Christmas 2011 Slideshow

Tad has been a lot of fun this year.   He shouts "More Christmas Lights!" whenever we're driving.   He's been good about leaving the tree and presents alone.
I asked Tad if he wanted to sit on Santa's lap.  He said "Um, nope."  I asked if he was going to tell santa what he wanted for Christmas?  "Um, nope." Is it because you were naughty?  "Naughty".  :} 
When you ask him what he wants for Christmas he tells you "Purple, green, orange."  (These were the color of lights up at my mom's house during Halloween and he loved them.)
Earlier this year we were watching a Christmas movie and asked what animal pulls Santa's sleigh?  He said "Elk".  :} 
Christmas morning we woke him up and asked who came to his house last night? He said "Daddy".
He seems to have an answer for everything, even if it's not the one we were expecting.  :}
Christmas morning started at 6am (earlier, because Fred & I couldn't sleep, but we waiting patiently to wake Tad up).  He noticed his baseball glove right away, then had to go get a ball for it before we could move onto any more presents.  
7am we were off to gma & gpa lyons' for breakfast quiche and presents with the cousins.   Tad got a spring horse but decided he's scared of it.   He's starting to warm up to it and will feed it a plastic carrot and show it his new clothes.  :}  Fred & I were spoiled as always!
10am off to church.  It was nice, they told the Nativity story from Mary's point of view.   Tad slept stretched out across Fred & and I. 
Noon off to gma & gpa Drysdale's for blueberry/lemon scones and more cousins!  Tad got a shopping cart and a cash register to go with the kitchen set he already has.  I got a new camera!   Yeah!!!!
A quick stop at mom's.  Home to put Tad down for a short nap, while family came to see what Santa had left us.   We woke Tad up and joined them as they ventured to my brother's house.  Tad was beyond grumpy, but can be distracted by cousins, which was good because we were off to dinner at Fred's parents' house.  Turkey, a game, and of course the GB Packer game for Fred - must be his lucky new GB tie I got him!
I'm loving Fred's new schedule.  He was able to be home all weekend and part of the week.   We even spent a day cleaning out our closet to fit all of our new toys.  :} 
I have to add, I got 4 new games to add to my collection:   Nab it (Love it!), Telestrations (haven't played it yet), Logo game (love it!), and Up-a-bit (haven't played it yet).   Tad also got a couple of kid games so he'll leave mine alone.  :}  And Fred got a new game - Trigger.
As soon as I figure out how to do a new slideshow, I'll put up pictures, I just didn't want to torture you, or me by downloading them into this post.  :}

I help you.

We have the MOST helpful 2 year old on our hands.   He's a pretty good kid, but I don't really need help doing EVERYTHING.   "Mommy, Mommy, I eed you help" is the phrase of the day!  or he'll find me and say "I help you". 

He helped daddy open his birthday presents.   A new fire pit for the backyard.  We celebrated all weekend.  Friday was with his parents for Grandpa's soup, per Fred's request.  Saturday, we went bowling with some friends from Fred's work. Sunday, we enjoyed dinner and spice cake with my family.   Finally, we celebrated with our little family on Monday.   We ended up trying a new Mexican restaurant (excellent chips!) and the dollar theatre for "Johnny English Reborn" (fun movie, and clean!).

Tad has been helping around the house.  He washed his truck windows.  :}   

 Helped mommy fold socks.   Whenever I fold laundry he takes the socks and folds one on the top of each of the piles I have on the couch. 

 Then when I do actually fold the socks we use his dump truck to put them away.  I load up one person's socks at a time and he takes them to the correct room and dumps them in front of the dresser.  

 After putting up lights outside and having Tad be ENTIRELY too helpful as we were sorting lights, I wondered about having him at home to put up our tree.   First we picked out our tree.  This is the first time we've gone during the day.  It was warm enough we made it all the way to the back of the lot and found the perfect tree for a good price. 

 Tad ran to help dad carry the tree to the truck. 

 While I put the lights on, Tad was surprisingly good.  He would hand me lights and I'd let him plug in the next set.  A couple of times he'd take a strand of lights and stand on the step stool and call for daddy.  "Daddy, I eed you help with Christmas lights".  (He is talking in pretty clear sentences and we love it!)
Ornaments..... if we would have left them up to Tad would have been tucked away in the inside of the tree. 

I have to say I'm a genius.   We have bell ornaments that I usually only put one or two on.   As I was vacuuming our mess, I bumped one and thought that would be a perfect way to "booby-trap" the tree.   We put the whole set around the bottom branches and about as tall as Tad is so that when he touches the tree, I'll hear the bells.   :}
Unfortunately, I don't trust Tad enough to put presents under the tree, even though we had a talk about if he touches presents "I get in trouble, go time out."   Sad that I love to hear him say this.  :} 

November 2011

For Thanksgiving this year, Fred decided to go play football in the morning.  It was freezing!   Tad and I went to watch for a little while.   Unfortunately, the rest of the day he had a headache, and for the rest of the week he hobbled.  No broken bones..... just an old man!

Tad helped Aunt Lauralee make rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.   "Roll, roll, roll."  He actually did pretty good when he wasn't eating the dough.

 We enjoyed dinner with my family.  After Grandpa and Tad took a nap, the girls had ordered things online to avoid Black Friday, we were ready to stop at Fred's family for a 2nd helping.   Tad loved playing with his cousins and we finally got to meet 8 month old Marcus (Sunny's little boy, they live in VA). 
We also took family pictures while they were in town.  I'll post some soon. 

We went to the Festival of trees. 

What happened to all of the stories that are usually posted?  That's what keeps me in there for a long time.  We were in and out in less than 2 hours.   But I did see a couple of cute quilts.  (I just started a farm yard one, so it'll be awhile before I can look into how to do them.) 

 It has been a crazy couple of weeks.   I have more pictures to post of the beginning of December.... if the computer will cooperate.