Christmas... and all that Jazz

As I sit in my bed, finally able to lift my head up from the whir that is Christmas, I am able to reflect on the past few days and how lucky we are - lucky and so very tired. It is exhausting when you think about it - all the eating,visiting, gift wrapping, shopping, giving, opening, assembling, you get the idea. But did I mention that I became sick on Christmas Eve? Yes, in the middle of the festivities at my parents house, complete with a 20 month old rocking around the Christmas tree at until 11 pm....there I was curled up on the leather couch with a monstrous headache.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Leading up to Christmas, Dan, my Dad, and our dear friend and OBGYN extraordinaire, Nik, assembled an awesome play set for Riley. It took them an entire day...but they sure did a great job.

We kept the surprise from Riley until Christmas morning, but it was sure worth the wait. The look on her face was priceless. Mr. & Mrs. Claus overloaded Riley with goodies..... Not to mention gifts from both sets of grandparents and aunts and uncles....

So, besides the crazy sickness, which by the way, Dan was a God-send, we had a wonderful and fun-filled Christmas....and matching Christmas jammies to boot!

Waking Up

It occurred to me that pretty soon, Riley will be strolling out of her big girl room and big girl bed, insisting that I take her to the movies so she can meet a boy. OK - maybe not SO soon, but I want to take these memories and store then in my head (and computer) forever.



I was finishing up with some school work while Riley was waking up from her afternoon nap. I heard her saying the following words in a sing-song fashion: Cookie, Frosty, and Ofie (for Murphy).



I took a video upon my initial entry into her room .... but Murphy started getting sick so I didn't think it was necessary to include that into my happy memory bank...so this is the second video shot after I returned to her room following Murphy's nervous stomach issue. He really is a strange dog - sweet, but strange.

A New Language

All alone in the house and in the bathroom no less, quite a feat in my house I might add, I dropped my knotted necklace on the floor. Instinctively, I muttered, "Uh-oh."

I froze. Did I just say uh-oh? Did I just say uh-oh without a toddler in sight?

As I lathered up my dirty hair (again, alone time is hard to come by) I started thinking about the way my language has changed.

Daddy - I now call Dan, my loving hubby, Daddy. It freaks my brother out but I do it out of habit and also because I don't want Riley to start screaming around the house, "DAN!" Don't get me wrong, I don't call him Daddy when we are out on a date night or anything.

Yo-Yo - This is yogurt. I think it's pretty darn cute so I have also adopted this word into my vocabulary as well. I also take it a step further and write "yo-yo" on my grocery list.

Boo-Boo - This is pretty self-explanatory.

Ofie - Formerly known as the dog Murphy, Riley insists on calling him Ofie - so now I do too.

So, besides proving another case of mental instability, it further proves that stay-at-home Moms can get away with this - can you imagine if Dan went to work and said to Mr. Boss Man:

"Uh-oh, Daddy did a boo-boo on the spreadsheet."

Decking the (freaking) Halls

So it seems that I have completely glossed over Thanksgiving. While this is mostly true, we did have an excellent Thanksgiving with Dan's brother and wife, Mike and Sarah. We had a great meal, thanks to my chef-brother, Kyle. We visited the beach, did some early A.M. shopping, and enjoyed each other's company as we fought to the finish with a fan favorite game, Pop 5.

To much of my dismay, Christmas is fast approaching and I am not ready, to say the least. I even tried to talk Dan into not putting up the tree until Christmas Eve as a "surprise" for Riley, but really a sanity saver for me. I can only take so much of, "Don't touch that," in one day.

So, needless to say, Dan decorated the outside and the inside duties are usually left to me. I guess Dan could see I wasn't in the Ho-Ho mood this year so he busted out the decorations the morning of his parents departure from a weekend visit. Richard, Dan's Dad (who by the way, also goes by Dick - a name that Riley grew quite fond of saying - awesome) had an epiphany - Why don't you find a way to rotate the tree so you can stand in one place and put the lights on? That's all Dan needed to hear - he was off to find an apparatus in the garage. He soon returned with a rolling platform he used when working on his old car, the Explorer, aka The Exploder.

So there I am - laying on the floor, rotating the tree while Dan hangs the lights. After a little while, I had to give me arms and boobs a break, since they were all going numb, and switched jobs with Dan. And let's face it, I'm better at hanging up lights anyways...

Here is a snapshot of the process. I think we should use this on our Christmas card....