New Year's Eve: 9:45 PM

And instead of sleeping, Meghan is hosting a dance party in our living room. Who said we are not cool?

Of course she stopped as soon as I turned on the lights so I could get some video. But here are the still shots.

One more month.

Christmas 2007

Sean was up bright and early on Christmas. it was as if he knew what was about to happen. Meghan, on the other hand, we had to wake up. I think we did this about 7:30 AM. Which is pretty good considering we had been up since 5AM with Sean.

Here is the day in pictures.

We finally got our tree up on the Friday before Christmas.

The tree (duh).

The stockings were hung with care.

Even the cat got one.

Sean awake at 5AM.

Put down the camera and feed me.

Sean began investigating while we waited for Meghan.

Will someone please go and wake up my sister?

Meghan finally woke up and immediately dug in.

The Santa hat was a must.

The doll house was a hit with both of them.

Sean had a wardrobe change halfway through the morning.

I'm cute and I know it.

Meghan and I made a gingerbread house.

The End. See you next year.

Exhale: Pre-Christmas Recap

It's the time in between the holidays. Christmas has passed and we are waiting for the New Year. Not like we have anything spectacular planned for New Years Eve.

I'm exhausted. We (um, Meghan) have been opening gifts since Saturday. No, that is not an exaggeration. Meghan has been unwrapping presents (hers, mine, everyone else's) for about 6 days now.

Since I am too tired to do anything else, here is the the first part of the week in pictures.

We made cookies.

Decorated the tree.

Made snow angels.

And Frosty.

What? Winter Has Not Started Yet?

I'm ready for winter to be over. It is not even 12/21 yet. So it has not even offically started. We had 2 big size storms (second bigger then they thought) and it is still snowing here.

It is been an extremly busy week. Let's review my list:

• Shopping - Um, still not done. I was online shopping earlier this week and any store that would guarantee 12/24 delivery. Now we still need to stop at a few stores and hit the mall.
  
• Decorating - I started. Artifical tree is still in a box in the living room.. i am hoping to get that up today.
  
• Performance reviews - Almost done. I delivered 3. Have one to deliver today. And one more to tweak for delivery tomorrow.
  
• Cookies - Done. :-)
  
• Christmas cards - Done!

So I feel like I have not stopped doing stuff all week. But nothing really looks done. And I am running out of clean clothes. i don't think my outfit matches today. Oh well.

Now I need to run out in the snow for a appointment and some shopping. I hate driving in the snow.

Backyard view

Storms are a'comin'

Our weather forcasters are all in a tizzy about two significant winters storms headed our way (read: lotsa snow). Great. Of course, these hacks experts are not always right. All I know is that this is just another thing screwing with everything else that needs to get done before Christmas.

Just a sampling:

• Shopping - So I started off great this year. Then things came to a screaching halt after some credit fraud (one way to get me to slow down online). Now I am behind.
• Decorating - We have not even retrieved the boxes down from the attic. Our Halloween pumpkin is still on the front step (it has become a meal for some sort of wildlife). Now, the snow means no lights on the house this year. Perhaps we can throw out a few net lights if we can find the bushes.
• Performance reviews - Work related but still needs to get done. The snow means we will probably have to leave work early tomorrow. So I will have less time to finish and deliver them.
• Cookies - This hopefully will get done. I bought the ingredients today. I hope I remembered everything.
• Christmas cards - I have them. I also have the blank labels. I think I need stamps. I definitely need to update my address list.

Oh, and our oil heater stopped working today. Its getting cold in here. The service guy just finished up so hopefully it will start warming up soon.

Ahh.. Christmas Presents

I've been tagged by Sophie with my first meme. The theme is to list a favorite present from childhood, adulthood and what I would like in the future. I have trouble remembering what I ate for lunch yesterday but here it goes.

Christmas Past: This is tough because of my previously mentioned memory issues. I also think that because my birthday is not that far from Christmas I cannot remember what I when (sorry Mom and Dad). One gift I do remember is my Cabbage Patch Kid Doll. I ended up with a few of these over the years. But I do believe one (perhaps my first) was for Christmas. I think most people remember it was the gift sometime back in the mid-ish eighties. My mom will tell you tales of waiting in line hours before the stores opened to get one of the limited quantities available.

Christmas Present: Hmm. I generally have a difficult time when, as an adult, I am asked what I want for Christmas. My go-to request is a gift card. However, one year we asked for and received a TiVo. Let me tell you, that thing gets the most use out of everything else I can think of. I love our TiVo. So much so that this year Ryan and I are giving each other a joint present. Our TiVo HD arrived in the mail yesterday. Woo Hoo! Now we can record even more shows we have no time to watch. In HD no less. We used to always watch Lost in HD but then they move it to past my bedtime (10:00PM. I know. Pathetic.). But now, we can record in HD and watch it at a more old people friendly reasonable hour (if the show ever comes back anyway).

Christmas Future: I am hoping that if, if not next year then the year after, we will be celebrating the holidays in a new house. We really have outgrown the current one. I am forever tripping over plastic things because the kids do not have a proper playroom. And now that we no longer have a guest room our family must sleep amongst the plastic stuff on couches and blowup beds. A (preferably brand spanking) new house is definitely tops on my list.

This is the point where I am supposed to tag three new people. But, since I am relatively new to the blogging world I'll leave this up to you. If you would like to join the fun and post your own answers go for it. You can use the image above that was created by Burgh Baby's Mom.

Sean: Nine Month Stats

Sean had his nine month check-up last week. I was really curious to see how much he weighs because he looks like he is chunking up (and that carrier was getting really heavy).


Weight: 17lbs 8oz
Height: 28 inches


I also asked about our milk formula issues and we are going to stick with soy for now. We will try a little bit a yogurt in a few weeks and see how that goes. But we need to take everything that may be milk based slowly. If he still reacts poorly we will go to an allergist.


Sean graduated out of the baby carrier into a convertible car seat this weekend. We also put his crib mattress down further as the little guy is starting to pull himself up. Plus he looks like he is getting teeth (finally). Four look like they are coming at once, poor little guy.

Hee Hee (or perhaps Ho Ho)

Okay, this just cracks me up.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1159548344

Enjoy!

(Time suckage inspiration discovered over at A Mommy Story.)

But Everything I Cook Has Cheese In It

I think we may have a milk allergy.

Both Meghan and Sean were on soy formula almost from day one. When Meghan was somewhere between 6-9 month we made the switch to regular milk-based formula. No problems at all. We have been trying to do the same thing with Sean. It has not been going very well.

After a failed attempt to move him off soy a few months ago we tried again yesterday. His bottle had 6 ounces of soy formula and 1 ounce of regular. He drank 1 ounce and immediately started puking. Everywhere. Projectile. Messy.

That is pretty much his reaction every time we tried. So, I have lotsa questions for his doctor on Friday. What does this mean? Does he need to move to soy milk at some point. Is everything with dairy off limits? Pudding? Yogurt? Mashed potatoes? Cheese? This may make the move to some solid foods more difficult. Meghan just about lived on mac & cheese when she was one. I'll need to learn to cook without cheese and milk. Is that even possible?

And He's Off!

Now the fun begins.

Sean just started crawling this past week. We've started getting the gates out again. This time it is much more difficult as our floor is a mine field of small choking hazards thanks to Meghan's toys. Poor little guy may be forced to spend much of his time in the pack and play.

At least now we can usually tell when he is on the move because he giggles.