Christmas (Eve and Day)

As usual, I’ve taken far too many pictures of Tennyson during our week in Chicago. So I’m going to split the visit into a few posts. And since Christmas was kind of the most exciting part of the visit (not to mention the whole reason for the visit), I thought it’d be appropriate to tell you about our Christmas activities first.
Christmas Eve:
Christmas Eve was unseasonably warm. We actually spent the afternoon on a walk and at the park. It was strange for Christmas Eve, but it was kind of nice.
Then for dinner, we went to a family in my parent’s ward. We ate Mexican food and discovered Tennyson has a love for taquitos. We realized this when he finished the ones I had gotten for him and proceeded to steal them off of my sister’s plate.
Then we played the chimes. Tennyson’s note played through pretty much the whole song. Until he started stabbing people with the nail we were using as a stick to chime with. That’s when his chime career ended.

We finished the night with a pinata. Well, that’s not entirely true. We actually finished the night by driving around looking at Christmas lights and listening to a 1930s radio recording of A Christmas Carol but I don’t have any pictures of that. So, for all you know, we finished the night with a pinata.
Tennyson was very selective in his loot picking. He only picked up the kit kat bars. Baby girl appreciated this. I think they’ll get along.

Christmas Morning:
I won’t lie, I was a little bummed when I found out we’d be going to church at 9am on Christmas morning. Sometimes I feel like 10am is too early. But then Christmas morning was so excited that I ended up waking up early anyway, so we actually did a lot before our 9am church.
Like stockings.
And Tennyson had a few unwrapped presents under the tree. Because Santa wanted him to have a few to play with while others were doing gifts (and because the elves never did figure out how to wrap a hat, a grocery cart, and a ball).
 
Church ended up being really nice.
And then it was time for presents.
Tennyson really made out well this year. And he had a lot more fun with the wrapping paper this year than last year. He’s got the whole unwrapping thing down.
Mike and I had a good Christmas, too. I surprised Mike with a kindle and he got me some boots that I absolutely love. Also, I got the last three seasons of Friends that I needed. I’ve been working for five black Fridays now to get all ten seasons of the show, and this year, my collection was completed. Yay!

My mom made some prime rib for dinner which was awesome. And Mike brought his tradition of Christmas poppers to the table. We all got to wear our hats during dinner and play with our prizes afterwards.

I really love Christmas. I think having a little kid around makes Christmas just that much more magical.
And I’ll post more about our visit with family later.

Halfway There

I’m 20 weeks pregnant today. That’s the halfway mark. I might even be more than halfway, if the doctors insist on making me schedule my c-section for 39 weeks. I’ll spare you all my woes about when this baby is due to arrive. Speaking of the which, we schedule the c-section at the next appointment, so we are currently taking birthday requests for anytime between April 28th and May 10th. (Preferably not April 28th, because that one is already taken in this family.) I know a lot of people have preferences during these weeks, because the suggestions were just rolling in when I was pregnant with Tennyson.

In other pregnancy news, we had our ultrasound last week! And we now know which platform we’ll be using for 2.0. But you all are going to have to wait until we release the information, which, if you are just dying to know, will probably be sometime on Wednesday night. It all depends on how long it takes my family to find which cupcake has the coloring inside. I’m guessing it won’t take them long.

But I can tell you about the rest of the ultrasound. 2.0 is measuring right on time and everything is measuring right (which makes me very happy). 2.0 also has a super cute button nose and even cuter yawns (we got to see a few of those). Unfortunately, ultrasounds cannot tell us if we have another ginger on the way.



(and you can stare at those pictures as long as you want and read all the words on the side, but it will not get you any closer to knowing the gender of 2.0)

I’ve been feeling 2.0 a lot more lately, which makes me happy. It makes the pregnancy seem a lot more real. Right now, 2.0 is super active at night, which I like because I can sit down after Tennyson is asleep and watch TV and enjoy feeling the flutters, but I think in another month when I have feet in my ribs and arms in my hips, I’m not going to be so happy that nighttime is playtime. So I’m trying to enjoy it while I can.
I’ve also been growing a lot more lately. I don’t notice it until I try to put on a non-maternity shirt. Then, when the shirt only covers half my belly, it becomes obvious to me that I’m growing. And then I get depressed for a little while that none of my clothes fit me. But I get over it. I consider myself lucky because all my maternity clothes from last pregnancy match up perfectly season-wise. A lot of people are not so fortunate.

So far, it seems I will get just as big with 2.0 as I ever did with Tennyson. Sorry, stomach. That’s just the way I carry babies.

 

Stay tuned. As soon as my family eats the right cupcake, we will share it with the world. And don’t bother re-reading this post again and again. I didn’t slip up one time. I’ve checked like 500 times to make sure there is nothing about gender anywhere. Sorry I’m so thorough (but I’m not really that sorry).

The Nutcracker and a Gingerbread House

We are really enjoying Christmas here at the Fiske house. It’s been a goal of mine to do as much Christmas-ing as we possibly can this year. I always find that by Christmas day, I wish I had done more celebrating and living up the season. So this year I am.
So we’ve been playing a lot of Christmas music. It’s pretty much all the time. And Tennyson has found a real love for one rendition of The Nutcracker that we own. It’s a seven minute long song and he will dance for all seven minutes of it.
We have this cute little video, and I apologize that it is just from a phone. I also apologize that it is a little long and slow in parts, so if you really want to just see the cutest part, fast forward to about a minute and half in. Although I highly recommend watching the long version.

My parents have actually made general Christmas-ing easier. They’ve done this wonderful 25 days of Christmas gift thing for Tennyson this year. It’s been a blast! They are enjoying it because it forces us to skype with them every night. And we are enjoying it because we’ve gotten all sorts of fun Christmas goodies.
Like an elf of the shelf. Which we’ve actually been coveting for a while now, but never willing to shell out 30 dollars on.
And a gingerbread house kit. With 1/2 pound of candy. We thought it’d make for a fun Sunday afternoon activity. And it did, although it didn’t last long.
I’ve mentioned before that Tennyson borders on OCD with his need to be clean. Needless to say, this was not a very clean activity. He was very eager to start putting on candies until he put on his first one and realized that the frosting was quite sticky and very hard to get off his hands. (Also, I’m apologizing for the fact that our pictures aren’t the best. Our camera was a little freaked out by the yellow shirt, close to yellow table, and yellow walls.)

But after much coaxing, we got him to stick on a few candies. In general, he was much happier just choosing out the candy for mom or dad to stick on.

Mom was really good at listening to Tennyson and putting the candies where he wanted them. Dad, not so much.

And our house turned out as a masterpiece, if I do say so myself.

Okay, maybe not so much. But we’ve got plenty of years ahead of us to work on our gingerbread skillz.

Lately

Tennyson is 19 months old now. Which means that I’ve procrastinated making an 18 month post for a month now. Make that a month and a week. But I really want to record what Tennyson was up to at this point in his life. Because he’s up to so much. And he’s just so darn cute and I know that at some point in his life, I’m going to want to revisit these days.

So here is what Tennyson has been up to lately.

First off, he hasn’t been up to gaining weight. In fact we just had his doctor’s appointment and he is only 22 pounds. That’s less than the 5th percentile. That also means he has gained a whopping three pounds in the past year. But the doctors aren’t concerned, and really, neither are we. Because he looks like a healthy kid.

The biggest thing we’ve been up to lately is the switch from crib to toddler bed. We made this switch a week ago and I’m still getting over the shock of just how easy the change was. He’s never once gotten out of his bed at night or at naps. He sleeps just as much (if not more) than he ever did in his crib.

Plus, he loves it. He knows it is a big kid bed. And he’s wanted to be a big kid since he was born. It’s one of those quirks I love about him. But I do want to teach him eventually that it’s okay not to grow up so fast. Because he is growing up way too fast.

Tennyson still isn’t really talking. I’m trying my hardest not to worry yet, because everyone says I shouldn’t. Most days, I’m really good at convincing myself to not worry and convincing myself he’ll talk eventually. But I have my weak days, too, where I panic that he will never ever learn to talk. It’s one of those unrealistic mom fears that I know isn’t true, but creeps in. I know it isn’t true because he does have a few words.

He says “mom” and “dad” (although I can never seem to recognize that is what he is saying… but third parties seem to be able to point it out to me when he is doing it).

He says “dog”. This is his most reliable word. It’s the word that I use on those days I have to work extra hard to convince myself that he will talk. Because he knows what a dog is. And he can call it by name. And someone who will never talk can’t do that.

He can say “mon” which means Monsters, sometimes. Sometimes it means Toy Story. Sometimes it just means we aren’t handing him the ipod fast enough.

We are working on “vroom, vroom” and “elmo”.

Right now, Tennyson loves his mom. I’m soaking up every minute of it. Because I know the day will come when I’ll want him to lay his head on my shoulder or climb on my lap to read a book, and he just won’t want to.

I’m also soaking up the fact that he is overeager to clean. I do my best to be patient and not pay attention to the fact that he usually gets more finger prints on the mirror than he wipes off. Or that it takes me 30 minutes to vacuum what would usually only take me 5 if he weren’t helping me push the vacuum.

 

I’m sure he’ll be a good cleaner for the rest of his life, though, because if there is one thing Tennyson hates more than anything, it is a mess. We are actually really struggling right now teaching him to self feed, because more often than not, his attempts to feed himself end up in a tantrum because everything is a mess. Sometimes, this borders on OCD. If he gets a drop of water on his hands, he can’t move on to do anything until he is absolutely positive his hand is once again dry and clean.

Tennyson still loves his ipod. He has a few new games that he adores. Including an Elmo book that we splurged and spent a whole dollar on. But games are only fun for so long, and eventually he ends up watching Monsters or Toy Story. He’s getting to the point where he can perfectly navigate and get anywhere he wants. He can even go into Netflix and find Sesame Street. He’s smart.

 

Besides that, Tennyson spends most his day playing and adventuring. He finds new activities every day for his toys. Sometimes we stack them into piles. Sometimes we carry them all from one side of the room to another. Sometimes we just empty out buckets and then leave the room.

Sometimes, he just tries to find creative new ways to sit on the couch. Or to climb up on our furniture.

But we have fun, the three of us. I’m really going to miss this stage we are in right now. Tennyson is my buddy. He is quirky and fun and even when I’m trying to be stern or angry, he makes me laugh. He has an infectious smile. Mike calls it his “smiling eyes”. But when he’s smiling, you can’t help but smile. We are happy. And life is good.

The Day After Turkey

As I’m sure everyone knows, Christmas month officially starts the day after turkey.
We decided there was only one way to usher it in. (Well, two, if you count the time we devoted to Black Friday shopping.) We had to go visit the biggest Christmas store in the U.S. of A. And so, we drove to Frankenmuth, Michigan to spend the day.
We made the right choice. Because not ten minutes after we got out of the car, we spotted a fellow in a big red suit walking around. So we stopped for a minute to tell him all about what we wanted for Christmas. And we were absolutely dumbfounded when he already knew we wanted everything Elmo. Santa is magical.
Telling Santa all about what we wanted for Christmas:

Giving St. Nick a high five:
 
And our timing just kept getting better. We just happened to get to the clock tower five minutes before the big show was starting.
We had to be quiet so that people could hear the story of the pied piper.

A picture of the pied piper leading the children (and the crippled and blind) out of the town.
 
Then we went to eat at the Bavarian Inn. We were lucky that we only had to wait 30 or so minutes for our table. By the time we left, the line was out the door.
Right as we were finishing up our delicious German food, we were serenaded by the accordion. The player was very surprised that the accordion didn’t scare Tennyson. What he doesn’t know is that (1) Tennyson has a strange addiction to all things piano related and (2) Elmo plays accordion in one of the DVDs we watch 20 times a day. So the accordion player hung out at our table for a minute because he was bringing such joy to Tennyson.

And for our walk back to the car after, all the streets were lit up. It really felt like Christmas.

We spent the rest of the night walking around Bronner’s, the biggest Christmas store in the country. It is one of the coolest stores ever. I had never been during the winter months, so it was fun being there when everything outside was lit up and when it actually felt like you should be looking at Christmas decorations.

It was the perfect day and the perfect way to say “Hello, Christmas! So glad you are here!”

A Day of Thanks (and also giving)

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. By far. And not just because it’s a lazy holiday where you do nothing but eat turkey and spend time with family (although all that is great, too). The reason, though, that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday is because it signals the start of what I think is the best month of the year. Christmas. There is no other day of the year that starts with turkey and ends in Santa. Thanksgiving is filled with anticipation and excitement and beginnings. It is when the decorations come up and the shopping begins and the music starts playing on the radio and all the TV specials start playing. You might think I’d say my favorite holiday is Christmas, but Christmas signals the end of the season. Thanksgiving signals the beginning. And that is why I will always love Thanksgiving (well, all that and the pie).
So, it only goes to reason that today was a very special day. And this year was extra special, because Mike and I cooked a Thanksgiving meal for the first time together.
It turned out great. No, more than great. I really have to give most the credit to Mike who studied recipes for about a month in preparation. And who started cooking on Monday. But, oh, did it ever pay off.
Exhibit A, the turkey (before and after):
 
Doesn’t the after look amazing? That’s because it was. A little bit of Mike’s soul went into making this turkey. He brined and seasoned and aromatics-ed and made a little tinfoil turkey triangle. Then we ate it as fast as he could slice.
Exhibit B, the spread:

Mike was in charge of the turkey, potatoes, gravy and cornbread. I did the green bean casserole, the carrots, and the cranberry sauce. I’m glad he trusted me with all those things that the meal would totally be complete without. (Although I must say I made a killer cranberry sauce).
Also, note the Christmas tree behind us. How can you celebrate Thanksgiving and properly usher in the month of Christmas if you aren’t allowed to decorate early? You can’t. You just can’t. I don’t really care what anyone says, Christmas decorations should go up right before Thanksgiving. Not right after.
The saddest part of the day was that Tennyson is working on his next set of four teeth (why this kid insists on always having four come through at the same time, I will never understand) so he’s kind of on a food strike.

So he took a few bites of potatoes and then drank some Thanksgiving juice. Today he got unlimited juice. It was the best holiday he’s ever had (at least in his book).

Then he spent the rest of meal time posing for his myspace profile picture.

I jest, I jest, Tennyson is far too cool for myspace.
In my opinion, every Thanksgiving meal must end with a park and some sort of game involving a ball. It’s an unwritten rule. So off in the wagon we went to our neighborhood park, ball in tow.

And, in the Cawley tradition, we played a pick up game of soccer. Because soccer > football. (And also because I don’t think Tennyson gets the technicalities of football quite like he gets kicking a ball from one place to the next).
  
The game probably would have been more fun if Tennyson didn’t take the “pick up” part so seriously. Oh well.

Thanksgiving is just the best. And now the month of Christmas begins. Life couldn’t be better right now (well, if I’m being honest, 2.0 could be a little more gentle, but I’ll take what I can get).

happy

beginning-of-christmas-month

day.

we hope yours was the best.