Missed A Few.

Sorry folks, I somehow missed a few photos. Oh, also sorry for all of the scatterbrained remarks in the last post. It's late and it all made perfect sense in my head when I wrote it.

Although Sam thought Christmas was neat, there wasn't the super duper excitement yet. Which was okay. Brooklyn had enough of it for both of them. But he was so excited that he got his own "sock". As far as stocking gifts they got tokens to the carousel at the mall (since Mom's always a grinch and never lets them ride it), undies for Sam and pyrex straws for everyone. These guys love their smoothies and therefore love their straws, which drives me crazy that these little pieces of plastic are used for 5 minutes and then thrown away. Eccentric? I think perhaps a bit.

Either way, the straws are really neat. They're from www.strawesome.com, who has offered 50% off vouchers on jasmere.com before, which I snagged for these.

Of course the stockings were loaded up with favorites like oranges, apples, bananas (Insert Moment of Bragging: these kids LOVE their produce. They would go through 3-4 apples per day if I let them. We devoured an entire large platter of veggies within about 6 hours of snacking. So bunches of fruit all for their own in their stockings was a good thing. Okay, bragging moment done.). And then of course the favorites--agave bears (fancy shmancy gummy bears), chocolate Earth balls, and dried papaya (which again, these kids could live on). All of their favorites that they choose whenever they're good at the Co-Op.

I love this photo--it kind of sums up Christmas for me. Sweet boy all snuggled into his warm blanket with his presents around him, opening his chocolate as the sun starts to peek through the window. Ahhhh.

And more playing.

I know, I know. Not exactly an ecstatic look from the Brookster, but it's the sun, I promise. As I had a full-fledged fashionable necklace and bracelet within a few short hours.

Okay, there you go, the photos you wouldn't be complete without seeing. Now you can live the rest of your life. Live long and prosper.

December Update

Well well, when December come and go? I was on a bit of a health roller coaster for the past couple of months, and I'm happy to say that things have very much improved, but I'm still dealing.

I started snapping a few photos, and of course knew I would be VERY regretful if I didn't document Christmas, so had to reconnect with my camera over the past month or so. So here we go...

While Sam naps, Brooklyn has "quiet time"...quiet...HA, yeah right. She loves to dress things up and decorate though, so this particular day she dressed each of her stuffed animals up in fabulous costumes. She thought she was one clever girl.

Izzy is a great dog. Although she's definitely more of an adult dog than a kids dog, she does really really good in putting up with or just plain ignoring them...although she does a lot of running from and hiding as well, lol. Brooklyn had asked for me to make her a turtle shell. I turned around and well, it turns out that Izzy made the best turtle of all.

And just to show you what this dog puts up with all day, nonstop... I think she looks forward to bedtime just as much as we do, lol.

Russ and I were sooo happy we weren't going to miss the annual Alderman Christmas party. Russ is displaying our goods from the much anticipated White Elephant gift exchange. And if you know Russ, then yes, it is on display at home. :)

I love these ladies!! They're so hip and chic and awesome...

...but so so so so goofy. Snort. Hehe.

Sorry for the PG-13 image ya'll, but after doing everyone else's couples shots at the party, we tried to get one of us and this was the best of the bunch and I love it. I'm one lucky girl!

It's been very unseasonable cold around here for the past month or so, so we've had our fair share of homemade hot chocolate, which calls for chocolate moustaches for everyone! Cheers!

We've also been putting our yearly passes to use. The kids love going to the "sloth museum". This is a giant ground sloth that was found not too long ago only a couple of miles away when they were putting in a new road (I think it was a new road anyways). Pretty awesome thing to find!

Russ had a week off from work, and even though it was cold out, which meant staying in a bit more (and therefore a bit more of the grumpies), the kids sure loved having someone they could tackle at will.

Then the Big Day finally came. This has been THE best year as far as Christmas excitement goes. Brooklyn has been talking about it for at LEAST a month straight...nonstop. No, really. Russ and I were willing Christmas to come sooner. So anyways, photo of the loot, pre-destruction.

We left M&M's for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph and a glug of milk. Santa and Rudolph left Brook and Sam a thank you note.

And what is a 2 year old boy to do with a thank you note at the crack of dawn (and that's being generous...I didn't even see the crack for another hour, I don't think)? Why use it as a spyglass, of course!

Russ finally couldn't take it anymore and went and arose the sleeping beast. The one thing that this girl asked for for Christmas and told EVERYONE was "kitty ears". She had a pair awhile back that became one of the few victims of Izzy. Tears were shed over the passing of said ears. And although I looked, none were to be found. However, Rudolph managed to find some reindeer ears that seem to do the trick.

Santa even brought The Dog Who Doesn't Play With Toys a toy.

Then the opening of gifts began. Now let me explain my thoughts on Santa first...don't get me wrong, he has always been good to me, even when I knew his little secret. :P But as a parent, I can't help but feel a bit miffed that this guy who waltzes in and doesn't even have to hear one single whine the ENTIRE YEAR gets to be the hero. No thanks, I'll pass. So yeah, Santa does the stockings, which holds a few different goodies, and one gift (usually a book), and one simple thing laid out unwrapped. So the kids are still SOOO excited to see what he brought, and it's still possible to threaten...ahem, bribe them, I think credit is given where credit is due in the end. Am I the only one who thinks this way?? lol.

Also, Santa started going green this year. I actually really wanted to get some fabric instead of wrapping paper and wrap everything furoshiki style, but got overwhelmed looking for cheap Christmas fabric AND gifts, so figured I could get some good deals for next year after Christmas this year.

And sure enough, Santa brings it again--books! This boy is rocket and space crazy though. I could NOT pass up this set of 4 books that included Flight, Space, Time and one other...Speed maybe? Sure enough, he loves them.

He also loves his Magnadoodle. He will draw 10 million O's if he could. Just glad he can do it somewhere other than my walls for once...

Some pre-dawn doodling. Good way to spend the morning.

It was recommended that to help with my thyroid disease stuff that's going on that I take up some sort of a craft. I figured what the heck, it's worth a shot. I started learning to crochet the day after Thanksgiving and I finished this dang scarf that Brooklyn BEGGED for about 3 1/2 weeks later, lol. Although it is FAR from perfect, she was excited to get it.

The dude showing off his new shirt and his rippling biceps.

Yay! Books!!! And good ones too. I've been a bit overwhelmed with this whole gluten free thing and I don't have access to a library that's very close, so I was very happy to get this very simple GF cookbook. And Russ's is apparently a very good book about what it takes to get into space, training-wise and such, but with a bit of a comical approach. I'm thinking it's pretty good as he's in the other room finishing the last 15 pages right this minute.

We love games!

So, I've always thought these latch boards were pretty dang neat. BUT. This may sound crazy, but I have always been wary of giving them to my kids so that they cannot undo every latch in my house. However, after I've found multiple windows open this Winter, I'm thinking I'm pretty much in deep doo doo either way. Sure enough, this board keeps the Maniac Man busy for a good amount of time...time enough to clean up his last mess anyways.

You can't see it, but her jaw dropped when she saw she got her own "computer". Artsy stuff AND computer stuff all in one? The girl is in heaven.

Corinne, your gift was by far the most coveted (it was the biggest, lol). Thanks for all of the science goodies--you know they're always a hit in our house!

Although yes, I am a bit concerned with Sam possessing a handful of marbles given his past track record with small objects I've pulled from or threatened to pull from his mouth, but I figured Russ wouldn't be able to stay away from this marble set. Plus, they have a marble toy at the Children's Museum here that Sam will sit at and play with for a half hour at least. And yes, this was played with for hours. Until Mommy was about to eat the marbles herself from hearing them go around and aroundandaroundandaroundandaround.....

Brooklyn's first toy of choice to bust out after being done opening gifts was the lizards. She did hers, and then Sam wanted to do one. He put about 3 swipes of paint on his and declared it done, so I attempted to finish it for him. I must say, Brooklyn kicked my butt at the artistic aspect. Hers is pretty awesome looking. As is the plate that we painted on--apparently water soluble does not mean "comes off in dishwasher". Oh well, it's one heck of a pretty plate, just glad we didn't do it on the table!

We rounded out the morning hooking up Dut's new "computer". This pretty much got us through to Lunch and naps. Ahhh, the joys of Christmas.

My hot husband enjoying his new blue tooth headphones and my new mandoline. You just can't beat home-cooked potato and sweet potato chips for breakfast.

There had been rumors of snow coming our way the day after Christmas, but we woke up to rain. Yet the weatherman insisted it'll be snow within a couple of hours. Russ was skeptical, I was a pretty skeptical, but hopeful. But within an hour or so...sure enough...

Last year we weren't prepared, particularly when it came to Sam. No hat, no gloves, nothing. We attempted to use socks for gloves but he got angry and yeah...so this year we were ready to go and boy did he love it!

Approximately 2.3 minutes into stepping outside, there were snowballs being thrown. The snow was only deep enough on the cars though, so at least they were in short supply.

We woke up to snow again this morning (not much more than what we'd got the day before though) and the kids were out there by 8am. Although I love that they're so enthusiastic about it, I was secretly happy they wanted to go inside after biffing it one too many times on a snow-covered trampoline. Brrr!!!

So hope you all had a Merry Christmas and bring on the New Year! YEAH!