Frosty Season is Over!

Wow! That happened fast. As it always does these days, since i'm busy chasing my two little ones. So much has happened.

We had a wonderful holiday with a few bumps. Homer got sick and that made busy even more busy. But we managed to enjoy a lot of holiday goodness anyways. In fact, maybe it slowed me down just enough to get me to enjoy the big picture just a little bit more. We went to the Costa Mesa Snoopy house one night to see the decorations. We went down the street to the light show at the house on Meredith St., where the lights are set to music. We went to see the neighborhood light display at the brookhurst/heil sts. And best of all, we went to the Newport Beach Boat Parade and got the very best spot in the house for checking out the boat parade. The kids absolutely loved that. Decorating our house happened slowly and steadily, something I've really come to enjoy and savor. We had the family holiday party at our house one week before Christmas, and that stretched the holiday out a bit more too. We had a lot of Christmas. The big day came, Santa came, and Marea enjoyed it more than ever. She got her own computer, a big toy horse, a lite brite, princess nightgowns, tinkerbell toys, a few games, lots of new books...a huge success and one happy little girl who has played her heart out all day today with all her new stuff. It's fun to spoil the kids on Christmas. That's the best present for any parent!

Another fun thing we did recently was go to Marea's first movie theater movie...The Princess and the Frog! We went with Kate and Madison to an afternoon show. We got popcorn and candy and we watched the whole movie. She got a little restless, and thankfully the theater was empty so Marea and Madison got to jump around a bit. Afterwards we went and got the music CD and she loves it. We're listening in the car all the time! I'm glad to have some new kid music, finally!

Evie has been her crazy baby old self. She is a CLIMBER! I thought Marea climbed a lot, and I was wrong. Evie climbs on everything. She can climb up onto Marea's bed...up and over the railing. She'll climb up the rocker in her room and onto the bed in there. And she loves to climb and stand on every stool, box, crate, anything-she-can-possibly-stand-on thing in the house. She absolutely loves to be outside. And she knows the shoes/jacket routine before going out. She gets so excited she runs and pounds on the door when she knows we're going outside. Sometimes she runs straight for the garage and climbs up on Marea's tricycle, or she'll take off down the sidewalk. Her run is so darn cute...and FAST. She is so physical. She loves to dance and move! Her favorite show is still Yo Gabba Gabba. I don't know what it is about that show, but she is enthralled by it. She has a pretty awful cold right now and it's very hard to see her feeling yucky. She doesn't seem to bounce back from colds as well as Marea used to. Thankfully it's just a cold though, and not the awful stomach flu that rocked me two days before Christmas!

It's Frosty Season!

It started the day before Thanksgiving. I swore I wouldn't do it. Maybe it was because I was so sick of the CD's that we have in the car, and I was longing for something different. Or maybe it was Marea's excitement about Christmas (I think it was that). But the "Frosty Loop" has made it's way back into our lives, for the third year in a row. It's time to find a new Christmas CD, before I start to despise the poor old snowman.

Yes, her excitement is catchy. She started talking about Christmas a few days before thanksgiving, probably because we went to the mall and it's all decorated already. She got it in her head that Christmas is coming and we must start the preparations immediately! So it started with the music, but I held off on everything else until now. And I now declare us officially ready to start the season. I'm ready! This is going to be great! With the exception of keeping Evie and Little Ick away from the tree. That should be interesting. Marea has been talking almost every day about daddy bringing home the decorations, and getting a tree. We watched The Grinch last night. We made our gingerbread house. I think this is the first year that she'll get the idea of Santa. So this year stands to be super fun! Time to bust out the old 'be good or i'm calling santa!' trick :)! Of course I wouldn't do that! Or will I? We'll see where desperation leads me in the next 25 days.

It will be fun to see what Evie thinks about all the Christmas stuff. Of course she'll be insanely curious, and have to touch everything over and over and over. And carry things around the house and dump them. She is the queen of that. I'm sure she'll find all the decorations and preparations interesting. Maybe we'll be able to teach her a few new 'holiday' words. She's getting pretty good with her vocabulary these days. "Kit-tay" is a super popular one. And "eh juice'. We have no idea where they is the 'eh' in front of it but it's funny. And she loves singing the 'Do Do Do, Da Da Da' song, and the Elmo song.

So we got a new kitten, Little Ick. That's what Marea has named her for now. I'm not too excited about the name so we'll see if anything else sticks. Sticks to Ick. Ha ha. For now, it's working, because she's got super stinky poo and farts. She's kind of icky right now! Marea just adores her. But part of me is wondering why I brought this chaos into the house. As if I needed another thing to worry about! I am trying to teach her how to pick her up correctly and when she needs to let her run away. I hope this kitty ends up liking her and isn't scared of her. Little Ick, who lives in the bathroom, as Marea says.

Tonight we are going to Great Grandma Irene's 98th birthday dinner at Acapulco. Happy Birthday Grandma! Hope to share many more :)