in 2012 I will...

• potty train my son
• go on a rather expensive vacation with my hubs (sans kids)
• read 40 books
• run a half marathon
• spend more time playing games with my kids
• lose some weight
• get a new passport

Rather ambitious, aren't I?

What do you plan to do in 2012?

And runnin' runnin' and runnin' runnin'

When my sister and I were growing up, if we ever had a little too much energy for my mom's liking she would often tell us to go run around the house a few times.  Most of the time we took her advice and actually did it.  We'd lace up our tennis shoes and head outside to literally circle the house several times no matter the temperature or time of day.

As Julianna has gotten older I've caught myself telling her the same thing a time or two.  After the incredulous stares she will usually go do it, but sometimes she complains and says she doesn't want to.

Tonight when I was putting her to bed she was telling me how she "just has too much energy" and she doesn't think she'll be able to sleep late in the morning because she's "just too hyper!"  To which I replied, "Well then in the morning we'll both get up and put on our running shoes and then go see who can run the most laps around the house."

She just looked at me for a minute and didn't say anything.  I continued, "I'm sure I can run more than you, after all I did run 15 laps on the track at school today while you sat there on the swings."  Her face lit up and she said, "Let's do it!  We can race!"  We gave each other high fives and goodnight kisses and Little Energy Girl went to bed.

And this exhausted Mama is going to go make sure she has her running shoes laid out before I collapse into bed myself.

Only two more nights 'til Christmas!

the kid would argue with a wall

Josh:  It's raining outside?
Me: Yes, it is.
Josh:  It's raining? (Because he says everything no less than twice.)
Me: Yes, Josh, it's raining.

We get out of the car and put the hoods on our hoodies up and run towards the building.

Josh: No, it's not. It's not raining.

twenty six months

Dear Joshua,

Today you are twenty-six months old. It's hard to believe that this is going to be your 3rd Christmas. I can remember very vividly dressing you in a red velour sleeper with a reindeer on the butt and laying you down asleep on your belly on the edge of the couch to take your picture with Julianna for the Christmas card.

As Christmas approaches this week I'm totally looking forward to relaxing and spending some quality time with you. Mostly I'm looking forward to being able to slow down and appreciate the moments of joy you continue to bring us like when you climb up in my lap on the couch and say, "I want sit with you, Mommy." It's a phrase I hope to never forget.

Other things I love to hear you say include: Julianna, bottom, and radio. You pronounce Julianna so uniquely I don't think I'll be able to capture it right with typing, but it comes out something like Ju-nanna. Bottom comes out bah-min and radio is said more like red-yo. In addition, I am so proud of the way that you politely say thank you without prompting all the time around the house. You don't do it so much out in public, but I know that will come with time. You have the sweetest little heart and the cutest vocabulary.

You don't know it yet, but you're getting Big Boy underwear for Christmas. I hope that inspires some progress in the potty training department. So far you've peed and pooped on the potty a few times each but all incidences were parent initiated and certainly not because you told us you needed to go. I fear you have a bit of your Mama's stubbornness.

Joshua, I don't know why, but you're still pretty terrified by strangers. You just have a shy spirit and prefer to only talk to people you know. This made the visit with Santa pretty entertaining and I still find myself explaining that you're "bashful" to people in the grocery store, at the gymnastics place, and at various restaurants around town.

On the other hand, when you find sometime you like, you grin from ear to ear and really turn the charm on for them. You especially like one of your toddler class teachers. One day when I picked you up after school I headed out to the two year old's playground to get you. You can see your old playground and your old teachers from it and both classes are usually out there at the same time. Well, this one particular day I headed across the playground and I saw you climbing the chain link fence. I was still about ten yards away from you when you fell off backwards rolling down on the mulch onto your behind and back. When I asked you what you were doing climbing the fence you told me that you were "trying to get to Ms. Beff!"

It also still warms my heart to see how much you adore your sister. You follow her around like a puppy and whenever I'm too busy for you any given moment you will take things to Julianna and have her open them for you or you bring her your shoes and ask her to help you put them on. You even wait patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) outside of the bathroom door for her.

Up until today I would have said that you have made the transition to Big Boy Bed pretty seamlessly and even after our nap-time battle experience today, I would still say that I'm impressed with how well you've done.  You go to bed around 8:30 and wake up around 7 each morning.  You take two hour naps all in your big twin bed.  You say that you're ready to give the crib away to another little baby. I think I'm ready for that too.

You can count to ten almost correctly every single time and you know all your colors.  You can take your clothes on and off by yourself and you can throw a tantrum with the best of them.  You are simply and wonderfully, twenty-six month old you.  And I love you.

Love,
Mama

I'm bored! Let's take a survey!

I've seen this survey posted in various places around the blogosphere and I'm bored so I thought I'd take a second and post it too.  If you hate these kinds of things, feel free to click on.  Or play along and post on your blog if you'd like.  Merry Christmas!

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1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? I've actually never had eggnog, but I do love some hot chocolate.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? We argue about this in our house every year because it happened differently for my husband than it did for me.  Since I'm the one that does the wrapping so far our kids' presents from Santa have come unwrapped. ;o)

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? white this year, but we've done colored before

4. Do you hang mistletoe? nope

5. When do you hang your decorations up? We put them up at different times each year.  This year we put them up Thanksgiving weekend.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? It varies from year to year.  Some years I like the mac and cheese, sometimes the hashbrown casserole and sometimes it's other side dishes.  Usually it's a carb of some sort though.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? I'm not sure why but I can vividly remember the year I got several cassette tapes in my stocking.  Embarrassingly enough they were George Michael's Faith album and Michael Jackson's Bad album. I'm not sure that this would constitute my "favorite" memory, but it's what I can think of right now.

8. What is on your Christmas wish list? a Garmin Forerunner 305, race entry fees, a free babysitter, a kitten, and a Master's degree ;o)

9. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve? My sister and I always opened a new pair of PJs on Christmas Eve and I've carried on the tradition with my kids.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Most of our ornaments were ours from childhood given to us by our parents.  We also have quite a few news ones that were given to our kids by Jonathan's mom.  When I decorate I put all the delicate ornaments on the upper branches and give the non-breakable ones to my kids to put on the lower branches.

11. Snow? Love it or dread it? I'm a teacher. What do you think?

source

12. Real tree or fake tree? REAL!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Another one that's hard to answer!  I can remember so many good gifts!  I think since I like to buy my own gifts I would probably say my favorites were always the $100 bills my late grandfather used to give all of the grandkids every year.

14. What is the most important thing about Christmas for you? It's definitely spending quality time with my family.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? It's a tough choice between my mom's fudge or pumpkin crisp

16. What is your favorite tradition? opening pajamas on Christmas Eve and shopping with the girls on Black Friday so that we can laugh at the people buying big screen TVs and toilet paper at one in the morning

17. What tops your tree? This year we have an angel on top but sometimes we put a star.

18. Do you prefer giving or receiving? This is a really hard question for me.  I am probably one of the few people who doesn't like opening gifts.  I'd rather just by my presents for myself and I don't like people watching me open presents.  I also dislike buying gifts for other people unless they are really close to me.  I think I put too much pressure on myself to really find a gift that I think they would like.  Go ahead and call me Scrooge.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? O Come All Ye Faithful is my all time favorite.  I can't hear that song without thinking of watching Beaches with my sister though.

20. Candy canes, yuck or yum? I can take 'em or leave 'em. But I love peppermint ice cream, cookies, and mochas.

21. Favorite Christmas movie? How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon version)

22. What do you leave for Santa? cookies and milk

23. Do you have a Christmas morning tradition? Not really.  We just watch the kids open presents in our PJs and then eat breakfast with my parents.

24. Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall? I love to shop either way although I can't stand looking for parking spots at the mall so if I had to choose I'd probably say online.  As mentioned above, Black Friday is a whole other story.

25. Christmas letter or Christmas card? photo card

fourteen years

How many of you can say that you went on your first date with your husband and brought your sister and her two friends along with you for the dinner portion of the evening?  Yeah, that's what I thought. Not many.

Well, fourteen years ago tonight my husband and I went on our first date.  We were home from college on Christmas break and Jonathan drove all the way from Trinity to Clemmons (45 minutes) to pick me up.  We went to eat at a restaurant called Annabelle's that is no longer around and then we went to see Scream 2.  I have no idea why we brought my sister and her friends with us, but I do know that it was a fun time.  I'm glad to call Jonathan my husband fourteen years later.

And totally unrelated to any of this - I know a big secret.  That is all.

Hope you all have a fabulous day!

notes from Jules and Josh

Dear Mamaw,
Thank you for the advent house and Charlie Brown Christmas book.  We love them!  We fight over opening the next window in the advent house each day and we love singing along with Charlie Brown and his friends as they sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  Thank you for reading the story to us!
We love you!
Julianna and Joshua

actions don't always speak louder than words

One night last week Jonathan and I did this Five Love Languages Assessment one night last week.  We had read the book and taken the assassessment early in our marriage but I saw it on another blog recently and we decided to do it again.  It was amazing to see the slight changes in our Love Languages.

Here are my results:

11 Words of Affirmation
7 Quality Time
0 Receiving Gifts
6 Acts of Service
6 Physical Touch

Apparently, 12 is the highest score you can get in one area and I think my Words of Affirmation score has crept up a little bit in the last few years.  At any rate, it was very interesting to revisit this and analyze the results once again.

If you are in a serious relationship I highly encourage you to take a look at this yourself and if you haven't read the book, it'd be a great Christmas gift to yourself or your significant other.

first round of Christmas down

We spent the majority of the day today at my Mom and Dad's house celebrating Christmas with my Mom's family.  There was lots of fun, plenty of family, and tons and tons of food.  I made this Kahlua cake I found on Pinterest (follow me?) and it was delicious.

Source

Instead of exchanging gifts we purchased a few things for a family who has much less than we do and delivered the presents this afternoon.  We did exchange a few little gifts among the babies in the family and we attempted to get a group shot of all of the great-grandkids (although now that my grandparents are gone maybe I should say grandkids? still, it doesn't sound right).

The best part about the day was just spending time together.  I'm glad my dad got to be there even if it was only for a little while.   My mom is glad to have "her year" over and I'm actually looking forward to my turn in two years.

 Now I only have three more days of school and then three more big Christmas events and I'll be done with a capital D.  Not that I'm excited about Christmas being over or anything, I'm just ready to have some me time and a little relaxation before heading back to work.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

my door at school

courtesy of an idea I saw on Pinterest

peace on earth and birthday cake

In the car tonight Josh asked, "What did baby Jesus say?"

After a moment of thought I finally decided to say, "I don't think he said anything. I think he just cried like all babies do."

Josh asked, "Why he cry?"

"Probably because he wanted someone to hold him."

"He wanted his mommy to come back?"

"Yes, he probably wanted his mommy and he might have been hungry."

Joshua thought about this a minute and then said, "We make him a cake! We make him a birthday cake! What he want on his cake?...

and a minute later...

"It not baby Jesus' birthday! It my birthday!"

Ahhhh, yes Buddy, it's your birthday again in ten months or so.

conversations over dinner

A new girl joined Julianna's class earlier this week and I asked her tonight at dinner how she was liking it.  After she answered I asked Jules which girl in her class she liked best and she said, "There are two.  I like M*** and I***."  So I said, "Okay. Now which boy do you like best?" to which she replied, "You mean which one do I want to kiss?"

Um.  Giant pause.

Jonathan and I both were like, "Nooooooo.  Which boy is nicest? Which one is your friend?"

She sat there for a minute and wouldn't answer so Jonathan asked, "Why do you want to kiss the boys?"

"Because their lips look so good," she replied.

Moral of the story: we're in BIG trouble in about 8 years.  Someone please send help.

"Measure my head please, Mama!"

Wonder where he learned that?

overheard

Last night on the way home from gymnastics I heard this conversation coming from the back seat.

Julianna:  Josh, do you know where Santa lives?
Joshua: At the doughnut store!

Maybe we misled him?

a belated twenty five months letter

Dear Joshua,

I completely forgot about writing your twenty-five month letter last week.  I was wrapped up in getting out of school for Thanksgiving and grocery shopping and all other such things and I just forgot to write the letter.  I'll do better next month.  I promise.

For now I just want to note how proud of you I am.  In the past week you have transitioned to a Big Boy Bed without any hiccups.  You even took at nap there this past weekend and you kindly wait in the bed for us to come get you up in the mornings.  Now you constantly go around saying, "I a big boy!"  Indeed you are, Brother.

You've also stopped crying when I drop you off in your two-year old class at school and you've pee-peed in the potty no less than three times.  (It seems that a lollipop can convince you of a lot.)  Your new teacher at school loves to tell how she'll sit you on the potty and you'll say, "It just can't come out!"  I couldn't be more delighted at the progress you're making though.

You're growing up fast, but you'll always be my baby.  I love you more than you'll ever know.

Love,
Mama

here comes Santa Claus

I kept debating when we'd go to the mall so the kids could visit Santa and I was also dreading the crowds and the pressure to buy some crappy photo package. So naturally when I heard that Santa would be visiting our Krispy Kreme on Saturday (the original Krispy Kreme) we got fancied up and headed on over.  I mean, who needs an excuse to eat a hot, melt-in-your-mouth circle of goodness?  Not me!

Josh was not thrilled, not thrilled at all to be there.  He continually buried his head in Jonathan's neck and every time I said, "Let's go talk to Santa" he would make the most horrible pouty face.  Fortunately, Mrs. Claus was there too and she talked to Josh for a while before we could convince him to go stand with Santa for a photo.  He told her he wanted a basketball.  He never would talk to Santa though.

Julianna, of course spoke to him plenty.  You could tell she was nervous, but she told him she liked Pokemon and he told her to do three things for him.  He said she should be kind and considerate to others, hug her mom and dad, and clean up her room since a couple of elves had told him they'd been tripping over things on their last visit.

Christmas is indeed, the most magical time of the year!  Especially when you don't have to make silly trips to the mall.

For reference:
we obviously didn't take Jules to see Santa in 2006
Visit with Santa 2007
Visit with Santa 2008
Visit with Santa 2009
Visit with Santa 2010

what I'm reading... with only five and a half weeks left this year...

I've tried to keep up my reading for fun despite my busyness and I've finished a few books lately including The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Shanghai Girls, I Am Number Four, The Power of Six, and Winter Garden.  My goal was to read at least forty books this year (a little less than one a week) and I think I'm going to fall just short of that goal but we'll see.

The lemon cake book was rather strange.  I enjoyed it, but it's not much like anything I've read before.

I was totally hooked on the Pittacus Lore series after the first book, but the second book made me mad and I'm not raving about it all that much anymore.  Even so, I WILL see the movie and I absolutely cannot WAIT for the Hunger Games movie to come out in March.  Have you seen the trailer?  Also, this past weekend my sweet husband took me to see Breaking Dawn and I just knew it would be delightful.  I was not wrong.

Sorry.  I went off on a little tangent there.  Winter Garden was pretty good.  It reminded me a lot of Kristen Hannah's other books though and Shanghai Girls was decent.  However, I'm sure a lot of people have already read it.

Next up on my agenda is Sarah's Key, Unbroken, Feed, and Divergent.

-Have you seen Breaking Dawn?  Love it? Hate it? Forget about it?


-What is the best book you've read recently?


-Have you ever been to the movies and had a couple sitting next to you making out the whole time?  We did just this past weekend and the theater was packed of course, so we couldn't move.  It was so gross and they didn't seem to mind all of the looks we were giving them.

*all pictures of book covers are from Amazon.com