It's Christmas!

*Update* I wrote this before we left for Cincinnati, and it seems a shame not to post it. I forgot in the flurry of Christmas to actually post it! More pictures and stories from Christmas to come.

It's officially Christmas. We got a foot of snow today, "Santa" came to the house last Friday night, and we've been up to our eyeballs in Christmas cookies. And the best is yet to come! We're leaving tomorrow afternoon for a week in Cincinnati (No, Mommy, I'm not going to Cincinnati, I'm going to Nonnie and Pawpaw's says Frankie). And my final project is done. I am done with my class. Oh, that feels good. Now I can play all day with my children.

Some Christmas happenings:
Daddy and Frankie work on a gingerbread house together:


Frankie tells us all about making her Gingerbread house in this video and I give a short tour of our Christmas decorations (short because there really aren't that many).

Frankie lined up all those red hots. Um, yeah, that's my 2-year-old (Hmm, my 1 year old is noticeably absent from this activity...)

There's my 1 year old! In the house's favorite boy pjs.

We had a house Christmas Saturday morning, so we could give the kids some gifts and exchange gifts with Rachel and Rebecca. We put out cookies and milk for Santa, and he came! And ate most of the cookies, but left 2 for Frankie and Dex.

And stuffed the stockings (one item in Frankie's stockings was a new pack of Tinkerbell underwear. She calls them her jingle bell underwear)

A Merry Christmas Greeting from Frances:

Chris picked out this awesome new Elmo cell phone for Dex. It has a USB2 connection and we downloaded his name to the phone, so Elmo says things like "Oh, Dexter, it's you calling!"


A new Tinkerbell costume! (Oddly enough, she actually calls this her Tinkerbell costume...)


This toy is awesome for Dex - it has lots of buttons that make noise. And one of the songs goes "I am your robot friend, I'm here to help you." It's pretty sweet. And doesn't get stuck in your head at all.

Tinkerbell!

This adorable owl hat was from Rebecca. He kept it on for about 3 minutes for us to take pictures. It was really thoughtful of him.

A set of Disney book with a read-aloud CD from Rachel. Definitely a new favorite

Pancake breakfast!


Um, yeah, I love Christmas. Duh.

So several batches of cookies were made at the house this past week that got this type of sign on them:

Poor Chris. Rachel finally came home with a cookies platter he could eat:

At the Detroit airport

We are burning time while we wait for our flight from Detroit to Dayton. We spent the night at the Best Western here in Detroit last night after missing our connection last night. We sat on the tarmac in Providence for 90 minutes. For them to clear the runway of snow. But it had stopped snowing 24 hours before we got on the plane? I'm pretty sure it was airport management. Anyway, we'll arrice at my parent's house 26 hours after we left our house. Looks like we should have done the 16 hour drive after all.

Emergency

Chris has been trying to teach Frankie what "Emergency" means, and plays the following game with her:

"Frankie, is it an Emergency when your oatmeal is too hot to eat?" (nooo...so you don't need to cry about it)

"Frankie, is it an Emergency if someone gets cut and is bleeding real bad?" (yes! time to go to Dr. Mitchell...)

"Frankie, is it an Emergency if someone who can't swim falls into the water?" (yes! go get an adult!)

Today we'll get to add the the list:
"Frankie is it an Emergency when your little brother plays with the former home owner's deactivated alarm keypad which no one thought would do anything and then sets off the alarm?"

Yes! Mainly because we have no idea what the code is. So after 10 minutes of trying to decide what to do in the mind-numbing noise I cut the wires to the units make noise with a set of toenail clippers. The problem is that I'm pretty sure this is also our fire alarm system. So either Chris will have to perform a Christmas Miracle or I'll be heading to Target tonight to get some new free-standing fire alarms.

18 months

Dex is 18 months! I can't believe he's been a part of our lives for a year and a half. Before I get to the list of things I want to remember about Dexter at 18 months, we need a few words on his reckless, moose-like strength.

The kid is strong. I mean like a Bear. Or a Professional Wrestler. I tried to put him in his stroller earlier today when he did not want to go, and I found myself panting and then laughing at the effort it took. And I almost didn't get him in his stroller without help. He went stiff as a board, and there was no helping it.

This strength is coupled with absolutely no regard for his own personal safety, leading to some stress for his mama and au pair.

He is a Maniac. A Wild Man. My friend, Heather, who has a son 2 days older than Dexter, commented on her blog recently that when she had her daughter Elizabeth (who was calm, quiet, and cautious), people told her "just wait until you have a real kid". I got these types of comments when we just had Frankie too, and they always kind of offended me. I mean, Frankie's a real kid, right? Yes, but then we had Dex. And we understand now. He is liable to fling himself off the couch, top of the stairs, whatever he is positioned on top of into nothingness. He rips up books, chokes on food, destroys a 'clean' room by flinging toys all over it in a manner of seconds, puts every toy in his mouth, plays with the electrical outlets, and falls all the time.

He does this "throw his head back" move where he ends up going from standing to flat on his back, and cracks the back of his head hard on the floor. He did this in the course of play like 3 times right before nap the other day, when I was about 14 inches from him, and couldn't react quickly enough to prevent the cracking of the head. He seems so surprised (and then starts to cry from the pain) every time. In his crib, he will jump high in the air, and do a twist to land on his bottom, although this doesn't always work and he ends up cracking his head on his crib slats.

I feel like this video sums some of this up:


We've had to start disciplining him. We smack his hand when he throws something from his high chair, and we hold his hands and firmly tell him "no hit" when he tries to hit his sister (which is often). He has taken to biting me (or at least trying to - I've gotten bit enough to see it coming) when I grab his hands in this manner. Fortunately he doesn't bite anyone else right now, although has been known to bite Frankie in the past.

Some days it doesn't feel like it, but I think we're making some progress - you can see the light go on, and he understands what the verdict is. He doesn't like it, of course, but that's okay. Like yesterday, we were both in the living room and he started to rip a book. I said firmly "No, Dexter." And he jumped. Animated-cartoon style. Then he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and started to lift the page again as if to rip it. I said "No, Dexter." again the moment he lifted the page enough to rip it, and he kind of rolled his eyes at me, but but the page back. This went on 3-4 times until I finally couldn't hide the laughter anymore, and then we both had a laugh and a snuggle.

That being said, we can't always be with him 24-7, so many of our books are now ripped, most of our toys have been chewed on, and I'm sure the only reason our walls haven't been colored on is that we still manage to keep a strict distance from him and the crayons. While Frankie's big waterloo has always been whining, his seems that it will be physical self-control.

But he's fun. And this is one thing I want to remember about you at this age, Dexter. You love to be tickled, and are quick with a giggle. Some other things I want to remember:

• You're easy to entertain as long as it involves chasing you around the house and hiding on occasion. Your other favorite games involve turning on every toy you have that makes noise and chasing MacGyver. I think you would fit in well at the Polk's house.
  
• You go to bed around 7:30, and sleep until 6:45 (yes, people, we are living the dream, somewhere along the line we started to put the kids to bed a little later - Frankie's bedtime is 8:00, and miraculously we have children who wake closer to 7 than 6). You sleep well at night, and enjoy sharing a room with your sister. In the afternoons it's unpredictable. Some days you don't sleep at all, other days you sleep for 10-20 minutes before something wakes you up, other days you'll sleep for 3-4 hours (probably to make up for the other days, which happen 3 days/week).
• You still don't have many words (I think we're just barely hitting that 5-word quota), but you're getting better at communicating your needs. The hard part right now is that you get really frustrated when you can't communicate what you want, but sometimes even when you do I have to say no, which is just devastating.
• You like to dance to Animal Action and This little light of mine.
• You like to read books at night. This is the only time of day you'll sit still voluntarily, and you'll sit in my lap for 20-30 minutes at a time. You really like Maisy, and laugh every time Eddie sits in that pool. You make a funny growling noise when we read your Animal Baby book, and it's on a page with a chicken, pig, horse, and cow, so we're not sure which animal noise you're making, but either way it's cute.
• You keep your shoes on for longer periods of time, although now we're starting the gloves battle. We're going to have to work hard to make sure you doesn't loose a finger to frost bite this winter.
  
• You're getting pickier about food, but you like soups, which is a relief. You love "carrots with white sauce", cheese quesadillas, hot dogs, mac and cheese, butternet squash, peas, chicken some days, and eat oatmeal every morning.
  
• You love Mama, Rachel, Daddy, Didi, and Rebecca, but love Mama the best.

And now for some photos and videos of the big boy!

Bravely going down the stairs all by himself:

A video of the going down the stairs (click through)

Mama and her boy

Coloring at the library:



Oatmeal in the mornings!

Wild dancing that ends in (surprise!) a fall, bump on the head, and lower lip coming out:

Big boy at the park (with Tia Lulu)

I'm not Frankie, I'm Cinderella

I don't think I've mentioned yet how princess obsessed our little Frankie has become. We have not encouraged the Princess thing, but it has hit our house hard, and appears to be here to stay for a while. Ever since Halloween, after she wakes up, she decides to put on one of her collection of Princess Dresses. We have 3 - two from the infamous garage sale, and one from Halloween this past year. Her decided favorite is the blue one, because Cinderella wears blue. She knows this because we have a Commemorative Slurpee Cup from 7-Eleven with various Disney princesses on it, and it has become the authority on the various outfits of the princesses, and which color each princess likes best.

She also has 2 wands (we had to buy a second one because she lost the first somewhere in the house, and it caused such heart ache we broke down and got a back up. And then found the first). And a pair of "glass slippers", which are just little silver fabric shoe covers that she's almost worn thin in the last month. And a Tiara (headband).

After she gets dressed, she often refuses to respond to Frankie. She'll tell you "I'm not Frankie, I'm Cinderella". But it's not always Cinderella, sometime she's Jasmine, Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or Belle, and is liable to change her persona throughout the day. Cinderella can be coerced to come to the dinner table by the royal proclamation that "Belle is throwing a dinner party and has requested your presence, my lady". She will then go to the dinner table and greet all the other princesses. I've caught her talking to a row of chairs who are apparently full of princesses throwing a tea party.

It's so stinking cute. I'm really enjoying this stage of imagination and creative play. The sense of wonder is so profound, and is quite contagious. She loves to hear stories, especially ones that start with "Once upon a time...", and as a house hold we have enjoyed making up stories about recurring characters (I tell stories about Hannah and Swiper - more on that later, Chris tells stories about Prim Pony and Francerella, and Rachel tells stories about all the princesses).

Each night she puts her princess items in a special basket in the playroom, and I like that we have to be consistent about this. If we forget, and she can't find her glass slippers in the morning, we get to talk about how we need to take care of our things and how she must have forgotten to put them away the night before.

Here she in in her Halloween costume from this year (not on Halloween)


And here's a series of pictures I put on Facebook but forgot to post on the blog, that Rachel took at the Frog Pond park. It's officially winter now, but we had a nice fall!







Click through for a video on leaf-throwing fun!

Thanksgiving 2009

We had 22 people over for Thanksgiving this year. It was great! We have much to be thankful for as we celebrated with friends, new and old. Everyone brought some food to share, and I made the turkey and other fixin's. Although, as we were all sitting down to eat someone said "Where's the stuffing?" Um, whoops. In the madness of getting food ready for 21 people to eat at the same time (Ellery, who counted among the 22, is 3 months old, and therefore did not eat dinner :) ) I totally forgot to make the stuffing. By that point, it seemed too late, so we did without. But, with a 25-lb turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies, green bean casserole, squash casserole, 7-layer salad, broccoli salad and 2 kinds of rolls followed by 4 pies and a homemade flan, we had plenty of food.
The Spread

The Turkey

Table #1

Table #2 (sorry for the fuzzy photo!)

Dominoes before dinner

Rachel, Myumi, Tia Lulu, and Priscilla

Since Thursday, we have spent the weekend on some home improvement we've meant to get to since we moved in 18 months ago - we now all have curtains! The kids' rooms is done. Finally.

Notice Frankie in her bed (this bed is just right...):

Notice this picture Frankie took of Mommy in her bed (this bed is tooo small):

We have also gotten our tree, trimmed it, and put out all the other Christmas decorations. Whew. We're ready for the old man to come. Last night when we went to the "Christmas Tree Farm" (which was really just one of our local grocers, Lambert's), Frankie was really worried about Christmas time being over after we finished getting the tree. We explained to her that the season had just begun! She still seemed a little worried. She still lives in a world where time means past, present and right now. And everything but right now is a little muddled. Past is usually "Yesterday" and anything in the future is "Tomorrow".