Dear Santa

Preparing for Christmas this year has been quite the drawn-out process! Not only are we getting ready for Santa, but we're also getting ready for Baby Girl Cousin #2, who is set to arrive on December 16. With that, and Gavin's first birthday on December 20, we'll have quite the social calendar each year in December!

It took us three days to put ornaments on our trees. We let Miles go crazy on our "family" tree, so the lower third of the tree has about 5 ornaments on each branch. Here's Round One:



Luckily, Marshall hasn't quite figured out that the ornaments are there yet in all of his crawling adventures. He's pretty focused on cords right now, so maybe he'll be drawn to the tree once he tires of that.

We had an impromtu photo session to see what we could come up with for our Christmas cards, and we got quite a few keepers! I was planning on using the world's cutest school pictures, but the Christmas ones turned out so well that we abandoned that plan. I won't spoil the surprise, but here's one that we didn't use. I think Miles looks so old in this one - it hurts my heart!



Today we visited Santa at my work. Marshall was not his biggest fan:



Miles told Santa that he wanted the race track thing that goes on the wall. Shortly after Thanksving, I helped him write his letter to Santa. Here's the transcript. I think Santa will probably do a pretty good job getting most of the stuff on this list, so you might not want to buy him any of this stuff!

Dear Santa,
I would like more socks. Some of my socks are too small and too empty. I want a train (like a black train on a black track). That is what I saw on a kid newspaper. A black robot (editor's note: Miles has been referring to him recently as "a black guy"). He's that tall and says "MM. MM. MM." and he moves his feet like that. And he talks to other robots and says, "Hey, I'm a robot." He tackles him! Maybe a gumball machine that's like big and straight with colored gumballs inside...like a rainbow. On my next one, I want another robot that punches Transformer bad guys. A star machine with lots of twinkly stars. A grabber thingy that can grab my boots and throw it in my room and let go and pops in my room. I want some new boots. Some more crayons too. A Mr. Potato Head that goes on his head. I want maybe a boat just like on the Curious George movie and it goes, "Moooooot!" (like loud). Two rocket ship crayons.

I like you Santa.

Love,
Miles

Turkey Flu

So, you might remember a while back when Miles had the swine flu. It's not quite Bird Flu, but I like to call this year's round the Turkey Flu. Miles brought home the foul little fowl the night before Thanksgiving. He was up all night puking but was in surprisingly good spirits the next day. I was hoping he just had a minor bug, and that would be the end of it. This is where the wah-wah sound effect would come in if this were a TV show. We enjoyed a relaxed morning with Uncle David, Aunt Hilary, and Gavin. The best part of it all - Marshall decided to start crawling!!

And, yes, that is a dog chewie. Notice the 273 different toys strewn around and how that boy was only interested in the nasty chewed-up raw hide that he couldn't have. Whatever motivates him! Miles got better throughout the day, and, despite my feeling like dung, we all seemed to have a nice family Thanksgiving dinner. Marshall even got to eat Turkey with Sweet Potatoes baby food!

It wasn't quite Miles' favorite food...if he had he wish, he would have had Taco Bell. (The Sunday before, he told the entire congregration during the Children's Sermon that Taco Bell was the place he was most thankful for.)

I started to feel better the next day, so I hoped the whole illness thing was a fluke. (WAH, WAH) We decided to go downtown to see the Circle of Lights illuminated. Here's a pic before the lights came on.

Unfortunately, Uncle David, Aunt Hilary, and Gavin didn't make it to the countdown, thanks to the Turkey Flu's decision to take vengeance on Uncle David. I was the next victim later that evening. Oh, the Humanity!!!

Just as I was beginning to make a recovery, we noticed that Marshall had a fever. Shortly afterward, Jason was laid out from the Turkey's treachery. We heard that Aunt Hilary and Gavin made it home in time for them to be struck down by the Turkey's fury as well.

After three days of fevers, we took Marshall in to the doc. He confirmed that it was indeed Influenza A. He said that we were his first official case of the year. I told him we were honored. All of this, and our entire family had flu shots! I lamented to the doc about the point of it all, and he reminded me that things could have been a lot worse if we hadn't gotten the shots.

So, lesson for the day. Get your flu shots...or the Turkey Man may come to get you too!

That Little Witch, DST

Extra hour of sleep, my ass.

(WARNING: Lack of sleep may produce blog posts rife with PG-13 rated vocabulary. It'll be no worse that what you see on prime time TV...so deal with it.)

Ah - Daylight Savings Time. I never understood why Hoosiers were so up in arms when we started switching our clocks a few years back. I (and the other 47 states) grew up with DST, and it was no big deal. Apparently, the Hoosiers whining about the change must have all had kids.

This fall started out promising. We slowly adjusted Miles' schedule to keep him up a little later the week prior, and on Sunday morning, he slept great! Sure, Marshall woke up at 5:15, but that was 6:15 the day earlier, and that wasn't so bad.

Then came yesterday morning. Marshall woke up at 4:30. OK, no big deal, it's just a blip. He'll get used to it. And Miles still slept until 6:15.

Then came this morning. 4:30 again. Miles wakes up me...Jason...and Marshall. After much whining (and threats to take away candy), I convince Miles to play "quietly" in his room while I feed Marshall. He comes in to ask for breakfast. He comes in crying because he can't build a tower with his Lincoln Logs. He comes in to ask me if I like his Army boots. All before 5am.

And then the "quiet" play starts. Whatever jerkfaces bought Buzz Lightyear (aka the World's Loudest Toy) and Bulldozer That Plays Cheesy 80s Rock Anthem (WTF?) are getting big red frowny faces in my Book of Mommy Offenses. Sorry if that's you...my brain is too hazy to remember who I'm offending right now. That's what happens when you have a migraine and a space ranger comes in to greet you with flashing lights and sirens at 5:15.

So, here it is, not even 9am, and I've done some work, written this post, and drunk three cups of coffee...all while waiting for Marshall to wake up from his "mid-morning" nap so I can take him to day care.

When we were still lucid on Saturday, we did get out and enjoy the beautiful weather at the Butler football game. Some pics for your viewing pleasure:

Diggin' the Dinos

Miles got full use out of his Halloween costume this year - Buddy from Dinosaur Train. He tried it on for various family members at least 5 times, then he got to wear it for two different parties at school, and he put it on once again to visit Uncle Billy and Cathy.

All that matters is the big day though, Trick-or-Treat!



I'm embarrassed to admit that I got a little snippy with Jason over the ToT plan gone awry. I thought he would take Miles out to a few houses, then bring him back so I could check him out in action. Well, somehow the Candy Hound convinced Daddy to circle the entire block. Once Miles returned, he wanted to hand out candy (check out the tail):



I finally convinced him to go back out with me...he made it three houses before declaring that his feet hurt. Oh well - I got to spend most of my Halloween night with this little dino instead!



We did manage to get one quick pic with the two dinos together:




But the best one came beforehand!




Thanks to cousin Lyla, we had a cute jack-o-lantern. We visited the Kolbs last weekend and they took us to the cutest little pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkin. We had a great time!

Canvas, Carrots, and Cousin

It's school picture time! This year, picture day was a rare warm October day, so they took them outside. They turned out wonderfully!







Go to the photographer's website if you want to order some. They're expensive, but we couldn't resist the one of the boys together.

We missed a week of good home picture-taking, because Marshall was sick and wasn't too interested in smiling, even away from the camera. Luckily, he's back to normal!



That's his carrots face. He also loves pears and bananas. What should we try next? Maybe we'll be up to that delicious turkey-in-a-jar before Thanksgiving.

Last weekend was Daddy's last band contest. We are so proud of the Pride (yuk yuk) and how well they did at Semi-state. We are also SO happy to have our weekends free once again! Uncle David, Aunt Hilary, and Gavin came up and hung out too. Marshall had fun showing Gavin how to play some tunes on his favorite toy, the piano.



Next up - a couple of cute dinos on Halloween!

A Prediction

Jason and I were sitting on the couch last night watching the Tigers game when I glanced up and realized that Miles was wearing his Tigers hat in this year's pictures:

Then, I started to think back. Miles had his one-year pictures taken in his Colts jersey:

And...the Colts went on to lose in the Super Bowl that next season.

Miles had his two-year pictures taken in his Butler gear:



And...that was sandwiched in the middle of two straight losses in the NCAA National Championship game.

So, I'll go out on a limb to say that the Tigers will win the American League, only to lose it in the World Series. It's an honor just to make it to the championship, right?

In less loserly pursuits, Marshall is the proud bearer of one tooth! On October 7, Aunt Ashley and I discovered it - quite a surprise! The best part of it all is that there was no whiny, sad, long, drawn-out process. Marshall has never been the best sleeper - sure, he goes right back to sleep - but he was up every hour or two that week. Other than that, he was his normal, happy self! He's so happy that one of his teachers at day care said she thinks he might be the happiest baby she's ever had.

But, as usual, the picture I have to share is of crazy-face Marshall...but cute nonetheless!

Goin' to the Lodge

We had a big weekend! As is thankfully becoming a tradition, Jason's band swept District contest by winning every caption and coming in first place. We broke out the ol' Bee (scratch that - Yellow Jacket) costume once again, partially for cuteness and partially for warmth:



After the contest, we packed up the "brown car" and headed down to Cincinnati to meet the Kolbs at Great Wolf Lodge. We had all kinds of little things go wrong:

• We explored every inch of Mason, Ohio looking for the La Rosa's Pizza. Thanks, Crappy GPS, for telling us that La Rosa's was smack dab in the middle of Kings Island.
  
• Aunt KK accidentally took a sleeping pill instead of an anti-nausea pill right before we arrived. She was a trooper though and stayed awake all evening!
  
• Marshall arrived with an exploding nappy, which required a classy sink bath:
  
  
  
  
• We missed story time with the Wolf, even though the brochure said we were right on time. Luckily, Miles still got a pic:
  
  
  
• The girl at the ice cream shop literally pulled ice cream from a crying kid's hands. The front desk told us we could charge food to our room with our fancy pants bracelets, so we ordered the ice cream and stood in line to pay. Then the cashier tells us money has to be pre-loaded for it to work. And yes, not a single one of us had any money. Poor Miles - we were walking down the hall after he had calmed down, when he realized he was still holding the spoon. "What is this spoon for?" Pic in happier pre-ice cream debacle times:
  
  
  

The good news? Despite all of this, we all had a great time! Miles was a brave guy and went down the little water slide at least 5 times...he also has asked me if we could return at least 5 times too!





In totally unrelated news, Marshall had his 6-month well baby visit today. He was a good boy, even with the round of shots he got. He cried a little after the shot but managed to flash the nurse a smile of forgiveness before she left. He is 17 pounds (31%) and 26 1/2 inches (41%). That's a little smaller than his last appointment, but the doc didn't mention it, so we're guessing it's not an issue. It's good news for hand-me-downs though - above-average Miles born in June and below-average Marshall born in March means perfect sizing!

Since I last posted, Marshall is also sitting up! He had he first taste of cereal a couple of weeks ago and is doing well with it. We try green beans tomorrow!