A Visit with Santa

On Monday I took the kids to the mall to get us out of the house to preserve some sanity to see Santa.  Aric asked Santa for a "monster truck" and told Santa he loved him.  Kellyn was more interested in the paper reindeer antlers Santa was giving away.  Me, well I was just thankful no one was screaming this year.

Things Heard Around Here

Me three.

Example:
Aric: I miss Pam.
Mommy: Me too.
Kellyn: Me three.

I'm not sure where Kellyn picked up "me three", but she has used it accurately several times over the past week.  It makes me laugh to hear a two year old sound so eloquent.

Naming Things

We have some difficulty when it comes to naming things.  The kids haven't caught on that they are allowed to bestow any name that they would like on their animals, fish, babies, you get the point.

Awhile ago we let the kids each pick out a fish at the pet store.  Aric wanted a black fish and Kellyn picked an orange fish with three black circles on its tail fin that look like a Mickey Mouse head.  Kellyn likes Mickey Mouse.  When we asked the kids what they wanted to name their fish Kellyn quickly gravitated towards the obvious choice of "Mickey Mouse".  Aric was a bit coy about naming his fish.  We went through lists of names with Aric from favorite movies, cartoons, books, toys, family member names, and random names trying to get him to pick one.  Aric always said, "later".  Eventually "Later" stuck either that or we realized that he had originally wanted to name the fish "Later".

It comes as no surprise, then, that this year when we, as a family, sat down to name our Elf on a Shelf, he was given the moniker "Scout".  He is a scout elf for Santa after all.  Yeah, we're pretty original around here.

Decorating for Christmas

This past weekend we decorated the house for Christmas.  It was fun to decorate the house this year, especially since Christmas last year consisted of painting, moving, and an empty house.  The kids were pretty excited to be decorating for Christmas and to see their ornaments.  While I helped the kids decorate the tree, Ryan documented everything with our camera.

Note: The following photos are unedited other than shrinking them to upload them:

We decided to put the tree upstairs this year so we can keep an eye on it.

I like how easy pre-lit trees are.  At least until the lights stop working.

Note the tree skirt in the box.  One of Ryan's aunts made it and sent it to us a few years ago.

It really was a mess and we discovered mouse nests in some of our boxes from being stored in the shed at the farm.

Cleaned up and decorated for Christmas.

Cute photo.  Too bad it's blurry.

No one wanted to smile at the camera anymore.

Aric is still cooperating and Kellyn is slowly sneaking away. 

Our tree skirt: Ryan's old Army poncho liner.  It's a tradition that we started in early marriage because we didn't have a tree skirt and couldn't afford to get one.

After these photos were taken I realized my camera really did need to go back in to be fixed.  It hasn't been the same since it was "fixed" this summer.  It isn't able to focus clearly and most of my pictures are blurry and very out of focus.  I'm hoping they get it fixed and back to me in time for Christmas.  Though, I'm not holding my breath that it will be fixed or back in time.

Change

I said "change is coming".  The change is here:

Aric's room before.

Aric's room after with a new chalkboard wall.

There are two shades of green in his room now.

Aric quit sleeping in his room.  For weeks he climbed into our bed in the middle of the night.  Even with a king size bed, Ryan and I were no longer getting enough rest.  When we began questioning Aric about why he would not stay in his room he told us he was scared of his room and wanted it to be green.  While everyone said they loved the shade of blue in Aric's room the paint was dark and I had used a flat; both of which sucked the light out of the room.

We took Aric to Home Depot and had him help us pick out some different samples of green, brought them home and had Aric pick one out that he liked.  He picked two.  We used Aric's two choices and painted an accent wall to add some depth to the room.  I knew the color of green would brighten the room considerably, but as an extra precaution I made sure the finish we bought was satin to help reflect light.  We had just enough left over chalkboard paint from downstairs to paint a small chalkboard wall in his bedroom.

In addition to the paint we ordered Aric a bookshelf like Kellyn's to replace the cheap particle board bookshelf he was currently using.  Aric's room is much brighter and he has, for the most part, spent the whole night sleeping in his own bed.  Ryan and I are very thankful for that.

ABC's

We have worked hard with Aric to teach him his ABC's; not only to sing them but to recognize the letters too.  He is quite proficient at singing the song and arranging the letters in order.  In the next step of learning to read, we began teaching him how to write letters.  I think he did pretty well on his first attempt:

Teaching him to spell will be high on my priority list.  I wouldn't want to be the mother of this person:

The one who couldn't spell funny and had it printed all over a bolt of fleece. 

Hopefully they caught the mistake somewhere along the line.

Things Heard Around Here

Mommy, gwamma me.

Translation:
Mommy, grab my feet and let go.

Every day since the swing set was installed the kids have wanted to be outside playing on it.  Kellyn, in particular, spends her time swinging.  That's all she wants to do.  She really likes it when whomever is pushing her stands in front of her, grabs her feet, pulls her forward up high and lets go.  She's a little daredevil and shrieks with delight when swinging up high.