:30-12:00 or so.  

Then....at 4am.... I hear a weak little voice, "Mooommy??  Mommy,"  I get out of bed and go to Lily's room and she said, "I puked."

Oh crap.

So I go to clean her up and there's just a little bit of puke on her shirt and a little in her hair.  So at first I'm thinking this is no big deal.  I get her all cleaned up and new jammies on and ready to get back in bed and she says, "There's some puke on the trash can." and points over to her trash can.  I go investigate and sure enough there's puke all down the side of the trash can, on the wall behind it and on the floor in front of it.  That poor baby tried to get to her trash can but it's the kind that you step on the lever to lift the lid and she just couldn't get it fast enough.  My mommy heart swelled up so much I thought I might burst.  Is it weird to be proud of your 4-year-olds instincts when puking??

So now I clean all that up and get to thinking that maybe, just maybe, this is because she ate too much junk food at Grams house.  So I'm thinking, Lily will just go back to sleep and everything will be fine.  But just in case, I put a regular trashcan by her bed.

Then I go back to bed and about 15-20 minutes later I hear coughing from her room.  I go back in to her and she's vomited again.  At least this time she was able to get to the trash can.  So now I realize this is not junk food induced.  I go grab my pillow thinking I'll just sleep with Lily in her room.  Welp.  There was no more sleep to be had because that poor baby puked every 15-30 minutes for a total of 8 hours straight.

And of course, she knew it was Christmas and wanted to go see if Santa came.  But I told her we had to wait until Tyler woke up.  Wouldn't you know it that Tyler picks THIS DAY to sleep in until 6:50am?  The child that gets up every day no later than 5:45 (and often much earlier than that) but this day, when poor Lily is puking her guts out every 15 minutes and just wants a distraction with presents, to sleep late.

But then he does get up and we go get Daddy and then head to the living room.

The kiddos then started opening their presents - they quickly figured out that Lily's were wrapped in Sofia and Frozen paper and Tyler's were in Cars and Mickey paper.

Poor Lily...she has such a brave face in those pictures.  But in reality, she'd open a present or two and then lay down on the floor.  Then open another present and puke.  It.  Was.  Awful.

I felt so horrible for her.  She was pretty much just dry heaving at this point and she was so thirsty, but every time she took a drink she'd puke it.  It took me several tries to convince her that she just needed to swish the water around in her mouth and then spit it out.

But after 8 hours, the puking did finally stop and that baby girl passed out.  She slept about 2.5 hours on the couch and she woke up, she was like a different person.  Still not acting or feeling 100% better but she was about 75% of the way there.

We had a few more snuggles on the couch with the prized possessions from Santa and then we called it a day.

The next day, Lily was totally back to her old self.  It was an awful bug but it was a fast one.  

Friday afternoon, we finally got to celebrate Christmas with Meme and Papaw, now that we were all healthy.  By now, the kiddos are pros with the presents.

And that brings us to the end of the day after Christmas.  I really thought I could get all caught up in one blog post all written this evening (New Years Eve) - but it's 10pm and I'm tired.  And since the kiddos don't know (or care) that it's a special day that could drive Mommy and Daddy to stay up late, they will still be up by 5:30 tomorrow (if we're lucky).  So if I want to get a decent amount of sleep, I  must ring in the new year sleeping.  I hope.

Pizza, Popcorn and Penguins.

Jingle and the Advent Calendar have been a lot of fun this Christmas season.  This weekend we had several fun activities brought to us by that crazy elf.

But first, Friday Joel and I had a date day.  We try to save at least 1 vacation day a year to spend with each other.  We started out with a killer breakfast at a local diner.  I pretty much order "one of each" from the menu.  7 hours later, I was still stuffed.  However, that didn't stop me from then eating a Chipotle burrito and re-upping my stuffed-ed-ness.

Besides eating, we also went shopping at the outlet mall and got Joel a few much needed shirts - I was pretty sick of the same 3 t-shirts he always wears so this was mostly for my benefit.  After shopping we headed home and worked on wrapping the kids presents.  We don't have any good hiding spots in the house so this is what we did with the wrapped gifts:

Guessing we won't get away with this half-assed hiding spot for too many more years.  

That night, since Joel and I were stuffed from the eating portions of our date day, we decided to get personal pan pizzas for the kiddos and let them have a special treat of eating dinner in front of the TV.  They had gotten a Christmas movie as the Advent calendar prize.  They thought this was pretty sweet.

Today the Advent Calendar activity had the kids pick out 3 toys each that they no longer play with to donate to the kids who don't have any many toys as we do.  I can not believe how well this over.  The kids were very cooperative and willing to pick out toys.  I really expected a battle and crying but there was none.  Not a single tear.

So to reward the kids for being so good and willing to give up toys they no longer play with, we decided to treat them to a trip to the movies.  Lily's only been once and Tyler's never been.  They got so excited.  We boxed up the toys, dropped them off and then had some time to kill before the movie so we ran in to Walmart to kill time.

We wandered through the Christmas department which the kids ALWAYS request to do.  They got a hold of this giant stuffed Santa and told him what they wanted for Christmas.  This is the closest they would willingly get to any Santa this year.

Then off to the movies we went!  We saw The Penguins of Madagascar.  The kids did pretty good at the theater.  I brought lots of snacks and drinks in addition to the popcorn since it was lunch time.  We tore through everything.  Lily loved the movie and was really intent the whole time.  Tyler got super tired about half way through causing him to get a little cranky - but that was short lived cause it didn't take long for him to pass out on his Daddy's lap.

Lily was boogieing down during the credits at the end.  She kept making this goofy face the one of the penguins makes during the show.  It was super funny - unfortunately my camera wasn't snapping the picture fast enough in the dark to really capture it.

Also, going to the movies as a family before noon costs the same as Joel and I going to the movies by ourselves in the evenings!  I foresee many more weekend matinees in our future!

Baking Cookies.

Sunday afternoon, the kids and I baked some cookies to take to the teachers at Kidz First.  It all started out with making some M&Ms cookies - which the kids helped me whip up.  They took turns dumping ingredients in the bowl and even using the hand mixer.  Lily only flung flour all over us once.  Not bad, actually, in terms of mess making. 

But the best part was the kids sampling the cookie dough.  That was definitely my favorite part of baking cookies when I was a kid (who am I kidding - even now that's my favorite part) and clearly they are the same way.  

Even Jason came around to check out the cookie dough action.

I ended up in the kitchen for like 6-7 hours.  I don't know what I thinking.  Actually, I do.  It was a mess of a train wreck of thoughts.  It went something like this:

• I need some ideas for the Advent Calendar.  Ooh baking cookies with the kids is a good one.  I'll wrap up some baking M&Ms and plan that activity for a Sunday.
• Ohh, we could bake the cookies for their teachers at school.  That way, I won't have all these cookies in my house and be tempted to eat them all.
• (at grocery store on Saturday morning):  Ohh, here's some refrigerated sugar cookie dough.  We can bake those too, for the teachers.
• Hmm, two different kinds of cookies, that doesn't really seem very exciting to give to the teachers.  How about peanut butter cookies too - those are Joel's favorite so I'm sure he'd appreciate that.
• Oh, if I'm going to make peanut butter cookies, I need Hershey's kisses on top - back to the store for that Saturday afternoon.
• Hmm, well, the kids will like the M&M and sugar cookies and the peanut butter is to satisfy Joel, but chocolate chip is my favorite and I have those ingredients so I'll just whip up a batch of those too.
• Joel:  "I don't like Hershey's kisses on top of my peanut butter cookies."  Doh, now I have a whole bag of Hershey's kisses I really don't need in the house - we still have a mountain of Halloween candy to eat.
• Ohhh, that toffee that Phyllis made was so good and she said it was just butter and sugar and I have that stuff so maybe I can whip up a batch of that too.  That won't take very long.
• Wow, now my Christmas cookie present to the teachers is really coming together.  This will be so nice.  
• Oh, I can throw those Hershey's kisses in the cookie tin too!  That will look great!
• Ok, let's see, where are we now:
• Peanut butter cookies are baked (phone call number one to Phyllis for recipe).  Snuck Hershey's kisses on top of one cookie sheet full.
• Toffee is made and setting up on the counter (phone call #2 to Phyllis to confirm instructions for melting the chocolate on top of the toffee).  
• Dough is made for the M&Ms and the chocolate chip.  
• Kids are waking up from nap, they can help me bake the M&M cookies now (that was a dumb idea - help me? - they don't understand how to make tablespoon size balls on the cookies sheet - they just understand how to make a mess and lick the spoon).
• Oh, crud, I still haven't done anything with that sugar cookie dough.  I'll get to that in a minute.  Do I have sprinkles or anything for those?  Let me check.
• Ok finished up baking the M&M and Chocolate chip cookies - oh wow this is a lot of cookies.
• Oh man, my back, knees and feet are killing me.  Why did I bake all afternoon barefoot?  I should have put my tennis shoes on. 
• I still haven't done that sugar cookie dough.  What time is it?  Oh it's 5:00.  Dang it.  I wanted to work on knitting those legwarmers for Lily.
• Joel:  "We should get dinner ready soon, right? Are we eating leftovers?"  Me:  "I'm eating lettuce.  I've been licking the spoon all afternoon and sampling fresh cookies to make sure they are good enough to give away to other people."
• Crap.  Speaking of dinner... I didn't get this week's meat prepped.  I was going to clean and trim the chicken breast and brown up that turkey italian sausage.  Oh and there's 3 pounds of grapes in there I was going to wash and put in snack baggies.  
• My back is killing me.
• I still didn't do that sugar cookie dough.  And I need to whip up the icing to put on top. 
• It's bath night.  Crap.  I'm too tired. 
• Oh the toffee is ready to break apart.  Let me just taste a little bite of this.  Crap, this isn't even half as good as Phyllis's.  
• "Joel, taste this.  What do you think?"  
• "Uh, it's fine honey."  
• "But it's not as good as your mom's right?" 
• "Uh, no, I mean, it tastes the same as hers but it's not as crunchy or something.  The flavor is fine, just a different texture.  Really, babe, it's good."  
• Liar.  
• "It was your first time making it.  Now you know you how it goes and maybe next time you can cook it longer." 
• This is a lot of cookies - I think I'm skipping the sugar cookies.  I can't stand here any longer and I still have to assemble the actual cookie tins.  This is going to have to be good enough.
• Oh, wow, I can't fit all these cookies in these tins.  So much for not having a lot of leftover cookies.
• Where is my heating pad?