Waiting for Santa...

We made our shopping lists for Drake based on our own ideas - the things we anticipated him enjoying and the developmental stages he's coming up on. Educational toys. Books. Christmas jammies, because he grew out of last year's set. At the very last minute, it occurred to me that I should ask him. I wasn't sure if he was old enough yet to actually want something - to know that there was something out there that he didn't have, and to wish he had it - but I wanted to know what he would say.

"Hey buddy, is there anything you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?" I asked.

With wide eyes he answered, "Cwismas!!"

Perfect. Done and done.

In the two weeks since, I've repeated the question, just to see if his answer would change. It didn't. Not until last Sunday, when we went to visit Santa.

"What are you going to ask Santa for?"

"Pwesents!"

Laughing, "Oh yeah? What kind of presents?"

"Pink ones! An' purple ones! An' candy!"

We'll see if Santa got the message.

Anticipation

When I woke up this morning, I was excited to find it was snowing heavily. I've never minded the snow - and have even been known to gush over the romance of chopping wood on a snowy day for a crackling fire - but now I see the enchantment of those fluffy flakes all the more because of my son. I hurried to his room to get him out of bed, anxious to see his reaction. "Drake!" I said, "It's snowing! Do you wanna come see it?" 

"Uhgay!" he squeeled, jumping up.

I swooped him up and we went to the couch. He stood on the cushions with his elbows propped on the back of the couch and his nose to the window. His eyes were wide with delight at the white world outside. "Is Kissmass snow?!" he asked.

The question surprised me. He'd never shown any understanding of the coming Holidays before. We haven't even been talking about Christmas in the house yet. When I finished giggling over the adorable toddler incorrectness of his question - the simple connection he had made in his brain between snow and Christmas - I explained to him, "Yes, Christmas comes in the winter. But not yet. First we have Thanksgiving, then your Birthday, then Christmas."

To which he responded, "My burfday?!"


My son is anticipating. What a fun thing to watch happen. Last year, he had a good time at his birthday party and at Christmas. He liked the games and the toys and the people and the lights. But he never knew any of it was coming, and not because we hadn't told him. But this year, he is old enough to understand that something fun will be happening soon, but not yet. 

Patience and anticipation. I think that may be at the heart of what I love most about the holiday season. The build up. The excitement. The planning and preparing. And this year, it's even more exciting, because Drake is excited. 

Fixed Up For Halloween

Well, it threatened to go badly a couple of times - like when he fell asleep in the car on the way to Trick or Treating - but in the end we had a pretty great little Halloween. The promise of candy roused him and we even made the busy, crowded Downtown loop without any meltdowns. He handled the phrases "Trick or Treat" and "Happy Halloween!" much more easily than last year and it was incredibly cute to watch. He even started giving people a thumbs up after he saw an adult do it. I was definitely that gushing, proud parent. After our afternoon of Trick-or-Treating, Mommy had to go to work, and Daddy and Drake headed home to pass out candy to the other kids. I understand that Drake called them all his friends, and even passed out candy without Dad once when Justin was in the kitchen. Justin heard Drake's tiny voice say, "Happy Halloween!" and came to the sunporch to see two little girls walking away down the sidewalk. Sweet child of mine.

Our first family costume came together pretty darn great, though not very many people understood it. In case you don't know, it's from the movie Wreck-It Ralph, a super cute kids' movie about video game characters with a life outside of their games. If you've never seen it - you should. If you need an excuse to rent it, borrow a friend's child under the age of 10. But I've never been above a good animated movie myself. Sometimes feeling like a kid is a good thing. But I'm getting off point.
Halloween costumes. Justin was the "bad" guy, Wreck-It-Ralph - a character who destroys buildings with his fists. Drake was the good guy, Fix-It-Felix, who has a magic golden hammer to fix what Ralph wrecks. I was Vanelope Von Schweetz, a character from a candy go-cart game called Sugar Rush.

Putting the costumes together was a fun challenge. I have always preferred the homemade and creative costumes where you find a way to re-create the major elements of a character or idea without simply putting on a replica or mask.

For Drake, he definitely needed a blue ball cap, a golden hammer, and tool belt. The tool belt we had from a Christmas gift from his Papa Rick last year, along with the hammer, which I just lightly sanded and spray painted gold. The blue ball cap we found at a pawn shop, though admittedly, it was a little small. I drew a blue FF on white felt, then colored in a yellow square around it and glued it to the hat. The shirt, jeans, and carpenter boots were all Good-Will finds and are items he can wear over and over, so that's a plus. He was so very handsome in his little contractor outfit. Most people thought he was Tim the Toolman. Oh well. For the ones who "got it," Drake would hold up his hammer and say, "I can fits it!" (Spelling intentional.)

For Justin, big hands were a must, along with overalls and a shiny medal. We found Hulk hands at the same pawn shop, and I spray painted them with a red primer to cancel out the green, and then an off-white. The overalls Justin already owned (and was a very good sport for wearing them! They were insulated Carharts - incredibly hot on a 65 degree day). We bought a red thermal at Good Will and cut the sleeves. For the medal, I taped two yogurt container lids together with electrical tape, wrote the word HERO on one side with hot glue, and the spray painted the whole thing gold. I glued it to nylon strapping I bought at the hardware store. Voila! A "bad" guy who wants to be a good guy.

For myself, I needed a simple green pullover hoodie (so much harder to find than I expected!), a black ruffle skirt, green striped leggings, and candy in my hair. I finally settled on a green hoodie from Good-Will, though it was short sleeve and not quite the right color. I dug through my enormous yarn stash to add some hot pink strings to the hood and the pink XX's on the pocket. The black ruffle skirt I had from the years when I used to dance/perform Latin ballroom. For the green striped leggings,  the closest I could come was tall green and pink striped socks over black leggings. The candy in my hair was the fun part. I hot-glued (thank goodness for my hot glue gun! It got a lot of use this year) Runtz and pinwheel mints to bobby pins that I stuck randomly all over my head. The licorice that she had tied around her ponytail was hard to recreate, because no licorice I found was long enough to do that. In the end, I just stuck a couple of sticks into my bun.

And that was it! Halloween 2014, all wrapped up. What did you do this year? Any fun family costumes? Whatever you did, I hope you had a Happy Halloween, from my family to yours.

Ahem...

So, uh..... this is just the teensiest bit late... And by teensy, I mean 8 months. Ahem. Yeah....
I really have been wanting to post these pictures of Drake's 1st birthday since, well, Drake's 1st birthday. And he may or may not be 20 months old already. :} But life gets in the way and priorities get mixed up and excuses get made.... blahdy blah blah.
But here they are now, still as cute as ever. Except for the fact that now they almost make me have a panic attack because, you guys, my baby is SO much bigger than this now! How can this be just 8 months ago?! Parenthood is insanity. High paced insanity.
Speaking of which, his 1st Birthday was an airplane theme. We chose planes because his daddy is going to school to be a pilot, so it's a major part of our life, and because his first year flew by. And now here we are closer to 2 than 1 already... I'm not gonna cry...

The Birthday Boy...

 ...with his beautiful Nana Amy...

...and his cousin Ashton.

                                                                 We set up a photo corner...

 ...and I think the adults had more fun than anyone else...

 .... as evidenced by my Mom and her wonderfully silly fiance, Kyle. :)

Papa Rick and the two youngest.

 The party table...

 ... and our fleet of party favors.

 My [second attempt at my] first birthday cake...

 I was pretty proud of how it turned out (despite the misspelling).

 We were so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and neighbors come celebrate with us.

 Cake time!!

 As you can see, the birthday outfit did not survive the cake...

 The bigger kids played Pin the Propeller on the Plane...

there are a lot of giggles when you accidentally walk towards the wrong wall... :)

 ... and then it was present time!

 Do you see the wonderful rocking horse Kyle made him? I may or may not have accidentally broken it later that night... :S But don't worry, it's ok now! Kyle fixed it.

 It makes my heart so happy to remember how much my Little Man is loved.

Drake and his beautiful Auntie B.

Nana Cindy's necklace is soooo pretty!

Drake and Best Friend Jaime.

 Thank you to all our wonderful friends and family who made my boy's 1st Birthday such a special day. Ready to do it again in 4 months...? Oh geez, I think I'm gonna be sick....

(ps - now I know why I put this off for so long! That just took me nearly 8 hours across 2 days to edit and format all those pictures! Phew!)

My Funny Valentine

My sweet boy in his Valentine's Day gift from me - King of Mom's Heart they say - oh Lord, I couldn't resist.

Valentine's Day was extremely casual this year - we had no plans and no gifts. In fact, I was in Helena for the official day and didn't get home until 1pm the next day. We had decided we would celebrate on Friday but my only plan was to make something delicious for dinner, followed by some manner of chocolate. On my drive home, however, Montana was so incredibly gorgeous - just a fabulously, unseasonably sunny day - that I was inspired to go on an adventure. A few years ago, a day like that would have found Justin and I traipsing up a mountain or driving some windy country road with the top down in my old VW Cabby *sniff, sniff* But, alas, we have a 14 month old and a Toyota Corolla. So these days an "adventure" is a trip downtown with the stroller. Snarkiness aside: that can lead to a pretty awesome day, as it did last Friday.

Our first stop was a swanky little spot called Plonk. We have been going there on special occasions since before we were married, but this year we showed up during the quiet early afternoon hours, in our jeans and {accidentally matching} flannels, pushing a binky-sucking baby boy. That, however, did not make it feel any less special to me. I had a drink! Like, an adult drink. That's a big deal for me. The stay-at-home-mommy gig does not exactly lend itself to cocktail hour. We had these amazing appetizers that had me doing little dances with every bite. And the cocktail: a Cucumber Cilantro Gimlet. Oh holy yum. If you know me very well at all, you don't need me to say that - from that one little cocktail - I got tipsy, but I'm gonna say it here anyway just to set the stage. Because now we have come to the point of my Valentine's Day story.

From Plonk, we took Drake into a small toy store, where we may have had more fun than he did. And then we stopped into my favorite little cosmetics and skin care boutique. We walked into the small shop and were greeted by a big, beautiful German Shephard. "Oh, hello Handsome!" I said, bending down slightly to scratch the big dog's chin. I'm a sucker for a big lover dog.

The very sweet store owner walks up to us and says, "Anderson, leave them alone."

"Oh, he's ok! He's a good looking boy!" I say. Just then, a second dog runs up to me, this one small and scruffy. No, not just scruffy - mangy. See, I don't find many small dogs attractive. They can't have long, narrow faces, but they can't have smooshed faces, either. No buggy eyes, no bull dog underbite. Not too poodle-y, and definitely no weiner dogs. No shaking, no yapping, no frills. Pretty much, they have to look like this or this for me to think they are cute. But I really do love all animals. It's not their fault they're ugly. So I say to the dog, "Well, hello to you too, you scruffy little thing," scratching the top of his head and doing my tipsy-best to be polite.

"Bridgette, he needs another hair cut," says the owner over her shoulder to an employee, trying simultaneously - I would assume - not to be offended and to imply, "He doesn't always look so bad."

Not to be misunderstood, I decide to follow with, "He's so ugly, he's cute." Really. I said that. Yikes.

"Bridgette cut his little beard before but he's in need of another one," she tries again. She really is so sweet, she is earnestly trying to stay professional and let me off of the hook for my insults. But I continue. Surely she is simply misunderstanding me.

"My mom has a dog who has this same kind of crazy, wirey hair," I say, tugging slightly on the long white hairs on the back of the dog's neck. "I'm always loving on him and telling him, "You're not that attractive, but I love you anyway.'"

At that, the owner decided to move away from the dogs and talk about the business at hand. She kept a smile and acted as if I hadn't just called her dog ugly. Over. And over. And over. God bless her.

When we walked out, my husband busted up laughing and said, "Wow. You really don't have a filter when you're tipsy!" Oh geez. He noticed. And here I thought I had covered well. As we continued to walk around downtown and my one-cocktail-buzz wore off, I felt increasingly awful about what I had done. I can't believe I could be so tactless! Ugh. How embarrassing. If I ever go back in there - which I sincerely would like to do! - I think I'll go in costume and sport a British accent.

Drake's First Halloween

 It was pretty low key, but nonetheless adorable! I mean, just look at him. Cutest baby with a mustache, ever. I held him on my hip as we handed out candy to sparkling princesses and foam-muscled super heroes. He was a pretty big hit with the accompanying parents, which of course makes this momma beam. "Thank you, thank you! Yeah, he's pretty cute. I guess I'll keep him..." (Smiles proudly and tickles Drake.)

 When Justin got home from class, we decided to take Drake out to dinner so we could show him off to a few more people. That poor waitress. She heard all about how cool our kid is. :)

This Halloween season did mean one fun first - for me! I carved my first pumpkins! Way, WAY too soon - as they were mostly rotten by Wedneday night, but I had fun doing it and look forward to lots and lots of creatively carved pumpkins next year.

Oh! And there was this cute moment when Drake had his first piece of candy ever (peanut butter cups - Mom's favorite). Don't mind Justin and my commentary in the background - I'm telling you, parenthood really puts your personal brand of weird in the spotlight.



I'm linking up with Momma Loves Papa for the first time in a good long while for her Small Style series. I thought Drake's stylish Halloween costume deserved a nod. ;)

Celebrating Parenthood: Mother's Day/Father's Day Numero Uno

What's not to celebrate when this is your kid? I mean, really?

I could not have asked for a more perfect day for my first Mother's Day. Firstly, every day is a gift with this handsome little man. Secondly, I was lucky enough to celebrate with the whole fam damily, which is a freaking miracle these days. My brother and soon to be sister-in-law just happened to be in town (they live outside of Portland these days) for their good friends' wedding. My brother-in-law was also home - another rare bird - from the oil fields so we were all together for the first time since Christmas.
We all gathered at the Main Momma's house, had delicious food (smoked salmon with capers and cream cheese on a cheddar bagel anyone? mmmmm), drank some mimosas, soaked up the spring rays, and generally just enjoyed the hell out of each other's company. The kiddos played on the grass, Drake had his first taste of pineapple: all good.

Sadly, I couldn't make as big a to do for Father's Day seeing as my hard working hubby has all of about three waking hours with us on Sunday's (and Saturday's for that matter). However, I did wake him up with coffee ready and surprised him with some fun loot. I got him an antique coffee grinder that we can refinish/remount - an intended "first home project" for our new house (yes, we're buying a house! more on this later), a vintage poster of his home town, Franklin, TN as an attempt at a "thank you" for all the things I know he misses and has given up to make a home with us here. Then, of course, I got him some beer and a new pint glass. This is essential.
My Dad joined us for our short, but sweet, Father's Day. (I had actually been lucky enough to spend the earlier part of the day with him - No Sweat breakfast and a down town stroll - but asked him to come over rather than cut the day short). I made banana pancakes like the ones I had seen on skinnytaste.com (I'm obsessed! She's amazing!) but threw in some little airplanes to celebrate Justin's new undertaking to become a pilot. Hearts and airplanes: those go together, right? We had bacon, white trash mimosas - and even some home made coconut syrup that Dad whipped up! - and brunch was to die for.
Then  Justin was back to business - getting himself ready for work. But for a brief couple of hours, it was so nice to dote on him. I try to make sure he knows every day just how much I appreciate him - how much I see that he does for us all the time - but it was nice to have a day to say, "Hey, you rock at this fatherhood thing and I love the hell out of you for it."