Blessed Beyond Measure: The A Team Week 11: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This week was my last week on Maternity Leave and the first official week of the Christmas season. With Thanksgiving behind us, it was time to get the house in order to celebrate "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," making it a busy week...but it was also the last few days I would have home alone with my littlest guy. :( I tried my best to not think about it and enjoy the week as much as possible, but I would be lying if I said there were no tears involved.

On Monday night, after Asher was in bed, I worked on stringing the lights on our Christmas tree. Since Avery stays up until about the same time that I do, he hung out with me while I put them up. He loved it! The entire time that I hung up the lights, Avery (my audience) oooed and ahhhed, kicking his feet and totally eating it up!

We tried to capture this adorable moment on camera, but Avery was wiggling so much that most of the pictures are blurry.

The next morning was Tuesday and my day home with both boys. Asher was very excited to find the Christmas tree all lit up!

We spent the morning hanging out with friends and then took some good naps.

After nap time, Asher wanted a snack. He is totally getting to an age that he understands that his "cuteness" gets him things. He will ask questions that he totally knows the answer to (with all of the cuteness he can muster up), just to try to win us over to give him whatever it is that he wants at the time. On this particular day he wanted into our pantry cabinet (where we store our cookies, candy, chips, etc) to look for a treat. Knowing that he would need my help to get into the locked cabinet, he looked at me as sweetly as he could and asked me over and over again, "what's in there?...what's in there?"

2 Videos: Asher & The Pantry

Eventually he did get a graham cracker and then we enjoyed some craft time while Avery continued his nap. A friend of mine had sent me this idea to make a stained glass window using colored tissue paper on press-n-seal, attached to a window. The tissue paper was supposed to stick to the press-n-seal and although it did, it required a gentle touch...something Asher has not yet mastered. He enjoyed the project with me but would get frustrated when the papers would fall down, so instead he gave me the pieces, while I stuck them to the window.

After our "window" was finished, we continued craft time with something that Asher LOVES to do...Play Doh! Since Asher is not great at sharing the play doh, today I got one color for each of us out so that I could play too.

My creations...a dog, a snowman and a christmas tree.

Video: Daddy & Avery

On Tuesday night, after Eric got home from work and we had some dinner, it was time to decorate the tree. Asher was very excited to help and did a great job. The OCD in me had to relax though, as he tended to put the ornaments in clumps all at the bottom of the tree. Once we showed him that Mommy and Daddy could pick him up to get them higher though, he did a great job of directing us for placing ornaments! It was really fun to share that moment with him as the tree decorating is mostly my job every year. Eric does help, but I can't say he really enjoys it while he does so.

Helping Asher place an ornament.

Avery hung out on the sidelines and observed...and stared at Rudolph while it played on the TV.

Avery also got to hang a few ornaments with my help!

I was happy to see that Asher seemed to enjoy my favorite Christmas movie (it is tradition to watch it while I decorate the tree)...if you ask him what Rudolph says though, he will respond, "He haw, He haw!"...not sure where that came from!

Asher & Eric enjoying the beauty of all our hard work.

On Wednesday, it was my LAST day home alone with Avery. I wanted nothing more to stay home all day and snuggle him, but there was too much to do. With my mom coming down and cookie weekend ahead, there was important shopping to be done. Before we went out shopping though, we did get some things done at home...including Avery's cradle cap treatment.

Avery's spa day! :)

Then my buddy and I headed to Sam's Club and Walmart to pick up all of the cookie supplies. He did great at Sam's Club, sleeping the entire time. Walmart was a different story though. Early on in my trip, I lost my grocery list in the store and shortly after Avery started to fuss. Thus I spent the next hour holding my baby in one arm, trying to keep him from screaming, while I walked around and attempted to remember everything I needed while taking all of the pity looks from others. Fun times. To make matters even worse, I realized that I had misplaced my phone. I assumed it must have fallen out of my pocket in the van, so didn't allow myself to freak out until I was done. When I got to the van though, I couldn't find it, so I figured I would just go home because it was probably stuck in a bag or pocket. Unfortunately, when I got home I still could not find it. I used the Find My Phone app and realized it was still in the Walmart parking lot. By this time, Avery was starving and screaming. I didn't have a phone so I couldn't call Eric. Instead, I messaged him from my computer, and he had to leave work a little early, pick up Asher and go to Walmart to see if he could find my phone. Asher and Eric were not able to find it right away, so once I had fed Avery for a few minutes, I loaded him back into the van and headed to Walmart. Thankfully I was able to figure out where I had parked before and found my phone quickly under another car. I was so happy that it was still there and that no one had driven over it. By this point though, I was also VERY stressed out and could no longer contain the tears. I hugged Eric and headed back home with Avery to feed him and put away all of our frozen and refrigerated groceries that were still laying on the floor at home, while Eric and Asher picked up Subway for dinner...not the way I wanted that day to go!

Hanging out in Asher's big boy set while I get some things situated for our shopping trip.

On Thursday, I enjoyed a morning home with the boys and then my mom came to join us for the weekend later in the day.

Grandma arrived just in time for naps!

After nap time, Grandma started off Christmas Cooking Weekend 2014 by making Million Dollar Cookies with Asher. (Don't worry, we made sure he was washed up and didn't touch his mouth or anything while he helped).

Pressing the sugar on the cookies.

Once the cookies were finished and we had had some dinner, Asher and Grandma taste-tested some cookies to make sure they were safe to share with others! ;)

After dinner, Grandma and I set to work on making some other goodies and Asher got to play with a "vintage toy"...well I'm not sure you can call it vintage, as it is made of 100% plastic, but it is some 25+ years old. It is my Play Doh diner from my childhood (which I LOVED). Two of Asher's favorite things to play with are Play Doh and his little Kitchen/Food. Thus I thought combining the fun with my old toy (which my parents still had at home...in the original box!) would be perfect. As soon as my mom brought the box in, Asher knew immediately what it was for and asked, "Play Play Doh?". We told him he needed to wait until after dinner, which he did and then he played. It kept him completely entertained for a good 1-2 hours, which as any toddler mom can tell you is AMAZING! I am so glad he enjoyed it...and I was able to have some fun as well playing with one of my favorite childhood toys and one of my favorite little guys! :)

On Friday, Asher went to Daycare while Mom, Avery and I stayed home to continue working on our cookies. I was hoping to have a very productive day, but unfortunately (and fortunately for some reasons) Avery must have known that my maternity leave was almost over, because he insisted on being held for a large chunk of the day, making it very difficult for me to bake. Every time he fell asleep I would put him down and before I could start doing anything, he would wake up crying. He did take a few short naps, which I used to get as much done as possible, but honestly without the help of my mom this year, the plates of cookies would have been MUCH smaller!

Avery practicing bottle eating with Grandma before starting daycare...he did really well even though I was in the next room (Asher NEVER took a bottle at home...only ever at daycare when I was no where near).

Our sleepy little helper

Grandma multitasking: Working on my cookies and working (via the phone) for her job.

Siesta...My helpers sleeping on the job

While Asher was at daycare that day, I got a text from Christina (the lady that watches him) with a few pictures. She said that he came downstairs after nap time, plopped down in front of the tree and just stared at it for a while...nothing like the wonder of Christmas! ;)

When Friday afternoon came and Avery still wasn't helping me get anything done, we decided to put him in his swing and distract him with some Christmas lights...worked surprisingly well! Side Note: Avery also loves when I sing to him and especially seems to love when I sing Elvis songs! Usually even when he is crying if I start singing an Elvis song to him he immediately will stop crying and start smiling back at me!

Video: Avery & His Lights

We got a little more done and then it was time to pick Asher up from daycare. At this point, the entire kitchen and dining room was covered in cookies and baking supplies. I was concerned that Asher was going to be very difficult when I brought him home and not understand why he couldn't eat the cookies. Surprisingly though, he was really good about it and left them alone...although he didn't venture far from them!

By evening, we had finished all but a few of the cookies, so when Saturday morning arrived we set into action again to try to finish up. Asher was also enlisted as a helper and did a pretty good job. He and mom made the Rolo Pretzel Cookies (or candy?) and he helped mom unwrap the entire bag of Rolos without eating any! Towards the end, the excitement of helping was wearing off and he was looking bored, but when I told him that when all the candies were unwrapped he could eat one of them, he kicked it into high gear and finished them off! :)

After a few more cookies were made and in the works, Mom and I (& Avery) went and got ready to head to the Woman's Christmas Brunch at church, while Eric and Asher had some male bonding. Asher was being a goof before we left and dressed himself...

Silly Boy!

Once Mom and I were ready to go, we headed over to church to enjoy a tasty ham dinner and entertainment. The entertainment was great; a woman from Wheaton, IL that did a great job at story telling and convicting us all to remember what the season of Christmas is about and the Tremper Golden Strings which preformed for us (by playing violins and singing) while walking around our tables. It was a really nice time and although Avery slept through most of it, he woke up at the end for the music and really enjoyed himself...especially the part where he was personally serenaded!

Grandma & Avery...the only boy there that wasn't serving us or cleaning up.

Love this boy!

Avery's personal serenade.

Video: Avery's Personal Serenade

When the brunch was over, Mom, Avery and I headed back home to finish up our cookies, take a little rest, and get ready for the next fun event of the day...Santa! Before that though, we were visited by my Aunt Bonnie and cousin Rachel who happened to be coming to our area to see a play and were willing to bring Papa down to enjoy the remainder of the weekend with us. Avery was enjoying all the attention!

Once the cookies were out of the oven and we had Papa with us, we all loaded into the van and headed to Bass Pro Shop to meet Aaron and Erika's family and see Santa. We got a Santa pass and then had to kill three hours until 7:00 when it would be our turn to get a picture with the Big Guy. What did we do to kill time?? Well, it really isn't hard to kill a few hours when you have five boys under the age of 5 in a sporting goods store. There were four wheelers to ride, boats to "drive" and fish to see. When those items lost some interest, then we headed out into the mall to find some dinner. We enjoyed dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, but had to wait a while to get a table for all 11 of us. While we waited, Eric, Papa and the bigger boys went to a nearby toy store, where they discovered a Fart Blaster...when they came back to the restaurant they all (including Eric and Papa) could not wait to tell the rest of us about it...apparently it was pretty awesome! BOYS!

Riding a kid-size four wheeler...side note: I actually overheard a mother look at the price of this and say to her son (of about 8-10 years), "It's only $2,000...that's not bad." ...all I could think was ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Taking the boat for a spin...in was like Gramps boat!

Checking out the fish.

Video: The Fart Blaster

Dinner at Ruby Tuesdays

Asher & Papa

When dinner was over, it was almost 7:00 and time to head back to Bass Pro Shop. We quickly got into line and awaited our pictures. While a few of us waited in the line, others of us walked around with the kids, and I found an Avery-sized four wheeler! :)

Too Cute!

Asher also wanted to take it for a ride.

Finally...it was time to see Santa! We were hoping to get a picture of just Santa and the kids, but Hudson wasn't about to let his mommy out of his grasp, so we ended up with a Santa+Kids+Mommies picture.

Then, the rest of our crew got in the picture for a whole family + Santa Picture!

When our Santa time was over, we took a few more pictures, enjoyed a few more parts of the store and then headed back to Kenosha for bedtime.

Aaron, Erika, Micah, Caleb & Hudson

Eric, Asher, Avery & I

Hudson & Erika...too cute!

Eric & Avery

Trouble!

Asher telling Grandma what he wants for Christmas? :)

Micah & Caleb shooting ducks with Aaron & Papa

Avery...excited about his carseat?

Caleb & Micah playing on the boat outside.

When we arrived back in Kenosha, Eric said we should have gone to Christmas Lane, but it was already past bedtime. We asked Asher if he wanted to go home or see Christmas lights though and he chose the lights...so off we went. Then we got back home and headed straight to bed after a long (fun) exhausting day.

Avery talking to Grandma & Papa before bed.

On Sunday, the first week of the Christmas season drew to a close. We enjoyed church and lunch with Mom and Dad before they headed back home. Then it was followed up by a lazy day of naps and a bit more Christmas decorating at home before calling it a day. It was truly a great week full of Holiday memories with our boys!