Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and that your New Year is full of blessed details!

If you didn't receive a Christmas/New Year's card from us, please know that we still hope and pray that your Christmas and New Year's is full of joy, love and peace!

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Family Hookie Day

Approximately five years ago, my firm down sized and cut back our hours to 4 days per week.  This meant that for a few years I worked Monday-Thursday and had Fridays off.  Because I had an extra day off, Eric and I started a new tradition.  He would take a Friday off during the month of December and we would have a Christmas date day together.  Most of those years, we went up to Bayshore mall on the North side of Milwaukee, and in 2011 we went down to Vernon Hills after seeing our little boy on ultrasound for the very first time.  We pretty much always go Christmas shopping, but rarely make any purchases.  Instead, we just enjoy the holiday decorations, a nice lunch together and a bit of people watching.

This year, which is now a family day rather than a date day, we continued the tradition on my Wednesday off.  We decided that since Bayshore mall is largely outdoors, and we did not want to deal with getting Asher in and out of his coat and stroller, we went down to Gurnee mall instead.  Thus, after breakfast, we headed down for a fun family day together, enjoying the Christmas season.

When we arrived at Gurnee Mills mall, we started our day at Bass Pro Shop.  We had just been there two weekends before to see Santa with my family, but decided we would go again to get a picture of Asher with Santa alone and also to enjoy the fun that BPS has to offer.

Asher & I enjoying the BPS fireplace.

Checking out the fish tank

Asher getting attached by a fish.

Our little eskimo

Eric knocking down the ducks (I was a better shot...it was really fun!)

When it was time to meet Santa, Asher did really well.  He was not quite sure of the situation, and was not willing to give us a smile, but on the plus side he also didn't cry.

I love this picture.  Asher is so indifferent..."I don't know what the big deal is Mom & Dad...??"

Asher & Eric watching the remote control trucks

Asher & I checking out the reindeer.

After Bass Pro Shop, we walked around the mall.  Asher enjoyed the toy store (where he got to test drive a rocking horse), the theater hallway's hall of mirrors, and the Lego store (where Eric had just has much or more fun as Asher did).

Before we headed home for nap time, we enjoyed a family lunch at Ruby Tuesdays.  After our waiter left the table for the first time, Eric and I both were trying to figure out where we may have met him before.  When he returned we asked him where he's worked in the past (since he seemed so familiar and we had never been to that restaurant before).  He said that we looked very family to him as well, and it turns out that he used to be the manager of the Kenosha Qdoba, where we are frequent attenders and were even more so when I was pregnant and craving Mexican.  He even remembered me being pregnant, so we introduced him to the "outcome" of those cravings! :) ...small world!

Also, while at Ruby Tuesdays, instead of getting Asher a high chair, we decided to push his stroller up to the table.  Since his stroller seat is reclined back a bit, he proceeded to pull his shoes off and put his feet up on the table.  Then, he took his socks off with his bare pigs on the table and then he put his toes in his mouth!  ...I guess we need to teach him some table manners!

After lunch, we wrapped up our time in Gurnee, and then headed home to enjoy the rest of our family day together.  It was a quiet afternoon, and as always I am thankful for those simple, yet memorable moments together!

Toddler Week 24: Busy, Busy, BUSY

Busy, Busy, Busy.  Christmas has always been a busy time, but when you add a child to the mix, it goes from busy to BUSY.  Everything takes 10 times as long to do as your child undoes what you've done before you can accomplish anything.  Again, I cannot help but wonder how single parents do it.  They truly amaze me!  This week (December 8-14), we continued to work on getting things done for the Christmas season, while continually trying to find time to take a breather and simply enjoy the holiday and each other....

Asher & I enjoyed watching the cardinal on the bird feeder and tried to get a picture for Grandma K.

We also take time to turn off all of the lights except those on the Christmas tree and enjoying its glow.  Asher loves to walk around and point to all of the different ornaments.  So far, he has been very good and has for the most part left the tree alone.

The "look and don't touch rule" for the tree is helped by the fact that we have a lot of Christmas decorations that we do allow him to play with, including his Fisher Price nativity and several stuffed Christmas decorations.  Since the vintage McDonald's Muppet Baby toys are one of my personal favorites (& the Miss Piggy that I had lost years ago was recently replaced by Eric's mom), I wanted to get a picture of Asher playing with them to send to her...turned out to be a very goofy picture of Asher, that I never sent! ;)

Asher "helped" me take this picture and the following of our tree.

As I said, there was a lot to do to get ready for Christmas, although we did try to enjoy as much "free" time as we could.  One of the things we had to do, was get our Christmas card finished and mailed.  I had seen a picture on Pinterest a couple of years ago, that I decided I wanted to try and replicate with Asher and his truck for the card's cover.  Eric picked out a cute sweater and hat for Asher to wear and then we took advantage of freshly falling snow for the shoot.  It worked out very well, because it wasn't painfully cold, and Asher was so excited to get to play with his truck (that has been in the garage since the fall) that he was a very willing participant in the photo shoot.

Asher looks like he has a little road rage in this picture!

We wanted a picture of Asher driving the truck, but actually this is probably my favorite picture.

Life has been so busy lately that we got a bit behind in our monthly pictures of Asher.  Thus, the 17 month photo shoot was slightly more than a week late...

I love his tongue sticking out on this one.

Despite the busyness, we also found some time to play in the playroom.  This particular week was really cold, so Eric decided to make us a little family fort centered around the lone heating vent in the room.  It quickly became our favorite place to hang out during the cold days ahead.

Video: Asher in the Fort

Part of our busy lives (a Big part) is work, which means another big part is daycare.  On Thursday, when Eric dropped Asher off at daycare and he went for the couch, the cold, dry season wasn't working well with his hair...

Asher taking a moment from his busyness to give Momma a quick snugg.

Eric taking a moment from the busy life to enjoy a Sam's Club pretzel while he waits for our tires to be rotated.

On Saturday (the last day of Toddler Week 24) I was able to wrap up the Christmas cookie making/baking so that we could deliver them to our neighbors.  I plated 16 plates of cookies, and then we loaded them into the wagon and loaded Asher into his sled so that we could go door to door with them.  Unfortunately, most of our neighbors were not home, so we had to go out the following Monday to deliver the rest.  Eventually all of the cookies were given new homes, and we could mark one more item off of our busy To Do list.

Finally, we closed out a busy week with a bit more family time enjoying the tree...

3 Videos: Tree Enjoyment