Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve started out as a normal day, with work and school, but we knocked off early to get the holiday started. We went to Atlantic Station (our local outdoor mall) where we looked at the decorations, rode a train and took Carter to his first movie! We saw Bolt. The previews were really long (and scary) and the beginning of the movie was kind of scary, too, but Carter warmed up by the end and wanted "More! More! More!"

Then we went over to Park & Ashley's house for delicious dinner. Carter had a great time playing with Anna (and some Tupperware).

Santa

A couple of weekend ago, shortly after I stopped blogging due to the onslaught of work I needed to do, we took Carter to see the fancy-appointment-only Santa. Carter was terrified. He clung to me and would NOT let Santa touch him. Thankfully, Carter wasn't the first child to ever be scared of Santa, so instead of a chair, he has a divan, so there was room for me to sit and hold him. Once Carter was securely in my lap, he was happy to say "Yeah!" anytime Santa mentioned something he might like to have.

Here we are (as I try to pretend I'm not in the picture)

Carter warmed up a lot when Santa time was over. He loved the candy cane they gave him and he had fun crawling around the mall after Anna and riding the escalators.

Later that day, Carter helped make gingerbread cookies.

As for whether or not making an appointment for Santa in OCTOBER was really necessary, I'd say that Carter could care less, because he didn't like Santa to begin with. But it was really nice to not have to stand in line, so that gets my vote. And Santa was very good with Carter.

Calm down...

This isn't a real blog post, but here are some iphone pictures for all you starving people out there:

Pizza at Cart Cart and Nonna's with Anna et al:

Dada and Carter winter trip to the zoo. Pandas are still a big hit.

As is the carousel (he was actually riding the panda, but it is hard to get a picture while also holding him on).

More posts to come eventually...if you are nice to us.

Apologies

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately. I am busy with a project that has me working morning, noon, night and late night. We have lots of good stuff waiting to be blogged, but my main focus at the moment is getting work wrapped up so that I can enjoy the holidays. Hope to be back in touch soon.

Here are a few posts you'll have to look forward to:

• Carter's Santa Meltdown
• Terrible Twos (seriously, terrible)
• Carter's Fashion Choices
• Fancy New DVR

Christmas Decorating

This weekend, we got the house decorated for Christmas. Here are the fruits of our labors. I love this season!

Now THAT'S Service

I love good customer service. I really think it matters. I'll be loyal for it; I'll pay more for it.

I've written before about how much I love the hotel where I'm staying in Seattle. I love the robes, the bathtub, the desk chair, the countertops, the tv, the beds, the turndown chocolates, and -- most of all -- I love the alarm clocks. Seriously, they have the most pleasant alarm clock I've ever used.

Tonight, the hotel is running a big fashion show with a project runway alum, so the lobby was slammed with beautiful people when I arrived. Unfortunately, they all needed same elevator that I did (the only one that is currently in service). They also kept bumping the wrong buttons, so the elevator kept going up and down, skipping my floor a couple of times. Finally, they all got out, a hotel employee got in and the elevator headed to my floor. I made small talk with the employee during which I casually, offhandedly, with no ulterior motive, mentioned that I'd been taken for a few rides on the elevator. Now, I'm guessing that my travel-weary face (especially as seen in contrast to aforementioned beautiful people) made her think I was more than slightly annoyed by this. I hadn't told her my name or my room number. But, lo and behold, a bottle of wine and a written apology just turned up at my door.

I love this hotel.

Thanksgiving

We made it safely home from Arkansas last night with a full day to recover before what will be a very busy week. Here's a little video from our weekend. Hope you all had happy thanksgivings!

Hello Mr. Turkey

Yesterday they had the Thanksgiving program at Carter's school. Here is the 2 year old contribution. Ours is the tall one in the yellow shirt waving throughout most of the video. Carter watched this video about 300 times last night. Everytime it ended he would say, "More me!"


We're headed to Arkansas early in the morning and will be without internet till Sunday. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Propagating Pothos

Like everyone, we're looking for ways to save money these days. So when I decided that our kitchen needed some house plants, I decided to grow them rather than buy them. It takes longer, but it's free - and easy!

First, I took cuttings from the ends of my existing pothos plants.

I placed the cuttings in jars of water in a window and waited several weeks for roots to sprout.

Once the new roots were a couple inches long...

I planted them in a new pot!

It was so easy and successful that I have another batch going now. Plus, I think the cuttings look nice lined up on the window sill. I hope to never have to buy another pothos plant again!

Kanuga

We spent the weekend in North Carolina at a church retreat. It was cold and beautiful. Unfortunately, the first 24 hours were pretty rough.

Carter's illness, being in a strange place, staying up too late and sneaking a few handfuls of m&m's in the lodge were probably all contributing factors. Regardless, it took us until midnight to get Carter to "sleep" Friday night.

I say "sleep" because it was a fitful, cough-up-a-lung, nearly-fall-off-the-bed, keep-mom-and-dad-awake sort of "sleep" until 2:30am, when he did actually fall off the bed, which began the first crying portion of the night, followed by the I-just-want-to-be-awake-playing-loudly portion, followed shortly by the second crying (why-did-they-take-my-toys-away?) portion of the night.

By 3:30am, we were at the ends of our ropes, so Thomas and I threw on our clothes and spent an hour driving Carter through the mountains to get him to sleep. After a shockingly successful car-to-bed transfer at 4:30am, Thomas and I got a restless 4 hours of sleep until Carter woke up at 8:30am.

Nap time on Saturday didn't go any better (with only 4-6 hours of sleep the night before, he was in desperate need of a nap), so Saturday late afternoon found us driving through the mountains once again.

In any case, we are glad that we went. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so here are two not-so-good camera phone shots.

Playing on the climbing wall

At the sock-hop Saturday night. Carter had perked up by then and was the life of the party, dancing with everyone and hitting on the girls!