Up up and away....

Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 65% Superman 55% Spider-Man 55% Wonder Woman 55% Hulk 55% Robin 52% Catwoman 50% Green Lantern 45% The Flash 40% Iron Man 35% Batman 20%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
>

Ahhhh is Christmas over already?

We had a very merry Christmas this year. Chase enjoyed visiting with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Rob. It can be said that the child hit the mother load with presents this year. Some of his favorites include his singing dinosaur and giraffe, his new books, his cow and his stacking pails. He also got a very nice wooden chess/checkers set that he was eyeing longingly. Unfortunately, he's too young to play checkers just yet, but it will be waiting for him when he's a bit older. Looking around, it occurs to me that Santa may have gone a bit overboard--thankfully he didn't run out of tape even with the wrapping of so many presents. As a special thank you for being so kind to our family, the jolly old elf got to eat some of our tasty gingerbread cookies. Mrs. Kringle raised her boy right because he left Chase a note thanking him for the yummy treat and for Rudolph's carrot.
Scatterbrained Laura completely forgot to take pictures of the morning festivities which she is hereby blaming on Chase who was just too darn cute to watch through a lens. Therefore, we must thank Uncle Rob for our only Christmas pictures this year. Behold, the photographic skills of my little (ha!) brother.

Story time with Grandma and Grandpa

The tree

Playing with our new music table

Gingerbread cookies decorated by mom and me

Today's rant brought to you by the letter K--as in Mart

The holidays are here, and in an effort to not be a Grinch, I decided to finally put out the cute winter towels that I bought way back in November. They are blue with snowflakes on them--perfect for both our holidays and can even move into January should I get lazy and not change them out for the normal powder room towels. The set contained one big towel and two fingertip towels. So, there I am Falalaing along feeling all proud of myself for my togetherness when I encounter a snafu. A plastic clothing tag is binding my towels together. No worries, I'll have that thing out of there in no time...but wait there's another one. And another. And another. My falalaing has by now turned into #*&^!#ing. There were seven (7!) plastic clothing tags in three towels. Why oh why does Kmart insist on playing such practical jokes on the holiday challenged? Was this Martha's doing?? I need answers!

Different year, same MO

I have recently drug myself out from the hole in which I've been living and gotten into the MySpace craze. It's really the coolest thing ever for Nosy Nellies like myself. I've been spending countless hours searching for people I might know, and guess who I found. Ms. Keli of the Mouse. She of course was not a hole dweller like myself and already had her page pimped out with tons of friends and cool things for me to snoop through. She also had this picture on there. Me, Keli and Christy playing in the dirt. The other two look relatively clean, but you can see that I am dirty from head to toe. Kind of like today--except instead of dirt, I'm covered with flour, sugar and a little egg for good measure. I try to be neat, I really do. It's just not meant to be.

Keli says I look skeptical in this picture. Me? A skeptic? Now that's just crazy talk!

Did somebody say presents?

Chase has already gotten quite a bit of loot this holiday season. We had Hanukkah at Nana and PopPop's yesterday, and Chase came away with 2 bags full of presents! Here are some pictures from the first night of Hanukkah at our house and the family celebration yesterday. Some of the highlights: TMX Elmo from Nana and PopPop--he stares at this; a stacking toy from Gran; a really cool radio from MomMom and PopPop; a hand knitted sweater from Jenn; a soft blanket from Uncle Adam; a wiggling elephant from Nathan; and The First Bank of Piggy from Aunt Danielle and Uncle David. That's quite a haul for someone so young.

Lazy Santa

I came across an interesting variation on the Santa tradition the other day. Now, in my family, Santa always wrapped the gifts he brought. Well, unless the gift was too oddly shaped or too large to wrap. Or there was that one time when he worked extra late trying to procure for me a Cabbage Patch Doll, and thus, he ran out of time and was unable to wrap such a prized gift. Overall though, Santa's gifts were wrapped. Well, now it seems that maybe after he wrapped our gifts, Santa got a little lazy (or he ran out of tape) and didn't wrap ANY of the gifts at other children's homes. None. Jeanne's house is one of them. That seems so very odd to me, and got me thinking about Christmas through the years.
I don't think I would have enjoyed having all of my presents unwrapped under the tree...where's the anticipation in that? The rule in our house was that mom was not to disturbed before 7:30 and there had better be coffee brewing when she came to the living room. My brother and I used to be up by 6 on Christmas morning. We'd pass the time by trying to guess what could be hidden beneath all of that brightly colored paper and trim. We'd line up our presents as we tried to decide which one we wanted to open first. This is how most of my childhood Christmas mornings passed. Most, but not all.
Which brings me to one of my favorite memories of Christmas. I must have been in third grade which would make my brother 1 or 2. We had gone delivering presents to relatives on Christmas Eve as always. Grandma Gladys had allowed us to open our presents from her while we were at her house that year. It was quite a treat for us to get to open a present on Christmas Eve. Though I can't remember what my present was, I will never forget what Robbie's was. A Little People red race car and yellow towing truck Set. The towing truck had the truck and a trailer where the ramp moved up and down to load the race car on. Now, why do I remember such details you ask? Well, because that was the ONLY Christmas where my parents had to wake me up to start Christmas. You see, my little brother arose early Christmas morning per his usual habit. He went downstairs, passed the Christmas tree with all of Santa's presents wrapped so enticingly below it's branches, and into the kitchen where he happily played with his race car and tow truck. My mom was afraid that he would grow tired of the toy, find the Christmas tree and tear into the bounty before I woke up. So, for the first and only time ever- I was aroused from my sugarplum dreams by my mom. As I went down the stairs, I could hear Robbie still playing with his treasure in the kitchen. Now, had Santa been lazy and left his presents unwrapped, who knows if I would have this silly memory to share with all of you. So, in our house, it is my hope that Santa continues to wrap all of his presents. I'll even send him some tape if he runs out. :-) Because, for me, the magic of Christmas truly lies in the family traditions. So whatever your Christmas rituals may be, I hope that you find joy and happiness this holiday season.

Double the pleasure, double the work

Poor Chase. Yes, he gets to celebrate two holidays. Yes, he'll get Hanukkah presents AND Christmas presents. But, I don't think any of you realize that he has to do double duty to reap the rewards of these two holidays. Poor kid had to sit twice as long for holiday pictures. He even had to endure prop switches. He was a trooper though. :-)

Sweet tooth

It would seem that Chase may have inherited his mama's sweet tooth. So far, we've tried rice, oatmeal, green beans, bananas and sweet potatoes. He strongly disliked the oatmeal and barely tolerated the rice and green beans. The bananas and sweet potatoes were money though...sugar anyone? His affinity for sugary goodness certainly has nothing to do with all of the desserts I ate when pregnant, and I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. I hope that he handles his sugar well and doesn't start rolling amok in his crib. Which reminds me...the rolling over skill that he has acquired is presenting a problem. At night, little noodle will flip himself over onto his belly, but Houdini can't seem to figure out how to flip back. So then he screams. Bloody murder screams. Once you get over the initial terror of hearing your child shriek like an injured bearcat, it's kind of funny to see him laying there face first into the bed. Oh and about the shrieking, Chase has a new sound that he makes. While not as eardrum shattering as the "I've rolled over and can't get up" shriek, his new vocal ability is still pretty impressive in the noise realm. He seems to make this sound when he's happy...it's almost like a squeel of glee, with a little more of a bird squawk to it. Like a baby dinosaur. Hence his new name of Baby Pterodactyl.