My Favorite Christmas Movies and Shows

 

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is watching Christmas themed movies and TV shows together as a family.  Every year we watch the same ones as the year before and the year before that.  We watch them in a different order every year but we never skip watching one.  We have added a couple of newbies to our list in recent years, which is not normal for me because I am big on the traditional favorites and don’t usually like new cartoon-ey shows.

Here’s a list of our favorite Christmas TV shows:

Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, HGTV’s White House Christmas, and Prep & Landing.  But my most most MOST favorite Christmas show of all time is …

A GARFIELD CHRISTMAS!!!!  You can’t find this gem on TV anymore but a few years ago I was lucky enough to find a DVD with this show AND Garfield’s Thanksgiving and Halloween on it!  Talk about one of my most prized possessions!  The other shows I am fine watching just once a year, but this gem?  It’s watched over and over again!

We have way too many Christmas movies on our list of ‘must watch’ every year.  But how do you remove one from the list?  We are still working our way through the list – one week left to get them all in!

It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, Scrooged, Holiday Inn, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Polar Express.  I hate to pick a favorite, but if I had to choose only one to watch I think it would be …

White Christmas! Love love this movie!

That is my Christmas ‘must watch’ list, what is on yours?

 

Tate Lately // 10 Months Old

 

Tatie Tot, you cute little baby you, I can’t believe you are 10 months old already! 

You are still such a happy little guy, always babbling and chattering along, laughing along with me when I laugh.  You’re new thing is bouncing up and down when you are standing up and holding on to something.  I say you are dancing to the music in your head. 

You have mastered walking behind the walker.  It’s a fast little buggy and you practically have to run to keep up sometimes.  For most of the month you would holler for some help when you would get it ‘stuck’ against a wall or couch or something, but over the last 2 days you have figured out how to ‘unstick’ yourself and keep on a movin’.  You used to be nervous about getting on the wood flooring but now you cruise carpet and wood.

2 weeks ago we had your 9month check up, you weighed 26lbs 4oz and were 30 3/4” tall.  Still at or above the 97th percentile!

You wear all 18 – 24mo clothes and size 4 diapers.  I just bought you new shoes, they are size 5’s. 

I swear you are saying ‘Santa’ now, although I’m not sure if I’ll write it down as your first word or not.  It’s not very clear but definitely mimics the sounds I make when saying it. And speaking of Santa, you LOVE all the Christmas decorations!  Every time we go back to bed for naps or bedtime we stop at the Christmas tree in the front room and say “ooo, pretty!” and then you smile at it and look at it with such big, wondrous eyes.  It’s adorable and is making Christmas that much more fun for me.

This I love!  You lodge your little toes up under your high chair tray when you eat!  It must be comfortable for you because you do it every time!

We are working on getting you to really take a sippy cup.  You’ll take a few drinks from it but you won’t just settle in and drink from it like you do a bottle.  And as far as bottles go you had been finishing them finally but are now back to always leaving a half ounce or so behind.  We are starting to cool the temperature of your bottles down since whole milk is in our near future and will be cold out of the fridge.

You like almost everything I feed you, except the Gerber Toddler meals – those you have refused both time I’ve tried them.  You love fruit and green beans are hands down your favorite vegetable.  We tried scrambled eggs and a hard boiled egg this past weekend and you snarfed those down lickity split so I think it’s safe to say you love those, too. 

Although you have not taken any steps by yourself yet you are definitely feeling more comfortable not holding on with a death grip anymore.  I caught you letting go of what you are holding on to as you lower yourself to the floor a few times now, I’m thinking standing alone will be coming soon.

I am super excited to see what you think of Santa, we’ll be meeting him in person soon.  And I can’t wait to see how you react to all the chaos of Christmas!  You are going to make this Christmas so much fun!

All my love,

Mommy

Another One for the Record Books

 

Whew, what a GREAT weekend!!!  OMG, this one was so super great!  Lots of family, friends, food and laughter – perfection!

It all started Saturday when Andy and Aiden left bright and early to go Christmas shopping for me.  Yippee! Ha ha!  Every year since he could drive Andy has loaded up his mom and they’ve headed off to the big city to go Christmas shopping.  This year Vickie had knee replacement surgery so Andy took Aiden along, too, so he’d have some company when Vickie’s knee was hurting and she needed a break.  Brennan, Tate and I, otherwise known as the Pea Pod, stayed home and made sugar cookies and just hung out watching Pioneer Woman and the Holiday Bakeoff Competition on Food Network.  Ho ho ho! 

That night was GNO for me!  I met up with 5 of my favorite girls and we piled into my car and headed off to the Christmas Tour of Homes in my hometown.  There were 5 houses on the tour this year, all great homes with fabulous decorations!  We oo’d and aw’d, secretly snapped a few pictures of ideas we wanted to steal and try at home then went out for supper afterwards.  Supper was great, we all stuffed ourselves and had a little gift exchange.  I was given a really pretty, soft infinity scarf and a cool picture holder that she found at a craft show.  We all left feeling fat and happy, what’s better than that?

While I was gone Aiden and Brennan decorated the cookies we had baked.  They used LOTS of frosting and LOTS of sprinkles. 

Somehow the mess was left for me to clean up when I got home that night, go figure!  But that’s okay because Andy was hiding in the basement wrapping my presents!

Sunday was our Marie family annual Tree Hopping afternoon.  This is something we came up with 21 years ago!  The aunts were all sitting around at Thanksgiving talking about how they go to all the effort to decorate for Christmas yet no one ever sees it. So we started Tree Hopping.  It’s a full afternoon of eating, looking at Christmas trees, talking, laughing, being with family and driving from house to house.  Seriously, the best time ever!  This year we went to 5 houses, spent about an hour at each house munching and chatting.  My one cousin is now vegan (she grew up on a farm, how did this happen?? LOL!), so she helped her mom make a bunch of vegan dishes.  They had Brussels sprouts, hot wing cauliflower, fruit pizza and a few other things I can’t remember.  OMG, it was all amazing!  Those cauliflower hot wings were to die for!!!  Tasted just like chicken hot wings!  Yum yum!

Anyway, it was the perfect afternoon and evening.  I love that the little kids (we call them the great-grandkids to differentiate between those grandkids and ‘us’ grandkids) all get along so well! No fighting between them, ever!  I could sit here and count out how many great’s there are for you but I don’t have the time – Tate needs a diaper change.  But yesterday there were 10 running around, all having a ball together!  Here are a few pics of people you don’t know but who I call family!

And a couple pics of my Tater Tot because I never could get a pic of the bigger kids playing since most of the time they were outside.

Already excited for and looking forward to this coming weekend!  Merry Christmas everyone!

 

What Would You Do?

I wasn't planning on posting today, mainly because I didn't have anything to say, but then I read my sweet friend Des' post and it reminded me of an incident I witnessed Saturday while shopping, and the question it had brought to mind, so I thought who better to ask this question of then all of you who will be honest and answer it truthfully for me. 

First, please go HERE and read Des' post so you can fully understand this.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

...............................................


Ok, so after reading that you can see how frustrating it can be to keep our little ones happy in public places.  How many times have you witnessed a kid having a full-on meltdown with the poor parent standing there helpless with that mad, frustrated, OHMYGOSH CALGONTAKEMEAWAY look on their face?  I just saw this on Saturday.  It was about 5:00, at Wal-Mart at the end of my long day of shopping.  There was a family of 4, a mom, dad, preschooler and toddler.  The toddler was riding in the cart and he was throwing a grade A fit.  Crying, screaming, yelling at his parents (I'm hungry or whatever).  I could hear it before I could see it.  Now, I have to be 100% honest with you.  My kids have NEVER done this to me.  Never. Yes they have been a tad unruly in public, yes they have whined incessantly in public.  But they have never thrown a knock down drag out tantrum like this.  That doesn't mean I can't sympathize with these parents. So, I heard it before I saw it, but once I saw it I saw the 'look' on the mom's face, who was pushing the cart.  The dad was following dutifully behind dragging the preschooler with him.  They looked mortified and uncomfortable. 

My first thought was to stop them and tell them "hey, it's no big deal.  We've all been there, don't worry about it" because I know that feeling where you think everyone is looking, everyone is judging.  But I didn't go with my first instinct, instead I just sent a smile their way and said a little prayer for God to send them patience. 

My question is, how would you take it if some stranger came up to you and said a few words of understanding and comfort and encouragement to you in this situation?  Would you be offended?  Would it help you calm down?  Would it just be totally awkward?  I just felt like they needed that one person to say "it's ok, these times go by fast, remember the cute hugs and kisses that sweet little guy will give you tonight when you're tucking him into bed."  Something to just calm them down a little and make it a tiny bit less awful for them. 

What do you think?

Going On’s Around Here

 

Happy Monday!  December 1st, wow!  I love love flipping my calendar to the next month (mostly because I get bored with the pictures) but this month I am always SUPER excited to flip over to December. Except for it being the very last month of the year, I don’t like that part.  Have I mentioned how much I dislike New Years?  Always worries me a little that the world is another year older. 

Anyway, what have we been up to around here? 

Celebrating Thanksgiving.  There are 2 Kindergarten classes at the boys’ school and every year one class is the Pilgrims while the other class is the Indians. Then they have a big feast all together to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Can you tell from this picture which class Bren was in?

Friday the Christmas decorations came up from the storage closet in the basement.  Tate loved the box of Christmas books and pulled out at least half of them while the rest of us decorated the tree.  I caught him in the act with my camera.  You can also tell he liked the red tree, he was fascinated by it and kept touching it.  Andy and the boys did a good job fluffing the branches of the tree and putting it together but I couldn’t get a picture where I captured all three of their faces at the same time.

Cussing over half-lit strands of Christmas lights.  This was not my year for having my lights light up when I plugged them in.  All but one of my strands only lit up half way.  Some lit up in the middle of the strand but both ends didn’t, some didn’t light up on one end or the other.  I have no idea why this happened.  We ran to town to grab some more lights and would you believe one of the strands I got at the store did the same thing to me?!?  I was pretty crabby after that, totally took the Christmas festiveness right out of me.  Because of that there’s no ‘after’ picture of my tree, but you don’t care to see it anyway – it’s pretty lame this year.  Same as the rest of the decorations in my house.   Not sure what happened to my mojo, it seems to have vanished.   Hoping when I wrap presents I can make those extra pretty and not skimp like I did last year.  I don’t think I even put sticky bows on the gifts last year.  Womp womp.

Dynamite came … sort of.  He brought a note and candy for the boys telling them he was sorry but he got busy playing Reindeer Games and eating candy canes and didn’t get their gifts finished yet so he’d be a couple weeks late this year.  Bummer. But it gets me off the hook having to move him for the next 2 weeks!

I finished my Christmas shopping.  Save a few odds and ends here and there, I am all done!  So excited about that!   Mom, Nicole and I went on our annual ‘Saturday After Thanksgiving’ shopping trip and I was able to get all finished up.  Now to wrap it all up!  Hoping Tater stays out of the gifts (and tree) so I don’t end up having to re-wrap them.

Brennan had his first overnighter at a friend’s house.  How is it that in the blink of an eye they are 30 years old and staying their first night at a friend’s house???  Waaaa!!!!  I was secretly hoping he’d change his mind and want to come home but not my big boy! He was a brave little guy and had a ton of fun.  I missed him like mad and was so happy to see him when I picked him up.  He has been wanting to stay with a friend overnight for quite some time since Aiden gets to do this so he was over the moon happy when they called and asked.  Sniff sniff.

I got my 2015 calendars!  I love filling out a new calendar, feels so exciting to open the clean pages and mark them up!  Now to choose which one I want for my ‘main’ calendar.  Barns or scenery?  Tough choice!

And that’s the going on’s around here.  Since it’s December things are ramping up around here.  Busy plans every single weekend between now and 2015.  I love that part of the holiday season, makes it so festive and fun!  The countdown is on, only 21 more days … until my true love’s birthday!!!  (And my sweet friend, Shelli’s!)  Yes, my poor guy got the shaft as far as birthday’s come and it’s 3 days before Christmas.  Luckily I came in to his life and made up for that, ha ha!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTH, LOVE!!!

Have a great week, all!