Resort

I feel like at the rate I'm going, I might finally be finished blogging our Christmas stuff by February.

But nonetheless, here is some more Christmas festivity.

Like I said previously, Mike's mom surprised us all with a three day stay at a resort in the mountains of New Hampshire. The location was absolutely fabulous!! And it just so happened that the day after we got there, we had a massive snowstorm, and it was a perfect time to be there.

The place was wonderful. There was a movie theater (where Tennyson ate his body weight in popcorn) and there was giant gingerbread house. Made out of real gingerbread. I always got a good laugh when Tennyson went to play at it, because looking at the outside, you could tell just how high the kids could reach, because all the candies up to a certain point were missing.

The on site restaurant had some wonderful food, and Maggie was a huge fan of the bread. It was whole grain, and we let her chow down for three days, and then were punished every diaper change after that.

For the most part, we all just hung out. We watched a couple movies, we played some pool and air hockey, we played games in our hotel rooms. One day we went out to play in the snow.

It was Tennyson's nightmare.

He didn't stop screaming the entire time we were outside. Which wasn't long because he refused to put gloves on his hands, and we didn't want him to die of frostbite while learning to enjoy the snow. Poor kid. The rest of the vacation he would look outside and turn around to us saying, quite distressed, "uh oh! the snow!"

But Maggie had an okay time.

She reminded me of A Christmas Story. You know, "I can't put down my arms!" and all that.

And before we brought the screaming child back inside, Mike and his brother had some good runs down the hill on the tubes.

It was a nice three days. And I'll admit that I still mourn the loss of the beds. I wanted so desperately to look at the brand of sheets and blankets they had, but I didn't, and now my twenty dollar JC Penny sheets and ten dollar IKEA duvet just aren't cutting it for me. I guess I'll just have to go back some day.

Eight Months

Maggie Beast is 8 months old today.

And I call her a beast in the most loving, and most sincere way.

She's into everything lately. She sure keeps us on our toes.

I feel like Tennyson didn't prepare us enough for what was to come. Like, if his job was to slowly prep us for this, he failed miserably. We were much too content with our baby that never put anything in his mouth, or made a mess when he ate/played and we aren't sure what to do with his polar opposite.

It is because she's a Fiske. I'm not ready to raise a Fiske. They are all trouble makers, the lot of them.

What she's been up to lately:

-Crawling. Hence, the getting into everything.

-Trying to pull up to stand. This is a recent development, and has become somewhat of an obsession. We hear a lot of crying when she can't pull up. So we hear a lot of crying.

-Working on getting teeth #3 and #4. We are patiently waiting for them to break through. They are days away.

-Eating everything. Food, paper, plastic, whatever is laying around. She's not picky. One day we found a Beanie Baby tag in her diaper. We aren't over-exaggerating when we say everything.

-Chunking up. Still. Our at home scale puts her somewhere between 22 and 24 pounds. Depending on the day and how much she's eaten. We've started putting her in 18 month tops. Girl needs to slow down.

-Waving and clapping. Much to my joy.

-Almost sleeping through the night. Depending on teeth and how much she's eaten.

-Learning how to use a sippy cup.

-Chasing Tennyson around the house. We hear a lot of "No, Gigi!" because she's only ever interested in playing with the exact same toy he is playing with. In her defense, it's because he is typically playing with the iPad, or cars that make a lot of noise.

She still has a smile that could kill you, and cheeks that I just want to gobble up in one sitting. Her hair is starting to come in finally, and it's the perfect little shade of dirty blonde. Her eyes have become stunningly blue, and paired with her naturally rosy cheeks, she is just gorgeous. We love having her around.

christmas

(disclaimer: there are a lot more pictures to add here, and i will get around to adding them eventually. but if i don't post this before my pictures are up, it will be february before you even hear about my christmas. so for now, enjoy reading. and know that if you check back, eventually there will be pictures. although i can't guarantee how fast.)

christmas this year was fun. and eventful.

we spent it with mike's parents and siblings, and it was a blast to have everyone together.

christmas eve, we woke up early in the morning and got in a little bit of last last minute shopping.

and then we met all mike's siblings for some candlepin bowling. it's one of the greatest things about new hampshire, and one of my favorite things to do with tennyson at this point in life. i only wish we had one closer to us.

and then it was time to head to mike's parent's house for some christmas eve dinner. we did our traditional poppers, and all donned our hats for the meal. it was delicious. we all performed magic tricks for each other after the meal that we had gotten in our poppers. a couple of them were cool. the rest, well, they weren't as cool.

unfortunately, tennyson was a bit overwhelmed with all the commotion and went on a hunger strike for any and all food that wasn't mcdonalds. c'est la vie. he enjoyed his christmas eve dinner of french fries while watching his favorite movie. all in all, not a bad deal for him.

once the kids were in bed, we watched some old family movies that his brother pulled out the night before, and some of them moved us to tears (from laughing so hard).

around midnight, we woke the kids up to move them back to our hotel room. when we got to our room, tennyson seemed to know what was looming on the horizon, because he didn't want to go back to sleep. he saw mike stash the stockings under the tv and perked right up out of his bed and started crying because he wanted the "stuck".

luckily, he was tired enough that he quit the fight easily and went back to sleep.

and in the morning, we all got our "stuck".

then we got ready and headed back to grammy's house for some breakfast and to hang out until we opened presents that afternoon. and boy, was it hard for tennyson to wait until the afternoon.

and like usual, our kids were spoiled.

after presents were done, we all headed up north into the mountains for a special dinner and three day stay at a resort. but that's another post for another time.

a week away

after a long semester, and a long two weeks apart, mike and i were blessed to be able to take our family away to the lakes region of new hampshire for a one week stay.

it was gorgeous.

this was the view from the balcony.

gorgeous.

and it was a wonderful place.

we had a fireplace, and we had a little kitchen, and we had a room for maggie and a room for tennyson.

the place was so nice, we didn't even mind being snowed in one day.

we just worked on a puzzle all day, while the kids played. occasionally tennyson "helped".

and it was so nice, that we decided to do a little christmas while we were there, instead of doing it at the best western we were going to be at on christmas day.

we were even lucky enough to only be a short drive away from mike's parents, so they were able to babysit a couple times for us and we got to see a movie, and go shopping without two kids in tow. things like that need to happen more often.

cookies

i love decorating cookies.

it instantly makes it feel like christmas.

so that is what we did today, to start really ushering in the season.

and to get a little more in the spirit.

i was nervous that tennyson wouldn't like it.

after all, his track record with messy things isn't great.

turns out, he was a champ at putting on the sprinkles.

(as long as he didn't accidentally bump the frosting)