HOLIDAY PREPARATIONS AND CELEBRATIONS...

We've been up to alot in the past few weeks as we've been getting ready for Christmas and Hanukkah! Caroline has had fun getting into the spirit of the season with lots of fun activities, most of which involve treats and sweets (her favorite things!). Here are some pictures from cookie baking with JoJo, a Christmas party at pre-school, gingerbread house building with Granddad, and lighting the Hanukkah candles on the second night of Hanukkah with Mommy and Daddy (we lit them on the first night at our good friends' Marc and Emily's house). We hope you are having as much fun as we are - and Happy Hanukkah to our friends who began celebrating last night!

COOKIE BAKING WITH JOJO

DECORATING CAROLINE'S OWN MINI-TREE WITH GRANDDAD

CHRISTMAS SHOW AND PARTY AT PRE-SCHOOL

GINGERBREAD HOUSE BUILDING WITH GRANDDAD

LIGHTING THE HANUKKAH CANDLES

WHAT DO MOMMIES DO ALL DAY?

My good friend Tina forwarded this article from The Washington Post to me this afternoon, just in time to send a little validation my way! I consider myself lucky to not have (I think) friends like the woman who wrote the letter, but thought it was worth the post anyway, if nothing but to give everyone a little laugh, as well as a little perspective. It's pretty spot-on with what I find myself facing on the day-to-day with my two-year-old. Happy reading (and feel free to click on the article image to enlarge, if necessary)!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???

I got an email from Pottery Barn Kids this afternoon, advertising a pre-holiday toy sale. When I went to the site to look around, I saw this:

DECKING THE HALLS...

It's taken me a whole week to post about this, but life's kind of busy these days, isn't it?! We had a busy weekend last weekend getting things together for the holidays. After picking out our tree last Saturday, Steve and I were supposed to head to his company's party and then on to an open house at some friends of ours who live near us, but I wasn't feeling great and so we decided to make it a low-key evening at home, getting out the Christmas decorations and beginning to set things up.

A quick snapshot from the treestand

After a dinner of Chinese food, we trimmed the tree and put out some of our other table toppers, vase fillers, and garland, as well as Steve's ever-growing (and utterly annoying) collection of singing, jingling animatronic animals and snowmen - most of which found a really nice home in the rec room in the basement :) . We also took our menorah out of storage and put it in a place where it will be easy to find when the time comes to light the first candle! Although we are raising Caroline Catholic like her Mommy, we want to make sure that she understands where Daddy and his family came from, too.

Here's Caroline, hanging her first decoration and ornament!

Playing with some decorations - the fabulous animatronic animals are in the background...

Decorating was so much fun this year. Over the past several years, we've often rushed through the process, treating it like something we had to check off our holiday to-do list. This year was so different - mainly because of Caroline's enthusiasm. It was awesome that she could finally participate in some of the set-up, even as she hung thirty ornaments on the same branch and spent a good deal of the time undoing what we had just done. This has been something I've been looking forward to since she was born, and makes me even more excited at the prospect of having another little one to help get into the spirit, understand some of the religion behind it all, learn our extended family's old traditions, and begin new ones with our own young family.

Last Sunday, after dinner with Steve's parents and sister, we decided to drive around our neighborhood for a bit to look at the lights on the houses - just like my parents did with us when we were little. Over and over Caroline exclaimed, "We make Mommy's house Kiss-mas, too?!" and "Oh, gosh! Another lights!" It was too adorable. I have a feeling that we'll be driving around quite a bit over the next few weeks! And, as she has requested, we will be working on getting our own lights and garland up soon...

OH, (PINK) CHRISTMAS TREE!

While we were in the bathroom at Noodles and Company after her class at Kidville today, Caroline informed me that she wants a pink Christmas tree this year. Upon hearing this, some moms might have gotten excited at the prospect of decking a traditional tree out in all its Lilly Pulitzer-esque glory, with cute ornaments and grosgrain ribbons like this to go along with the theme, but I knew better. My daughter was, I am certain, literally referring to this:

When we arrived at the tree stand after lunch, just picture her initial disappointment when she saw a plain, old sea of green. Thank goodness she got over that quickly when she realized she not only could play hide-and-seek amongst the stands, but that they also sold hot apple cider and popcorn. Maybe it'll be just the pink fix she needs when she sees that we indeed have a few fabulous Lilly ornaments to hang up on our beautiful new frasier fir!

RANDOM THOUGHTS...

So I am sitting here in my den, and it's 12:30 in the morning. I'm working to print a stationery order for my best friend and business partner Christy, who just had her third adorable baby. She and I timed this whole pregnancy thing perfectly, didn't we? Our newest kids will be close enough in age to hopefully be the best of friends like their mommies, while at the same time there's one of us available to hold down the fort with our company while the other gives birth/recovers. I'm really excited about how her announcement/Christmas card has turned out (I mean, they are such a cute family that coming up with a design and layout was easy):

I want to be able to get these to her tomorrow so that she could send them out ASAP - she's the friend who literally times it so that her card arrives before anyone else's on the first day of December, so it's practically killing her that they are not out yet. She pays no mind that she had a c-section literally nine days ago. I, on the other hand, typically get my act together around the second week in December and have the audacity to print our names on the card rather than sign them myself - even though totally I agree with all those people (like Christy - who made a concession for just this once) who say it's tacky and sends the message that you couldn't be bothered to take the time to write your own name. The truth is, I would do it if I could, but these days the whole idea of finding any more time to put towards Christmas cards could scare me away from sending them at all. Hopefully the recipients can forgive me for this minor indisgretion. But I digress...

Being up so late at night has my mind wandering a bit. I've finished the other designs and layouts I had in the works for this evening, so here's what seems to be helping to keep me up until the printer stops:

1) I really need to get my act together and start thinking about this new baby's room. I have a few ideas, but the poor thing is definitely ranking as "sloppy seconds" on our priority list, which is just plain wrong. Her room is full of boxes from our move that have yet to be emptied or at least relocated, I have no idea what kind of furniture I am going to pick up, and the obsession with which I pursued Caroline's bedding when she was on her way is no longer in existence. I am waiting for an epiphany. As my doctor said at my 28-week appointment on Tuesday, if you have a diaper, a onesie, and a bassinet, you are pretty much set for the first little bit. I know he is right, but I am still determined to not let #2 turn into an afterthought...

2) I am pissed at my Shu Uemura eyelash curler. It has inexplicably broken, a fact that I discovered when I pried it off of my lashes the other day and found them crimped like a bad 80's hairdo. I tried to pick up a new one at Neiman Marcus when I went to my salon nearby to get my hair cut and highlighted yesterday, but they don't sell them there (unbelievably). My eyelash curler is one of my top three items in my make-up case, and the Shu Uemura one really is the best (I have tried them all). Sometimes, I don't agree with the beauty critics when they rave about a certain tool or product (i.e. - What is the BFD with Mabelline Great Lash mascara? I have tried it many times and still don't understand the obsession...), but they are spot-on about this one. My curler is kind of a staple to my morning routine, even when I don't even have time to shower, so it goes without saying that it needs to be replaced - like, yesterday.

See? Even Jodie Foster isn't excited about crimped hair...

3) I'm excited to decorate our house for the holidays. When we bought it, even my Jewish husband Steve thought it had the perfect spot for a Christmas tree (right in the front window of our living room), and couldn't wait to put lights up (even then, the neighborhood just felt like the kind of place where people get into the spirit of things). We buy a real tree, and it's from a stand run by a really nice family at the Catholic church where I grew up and went to grade school. Caroline is getting into the holiday for the first time, which is really cute. I'm trying to temper the whole Santa-which-gets-out-of-hand thing by explaining that it's really a birthday party for a baby named Jesus, but as one of my other best friends Kristy mentioned, she'll probably still miss the meaning and focus on the fact that she might get cake at said party. She knows my two-year-old so well...

Okay, so my printing is done. Now my mind is wandering towards thoughts of sleep. Thanks for staying up with me!