Dear Santa...

We had some time to kill after baths tonight, so we decided it would be a good time to hit up Santa for some goods politely ask Mr. Claus to bring some us presents next month.

Ally did hers by herself for the first time. When I asked her if she wanted to thank Santa for last year's presents before asking for more, she said, "Um, that was a whole year ago. It doesn't matter anymore." Yeah... that reflects great on my parenting, doesn't it? She also decided that it would be smarter to only ask for one thing. That way he won't run out of room in his sack.

"Dear Santa I want a unicorn pillow pet please. Ally."

I made her add the 'please'. She's 50% on her lowercase A's. 3 are the right way and 3 are backward. We're working on it.

I think this is his "bring me a pillow pet or else" face.

Yes, she did write Morth Pole. We're working on that too.

"I Like the Square Shape!"

Ally's glasses broke last Wednesday, but after a few hours at two different malls, we got hers fixed and ordered a new pair. These are the new ones she chose all by herself. To quote her, "I love that they are a totally different shape than the old ones. I feel like a whole new girl!"

Merry Christmas! (Yes, I do know Thanksgiving is still a week away)

Remember the Christmas Tree Disaster of 2009? If you are fortunate enough to have forgotten, you can refresh your memory here and here. That old tree has been in a landfill since December 26th-- may it rest in peace. This year I decided to avoid last-minute tree problems all together and get it done early.

We bought the tree and ornaments a few weeks ago and I've been itching to set it up ever since. Why get new ornaments when the old ones were just fine? Because they were glass and I have a two-year old boy. That's why. This year we went unbreakable. Take that, Destructo-boy (that's what Ally calls him).

So the kids helped me set up and decorate the tree today. I told them (repeatedly) to make sure they spread out the ornaments and put them all around the tree. You can see how well they follow instructions.


By the way, I highly recommend the unbreakable ornaments. They've been kicked across the living room several times already (they are balls, after all) and nobody got hurt.

And yes, we have more ornaments. This was just the first of 3 boxes. But I'll be doing the rest myself. When the kids are sleeping.

November's Twelfth Dozen

Yes, I remembered this month. (Just barely.) Please ignore the smudge on the left side of every picture. I finally noticed it last night and cleaned it off. As always, I'm blaming my children.

We used our fantastic new flat iron to straighten then curl Ally's hair. It's the first time she's ever been excited to get her hair done in the bathroom. Maybe it's because the heating plates are pink.

Ally told her friend we walked to school with that she'd better try to keep up or they'd be late for school. And they didn't want to be late for their very first kindergarten field trip!

My son's been flirting with the crossing guard every morning and it finally paid off yesterday when she let him hold the stop sign.


I have Mike's old cell phone now which means I also inherited all the music he put on it. So we rocked out to Credence Clearwater Revival all the way home. Crit made me play "Down on the Corner" 4 times! Each time it ended and a new song came on, he would yell, "No! Papa's song again!" (My dad has always loved that song.)

Crit "helped" me vacuum while Ally was at school.

Then he found the measuring tape.

Then he (almost) figured out how to take his shirt off. When he figures out that his arms should go out the bottom and not the top, we'll be in real trouble.

Ally came home from an "awesome" field trip to the grocery store with a balloon. Thanks, Macey's. She got to ride on the school bus for the first time and "loved every single minute of it."

Crit ate a banana. I swear this kid is part monkey.

Ally ate a cookie before she even took her coat off after school.

The kids played on Mike's NEW cell phone. I've been informed by both of them that it's "so much cooler" than his old one (which is mine now). Thanks, kids.

And Mike spent most of the evening on the couch (and occasionally getting kisses from Crit). He went to the doctor in the morning and found out he's got bronchitis. He also got his flu shot and tetanus/pertussis booster. Poor guy.

Happy Halloween!

It's really nice to have kids young enough to not know that we didn't go trick-or-treating to very many houses. It was cold and wet, but they were too excited to notice. Mike's mom and dad came down and answered the door while we took the kids out.

As always, ignore the date on my camera.

Ally was Cinderella. We even bought new bobby pins so she could have real "princess hair."

Crit was Buzz Lightyear. He caught on to saying "Trick-or-treat" really quickly. He said, "Happy Halloween" to himself over and over between houses.

This is Ally's dress after we got home. If you look closely at the middle of the picture you can see how wet the bottom got. But I guess when you're getting free candy you don't really notice.

Ally wanted another picture so she'd have more than Crit. So here it is.

We've Been Busy!

Wow. How lazy have I been lately? We've actually had a lot going on, so while my boy is napping and my big girl is at a friend's house, I'll try to catch up a little bit.

We ended September with our big California vacation. We had been planning for over a year to go with Mike's family and the day FINALLY came! We had a fantastic, wonderful, amazing time at Disneyland, California Adventure, Mission Beach in San Diego, Sea World, and the Zoo.

Ally posing with the "A" at California Adventure. Take note of the Minnie Mouse ears. She wouldn't settle for the plain old Mickey ones. And I just noticed the date on my camera is wrong. I'm going to blame that on the kids.

And here's the reason the camera didn't come out nearly as much as it should have. Do you see the mister fan my son is holding? We bought two of them. It was a record-breaking 113 degrees the week we were there. We were so busy trying to stay conscious in the heat that getting the camera out just took too much effort.

We stopped at the M&Ms store in Vegas on the way down. Ally took her time picking out a stuffed animal holding a purse with M&Ms inside. Crit just grabbed a couple of plastic containers of candy and he was happy the whole time we were there.

Here we are outside the Toy Story ride. It was the kids' favorite, so we went on it a couple of times. I think a small part of the charm was the air conditioning.

Crit's current favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so seeing Pluto was a HUGE treat. He stood there hugging the poor guy in the costume for over a minute.

He finally let go of Pluto long enough for the rest of us to get in for a picture. Can you tell it's ridiculously hot by looking at our red faces? Mike took every opportunity to fill his hat up at every drinking fountain and pour it over his head. And apparently clothes.

Crit has a very large obsession with Buzz Lightyear, and squealed when he saw him. My very favorite part of our vacation was right before I took this picture. I was holding Crit when we turned the corner and saw Buzz. He just turned to me and said, "Thank you, Mommy. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mommy." It was so sweet!

Unfortunately, the camera was left in the hotel room or the car for most of the other days. It's a good thing Aunt Carrie is the resident family photographer, so we'll get pictures soon.

Ally's back from the neighbors, so Halloween pictures will have to wait for another day...