Barking Baby Stories and other Mommy Tales: April 2012

I hope you enjoy this sampling of our Christmas evening, chock full of baby cuddles, gifts galore, and an uncle-nephew jam session.

We gave our nieces personalized Disney storybooks, and watching B's face as she read her and her sister's and cousins' names in the story was priceless. BB's dress up clothes, courtesy of Auntie Seen and family, was definitely a highlight as well. And you have already met SS's reindeer.

Technical notes: This photo album feature is something I saw on another blog but the feature was not available on Blogger. So over the weekend J just whipped up a program for me!! I have to admit, I've always known he was computer-savvy - I mean, it's his job, and he's always been just inherently good at anything he put any effort into, and he's freakishly smart too (it's often annoying). So I understood he was most likely very good at his job. But I think this is the first time his computer genius has directly benefited me. And I am so impressed. Both with the ease and speed with which J created this program, and the ease of the use of the program. J plans to open source the code to make it available for other users. Linux backslash server PHP graphical user interface. Computers.

I am really hoping to have these Ridiculously Overdue Recaps wrapped up by the end of the month. Our life kind of exploded this past week, with the unexpected death of J's aunt and the hospitalization of both of J's grandparents, along with some other incidents (like me getting attacked by a patient at work!). With all of the stress, of course I got sick with a fever and chills and another clogged milk duct, all of which I am still recovering from today. When it rains, it pours.

Christmas morning is always my favorite part of the whole holiday - I love the pastries and egg casserole for breakfast, opening gifts with our family, and the promise a day holds in the morning, which is magnified on a holiday.

Our Christmas tree and gifts
If you look closely, in the center you can see one gift with a little photo instead of tag...

I wanted a way for BB and SS to recognize that this was a gift for SS, and J and I thought of putting a photo on it since BB doesn't read yet. We thought this was such a fun idea and plan on doing this with all of our gifts next year. And sure enough, BB knew who to bring this gift to.

But back to the beginning.

Breakfast.

Traditionally we have cinnamon rolls, but this year I decided to make these blueberry cream cheese pastries we like, and I added cinnamon to them - yum!

The only downside of our delicious breakfast is all of the prep that must be done the night before (on Christmas Eve, after the church service and amid all of the gift wrapping and preparation), and then setting my alarm for 30 minutes earlier than I think BB will wake up so I can pop the food in the oven. But I have resigned myself that sleep deprivation at Christmastime is a rite of passage of parenthood. (I mean, domestic bliss is so blissful because you're too dazed to notice when things don't go exactly as planned, right?)

BB is still at a stage in which he is excited but patient regarding opening gifts, and it makes for a really sweet Christmas morning. We leisurely enjoyed our breakfast as a family - no present-mania yet. Once we had all enjoyed our meal, we went out to the living room with our Christmas music playing and gave BB his first gift.

Now's probably a good time to tell you that J and I were kind of sneaky cheapos this Christmas. Because we don't want Christmas to be overly focused on gifts, and because BB is so young, for gifts J and I bought BB a lot of things that we kind of needed anyway. Like dishes. And toothbrushes.

BUT because it was a gift, we bought him fun dishes with Toy Story characters or monkeys, instead of just whatever was cheapest. So it was still presenty. And BB loved his gifts.

Hey, look, a toy! (It's a bathtub fishing pole) And a book!

(See, it wasn't all dishes and toothbrushes.)

And sidewalk chalk! ......and more dishes.

And then it was SS's turn.

SS with Daddy and Mama on his very first Christmas with his very first Christmas gift.

SS's first Christmas gift from Mama and Daddy was his first Bible, which has become our family tradition.

And then more gifts for BB - a bath bucket (to replace the moldy one - cheapo parents strike again!), and a train from our friends Team K. He loves that train and plays with it almost every day!

And then there were Daddy gifts - a Dr. Pepper t-shirt, and homemade vouchers (demonstrating my artistic prowess...) for two tickets to see the Chicago Bears play the Cardinals (the vouchers are blue and orange bears).

And Mama gifts - a Bears beanie (cute!) and a garlic press (yum!)

And theeeeeeeeeen, it was time for BB's big gift, the fun, impractical, actual toy gift

Opening and starting to realize what he was looking at...

A Ba-Tar!

For those of you who don't speak BB, that's a "guitar".

J had the idea to get BB a guitar for Christmas, since J plays guitar and BB has been enamored with our guitar since he was a baby and loves music. We found this one at Target and liked it because, even though it's a toy, it has real strings to strum. And the fact that it's shaped like a dog and is called a "Howler" just cracked us up. The guitar plays all of these traditional songs like Yankee Doodle, but changes the words to be all about dogs, so instead of singing "Yankee Doodle went to town", it sings "Fancy Poodle went to town, dressed in full regalia, puffy tail and fluffy fur, the queen of animalia".

So far the ba-tar has stood the test of time and is still one of his favorite toys today.

Yes, we really put toothbrushes in his stocking. Along with some other stuff, I promise.

And there was one more gift we kept under the tree for BB. And this one will win us the gold medal in the Cheap Parents at Christmas Olympics. But we spent a good chunk of Christmas morning playing with these "toys", so I chalk this one up to knowing our son. After finishing wrapping all of the gifts late Christmas Eve, J and gathered up the four cardboard wrapping paper rolls and stuck them under the tree.

These are my favorite memories of Christmas morning: