Boxing Day Gift

In our new house, I have this super awesome room that is completely devoted to being my craft room. My Mom used it to sew and iron curtains for 3 rooms in the house. Well, over the last couple of weeks, I tackled my first big craft project in this house and, ironically, spent no time using my craft room for it. The room, however, did make a great storage space for supplies when I had to hide the project away. I did this every day after working on it as the project was meant to be a Christmas gift for Dylan and I didn't want him to see it.

The reason I didn't end up using my craft room was simply due to the scale. It was too huge for my craft table. I worked mostly on our kitchen island and the floor. What was this grand scale project? A car mat for Dylan.

I was inspired to do this by a crafting blogger's mat. The one she made out of felt was so cute and seemed fairly straightforward to make. Plus, it brought back great memories of the one I (and my brothers) played for hours on as a child. The one I played on was painted on fabric. Now, I can be a crafty gal but I'm definitely no great artist when it comes to paint on canvas so I went with the crafty felt way.

I started planning this in plenty of time. One night in November, after Dylan went to sleep, I headed to the fabric store and bought a stack of different colored felts, with a coupon, for around $12.

Then, my lovely pile of felt sat in the bag, in my craft room, for a few weeks untouched. One night during the first couple of weeks of December, I cut the base of the mat, the strips that would be used as edging and the roads.

The Road Map
(See my helper in the top left corner?)

Then the project sat untouched for another week or two. There just seemed to be so much going on in December and my energy level was just not keeping up. But, nothing like a deadline to fuel the fire of productivity. The week before Christmas, I kicked productivity into high gear. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough time and I needed another couple of hours to finish. I did this during Dylan's nap time the day after Christmas so he got a nice Boxing Day gift from Mom and Dad. (Even though it was my project, Mike was a great helper\assistant in it so he did do a lot to get it ready for Dylan too.)

What's in the bag?
(You can see the post Christmas mess still lingering in the house.)

Wow! That's Cool!

It's a blanket!

After explaining it was not a blanket, but Dylan's Town,
a place for him to play with all of his cars, he excitedly jumped
all over it. Then asked, "what's a town?"

Getting the Tour of Dylan's Town

Yay! More jumping and excitement.

While I was disappointed to have missed giving to him on Christmas, Mike was absolutely correct that it would be even more special of a gift to be given to him outside of the rush. The joy he had opening it made the hours of cutting, hand cramping from cutting, gluing, burns from gluing and late nights all worth it!

So, now I present to you "Dylan's Town." Here's your tour of Dylan's car mat with which I hope he will get many years of fun.

The Whole She-Bang
(That's 1/2 of our ping pong table it's covering....not a small mat.)

The Farm

With Grocery Store Just Across the Street
(I hope that means we'll be able to get lots of super fresh produce there.)

The Mall and Parking Lot
So far, the parking lot seems to be his favorite spot on the map.

Our House (light blue one at top) and Neighborhood

The Lake and Garden

The All Important Library

Hospital, Clouds, Sun, Fire Station, Train, Police Station

Train Close Up

Zoo (Seal, Giraffe, Zebra and Lion)

Mom's Work

Music Class and Police Station

Christmas Day

Well, Christmas Day has come and gone. With all the fun things we did leading up to it, I'm a little sad to have to tell Dylan that things that he's become used to daily (finding Overton our Elf and opening a day on our Santa advent calendar) aren't going to be done anymore since Christmas is over. It's a good thing all of his new toys easily distract him from that sadness.

As Dylan had quite a few presents to open from family near and far, we made the decision to start on them a couple of days early. If it was going to be anything like his birthday, he would get tired after opening 2 of them. On the evening of the 23rd, we let him open gifts from his Uncle Jody's family and his Aunt Pam and Uncle Kerryn. He loved it and immediately wanted to put on some of his new jammies, read some of his new books and take his new stuffed animal to bed with him. He also wanted to open up more presents. I guess we didn't have to worry too much about him getting present overload!

Christmas Eve was busy. We dropped by our friends' Hanukkah party for just a bit but took off early to have our family Eve events. Dylan got a couple more gifts...some of the smaller ones we had to give him. Mike really wanted to give him all the new movies so that he could enjoy one that night. After opening what we gave him, he only wanted to watch an old favorite - Harry Potter. However, that was due to the fact that he'd just gotten a skeleton Lego man and the beginning of the Deathly Hallows Part II has a clip of Lego Voldomort making silly faces in a mirror that Dylan loves to watch. So, after decorating some of the gingerbread cookies we had made to be left out for Santa and having a nice family dinner, that was our Christmas Eve family night movie.

After Dylan went to bed, the elves (us) got to work. Santa presents were laid out and I furiously tried to finish a very special gift I was making for Dylan. As the clock ticked closer to 11, I finally resigned to the fact that I wouldn't finish and would give it to him as a post Christmas Day present. After another hour of set up and stocking stuffing, the tired elves headed to bed.

Cookies and Milk for Santa

The next morning when Dylan woke up, we made a big hoopla about it being Christmas Day and we needed to go see what Santa had left. To capture the excitement of Dylan's reaction, I had Mike take a video of Dylan and I walking downstairs, seeing our Elf on the tree and continuing around the corner to see the plate of eaten cookies nearby where Santa had left the pile of presents. Even though no one else was around, Dylan got a little shy\overwhelmed by it all and reacted by hiding behind my leg a little bit. While we could tell he was happy about checking out his presents, it took him a while to loosen up and act that way externally.

The Presents Await!

Santa's Been Here

His BIG present from Santa was a big boy bed! We'd talked to him just a few times in passing about how you get to sleep in a big boy bed when you get old enough. Well, when Santa brought him one, we made a HUGE deal about how Santa must think he's a really big boy to have brought him that! That made him pretty happy and excited about it. While Mike made us waffles for breakfast (with one of my Christmas Eve gifts, a Belgium waffle maker), Dylan got cozy in his new bed, at least as cozy as you can without a mattress, and read his new books and played with his new toys.

After breakfast, we moved all the gifts from under the tree into the living room so we could open them in a comfortable setting. Sitting on the couch with pillows situated just right is about the only way I'm comfortable these days. Pretty quickly, Dylan dashed back to the other room to hang out in the bed. The only way he joined us was Mike moving his new bed into the living room for the fun. We were overjoyed that he liked it that much!

As Christmas is obviously not really about what we got, I won't be petty and list all the material things we exchanged. Though, I will say that Mike did a great job of being thoughtful with my gifts and I think (hope) he felt the same about what I chose for him.

The kitties gave Dylan a stuffed shark.

We needed to head to Mike's sister's house for the afternoon so we wanted Dylan to go down for a nap earlier than usual. In what was likely a horrible parental plan, we put Dylan down for a nap 30 minutes early, in a new big boy bed after a very exciting morning that hadn't lost momentum. Sometimes you can't plan or worry too much about these things and just have to go for it and see how it plays out.

Getting Ready for His First Nap in His Big Boy Bed
(He's the thing in the middle. At least there's the extra shelf at
the end of the bed where we can put some of the stuffed animals.
If you think this is crowded, you should have seen his crib!)

Children will very often amaze and surprise you. Yes this can happen in both good and bad ways but somehow the good ways floor you more and will be the ones you remember most. Well, Christmas Day 2011 is one of the days that Dylan just impressed the hell out of me. After lying in bed for just 30 minutes (not completely unusual for a "normal" nap day), he very successfully took a nap in his new big boy bed! Wow! And, I'm happy to report that he hasn't looked back. He still loves his bed and has been doing absolutely wonderfully in it since. (I hope I haven't just jinxed myself.) The crib is sitting empty in his room and will soon be moved to the baby's room.

Once the big boy woke up, we all got ready (in about record time I think) and headed to Mike's sister's house where the true chaos would begin. Mike's family is great. I love them dearly. But, as they are very much are aware of, the craziness that happens when they all get together is something to get used to. It's a very different pace and volume than I'm used to with my family. After years of family gatherings with them, I'm mostly used to it. However, throw in a couple of crazy (but also very lovable) dogs and a whole 'nother family (my sister-in-law's in-laws), you get a very loud, nutty afternoon!

We ate, we talked, we played with the dogs, the kids played together, new toys were shown and shared and general merriment was had by all. After we were all full from food and the kids were getting restless in anticipation, more presents were passed out. The next block of time was a complete blur! Kids were ripping gifts open left and right, wrapping paper seemed to be flying about and I couldn't even keep up with having Dylan open what was handed our way. Then, things settled a bit and kids scattered to enjoy even more new stuff.

Dylan Checking Out His New Computer

Bumpa (Mike's Dad), Uncle Jim and Cousins Jacob and Corwin

Dylan, a Very Tired Me and Jacob

Then, Dylan and I were pooped. It was time for us to gather our things, say our goodbyes and head home. What a big day! Everyone was too generous, kids were mostly behaved and no major drama went down. Now that's a great Christmas Day.

Merry Merry 2011

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

And for any of my readers that might not celebrate this holiday, then just have a great day!

Not the Gumdrop Buttons!!

After our exciting Christmas event in the city over the weekend, my day off on Monday was low key. Mike and I got some presents wrapped during Dylan's nap time and then we just had one fun activity to enjoy in the afternoon - cookies!

Dylan is a big fan of the Shrek movies. He's been excited this Christmas to see so many "Gingie's" around. Mike thought it would be a great idea to make some....and he was right!

Making the gingerbread cookies was a family effort. Mike made the dough, I rolled it out, Dylan and I used cookie cutters to make all kinds of Christmas shapes, Mike baked them and then Dylan and I decorated a few.

The Boys

Dylan Showing Off Gingie

My Helper

Messy Hands

Making a Mongo Gingie

Decorating

Finished Cookie

Mmmmmm!

Candy Cane Frosting Lips

Dylan enjoyed the using the cookie cutters a lot and really did a great job. He also loves the cookie dough ornaments on our tree. So we're going to try and make some more cookie dough ornaments in the next couple of days. I'll let you know how that goes!

Christmas in the City

For a couple of folks that just moved out to the burbs, we sure have been visiting the city a lot more than we normally do. Without traffic, it takes about the same about of time now to get into downtown Boston as it did from our previous Boston address. Weird, right? In any case, it's a good thing we have a pretty direct route in because we used it several times last weekend - 3 times in 3 days as a matter of fact.

Trip #1 was taken Friday evening to see a performance. This particular performance has been playing for about 10 years in the area and I've always wanted to go. Since Mike and I likely won't be able to have too many nights to ourselves in the near future, I convinced him to take me to this show for date night. The show? Well, it's a take off of a classic - the Urban Nutcracker! The show is produced by BalletRox, which is an inner city dance studio. In addition to some of the classic music and ballet moves of the original Nutcracker, there are also some jazzed up versions of the music and lots of other different forms of dance including tap, hip hop and swing. While the chairs were not the most comfortable in my condition and the auditorium too hot, Mike and I really enjoyed the show. Since almost 50% of the audience was kids, I felt a little guilty for leaving Dylan at home with our (new) sitter, but there is no way he would have been able to sit still for that amount of time that long past his bed time.

Trip #2 to the city happened Saturday night for my company's Holiday party. It took place at the Museum of Science. We all got dressed up and went to the event not knowing how long Dylan would last. It started at 6:00pm and Dylan usually heads to bed at 7:30. He doesn't do very well staying up later than that. Just like most days as a parent, you have to go with the flow. When we first go there, he was excited to check out the natural history displays that were just outside the event room.

Just a bit later though, when standing in line to see Santa, a tired boy wanted to be held and rest his head on my shoulder.

This time, being tired when seeing Santa worked to our advantage. I talked to him (again) while we were in line about what he would talk to Santa about. This time, he wanted to tell Santa that he wanted toys for Christmas. I set him down when it was his turn and he walked towards Santa with open arms ready for a hug and a sit on his lap. When Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas, Dylan looked at what was in Santa's hand and told him "a candy cane!" Well Santa, I guess your job is done. That candy cane was all he needed.

And we even managed to get a sort of smile for the picture!

Luckily, the candy cane not only entertained him while Mike and I had a chance to grab some dinner (Dylan sucked on the candy cane for his meal), the sugar gave him a little boost. He went out to visit the animals again and even cooperated long enough for us to quickly walk through the Pompeii exhibit that was there. He especially liked the part of the special exhibit that had a display of about 30 skeletons. Does his fascination with skeletons make him morbid or just super cute that he is still excited about Halloween stuff? I'm going with cute.

After our very quick trip through the Pompeii exhibit, we headed home. Made it until about 8:30. Not too bad. Of course, I don't feel like I got to talk to and enjoy any of my coworkers, but that's how parties go when you're there with a child.

Trip #3 happened on Sunday. We hadn't seen our friends Tamara and Ross for a while so we arranged to meet downtown for some holiday fun for their little girl Elsa and our Dylan. There was an outdoor holiday shop we thought we could check out, take in some of the downtown holiday decorations and also pop by the Boston Common to see folks ice skate on the Frog Pond.

We've had such mild weather for this time of year that we aren't quite accustomed to what kind of weather is more appropriate in this season....ie COLD! Last weekend Jack Frost finally arrived and Sunday was a very frigid day that none of us were quite prepared for. So, after listening to the singers outside of Macy's, strolling through the heated tent of the market and checking out a few decorations, Tamara, Ross and Elsa had had enough and headed for warmth. Mike, Dylan and I continued to the park and, rather briefly, watched the skaters, admired the town's Christmas tree and headed back to our car where we blasted the heater. Brrrrr!

Holiday Market and Street Vendors

Dylan Saying Hi to Elsa

The Tree on the Ledge of Macy's

Almost to the Park (They turned back just after this.)

The Frogs

Watching the Ice Skaters

Skating on the Pond

Admiring the Window Displays One Last Time on the Way Back to the Car

Our friends, after stopping to get some warm beverages at Dunkin Donuts, met us back at the house where we enjoyed a pizza night and each other's company. It had been a very eventful weekend and I was exhausted! Thank goodness I had taken off on Monday and would have some time to recuperate from all the excitement.

Christmas Wrappin'

Christmas Wrappin' by the Waitresses is my favorite holiday tune. It makes me happy to hear. Every time I hear it on the radio, which isn't often as it's not a traditional Christmas song that gets lots of play, I start bouncing in my seat and singing along. That's not easy as it is (as the title infers) a bit of a Christmas rap. That means a lot of fast words. At the beginning of the season, my singing along to it mostly includes a lot of mumbling followed by the belting out of the chorus. After hearing it a few more times and refreshing my brain to the lyrics, I can mostly really "rap" along to it by the time Christmas rolls around and it gets returned to the music archives until the next November. Repeat next year. In any case, I was excited to hear the music to that tune start in the middle of a very boring Christmas Glee episode last week. Unfortunately, their version pretty much stunk and added to my disappointment of that episode.

Just like that last paragraph, this post is going to be about some random things I've been doing\thinking over the last week. None merit their own post, some hardly merit mention in this one, but all make me want to write them down to get them out of my brain and onto "paper."

At my regular OB appointment last week, I inquired as to how many tums I should be taking a day. I've been popping those things like candy. While heartburn is something I never have the joy of experiencing outside of pregnancy, inside of pregnancy it's a daily occurrence. Lately, my meal cycle has been eat, feel heartburn and queasiness the next 4 to 5 hours while I pop tums every now and then, stomach starts an extreme rumbling, eat, repeat heartburn and tums popping. Fun, right? So I have the conversation with my OB worried that I'm actually taking too much calcium through the heartburn meds. Sure enough, I am. (Apparently excess amounts of calcium aren't great for the ol' kidneys.) Her solution, why don't I try Zantac? Well, I didn't know I could take it. So, right after the appointment, Zantac was purchased and I took my first pill that night. Magic! It worked WAY better than tums and is not only a reactive drug, but a preventative one as well. It has been added to my daily medication regimen for at least the next 4 to 5 weeks. Goodbye tums! My days of popping you like candy are over! (Side note, I have a big stock of tums at home, work and in my car. If any one's interested in them, let me know and I'll send them on over.)

I'm "still" toting around my "old" 3GS iPhone. "Old" in the technological sense because I've had it about 2 and a half years. I was holding out for the rumored iPhone 5 but will settle for the new 4GS. I've been putting off choosing a plan and making the purchase as I went to the plan chart once, got confused (baby brain) and just hadn't gone back. I put on my big girl pants this week to face it again....ok not really....Mike pulled up the chart, translated it for my muddy brain and we chose a plan for me and ordered my new phone. Yay! It should be here in a week or so. Just in time to take better phone pics of the new baby and the existing super cute toddler too.

With an infant soon approaching that's going to be waking me at night a lot, I decided I needed to grow out my hair to easily pull it back. Well now, I have just enough hair for a little ponytail. Dylan asked what was on my head the other night and I told him it was a ponytail. The next night he hugged me, patted the back of my hair and asked me "what happened your ponytail?" That little guy is such a little sponge and smart as a whip. It's really a joy to see that learning at work on a daily basis.

Dylan has been starting the kid thing of avoiding bed time. We are starting to hear excuses from "watch tv one more minute" to "I have some water" are popping up. And so it begins. Perfect time to change up his bed time routine with a new "big boy" bed right? That's going to be interesting.

As always, Dylan's a great talker. Lately, he's started this new thing of answering his own question. He'll ask "what's on the tree" and then give you the answer. So, he doesn't need us around for anything more than an audience to his conversation sometime. He also has some cute vocabulary mistakes. I'm not sure how, but in the beginning of Dylan being vocal, granola bars somehow was translated "ba-das." Over a year later, this they are still "ba-das." Around Halloween, as I think I mentioned, he became obsessed with skeletons. However, he called them something that more closely resembling "skelechicken." It's too cute to hear and we find ourselves called them skelechickens too so we can keep hearing his cute pronunciation. He can learn how to say it "right" some day in the future and that will be fine with us. Another cute new development is Dylan's love of "going around and around." What kid doesn't love spinning around? But, instead of getting dizzy, Dylan will fall down and say "I'm busy." It cracks us up!

Here's a quick video that I took of Dylan just before Halloween trying to capture his skelechicken pronunciation. Don't worry, I was at a stop light while filming!

For almost 2 and a half years, we avoided one of those fairly common baby\toddler\kid events. But, this week it finally happened. Dylan pooped in the shower. Yeah, normally that kind of thing happens in the tub but Dylan showers instead. Every morning, Dylan will get in the shower with me, stay in and play for a while solo and then Mike will get in with him. This means he usually showers anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour pretty much every day. Cleanest toddler in the world, right? He loves playing in the shower. Anyway, Friday when I was getting ready for work, Mike and I had both finished our showers and Dylan was still in there by himself. We heard either "I didn't do that" or "don't do that" over and over (not sure which exact phrase was being said). Mike went in to see what was going on. A moment later, Mike came back into the bedroom and said "We have a situation. Dylan pooped in the shower!" My response was "what are you doing in here? You just left him in there with the poop!" Lately, Mike's stomach has been a lot stronger than mine for that kind of thing (I guess it's pregnancy smell sensitivity that's making me wimpy) but for some reason, he couldn't handle this issue. So, I had to handle the "situation." Don't worry though, he got more of the work in the end. I did get Dylan and the poop out, but I had Mike clean (bleach, soap, etc.) the tubby toys and the shower so he got the bulk of the work in the end.

Wouldn't you know it, after 2 and a half years of not having this event, it repeated itself the very next day! Gross! Since another cute habit of Dylan's is to repeat house rules at random times, we've been hearing the phrase "don't poop in the shower" for the last couple of days. Words to live by my friends, words to live by!!!

3rd Annual Cousins Christmas

Last weekend saw the 3rd party at our house in just over a month. While I love being the hostess with the mostest, I must admit I'm relieved all party preparations are behind us. This one was the easiest as we were doing potluck so we had little to do in the way of food prep. And, what we did do, Mike single handedly took care of. However, I find myself constantly "staging" our house in the effort to get more boxes unpacked between every party. This one was no exception and I stayed busy in the days leading up to it getting the house ready.

All of Mike's cousins on his Mom's side live in the area and are around the same age as us (give or take 7 or 8 years). And, they also happen to be pretty great people that we enjoy being around. 3 years ago, one of them had the wise idea to do a yearly Christmas gathering and the tradition has been going strong since. Parents are invited too!

Not much is planned for the event other than bringing food and our fun selves. We do a gift swap for the kids but other than that, the evening is designed to be low key so we can just enjoy each others company. The party, as expected, was a great time. The adults enjoyed themselves, the kids enjoyed themselves, we all had full bellies and smiles on our faces. Obviously, a successful party.

Gathered in the kitchen as folks always seem to do at parties

Pretty Ladies - Kat, Leah and Jessie

Mmmmm.....cupcakes! Dylan and Nancy

He enjoyed at least one of each sweet that was brought.

Justin

The Present Swap

Ryan exhibited pure kid joy when seeing his Buzz and Woody doll gifts.

Dylan gives Leah a bow.

Air hockey - awesome!

All good times must come to an end though. Once kid bed time arrived, it was time to say our goodbyes.

Dylan and Ryan having a goodbye hug.

Dylan and Justin with their goodbye hug.

We normally have this same group together at Easter. Hopefully, though, we won't have to wait until the next major holiday to spend some family time together.