Christmas Tag

I was tagged by Nancy.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?

Gift bags because they are recyclable although I will do paper when I run out or when the gift bags I have won't work with the shape and size of the gift.

2. Real tree or artificial?

Artificial. And this year it's a small artificial since the big tree with a 13 month old in our little condo seemed totally unworkable. So I got a small tree for $3.75 at Michaels and its on a tv tray table inside the supergate in front our our fireplace.

3. When do you put up the tree?

First weekend in Dec.

4. When do you take the tree down?

First or second weekend in January depending on the date those weekends fall. I like to keep it up for Russian/Orthodox Christmas but might take it down before that depending on my schedule that year.

5. Do you like eggnog?

Yes, in small doses.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

The thing that comes to mind is an electronic keyboard (piano).

7. Do you have a nativity scene?

Only in a tree ornament. My husband had one that he kept up all year in the Maple Ave. bachelor house but I think it got lost in the move. It was probably still at the MAMC until the great purge of 2005.

8. Hardest person to buy for?

My husband. He doesn't want anything, at least anything that's not uber expensive.

9. Easiest person to buy for?

My mother-in-law.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?

Leopard print slip on shoes. My mom wanted to get me the shoes but those where the only ones they had in my size. She really wanted to buy them because they were $2. I think she took them back.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards?

Mail.

12. Favorite Christmas movie?

Not sure if this is a movie but it's the yogi bear christmas special.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?

In the late fall.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?

Yes. I even brought a gift that I had gotten early to a white elephant gift exchange that same year. Hey, the gift got stolen once so someone who actually wanted it got it.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

Peanut M&Ms.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?

Definitely clear. I think colored lights are tacky. That said I have colored lights (the M&M lights) on the small tree this year.

17. Favorite Christmas song?

Joy to the World.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home

Travel. This year to Florida.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?

Yep.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?

Neither. A big bow.

21. Open gifts Christmas Eve or morning?

Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?

The whole merry christmas/seasons greetings/happy holidays thing. Every thing about it - that people don't say merry christmas, that others get insanely upset at stores that don't say merry christmas, that you have to worry about what you say to what people, etc.

23. What I love most about Christmas?

Finding the perfect gift for people and them recognizing how thoughtful it was. Yeah, that's not the Sunday School answer. Maybe someday my heart will be in line with the Sunday School answer.

Okay, I tag Catherine, Christine, Amy, Cara, and Martin.

Visiting Friends

Here's Dylan and Brenna (our freinds Jen and Rich's daughter). Dylan and Brenna played well together. Brenna is 2 (there's a 14 month age difference between the two of them). It's really fun to start to see Dylan play with other kids. Mom and Dad got to enjoy a nice dinner and conversation with our friends too.

Visiting Great-Grandpap

When we were in PA for Thanksgiving we visited my grandfather in the nursing home. Dylan liked his wheelchair. (Great) Grandpap got to come home yesterday. He has been in either the hospital or nursing home since September.

Random pictures of Dylan

Here's Dylan playing with this toy where you have to put the balls in a round hole. Dylan decided Mommy's mouth looked like right shape too. Daddy was sure to get a picture of this one.

Here Dylan's wearing what we've been calling the green monster suit. We've also been told he looks like a little turtle, dinosaur, frog, and alligator. We got the suit in a bag of hand-me-downs from a friend of ours. Dylan has worn this to a PALS trip to the Washington Monument, the Help the Homeless Walk-a-Thon, and outside at grandma's house (shown here). He's gotten a lot of wear out of it already.

What Dylan has been up to...

Climbing! Here's how Dylan gets on the coffeetable.

Step 1, approach the table.
Step 2, lean forward, swinging legs up into the air.

Step 3, wiggle forward until knees are on the table, come to a kneeling position and then...

Step 4, come to a standing position.

Also see this video...

Dylan is pretty good about getting down too. He can do it by himself.

Dylan also likes to climb on less dangerous objects, like the trivia pursuit game. He is so proud of himself. Touchdown!

Picture day

Here's our cute dapper gent on his to get his picture taken two weeks ago. We pick the pictures up today. I guess I just ruined the surprise for the grandparents....you're getting pictures of Dylan for Christmas...probably not that big of a surprise...Dylan did not wear his jacket for the studio pictures though.

Halloween pics

Martin and I aren't big on the Halloween thing but I found this costume cheap at the consignment shop and we were able to go to our friends' neighborhood where they actually get trick-or-treaters so we figured it would be fun for us. And Dylan looks cute in the clown outfit...



Here's Dylan with our friends' kids Oliver, Calvin, and Henry.

And Dylan with our other friends' kid, Richie aka Yoda.

As we went around the neighborhood, Oliver (who is 6 weeks younger than Dylan) and Dylan got to ride in the double baby jogger. I felt very old taking my kid trick-or-treating.

How I spent my government holiday

Yesterday I had a day off of work. Yes, from the two hours of work that I normally have to do on a Monday. You wouldn't think it makes that much of a difference but it does. Martin ended up staying home because he was sick so I was able to go out for lunch with a gal I know from volunteering with STEP. I was also able to check off a big project off of my to do list - clean the most disgusting part of our house - our shower curtain. The dish detergent worked great, by the way Catherine. The shower curtain was so dirty, I'm almost ashamed to tell anyone about it. The black mildew looked like sewage as I was scrubbing it off. Thankfully it didn't smell as bad as sewage. However for me the satisfaction of having it done was very much worth the effort. I'm still thinking aah, clean shower curtain. Anyone else have any disgusting cleaning jobs on their to do list? Or have you recently done anything that was hard but the satisfaction greatly outweighed the difficulty?

Birthday (Suit) Pictures

Here's pictures of Dylan on his actual birthday. We gave him another cupcake. That required another bath, after which Dylan had fun running around in his birthday suit. These are the less embarassing ones thanks to the balloon.

Dylan with his birthday presents from Grandma and Grandpa

As soon as these toys came in the mail, Dylan played with them for the next hour. That's amazing. He really likes pushing them around.

Here's Dylan in his Eagles outfit. Dylan did also get a Steelers outfit from my brother so everything is still even. He also got a Steelers tree ornament and a Eagles tree ornament from my parents. Dylan will be wearing this on Sunday when the Eagles play the Redskins.

Last month's adventures Part 2

Dylan's day care had a field trip to Cox Farms last month. Unfortunately Bushra's kids were sick that day at they had to cancel at the last minute but Dylan and I still went. We saw pigs and goats and took a hay ride and went down the slide. It was a lot of fun. My camera batteries died during the trip so this is the only photo I got.

Here's Dylan in one of his new carseats.

Dylan and Martin before church a few weeks ago....they didn't even plan to wear the same thing...

I love this age...

You know how you tell someone how old your kid is and they say "oh, that's such a fun age" and you wonder if they would have said that no matter what you said. I agree with them everytime...I thought 6 months was fun, but then 10 months was even better and now I'm loving 12 months. Dylan walked into the kitchen this morning and just started dancing. Literally dancing and smiling the whole time. I wish I had a video of it.

He's starting to do these really funny and surprising things that just crack us up. And I think I stated this before but he also initiates interactions with us and that is just the most precious thing in the world. Yes, I'm a first time parent marvelling at these things that happen to every kid but we should marvel. Kids are miracles.

The Sixth of November and 300th Post

Yes, today is the Sixth of November, my blog's namesake and Martin's and my anniversary. Hard to believe it's been 3 years since we walked down the aisle. Martin and I have been so blessed with a good marriage and a relatively easy time of it so far.

As I wrote earlier, Martin and I celebrated on Saturday with dinner and a movie and tonight we will celebrate with a red meat dinner, a rare (pardon the pun) occurance at our house lately. We decided that our anniversary gift to each other will be a mantle shelf for our fireplace - we'll get to hang stockings this year!

This is also my 300th post! (Yes, I checked the drafts too Nancy, hence my two other posts today to catch up...:) So Happy 2nd Anniversary Blog and Happy 3rd Anniversary Babe! I love you!!! (Martin, not the blog...:)

Matching Toys and Climbing

Here are some developmental things I'm noticed going on with Dylan lately:

He knows which pieces goes with which toys. It used to be that he would pick up a ring and a cup and bang them together. Now he picks up two rings or two cups. He searches around the sea of toys in our living room until he finds matching toys. He doesn't sort by colors yet but we're working on that.

Dylan is learning how to climb. When I open the refridgerator, he climbs up the shelves before I can even get out what I needed. Dylan has also learned that he if puts a toy or something that's at least 2 inches off the ground near the coffee table he can stand on it and climb onto the coffee table. Once on the coffee table he tries to bounce up and down on it. Actually he will climb onto anything that gets him even an inch higher than the ground - I think that's why he likes the scale in the bathroom. The scariest thing though was the other day when I was working on the computer across the room, Dylan pulled his booster seat off the chair in the dining room, stepped on the booster seat and then onto the chair. When I turned around he was standing on the chair, grabbing a lamp behind the chair. I hear this is a boy thing...

Also, Dylan has really good balance. He has a little rocking chair (it used to be his bouncy seat, it converts into a toddler chair) and he climbs up on it and stands and bounces and doesn't fall. (We are working on training him to sit in the chair and not stand on it.) Also, my mom was really amazed at how Dylan squats to pick up toys and can stay down a really long time without falling.

Happy Birthday Blog!

If you've been with me from the beginning, you know that I started this blog around Martin's and my first anniversary when I was musing on marriage and future plans (i.e., kids) and career. Oh how the more things change, the more they stay the same....

My situation has changed lots in the past two years. I'm no longer a newlywed (and I think at this point I also have to give up the new mom title), I'm married with child, working part time as opposed to newly married living the DINK life. Yet, I'm still thinking about "what's next....kids...timing...career..." I guess one never stops thinking of those things. Even if Martin and I buy a house and I end up staying home in the next few years I'll probably be obsessed with wondering when I should go back to work. Why do we do this to ourselves? (I know from many conversations with other 30-somethings (and also some 20-somethings...yes, you Lisa!) that I'm not the only one.

In my second posting on this blog, I talked about a co-worker who helped me realize my lack of ambition, at least compared to him. This same co-worker asked me last week how long I was going to keep working. How did he know I plan on quitting eventually? I guess I did with my response. I said Martin and I want to have more kids and we'll see how that goes and blah blah blah...I wish I would have had a good, witty, stay out of my business response, but I didn't think of one. Anyway, all that to say, even if I wanted to stop thinking about all this I got this co-worker who keeps pressing me on my "plans." As if I don't think about it enough.

Today as I look back on three years of married life and think about the future, I'm reminded again how much I need to rest in the present and the presence of God who is in control of all - past, present, and future. He brings forgiveness for my past, contentment in my present, and hope for my future. Thinking in this framework when the "what's next?" questions arise allows me to take a deep breath and have peace. You can only plan for the future so far (yes, save for retirement but do we really need to plan out every step before that and book your travel for your retirement trips...no). Over the weekend I heard a friend quote someone who's name I forget "if you want to make God laugh, make plans." This is countercultural and very much a foreign idea to my (seemingly control-freak) co-worker. Yes, I want to be smart about the future, but I don't want to waste my time making plans that will be moot in a few months anyway, as was the case in my second posting thinking that I wouldn't be able to stay in my job part time. So, keep reading maybe I'll get better about this by the time our 30th anniversary rolls around.

First signs of separation anxiety

Our very independent and easy going little guy finally showed some signs of separation anxiety this weekend....it was great...:) Just kidding, but really, it did make me feel better that he does know us and wants to be with us. Martin and I went out for our anniversary on Saturday night and we left Dylan and our friends' house. They have a one year old too so we figured it would be a play date. Dylan goes to day care twice and week and the church nursery once a week without any problems so we didn't think anything about leaving him. Our friends said he cried for the 1st 10-15 minutes that he was there. And then after he calmed down he cried again when our friends left the room to get dinner ready. He had been to their house before, most recently a month ago. But I guess it was just not part of his normal routine so he didn't know what was going on. Even so, the he did fine at our friends' house and even went to sleep for them at 7:30pm.

I didn't realize how important his routine was until this weekend. Some other things showed me that yesterday too. I tried to give Dylan a sippy cup with milk instead of nursing him at church like I normally do. He wouldn't have anything to do with it even though he has taken a sippy cup with cold milk before. It just wasn't in the routine. And then last night he seemed really tired around 5pm and we figured there was no way he was going to eat for us so we tried to get him to go to sleep. He was just about asleep like 3 times and then he would wake up. So we tried dinner and he ate a ton without fussing. Usually with Dylan, sleep trumps eating as far as his needs go but I guess not last night. So then he got a bath and went right to sleep.

I am still nursing him to sleep. Not doing so didn't last very long. But whatever works. I'm trying to get to the point where I'm just nursing him for sleep but this morning I've already nursed him 2-3 times trying to get him to go back to sleep with no avail. Even before the time change Dylan was waking up around 5:30 or 6 and not going back to sleep. So now I'm getting less sleep but I guess I get more done in the morning.

Last month's adventures Part 1

Last month, Martin and I went to the wedding of Molly Jenison and Keith Mertz in Mechanicsburg, PA. Molly is a friend of mine from college and she has also lived in DC ever since I moved here. My insanely-generous-with-their-time parents drove 4 hours from their house to watch Dylan in Mechanicsburg while we went to the wedding and then drove 4 hours home. They love seeing their grandsons. My parents took Dylan to a pumpkin patch where he got his face painted and played with the pumpkins and went on the slides. Dylan did great and had a fun time with Grandma and Grandpap while Mommy and Daddy got to go to the wedding. Here are some pictures from that day....

Another of Dylan's favorite things...

The Swings!

Dylan likes anything really where he is up high and moving or in flight, like being thrown up in the air, or climbing, or going down the slides. He also loves walking, and sometimes running as seen in this video...

Taking the bear for a ride

Here's one of those things that you are amazed that your kid can do because you didn't teach him to do it. Dylan put his (Presbyterian) bear on the push train and took him for a ride. Very cute.

Dylan's favorite things

Here are some of Dylan's favorite toys at one year old:

1) Cups. These have been a favorite for a while and they are still entertaining.


2) More recently, Dylan has taken a liking to his teddy bears. Two in particular, the ones we call Presbyterian Bear and Lutheran Bear. Presbyterian Bear (shown here) is a bear that when you squeeze its hands it says the Lord's Prayer, Presbyterian-style (i.e., debts/debtors instead of tresspasses/tresspass against us). Lutheran Bear is a soft black bear that Dylan got for being a member of the United Lutheran Society (you become a member when you buy their insurance which my aunt got him as a gift). Daddy is now trying to figure out an appropriate denomination for all Dylan's bears.

3) Books. And he doesn't just chew on them. He turns the page and even looks at the pictures now. He's favorites are "That's not my Puppy" and "Babies on the Move." He has moved up from the cloth zebra book which used to be his favorite to the board books.

4) His drum. "Play the drum everyone, play the drum." We have to turn this one off sometimes. It gets way too annoying.

5) The rings/stacking toy. Dylan is actually now starting to put them on the stand but taking them off is still the best part.

6) Any type of plastic bottle, especially travel size shampoo. You know how a lot of parents have one cupboard they let their kids play in? Okay, we have about 3 or 4, but Dylan's favorite is the one with all the travel sized bottles. He like to chew on them and bang them together. Great fun.

7) The magnet on our dishwasher that says if the dishes are clean or dirty. This use to just go straight to his mouth but now he has been trying to make it stick to other things, the fridge, Daddy's leg, etc.