Flying With Toddlers...

....Sucks!!!! Especially at bedtime. Especially WAY past bedtime. I pity our fellow passengers for listening to Cams one hour screaming protests to such ideas.

moments before disaster

We are safe in Seattle. That is all.

Going All Martha Stewart On You

This was a hybrid Pinterest project and also inspiration from my neighbor friend. I wanted to do something festive with my hurricane lamp that's usually the centerpiece. 

Simple as this. Red candle with peppermints glued to it. Fake snow (like the stuff for Christmas villages). Fake cranberries. Candy canes.

Looks like something right out of Good Housekeeping. Well maybe the reject version. But I like it. Just call me Martha Stewart. 

 

Pumpkin Scones

We made these today: Pumpkin scones with pumpkin glaze and PUMPKIN frosting!

Okay so my friend made them and I sat and watched and gave advice and moral support and taste tested them.

 

Belly Flops

I didn't take pictures today because I was too busy running around like a crazy train. It seems that it didn't dawn on me until today that we are leaving in three days to Washington for 2.5 weeks. Which means you know I need to do laundry and pack and prepare and all that crap. 

I'm usually way better at planning than this. I blame it on all the lights outside.

Yesterday we had a real serious case of the "Mondays". I have a sinus infection of some sorts and Camden has an ear infection. And he let me know about it. Loudly. 

This is his new favorite tantrum pose. He stomps away in a crouched position, then ceremoniously tosses himself belly first onto the floor. And screams. Because everything with him involves screaming. 

The belly flop combined with his Batman hat on forced me to stifle quite a bit of laughter. It's cute when it isn't in public. 

  

Aspiring Griswolds

Brad has been outside, all day, in the cold, working on the Christmas lights since the day after Thanksgiving. Nonstop. Some nights he didn't even come in for dinner. 

Tonight, he finally finished. 

It's time for the unveiling of the Griswold Hansen house!  

Closeup of the candycane tree

Mailbox

My aunt and uncle did this when I was a kid. Always wanted to do it since. It's a No-L sign! Get it? SAY IT. Outloud.

 

Finding The Perfect Tree

We got a Christmas tree today. 

We are old fashioned and like to drive over the river and through the woods ("woods" in Jersey are more like tall sticks) to a tree farm, search for the perfect tree and cut it down. No better way in the world to get into the Christmas spirit. 

Except its New Jersey so finding the "perfect" tree means finding the first one that isn't brown and dying. 

Which we've never found before. 

Except for this tree that we found today and were super excited about because it was actually alive! And pretty! And very tree-like!

  
Camden (I mean Bat-Cam) especially enjoyed this trip. He liked to weave in and out of the trees and play peekaboo. 

So we cut the tree and brought it home and made it into a beautiful Christmas tree and all that lovely stuff.

It's late and I'm tired and don't feel like going into detail. You know the drill. Lights. Ornaments. Stars. Etc. 

  

 

Holiday Hypnotizer

It's been like 30 minutes and they haven't moved. Pretty sure that's a new World Record in the small Hansen boy category for holding still. Hooray for Mickey's Christmas Carol! 

Also, ignore Calen's horrifying hair. He is in desperate need of a haircut and he wore a knit cap today. He did not lick a toaster. Do not call the authorities. 

Black Friday (and Grey Thursday?)

Isn't it weird that Black Friday actually started on Thursday? Like really early Thursday? Isn't half the fun waking up at 11pm to go stand in line and drink hot pumpkin spice coffee to stay awake, then when the doors open at midnight, shop till you drop (literally) at 4am?

Well honestly, as weird and a little unnecessary as it seemed, it was pretty cool to start at 8pm and get two stores punched out before 11:30pm last night. By the time we got home and all the new presents put away it was 12:15am. Honestly I've never woken up the morning after a Black Friday I participated in where I actually felt well rested. 

My friend and I stood in line at Toys R Us for three hours (because we can) to be the first group into the store at 8pm. And we ate hot turkey sandwiches out of leftovers. And I think we were on the news singing "I'm a Toys R Us Kid." And we scored. Big time. BIG TIME. And thankfully the store had planned well and even though the checkout line wrapped around the store and we were at the back of it, we only waited for maybe half an hour. Well done. By the time we were out it was 9pm and Target was just opening so we went in there as well and scored also. 

Here's this year's Black Friday loot. Zoom in on that baby.

Yes, I am saving some of this for next year. Some.

Today marks the official holiday season which MEANS Brad did this all day (and probably all day tomorrow):

It's the most wonderful time of year! 

I'm Thankful...

For my amazing Coast Guard family that I got to spend Thanksgiving with!

Pictures to come tomorrow. For now, we are heading out to Toys R Us to stand in line for hours on end until they open for Black Friday.

Gobble Gobble!

Go Big Or Go Home

So first of all Happy Thanksgiving Eve holla! Also known as happy 'trash your kitchen making mashed potatoes and PIE day!' Yeah, I was busy. So was my Kitchenaid. She earned her keep today.

PIE.

 Thanksgiving also means ONE more day before it's socially acceptable to put up all your Christmas lights!! 

Shh. Don't tell anyone. I already have my lights and (most) of my decorations up inside. 

Brad and I are Christmas people. We are also "Go Big Or Go Home" people. One lousy strand of lights just isn't going to do. 

We had to replace some of our strands so I sent Brad out to Home Depot last night to get one (ONE!!!!!) box of lights. And he came home with this:

    
Those are deer, by the way. Big deer. We used to have two but they've since died horrible deaths.

THEN, today Brad and Calen went back to Home Depot to exchange one (non-Christmas) thing. And came home with this

  
It's a bad picture. Because it's all crammed in the shed. But let me describe to you what's in that pile. 

- huge pathway lights shaped like tree lights
- 2 spiral trees
- more boxes of lights
- like 500 extension cables
- 8 thousand clips

He apologized. I told him it just gives me leverage when I come home with an absolute nutso amount of things after Black Friday. He said that was fair. 

   

Craft Times

Yesterday we did some Thanksgiving crafts. I drew a (horrifying) tree on construction paper, then had Calen put little foam leaf stickers all over to fill it up, and then we glued chocolate candy corns into the tree. Not really sure why. 

Maybe candy corn is so delicious it seems like one of those things that should grow on a tree. 

I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it turned out cute. 

Anyways, this was definitely a Calen-only project. It involved peeling stickers and glue and candy corn. I allowed Cam to participate in the candy corn part only. He was pretty proud sitting next to his big brother at the picnic table. I even gave him some stickers to play with/eat. 

It was so cute them sitting together. 

For about ninety seconds. 

Then, Cam decided he wanted Calen's stickers. And Calen's glue. And Calen's candy corns (even though he had his own little pile of candy corns in front of him. They weren't as good as big brother's). 

Calen is really territorial about his shit. He will do a headdive across the living room floor to cover up the ONE of the 480 matchbox cars that Cam wants to play with. And suddenly that's the ONE that HE NEEDS. 

So Cam touching the Elmer's Glue (which is now a golden trophy in this house since glue is a new thing he's allowed to use) was pretty much the quickest way for Cam to get on Calen's bad side. 

Calen yells and bats Cam's hands away. "NO BABIES IT'S MY GLUE YOU NO TOUCH GO AWAY!!!"     

Cam screams in anger and stomps his feet and throws stickers in 100 directions. In the process sending Calen's project flying across the dining room. 

Calen cries. "My CANDYCORN TREE! Baby BROKED it!"

It is not broken. It is sitting happily ten feet from him on the floor. All he has to do is get up and grab it. 

Cam (still screaming) tries to grab one single leaf sticker off the table. Calen bats him away "NO BABIES!!" Cam screams louder. Calen cries harder because "Baby" stole his sticker. One sticker. Out of eight thousand. 

I stand up, calmly go to the fridge, and get myself a beer. And sit on the kitchen counter drinking it while my two boys are screaming, wailing and crying in the dining room. 

Craft time was such a good idea at the time.

Craft time is ridiculous. 

Endnote: the day was ruined. Neither kid fully recovered from this catastrophe and both went to bed an hour early. The candy corn trees were eventually finished, through tears (and Cam being contained in the high chair with apple sauce)

 

 

 


    

My Favorite Things

I won't lie I seriously DVR'd Oprah's My Favorite Things last night and waited for Brad to go to sleep so I could watch it and eat an entire box of Oreos. 

When the hell did I turn into a middle-aged housewife?!

Well if I could do my own Favorite Things show this would be in it. Starbucks hot chocolate (DOUBLE chocolate, mind you) with peppermint candies in it. Oh and you add the powder to milk, not water. 

Because if you're going to sin, you might as well make it count. 

And it has to be in a snowman mug or it totally ruins the whole thing. 

    

Outtakes

So I started decorating for Christmas today because we leave a short week after Thanksgiving for WA for three weeks and I want time to enjoy my decorations, dammit!

But then I stopped because I felt like I was committing a cardinal sin by decorating before Thanksgiving so I stopped. But now all 700 Christmas bins are in my living room and Brad says that God will forgive me if I finish decorating. Besides, it's only four days early.

Decisions, decisions.

I was so wrapped up in this ultimate decision of life that I didn't really take any pictures or anything today. So you get another outtake from Cam's mini shoot yesterday. 

He was not pleased that my pockets had run out of bribery commodities candy corn. And that he was wrapped up in a strand of Christmas lights. Most unimpressive, mom. 

   

Risky Business

We had a little mini photo shoot inside today for Christmas card photos - this session was just with Cam. His little black corduroys were WAY too big for him. No thanks to the one pant company in the universe that doesn't make adjustable waistbands in their toddler pants. Really? This should be standard now. 

SO, he kept walking right out of them and having his own little Risky Business reenactment. 

Oh and the pictures turned out ah-ma-zing! Once they're done I'll give you a peek, I promise. 

Until then you'll just have to wait.

   

Four Little Dreadful Words

Ummm you guys I didn't take a single picture today. Well not one that turned out anyways. I attempted to get the Christmas card photos done today. But they did not turn out at all. Round two tomorrow. This is why I do things early.

Calen started a horrible thing today. We were in the car on a rather long drive to Target (because everything is far away around here) and Calen suddenly blurts out the four words I had hoped he would never start saying.

"Mommy, are we there yet?"

Oh. My. God. Are we really starting this already??

    

Sweet Caroline

Camden's lady love returned today for a brief few hours, but enough to rekindle their love after months of being apart. 

Oh, and her big brother Matty returned too which made Calen especially happy. But this is mostly about Cam and Caroline and good ol'fashion young love. 

Obviously he is still over the moon for her. 

  
He courted her out on the patio..

..and then shared a strawberry milkshake at the local malt-shop (also known as McDonalds)

Then they had to get back home (out of state), so once again love will just have to wait until next time....

Double Date

I went to Starbucks today. 

Yeah, I know Wawa coffee is better. And cheaper. But when you have gift cards how can you say no? And I always feel somewhat prestigious and important when I walk into one. Like I'm part of the "club" or something.

And the red cups are pretty awesome this time of year. 

Camden likes to go on our "dates" to Starbucks. Today we double dated with another mom and her little guy Aiden. Cam and Aiden are buddies and their way of hanging at Starbucks is lounging on the big couch with To-Go Applesauce. 

Applesauce Buddies

   

Trouble.

Cam got a haircut today and apparently he knew that he looked good because at Calen's school fall feast tonight he was stomping from family to family flashing his pearly whites to make them think that he is a sweet perfect angel, then turning to see if I was watching, and promptly taking off in the opposite direction into the kitchen, or bathroom, or wherever he isn't supposed to be. 

That boy is going to give me trouble. 

Oh wait, he already does. 

But he sure is cute. 

Trouble.