Lean a Little to the Right

Every year, we take our picture in front of our tree for our Christmas scrapbook. It can be quite the challenge getting a toddler and dog in position, setting the timer on the camera, having Alan run to his place, AND being happy with the final product.

This is one of the shots we took:

I didn't like how my head was leaning so far to the right, so I had Alan set the timer again for another picture.

There - that's better.

But, just for kicks, we decided to take a picture where we were all leaning. As you can tell by Landon's huge grin, he loved the silliness of this one:


Merry Christmas!

Like a Clam

A few weeks ago we took Landon to the Macy's 8th floor display (same one as the past 2 years - boo!) and then to see Santa. Landon had a lot of questions about Santa as we were getting prepared for the experience - "Is he real?," "Can I talk to him?," "What does he drive?" You know, the usual almost 3 year old type questions. We tried to answer as best as we could and we're excited to see our talkative, curious boy interact with the jolly guy in the red suit.

All the questions and curiousity led up to...absolutely nothing. Landon shut up like a clam the moment with stepped into Santa's room. He took a couple steps in and stopped, not even getting within 5 feet of Santa. We knew setting Landon on his lap likely wouldn't go well so we sat him on the drum next to Santa. Santa asked questions and offered Landon a button. Landon wouldn't even nod his head in response.


Landon looked to Alan for cues, guidance, and perhaps some encouragement.


Despite our best efforts, Landon did nothing more than just sit and stare.


At least until we left the room. Landon then perked up and asked more questions...including if we could go back and see Santa!

Fess Up Friday

Today I bought 14 cans of cranberry sauce. 8 of the jellied kind at CVS and 6 of the whole berry kind at Target, where I had them price matched to CVS. Yes, 14 cans purchased in one day may be a little excessive, but Landon and I both like cranberry sauce - a lot.

The word "trough" sends shivers down my spine every time I see it. Why, you ask? Because I can't pronounce it. I look at that word and every single time I absolutely butcher it. It's not so simple as pronouncing "rough" with a "t" in front of it, which is what my brain and tongue want to do when they encounter that word. And, since it's Christmas, we're reading about the birth of Christ quite a bit, so as a result, I'm encountering my least favorite word in the world with way more frequency than I would prefer.

How about you? Any purchases you've made in excessive quantities or words that send shivers down your spines? Please share!

Surprise! It's a....

...REVEAL CAKE!

Several months ago, I saw this article in the Star Tribune and knew immediately that I wanted to do the same thing for Baby #2. Although we were certainly excited about Baby #2's arrival, things didn't seem as special with this pregnancy as it did with Landon. There wasn't a sense of newness with the whole experience and there wouldn't be registering or baby showers or a whole slew of new baby items that there were with our first. I wanted to do something meaningful and special for our second and this seemed like the perfect way to do it. Oh, and I also love cake!

I contacted Amanda of "I am Baker," a blog that I absolutely love and adore to see if she would be willing to make a reveal cake for us. She so graciously agreed and things were set in motion. I knew that our 20 week ultrasound would happen in the beginning of November and knew that we would be celebrating Thanksgiving with my side of the family at, well, Thanksgiving (so, basically 3 weeks after the ultrasound). For the ultrasound, I had an envelope pre-addressed and stamped to Amanda and told the ultrasound technician that we wanted her to put the gender results in the envelope and seal it and that we would find out the results later. The techinician was absolutely amazing. She asked us if she should just turn the screen away when she was getting near possible sightings or if we wanted to keep our eyes on the screen figuring we wouldn't know what we were looking at. We opted to have the screen turned away because it was pretty obvious with Landon that he was boy and didn't want to risk anything with this one! It was hard laying on the table knowing that she knew but I figured I had been waiting to find out the gender, what was another 3 weeks?!?

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I went to pick up the cake from Amanda's husband's office and LOVED it. So did all the ladies in the office, because they came to the receptionist desk to see the cake and hear the story of how we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, but Amanda and the ultrasound technician knew. Wednesday and into Thursday was probably the hardest. We had the cake in our possession and just had to refrain from cutting into it. Apparently, it was hard for other people too. On Thursday, my Grandma called and left me a cell phone message worried that we wouldn't be able to get a hold of her to tell her the news because of the poor cell phone reception in the area of Iowa we were in. When I called my Grandma back (prior to cutting the cake), my Grandpa answered the phone and as we were exchanging greetings and "How are yous?" I could hear Grandma in the background, "Well, did you cut it yet?"



We sufficiently stuffed our faces at Thanksgiving and I refrained from eating dessert so I would be in the mood for cake later. Finally at 7:00, we gathered Landon, my mom, my sister, her husband, and their 3 kids together to cut the cake. For added dramatic effect, my brother-in-law turned out the lights as we cut into the cake.



As I pulled the knife out, I saw a glimpse of blue but wasn't quite sure if it was from frosting on the inside or the frosting on the outside.


When we fully cut the cake (and the lights were turned back on), this is what we saw:

Blue, blue, blue! Definitely a boy! And do you see the image there? It's a heart. Because Amanda's cool like that and she makes designs on the inside of her cake! Which, by the way, not only looked amazing but tasted so, so good as well. We had such a fun time finding out this way and was so glad that we could share in this moment with family. And now we wait some more for a different kind of sweet thing in March!

Fess Up Friday

Sorry for the absence of the last two weeks. With Thanksgiving and Landon being gone, blogging wasn't exactly on my mind. But without further ado, here's my confessions for this week:

This week I had to go rummaging through the garbage not once, but twice. And the first time was for the most ridiculous reason ever. Landon and his Iowa Grandma had gone to McDonald's on their way home and his Happy Meal toy was some action figure that carried some red sword. I threw the red sword away because: 1. It seemed kind of pointless and 2. I don't like clutter. Well, of course Landon asked for it, so as a result I had to dig deep into our garbage past the ground coffee and leftover food to try and retrieve this miniscule piece of a cheap McDonald's Happy Meal toy that he forgot he had even asked for 20 minutes later.

I also totally stifled laughter as Landon acted in complete and utter defiance today. I know I shouldn't laugh, but it was just too funny. Bed time was a little rough tonight. Lack of nap results in an overly tired boy. Landon had expressed that he was thirsty so Alan and I told him that he could either get a drink of water when he brushed his teeth or Alan would get him a small glass of water before getting pajamas on. Landon opted for the water before hand. When Alan came back with the water, Landon looked at it and declared, "I wanted milk." He looked at me, looked at Alan, looked down at the cup and, then proceeded to dump the entire cup of water on the floor. Classic, I tell you and, hence, the laughter on my part (which, thankfully, I don't think he caught because Alan was very swift in removing him from the room for further discipline.)