New Toys, New Year

Christmas was great fun this year as Alex really got into the spirit of giving and didn't hesitate to help open his own gifts. In fact, he wasn't sure why everyone else's gifts did not contain something related to Thomas the Train. Wasn't that at the top of your list?!?

Here is a photo of Alex in his new chair as well as the larger than life Thomas. There is also a super-sized car from the movie CARS floating around...still unloading the car!


We spent most of the week in Cincinnati celebrating with family and friends. Alex cracks us up in the backseat of the car on the 6 hour drive between Chicago and Cincinnati. He puts his arms behind his head, crosses his legs, and watches movies. He doesn't really complain much--just eats snacks, drinks some juice, and relaxes. When he reads books like this he looks like an older man settling in with his daily paper.

Merry Christmas

Alex helped me make Christmas cookies Saturday night--or more accurately, helped me unmake Christmas cookies by removing the cherries behind my back.

Today we met up with our friends Karen and Chris downtown at the State Street Macy's, formerly Marshall Fields (that is a big distinction up here). This store is an incredible sight to see. There was even a small FAO Schwartz inside, so Alex had to check out all the larger than life stuffed animals and toy racecars. We walked over to Daley Plaza as well to see the large Christmas tree below. We also discovered it is mean to give a 2 year old pretzel sticks as a snack while requiring the use of mittens to stay warm. We wound up feeding him the pretzels as they were pretty tricky to pick up.

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be there. Have a very Merry Christmas! Will post more when we return from Cincinnati.

The Spirit of Giving and Our Little Buckeye

Merry Christmas and Go Bucks! This would be a great Christmas card photo if Alex's PJs said "Alexander" instead of "Chandler". Gotta love Ebay!

Alex gets into the spirit of giving with Josh. He even unwrapped it for him.

Alex and Josh are ready for New Orleans and to watch the Buckeyes crush LSU in the National Championship game.

Hug and a Kiss

Alex likes to sit in the rides at the mall. The ones where you can insert 50 cents and they rock back and forth for a minute. Today he was sitting in a little truck that had this plastic figure of a dog in the passenger seat. Alex thought it was really cool to be riding in the toy car with a dog. Next thing I know he gives the dog a hug and a KISS. It was cute at first but, ewwww, I wonder how dirty that thing is!??! Wish I had a picture of that.

What's for dessert?

Don't you just love the holidays? Everyday a new sugary treat staring you right in the face, because, well, it's the holidays. When I asked Brad what kind of cookies he wanted he said Haystacks, which are truly more of a candy, but yummy just the same.

Only 3 ingredients needed:

1 12oz bag of white chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups (plus a handful more) of stick pretzels, broken in half

1/2 cup of unsalted peanuts

1.Melt chips in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time

2. Mix all ingredients together, let sit for a couple minutes

3. Scoop by the teaspoonful onto wax paper

4. *Optional: Shake red/green sugar crystals on top for festive appearance :)

5. Let cool on counter an hour or so, makes about 36 "cookies"

We're still here

We're still here, just not much new to report. Alex has been practicing his numbers and is working on counting to 10. And there's still snow on the ground so we continue to go out and play once a day in the snow.

Snow tires

This evening we took Alex to the Festival of Lights at the Zoo (or whatever they call it here). It was beautiful, mainly because it was really snowing...really, really snowing! The snow was slowly falling at our home before we left but it picked up while we were at the zoo. Alex loved running around and playing in the snow at the zoo. Oh, and the lights were nice too.

He started out in the stroller but really wanted to play, so down he went. Each exhibit has "stroller parking" outside to eliminate congestion inside and by the end of the night we had quite a pile of snow in the stroller, on top of the stroller, in the basket underneath the stroller, etc.

Note to self...could use a set of snow tires for the stroller :)

Sorry, no photos, didn't want to get the camera that wet.

For Kids Not Adults

Last night we went to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Mommy and Daddy like to eat there but usually Alex has trouble finding something he really enjoys. However, yesterday he really got into the whole BW3 experience! He was all about wearing the kids hat, doing the coloring page, and eating his dinner. He even indulged in celery and ranch dressing! We had to bring the hat home and tonight he ate dinner in it again.

Regressing?

Several days a week, the little boy next door comes over to play. After 2 weeks of cleaning up food off the floor, I finally remembered that, at 15 months, it is often tidier to reattach the tray to the booster chair.

Tonight Alex brought us the jar of peanut butter out of the pantry and asked to have some of it in a bowl, with his train spoon...very specific request. He wanted to sit in the "baby chair".

I also have a pack n play set up in our bedroom for Baby Josh to take naps. Alex likes to climb in there each morning when he gets up and drinks his milk cup in the "baby bed", with his bwagies of course!

Feeding the Birds

I think all the birds may have flown south for the winter. Kathy gave Alex an early Christmas gift over the weekend of his own bird feeder. Alex really enjoyed filling it up and watches it everyday from the kitchen table. Sadly there are no birds yet, but given time, I bet we'll have a whole flock out there to watch soon. We've also taken to feeding the rabbits. I don't know if they like frozen carrots but we'll see.

Many Thanks

Many thanks to Celia who works in Lost and Found at the Houston Hyatt Hotel. I left several items of clothing in the closet during our recent trip and not only did she find them (and still had record of them weeks later), but she mailed them to me ASAP. I thought for sure I had taken them to the cleaners but turns out I had never even brought them home! I'll send her a thank you card as I am confident she is not a reader of this blog :)

Who's having more fun here?

Big kids want to have fun too! Brad and Alex had a fun weekend sledding in the snow.

Snowball fun

This week Alex learned how to make a snow angel and how to throw snowballs at Mama and Daddy! We're still working on the difference between snowballs and those large chunks of ice/snow that are left after the plow goes through. Those are far more painful when thrown from a close range!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

It is beautiful out tonight. The sky is white and it is so bright on the street as snow continues to fall. It is supposed to fall all night and into the morning tomorrow. Just a few inches, but still so pretty.

Tickle Me Cookie Monster

Ok, we have a Tickle Me Cookie Monster. It is cute and soft and Alex loves to press his tummy and hear it say, "haha, hoho, me love tickles, haha, it fun it fun". I just about had a heart attack as I thought Alex was asleep upstairs, but this possessed sound came out of the monitor. It took a few seconds to realize it was Tickle Me Cookie Monster. That thing sounds like the devil coming through the baby monitor, I bet I jumped a mile high!

Tie Blankets

As we shopped for a tie for Brad today at Macy's, Alex picked one up off the table. The silk ties feel similar to the edge of his "bwagies" and he referred to them as "Daddy's Bwagies".

On a side note, thank goodness Alex is slated to get a child-size chair for Christmas from Santa. This is what he currently uses when he watches movies, and Scooter is a bit upset about it.

Quiet Mama!

Tonight Brad and I were belting out Christmas Carols, I'll admit somewhat obnoxiously, and Alex was having none of it. From upstairs in the bathtub I hear him yell "Quiet Mama".

Snowbird

As predicted, we had a freezing rain storm yesterday afternoon/evening. It started out as just snow but quickly changed to freezing rain. This didn't stop Alex and Brad from heading out to make snow/ice balls and trying out the shovel. By this morning it was warm enough to melt the ice and we had more of a rainy day than anything else.

Tennis Rackets and Christmas Trees

We unpacked our huge Christmas tree yesterday from the 2 large boxes Allied Van Lines used for shipping. This is what the tree looked like. We spent the rest of the evening trying to reshape the tree and put lights on it. The annual lighting of the tree is always a testy time as inevitably half the lights from last year don't work.

In the surprise of the month, we found our missing tennis rackets! The movers put them in the box with the Christmas tree. We checked every logical place when we moved in and just assumed they had been stolen from our garage. We are very glad to have them back and look forward to using them in the spring.