Merry Christmas!

Well, the holiday season is in full swing and here at the Borders house we've been really getting into the spirit. The boys and I decorated boxes and then baked cookies to give to our neighbors and family.  We made gingerbread houses. We bought a Countdown to Christmas Tree, which is magnetic and each day you put a new ornament on until you get to the top and put the star on the tree on Christmas. The boys really love that. And of course we decorated our tree. Here's what Sam said after every time he put up an ornament:



It was pretty awesome. And we've continued the tradition of taking a series of horrible photos in front of the tree, though Heath and I bowed out of the actual picture this year:

There were more. That's the great thing about digital cameras, now we can take TONS of horrible photos, instead of just one. Literally this is the best one we got, where they were both non-blurry and at least sort of looking toward the camera:

I'm almost done with my shopping and wrapping. Just a couple more things to pick up. Some years I feel like the stress and craziness of December distracts me from enjoying it, but this year I've been able to slow down and appreciate everything.

Pictures

 I love the look on his face.

At the Magic House for Noontime New Year's Eve. 

We all promptly got the stomach flu after this. Happy New Year!

 One stop on our trip to Phoenix.

 At the ghost town near Phoenix.

He stayed outside in the snow fewer than five minutes. 

Not a fan of being cold.

Christmas Pictures (Yes, I realize it's late February)

I knew Sam would freak out, so I didn't even try.

He wears this shirt constantly. 

I hope he's always so excited when I buy him shoes. 

Sure to become a holiday classic

Ben's rendition of a Christmas favorite:

Jingle poop
Jingle poop
Jingle poop poop poop
Oh what poop it is to poop
In a one-poop open poop, POOP!

Ah, life with a 4 year old boy.

Fall Fun

In the tree house at the park

 Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkins are very exciting!

Meeting a friend at the pumpkin patch

How do YOU carry your socks around the house?!

I always fall asleep while reading, too

Watching the workers finish our new back porch

Plants Vs. Zombies

Cutest zombie ever

Zombie and Sunflower put aside their differences

Big and Tall store, here we come!

After Ben was born I wanted to start a Christmas tradition with him. A lot of people get a new pair of pajamas every year, but that was too typical and I wanted to do something more meaningful to me. So I decided to buy him a new pair of Converse shoes every year. I always buy them a little large, because his feet grow so quickly. So far he hasn't made it through an entire year with his Christmas shoes. Usually he doesn't even make it through the summer. Here are this year's shoes:

That's MY foot. He's three years old and his shoes are almost as long as my foot! He's going to be bigger than I am by the time he's nine.

Happy Mother's Day!

To the women who raised us and put up with our shit (that's more for Heath's mom):

Thank you. We love you.

To start the year off...

I feel like I should write a Christmas post, but nothing too earth shattering happened. We ate. We drank. We brought home a metric ton of presents for Ben. One exciting thing: In May 2012 Ben will be getting a new aunt! Heath's brother Todd proposed to his girlfriend Sarah (and she accepted). Sarah is really sweet and she'll be a wonderful addition to our family. Plus, she's studying to be a nurse, so from now on I'll have someone to show any strange warts or boils that crop up! Sweet!

Happy 2011!

Christmas dorks

 Last year we didn't set up our big Christmas tree because Ben was in Super Destructive Toddler Mode. We knew it wouldn't survive. But this year he's out of the must-knock-down-everything-in-my-path phase, so on Wednesday night we decorated the tree.

It was nice. I love Christmas decorations and though Heath hates the idea of putting all this stuff up and having to take it down only weeks later, I can't imagine this time of year without a tree. It's nice to have that tradition, and even better now that we can do it as a family.

However, this is what happens when we try to take a decent shot of all three of us:

Either Heath looks deranged, I look like a hillbilly and Ben's blurry, or...

My face is covered and Ben's blurry, or...

Ben and I look nice (though he's still slightly blurry), but Heath's still deranged.

There were three others we took that all looked similarly bad. Here's the best one. Ben's not smiling, but at least we're all in focus and looking sane.

Happy Pukesgiving!

Our Thanksgiving was lovely. Wednesday night we ate a wonderful vegetarian dinner at Heath's parents' house with them, his brother Todd and Todd's girlfriend Sarah. Some family friends came over afterward for dessert, as is tradition. Ben was completely enamored with the plastic train/car set Nancy bought for him and spent most of the evening playing with that (it ranked above eating mac & cheese, which is really saying something). I even got to share my deviled eggs with the family for the first time, since I found mayonnaise made with free-range chicken eggs, which are the only kind Don will eat. It was a good time.

Then on Thursday we headed to my parents' house. We ate all the traditional things, including my favorite - wild rice stuffing. Yummy. After Ben went to bed Heath and I introduced my family to Shadows Over Camelot which is a complex, but really fun board game. After getting the hang of the rules I think everyone had fun. I went to bed around 11pm full and happy. Little did I know...

At 1am I heard Ben wake up. Then I heard the undeniable sound of vomiting. I jumped out of bed and sure enough, there was Ben's Thanksgiving dinner all over his pack-n-play. I patted myself on the back for bringing the sheet for it, otherwise it would've been a lot worse. Ben was actually very calm about the whole thing. He just kept talking about how he "spit." Luckily he hadn't really gotten any on his pajamas, so I cleaned him up, gave him a drink of water and brushed his teeth. Then he climbed into bed with Heath (which was a feat, since we were sleeping in two twin beds).

For the rest of the night Ben threw up about once an hour. I called the nurse line and she said there's a stomach virus going around right now, so I guess he picked it up somewhere. Obviously it wasn't a restful night for anyone. We spent the rest of the weekend sitting on the couch watching Dinosaur Train and Thomas and Friends. He's fine now.

The thing that amazes me about parenthood is how much instinct is involved. When Ben was throwing up all night I wasn't thinking about how disgusting it was or how much I wanted to be sleeping. I just did what had to be done. I cleaned up, I comforted my son. In between I dozed. Simple.

First Trick-or-Treat

Ben isn't into smiling for pictures any more. 

This pumpkin ended up with about 8 more eyes.

Thomas trick-or-treating

Trick-or-treating with five toddlers is a cluster-f*ck.

But it was really fun!