Christmas Morning

Santa Claus came to our house! He stuffed our stockings and left presents, both wrapped and not, strewn about the living room.

Although Spenser was awake at 6 AM, it was not in anticipation of all the exciting presents and Santa's night time visit. He was ready for oatmeal ( his favorite breakfast right now). He was kind of a grumpy pants to start things off.

This shiny new red kitchen quickly caught his eye. It will look really nice with the newly painted red and aqua play room in the basement.

Harper had a stocking full of fun new things to chew on. She was pretty unimpressed with the whole thing.
After a breakfast of tapioca pudding ( breakfast of champions, I tell you!), Spenser was in a much better mood. One of my best presents was getting this nice smile out of him for once.

Our morning was long and leisurely The grown ups had mimosas and sunrise mimosas. Little kids had milk. A present or two would be opened. We would play with the new present and then it would be time to open the next present. Spenser finally got around to his stocking which was crammed full of all kinds of goodies.


He got a set of big building blocks to play with. His favorite thing is to make a giant towering stack and then knock them over.

The aftermath of the present opening. We had a huge southwest strata for breakfast and skipped lunch in favor of lots of little hor d'eouvres in anticipation of the prime rib for dinner. Sometime around 4 pm, the grown ups finally got dressed.

Around 1 pm, we were hanging on the couch and noticed that Spenser had gotten particularly quiet. When I went around the end of the couch to see what he was looking at, I realized that he had fallen asleep! All the fun and excitement had worn him out. He has never just fallen asleep where he was and generally fights taking naps and going to bed.


As the afternoon progresses, he gradually oozed down the couch.....

until he ended up in a relatively horizontal position. He slept like this for an hour and a half. He woke up really really cranky and grumpy. I cuddled with him for a bit and then he and I took another hour long nap upstairs on the bed.



After his long long nap, he was in much better humor and ready to hold Harper.

Pre-Christmas Activities

December 2, Spenser's school had a pancake dinner with Santa and Mrs. Claus. We had pancakes, sausage, and juice boxes for dinner in one of the larger rooms at the school. Spenser was upset that he couldn't eat unlimited amounts of pancakes.


Pancakes as finger food.
Daddy with his favorite girl. She seems stunned by his awesome pancake dinner

Our pretty girl on Santa's lap. She was pretty unfazed by it all.

While he didn't try to get away or cry, Spenser is still not too sure about this Santa guy. At least it is just fingers in the mouth. He normally sticks a finger up his nose when he is a bit nervous.
The next weekend, we took a trip out to a friend's tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree. Spenser helped C measure carefully so we could be sure that our perfect tree would fit through the door and in the room.

He held onto the tape measure while Daddy cut the tree down.


For whatever reason, the tree fell toward C instead of away. The tips of the branches barely wisped by Spenser's nose. He was pretty stunned. Fortunately no one was injured.

Basking in the setting sun and looking at the miniature donkeys that live on the farm.

My two favorite boys.

Harper's 5 month Birthday

Harper is 5 months old! Our baby girl is getting bigger and more active every day. She thinks her toes make a great plaything. She rolls over every which way and can spin from side to side to reach her toys. Everything is open for tasting and sticking in her mouth. She is getting very very vocal and she loves to rock and wiggle from side to side.


We tried some first bites of rice cereal. It did not go over to well and we have quickly moved on to bananas, apples, peas, squash and oatmeal. She likes these much much better.

She likes to sit on the couch with Spenser and her Daddy.

I heard Spenser laughing and Harper giggling the other day when I had stepped away to the kitchen to start a bottle. When I came back, I saw what was causing the hilarity. Harper's mouth is blue from the pretzel M&M that Spenser kept sticking in her mouth and she kept spitting out. I quickly put a stop to this source of fun.
Spenser loves his baby sister. He's realizing that it can be entertaining to make her laugh.

Spenser's 2nd Birthday

Spenser turned 2 years old on November 28, 2011. This was a busy Monday with Mama and Daddy both working until 5 PM so we put off his official party until the following Saturday. We did let him open a present a day until the big party.

His big present was the Playskool Sesame Street playset. It comes with Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and Spenser's favorite, ELMO! Spenser kept tearing little bits of wrapping paper off, stopping to proclaim, "WOW! What's that!"

The big party was Saturday afternoon. We had two kids over, Xander from around the corner and Gracie from school. Their craft was to decorate bags with pom poms to recreate Elmo's face. I later stuffed the bags with crayons, a coloring book, a slinky, Elmo stickers, and M&Ms as their party favor.

The kids had pizza, goldfish crackers, and juice boxes for lunch. If you know anything about Elmo, you know that pizza is his favorite food and he has a pet goldfish named Dorothy.

Instead of a big cake, we had chocolate frosted cupcakes with Elmo decorations.

Spenser knows how to eat cupcakes. There is at least one chocolate-y handprint on my dining table chairs now.

I made cake pops in the likeness of Elmo. While not difficult, they were pretty time intensive.




Spenser's friend, Diane (our neighbor), got him this singing, rocking Elmo.


In addition to the guest of honor, a very special guest, ELMO, showed up to say hello! Gracie was so scared she had to leave the house. Xander, when asked if he wanted to sit on Elmo's lap, replied, "No way!" Fearless Spenser was right up there with his hero.




Later that night was the Christmas parade downtown. We bundled everyone up and lasted about an hour and a half of the parade before we got too cold and too tired of the immense crowd before we left. Happy Birthday, my sweet boy!