Biggest Christmas Hits!

RUS has been LOVING this Vtech Alphabet Sit-to-Stand Train that Grammie and Grampie gave him. It has been in near-constant use since it got opened, either by him or by R. He loves to pick up the alphabet blocks that come with it and put them down the train chute over and over again, he loves to ride on it, he loves to push it, he loves to walk around it (yes, WALK--he is walking more than he is crawling now, which is insane because he took his first, tiny, tiny independent steps one week ago today), and he loves to make it make noise. (Of course, it's very loud. THANKS, Grammie and Grampie!!)
And Miss R has been in love with her two princess dress-up dresses she got (Cinderella and Rapunzel) and the four princess dolls she got--Cinderella, Tiana, Mulan, and Prince Charming. They've been carried around the house, given baths (not literally, just in terms of taking their clothes off and putting them back on), played various games with, Cinderella even got sick and Mulan and Tiana had to help her feel better. Right now Cinderella and Tiana are sleeping with R in her bed because she can hardly bear to let any of them out of her sight for even a minute.

A Preview of Christmas Morning

He is such a cuddlebug

One of my favorite things about RUS is that he is the snuggliest baby EVER. He absolutely loves to snuggle, and if he feels a soft fabric of any sort he will just pull it close and cuddle up to it. He loves stuffed animals of all sorts, and frequently takes little thumb-sucking breaks to cuddle up with one for a minute or two before proceeding on with whatever he is doing. Here's a video of him doing exactly this cuddle business with a santa hat J picked up at the dollar store.



And here he is cuddling up with his big gift from Santa this morning (yes, absolutely more Christmas pictures and stories are coming VERY SOON!!)

Polka Dots

Some of you may have noticed that R put "polka dots" on her Christmas list. I've asked her a few times about what those are, and here's what she's told me:

"All over, on the floor."

"Rainbow colors, all of them!"

"Santa needs to take some glue and some rainbows and make them."

I wonder if Santa will bring her some polka dots?!

That's My Boy!

RUS's day care teachers asked us one day if anyone in the family was a football fan. Apparently one of them is a big Ravens fan and brought in a hat for the kids to play with, and RUS kept taking it and throwing it in the dirty diaper pail.

RUS 14 months

Dear RUS,

You are 14 months old! We are having a ton of fun with you--watching as you clearly understand what we are saying and respond to everything!

You have started officially toddling. I've finally come to terms with the fact that you're not an infant anymore--today, just a few days after taking your very, very, VERY first independent steps, you demonstrated just how bold you're getting, and you walked three big steps all the way from me to a chair in our living room. We also saw you stand up from the floor without holding on to anything, and try to walk over to the art table. Before long, you're going to be exclusively walking, and I'm already mourning the end of an era in this house.
You're very impish, and you love to climb on things and look through things. The climbing is borderline scary, though, because you are so bold about getting on top of anything you can possibly reach. You open all the cabinets (except, of course, for the ones we've locked, and we've had to lock a few new ones to keep you out of them!) and you regularly crawl down to R's room and bang on the door for us to let you in there, since you know that is where all the toys are!
You've also got some very decided opinions about things, and you know what you want and how to communicate when you're not getting what you want. It's fantastic--and your picky eating, while still a little pickier than R was at the same age, is not nearly as picky as it used to be. You are eating a good variety of foods and you're still really good at feeding yourself.

Love,
Mama

Decorating the Tree

R had so much fun putting ornaments on our tree this year. Here we are unwrapping ornaments. We happen to have a ton of ornaments still in individual boxes, so there was a lot of J and I pulling an ornament out and then passing it to R to hang up. J and I hung all of our really delicate glass ornaments, but R absolutely loved putting up J's collection of Disney ornaments, which were his from when he was a kid--I think he got a new one every year or something.

Here's the finished product!

We did this while RUS was napping which made it easier since there were way too many things he couldn't get into while we were doing this. It really feels a little silly because R has been so excited and into Christmas, and we've done a ton of fun things this month--crafts, our holiday party, baking, baking and more baking, decorating, having fun with Vlay, our Advent calendar, etc. and it's really 99% R and only a tiny bit RUS.

Next year we'll have not only more pictures, but I hope he'll get into the whole thing a little more!

Visiting Santa

After writing her Christmas list, R was dying to share it with Santa, so we planned to visit him when we knew he would be in town--he made a stop at the orchards we love on Dec. 11. We got the kids all dressed up, R had her list all ready, and we headed on out.

J wrote a little bit about our visit already so I'll just throw up a few pictures.RUS was not at all interested in sitting with Santa or Mrs. Claus--we got only two pictures with both kids and this is the best one. In the other one RUS is full-out screaming (red face and all) with a cracker in his mouth--I gave him some munchies in case those would keep him occupied. That really didn't work. He put the food in his mouth and proceeded to scream.

So I took RUS and R had a nice conversation with Santa about all the items on her list.
Then she got candy canes for herself and for RUS and we headed over to the craft area where she decorated a picture with Christmas stickers and letter stamps. She had so much fun! I can't wait until RUS is old enough to be excited about Santa, too!

Do You Know All Your Festivus Facts?

I got 4 out of 6 on this quiz.

Snowflakes!

We love Christmas decorating around here. J's favorite is making a few new snowflakes to add to our collection each year. Here are some photos of J and R working on new ones for this year's display!

It all started with Pierce Brosnan welcoming us to South Korea

So J and I did the math: from leaving our house to walking back in the door we were gone for 120 hours. 63 of those hours we spent on airplanes, in airports or otherwise in transit. We only spent 57 hours actually in Japan with my family.

Here's where the adventure started to feel "real"--when we arrived in Seoul for our connecting flight to Japan.

We--J and I, my parents, A, M, and Geg, were all on the same flight to Japan so we met up at Incheon. The Seoul airport is actually all kinds of awesome. The only down side is that there were these periodic "smoking rooms" filled with people smoking, and walking past them you'd be assaulted with the smell of cigarette smoke.

RUS took his first two steps today!

It's been coming--we've been saying for a couple weeks now, "any day now, he's going to take that first step!"

Today, it happened! and J and I both saw it. RUS was holding on to J's hands with both hands, then J let go and he stood alone for a moment and then definitely moved both feet, one foot and then the other, and moved forward maybe half an inch. It counts, though!

RUS has been getting more and more confident with standing without holding on to anything, and I've seen him stand independently for 30 seconds or more while playing with toys in both hands. I wonder how quickly it will be before he really starts trying to walk!!

Here's a photo of him looking at our Christmas tree with Grampie at our holiday party:

Of COURSE There was Karaoke

at my brother's wedding. And of COURSE I plan to write a blog post about it . . . this year. There are literally 2,000 pictures to wade through, which is no excuse, because this was one of the biggest events of the year, not to mention my life, and I'm embarrassed I haven't created a blog post, or ten, about this event yet. More will come, I promise! But here's a sneak peek.

Pre-Party Pictures

Cookie Table and Cold Punch:
Vegetable Tray, Fruit Tray & Cheeseball & Crackers:
Gingerbread Cookie Decorating Station (this was a huge hit with the kids!):
Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornament painting (also a huge hit, but very messy!):

Cindy Lou Who

So Grammie and Grampie let R watch "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" about two weekends ago when R was staying at their house. R absolutely adored the movie. Ever since, she's been asking for stories about the Grinch, and for us to tell her the story about the Grinch who didn't like Christmas, or the Grinch who wasn't nice and then he was nice at the end, and so on and so forth. She loves when we embellish the story. Once, because I was so bored of telling the story of the Grinch I started with "Once upon a time, there was a cloud . . . " She started to get upset because of the unorthodox beginning but I managed to calm her down by asking whether she watned to tell the story or whether she wanted me to tell the story. And then I said that the cloud was blocking the sun from the Grinch's dark, dark, cave and, well, the rest of the story is history. R has also drawn countless pictures of the Grinch in the morning at school, and I've had to tell the story of the Grinch to her friends at school so often that they know the story as well as R does by now.

So when J let R wear her fancy green dress to school the other day she wanted to be a princess. Princess Cindy Lou Who, in fact. And she wanted me to give her Cindy Lou Who hair.

Here's what I came up with:(just for reference, here's the Cindy Lou Who from the movie--played by a 6-year-old Taylor Momsen):

Party Update

So our holiday party was awesome. And the number 1 requested recipe is this:

Crack Candy
Saltine crackers

2 sticks (1 cup) real butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 bag (12 oz.) chocolate chips

Cover a cookie sheet with saltine crackers. Melt butter and brown sugar--bring to a boil and let cook until mixture gets frothy (about 3 minutes or so). Pour over crackers. Bake at 400°F for 4-5 minutes. It will bubble. Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Let chips sit 5 minutes. Use the back of a spoon to spread chocolate evenly across crackers. Refrigerate at least 1 hour then break into pieces to serve.

This tastes like toffee and is absolutely delicious. I will post pictures of it from our party once I get them uploaded to the computer.

Really Fun Christmas Quiz

I promise more pictures will come soon--we still have to talk about decorating the Christmas tree, meeting Santa for the first time and sharing R's Christmas list with him and Mrs. Claus, and all kinds of other fun holiday things. But no time for that right now. So here's a really fun Christmas quiz.

I scored 60% for 159,000,000 points! Post your score in the comments!

I won an AWESOME giveaway!!!!!!

This is going to be RUS's ornament this Christmas! I'm so excited!
It's an ornament from This Fine Day, a really, really cool etsy shop featuring handmade wooden crafts. On the back I'm going to ask her to write "RUS 2010."

Baking Update

I'm really quite proud of myself.
Sitting in my freezer right now are:

VEGAN TREATS
1 batch french buttercream
1 batch snickerdoodles
1 batch peanut blossoms
2 batches chocolate chip cookies
2 batches sugar cookies
1 batch buckeyes (to be fair, J made these)
1 batch reese bars
1 batch russian teacakes
1 batch candy cane cookies

NON-VEGAN TREATS
1 batch gingerbread people and christmas trees
1 batch french buttercream (tinted green and red)
2 batches rice krispy treats
1 batch peppermint bark
4 loaves applesauce bread

STILL TO BAKE
4 loaves applesauce bread--DONE!
1 batch non-vegan peanut blossoms--DONE!
1-2 loaves cranberry-nut bread
1 batch peanut butter chocolate pillows

THINGS I'M ON THE FENCE ABOUT
1 batch kolczakis
1 batch chocolate peppermint bark cookies

Any other suggestions? A, M, Surf, Cali, Geg--any requests for things for me to send to A&M's for our holiday gathering??

Eat Your Vegetables

So, when R and RUS went to visit Santa Claus yesterday (more on this later), I listened in on R's conversations with the jolly old elf. She had brought along her Christmas list (see previous post) and Santa and Mrs. Claus ran through each thing, saying oh, you like princesses? You like Penguins? etc. Then Santa said to R, "Have you been a good girl? You listen to Mommy and Daddy? You eat all of your vegetables?" Mrs. Claus meanwhile said, "Now, don't be disappointed if you don't get everything on your list. Santa has a lot of girls and boys to visit."

Fast forward to that evening's dinner, which consisted of some leftover macaroni and cheese, Grampy-style, some quinoa, and a couple of Chicken Nuggets. As she's eating, R turns to me and says, "Daddy, there's no vegetables. Santa said to eat my vegetables." Taking advantage, I pulled out some carrots for her to eat. While munching on these, she turns to me again and says, "Do we have any broccoli? It was with great reluctance that I admitted we did not have broccoli, but I assured R that we would get some soon.

Today, R spent all day at Grammy and Grampy's house after sleeping over there last night. They filled us in on what R had been up to that day. They said it was funny how R kept saying she wanted to eat each of her foods that day "without any vegetables." She wanted her cereal and her eggs and her fruit all "without any vegetables." I kind of wonder if she's testing the boundaries of Santa's omniscience.