Winterhaven

On Wednesday we made it over to winterhaven. It was quite the chilly night (down to about 40 degrees... OK chilly by our standards) Try as I might though I couldn't get Evie to take off the pink dress she picked up at the street fair... at least I convinced her to wear the awesome new sweater that Oma made for her. It didn't exactly "go" with the dress but the end result was pretty cute.

This year we went with the Eriksons again as well as my folk and brother. Evie's favorite was definitely the house with the bellagio-esque water and music show. She was hopping up and down and dancing to the music as well as ohhing and ahhing.

After a stroll through winterhaven we came back to our house for pizza and beer and Evie and my dad treated us to some Christmas carols on the piano(s).

Cookies and the Parade of Lights!

The fun last weekend continued with my (now annual... two years running... not quite an institution yet) holiday cookie party. This year my mom offered to host at her spacious house. It was great! There was plenty of room for cooking and decorating. And, thanks to my Aunt and cousins, we had a ton of fabulous sprinkles, frosting and other decorating niceties!


Evie's two favorite parts of the cookie making affair were licking the batter off the beater and eating frosting, with a little bit of decorating with frosting thrown in for good measure. After a solid hour of cookie decorating and sugar intake the kids all went outside and played on my parents little patch of grass. They were all so cute and happy! A few kids ventured into the garage to see my dad and somehow (it is unclear to me how my dad could get suckered into it) he let them into the jag to check it out. Apparently, a week later, he is still cleaning cookie dough from the crevices of the car. No holiday party would be complete without a little music and Evie and her friend did a wonderful job of "playing" the piano for us too.


As if making cookies wasn't exciting enough... later that day we went down to IST for Evie's first official event with her new school, riding on the school's float in the Parade of Lights! The parade was a lot of fun, but for me the best part was bopping through town from the school to downtown on the back of the float. We got a lot of funny looks and honks from folks.

Whew, what a weekend... I think this weekend we may just all need to do nothing but nap....

Santa Take Two

Evie had her second (and I think final) encounter with Santa last Friday at the Holiday Party for Patrick's work. About a week ago Evie and I went out to Ross so she could pick out a present for Patrick for Christmas... more on that choice later... and she found this awesome Christmas dress for herself with a matching baby doll dress. (Good to know the shopping for yourself while shopping for others problem doesn't just happen to me) So before the party Evie insisted on getting all dressed up in her Christmas dress and had to make sure her dollie was dressed and set to go too.


The kids got kind of nervous because Santa was quite delayed. Turns out the battery on this motorcycle (actually I think it is a trike) was bum. Good thing not even a bad battery can keep Santa away. The kids must have hung out in front of Patrick's office for an hour waiting for him. Evie was a bit more shy this time a first but as soon as her name was called and she saw the big present she warmed up to him really fast. Santa brought her a fabulous pink camper, complete with a tent trailer. She has been playing with for hours on end ever since....

(Santa getting a jumpstart)

Dubious milestone #112

There are many things that I did not expect to happen to me when I became a parent. I like to think of them as my "dubious milestones". Dubious because I have heard rumors of them but quite frankly never thought they could possibly happen to me (How haughty and naive!)

For example, an early dubious milestone,I think it was number 6 or 7, was finding myself up to my elbows in poo after a particularly explosive bm (or poo-splosions as we called them). Another was the day, about two weeks ago, when my unhappy tot declared "I don't like you Mommy!" (That must have been dubious milestone number 100 or so... in another year I imagine we'll reach its sister milestone of the dreaded, "I hate you mommy"... gosh if I don't look forward to that one.)

The "best" to date though was the dubious milestone I achieved last Sunday,Number 112: locking my daughter and car keys into the car together. Now, never the one to go easy on achievements, I also managed to lock my house keys and our dog in the car as well. I must say that the little car-door-lock beeep as I shut the back door was just about the worst sound I have ever heard. After a brief moment of panic I looked at Evie and calmly said, "Sweetie I need to run next door for a moment but I'll be right back." She looked at me with her big doe eyes and said "OK Mommy, see you soon." I ran over to our neighbors, which, thankfully were there and used their phone to call Patrick, who, thankfully, for once actually picked up his cell phone. He was only about 15 minutes away (thankfully). To pass the time while I waited for Patrick to come home I played hide and seek with Evie through the windows of the car... she was very brave and only got a little upset toward the end of her wait in the car. So although it was a doozie of a dubious milestone all is well that ends well.

Here is to hoping that 1) I never do that again and 2) I get a bit of a reprieve from dubious milestones for awhile!

Santa, Take One

My folks, Patrick and I took Evie to zoo lights at the little zoo near our house last weekend. Last year we went with Patrick's mom and Evie was pretty scared on the white bearded man and our "santa picture" turned out as a picture of me with santa with a little bit of Evie's face showing and all of her back. (But it was a pretty good picture of me :)

This year was totally different. Once we arrived at zoo lights Evie made a b-line to the area where santa resides because she was so darn excited to see him. Once her turn came she hoped up on his lap answered his questions about how old she was, told him that last year she was scared of him and then, of course, informed him of her holiday request... a choo-choo train. She then gave him a big hug, received her candy and went along her merry way, happy as a clam. Trains were definetly the theme of the night and so as we left we just had to take a ride on the little zoo train, which was all decorated with lights for the occasion.


This Friday Evie will get to see Santa again at Patrick's work, we'll see how she reacts to the second Santa of the season....