He Put Lights On My Tree! - Dec 30

Merry Christmas, everybody! Christmas IS OVER.

It's no secret that I'm kind of the Christmas Grinch around here but I have enjoyed Christmas much more since Chloe came along. Every year we must think to ourselves, perhaps it will be easier this year. HA! Of course, it never is. Usually Heather will hit the streets running and shop in all the stores that I would never set foot in. I manage to do all that new fangled online shopping you might have heard of. Together, we make a great team but it's still a ton of work and this year once again it all came down to the 11th hour. Let's just say that a little Amazon fairy told us that Chloe's new roller skates(from us) weren't going to be her until Monday but with a bit of luck and some Christmas magic, our package actually arrived on Friday. WIN.

This year, one of the things that Chloe was surprised by was that Santa actually put Christmas lights on her little tree that she has in her room. She didn't actually mention this to Santa in her visit in person but she did mention it when we were discussing things she wished Santa would bring her. They weren't even lit up and it was the first thing she noticed when she got out of bed. I was just as shocked as she was to see a little battery powered set of lights in her tree when she showed me! Good job, Santa! =)

We certainly had a busy weekend with our families and there was no shortage of presents for and "thank you's" from Chloe. Thank you everyone for making Christmas another memorable one. I'm just going to share a few photos of our Christmas morning here at home. Chloe was so cute and she was very excited (as you will see) to open all of her gifts from Santa (& from us, of course) She got several things from her list but not all. We'll see if anything else shows up in about a week for her birthday. lol! I hope you had a Merry Christmas and this weekend coming up, a Happy New Year celebration. We will likely celebrate by taking down all of our Christmas decorations and packing for our "not entirely a surprise", surprise trip to Disneyland next week for Chloe's Birthday.

Have a great weekend, folks!

-B

Cookies For Santa! - Dec 23

T-Minus 1 day and counting until good ole Saint Nick makes the rounds and Chloe wakes up to find out if being a good girl (most of) this year has paid off or not. LOL.

As has been their yearly tradition, Heather and Chloe make these awesome sugar cookies and then I come in at the end and help frost them...and eat them.
Christmas is just around the corner, literally. This week has been way more chaotic than I would have preferred it to be. As of this moment we are actually still waiting for 1 more thing to be delivered which may or may not arrive by xmas eve. If it does not arrive by Saturday good news, it now just becomes a Birthday present. I do not wish to be a UPS/FedEx/USPS delivery person this time of year.

So the cookies have been frosted, and I'll verify tomorrow that we have some carrots for the reindeer and we should be good to go. Next stop, CHRISTMAS!

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

From Chloe, To Santa! - Dec 16

One of my favorite things to do with Chloe every Christmas season is to go visit Santa. The best part about taking Chloe to see Santa is our local Santa IS THE REAL GUY. =)

We have been visiting Santa since Chloe was not quite 1 year old so this marks our 7th successful visit in a row. I say that because obviously I have plenty of friends that have experienced shall we say..trouble..taking their children to see Santa. The number of screaming faced kid with Santa photos that hit Facebook every year must be in the millions. Chloe, never. Each year she becomes more and more excited to talk to the big man himself and deliver her wish list. This year is significantly different than years past as Chloe is quite comfortable writing her own list and spent many hours pining over catalogs and magazines to come up with a whole laundry list of things I've never heard of. LOL.

This year I think starts to mark the first year where Chloe is starting to question some of the logistics of Santa Clause and his ability to actually do the things he is said to do on Christmas night. We forget sometimes how smart Chloe is and she tries to apply her smarts in such a way that she questions things in a logical fashion but then also is willing to forgive the facts that just don't make sense to her because she's a kid and she just wants to believe. In one breath she's asking me how Santa can possibly visit every household in one night and in the next she's asking me if she can leave extra carrots out this year for all the reindeer(since she has memorized all of their names).

So after delivering her written list to the mailbox, and spending 5 or so minutes chatting with Santa exchanging witty banter, we snapped our photos and were on our way.
And so begins the countdown, t-minus 9 days and counting until Christmas. If you aren't done shopping by now, it's time to get started..DAD.

Have a great weekend, folks~

B

Santa's Hat! - Dec 9

This week came and went and I'm not even sure how it's Friday again already. Chloe somehow decided this week that she wanted to wear a Santa hat to school. I would have figured that would not be a good idea or perhaps not even allowed but Chloe assured me that other kids had been wearing them and her teacher said it was okay. I hesitated a little but then I figured, what's the worst that can happen?

Probably LICE.

Lice is the worst that can happen.

LOL

I made sure to pep talk Chloe about the "rules of the hat" number one rule being no sharing of the Santa hat. Rule number 2 being if she has any behavioral issues or has to be told by the teacher to stop doing some weird behavior with the hat(I dunno, hitting someone with it?) that it was gone. Other than that, live it up kiddo. Of course she did just fine but I feel pretty certain had I not at least given her some guidance, bad things might have happened and Santa would know about it. He knows if you have been bad or good so be good for goodness sake...? Yeah.

Here are some of the many faces of Chloe. Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

Traditions - Dec 2

Facebook does this thing now where it reminds you on a daily basis about photos you have posted or things you have done in the past on any given day. I don't post a ton of stuff but pretty much every day it comes up with something to remind me about and yesterday(Dec 1st) it reminded me that it has been 7 years since we first landed in the hospital unexpectedly with Chloe and I have a really clear ultrasound picture to prove it. Apparently, I posted the photo I took of the ultrasound but I'm sure nobody at the time knew we were in the hospital worried about the possibility of an early delivery. It's just one of those things that I will always pretty much be able to remember like it was yesterday.

Thanksgiving as I mentioned marks the ridiculous downward slide that we find ourselves in heading towards Christmas(then Chloe's birthday). It seems to be our tradition that we spend "black Friday" at home putting up all the xmas decorations and the tree. Our second tradition seems to be Chloe helping me putting up the Christmas lights on the house. I'm sure most kids are eager to help if you give them the chance to. Chloe is no exception and I try to find ways to get her involved with anything and everything. She loves is. This year I allowed her to unbox everything and to test the lights using the extension cord, then her job(as it usually is) was to hand me the gutter clips for the lights and to help hold the lights off the ground as I move the ladder. No fancy lights for us, just the old school looking colored bulbs but I actually really enjoy the simplicity of it.

And with that, here are some photos of us doing our typical things we find ourselves taking care of this week. Have a great weekend, folks~

-B