She Knits Shizknits

only a few days left till the Big Day

Woke up this morning to a very windy, clear day...we have so much to do today- I'm glad it's not pouring rain still! Now, to finish my coffee + dark chocolate (isn't that a healthy breakfast? LOL), shower and get started on the to-do list.

Here's a little bit of holiday cheer to start your day, courtesy of our neighborhood carolers...

And here's a photo where you can actually see them! LOL

end-of-day surprise

sunset last night, originally uploaded by shizzknits.

we had a grey, dreary day today...but when we stepped outside at 5pm, we got the surprise of this beautiful pink sky. Little Man had to take a photo so I gave him point and shoot camera. I think he did a great job!

the last day before Christmas break...

Friday was the last day of school for Little Man; he has the next two weeks off for Christmas vacay- hurray! I am sooooo looking forward to NOT waking up at the a$$crack of dawn to get him ready for school! Winter break is a break for all the parents, too...

Since it was the last day before vacation, LM's teacher had a 'campout' in the classroom. They moved all the desks to the perimeter of the room and set up a faux campfire with wood and tissue paper. The kids were all dressed in their PJs as it was also Pajama Day, but they had no idea about the campout. The teacher had also made a schedule for the parents to come in and read books to the kids throughout the day.

I'm one of the room moms so I had to be there early in the morning to bring all the fixings for hot chocolate and s'mores.  The Dearest was going to meet me in the classroom at 8:30 since he was scheduled to read a book, too. The kids were really excited to see the 'campfire'- they had no idea what we had planned. Here's the Dearest reading "The Incredible Book-Eating Boy" to them:

Little Man was quite excited to have Dadda reading to his class:

Then it was my turn to read- I had picked Russell's Christmas Magic, which has some of the cutest illustrations. The kids really enjoyed trying to find Russell's little frog friend in every page.

My OOTD needed to be casual, comfortable, and fairly cool as the temps have crept up in here in the past few days. While people on the East coast are being pounded with a snowstorm, it was easily 72F here. So here's my "room mom" outfit:

• white tank top: Forever 21
• red tank top: no idea...this is so old!
• brown flyaway cardigan: TJMaxx
• jeans: Old Navy
  
• shoes: Converse (limited edition bought at GAP last year after Xmas)

I was afraid I might be too cold in this outfit, but by the time I hustled all the campout supplies into the classroom and set everything up, I was sweating! LOL So it was perfect.

The next few days might not see a lot of blog postings; both the small men are out of school  and we have some last minute Christmas shopping and plans for the week. We will be doing Christmas Eve at my mom's house, then Christmas day will probably be spent at home so the boys can play with the things Santa brought them.

What are you planning for Christmas?

it's the most pukerful time of the year...

Just the other day, I was talking to a friend and mentioned that the small men haven't been very sickly this season. Last year we had multiple colds, mystery viruses (virusii?), several puking spells, and some vertigo thrown in for me (because I'm extra speshul that way). This year we've had a couple of colds, the Dearest got the swine flu, and I got a sinus infection...but the small men have been relatively well-off...Monkey Boy is currently sniffling his way through the last of a head cold...and up till last night I thought we might actually get through this month with no one else being sick.

Oh how I was mistaken....Yesterday Little Man came home from school complaining of a headache. I checked him for a fever (none), and snuggled him up on the couch with a glass of water. I figured he was either dehydrated (he has a bad habit of not drinking enough water during the day), or he was still hung over from staying up so late on the weekend.  When I checked on him a few minutes later, he was passed out and snoring!  This from a child who hasn't napped in since he was 2yrs old! 

An hour later, he was up and ready to decorate gingerbread houses.  The rest of the night he seemed fine- no fever, no complaints. The Dearest put the small men to bed a bit early, and everything was going swimmingly....till around 10:30pm. We were getting ready for bed when we heard some fussing in the hallway. The Dearest went for a look and I heard LM crying and saying "sorry Dadda!" ...then I heard the Dearest go into the kids' bedroom and exclaim "ut oh!" 

Let's just say that LM had a bit of a puking incident...good thing: he didn't get any in his bed. Bad thing: he spewed for a five foot radius around the base of his bunk bed because he lost his cookies at the top of the bunk ladder.  Thank goodness MB (who was on the bottom bunk) was covered by his blanket...! 

The Dearest was kind enough to start the cleanup in the bedroom while I helped LM take a shower.  We put LM back on the sofa (which was well covered with towels) and gave him a blanket and a bucket "just in case". Luckily, the rest of the night was uneventful- and LM woke up this morning feeling quite chipper. In fact he was bummed I am making him stay home from school!

So, either he ate something yesterday that didn't agree with him or it was just some weird 24hr stomach thing. Either way, he is feeling much better today and will be hanging out at home (which puts a cramp in my last minute Christmas shopping plans LOL).  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he stays chipper!

an overload of cute

Monkey Boy's preschool Christmas pageant was on Sunday afternoon. Last year, MB refused to participate at all in the pageant- he wouldn't even get up on stage! But this year was a different story: he's been singing his Christmas songs for weeks, and on Sunday he ran right up to the stage!


MB is standing next his friend, N; a lot of people think they are twins or brothers since they have similar coloring and are only about 6 months apart in age.



After the pageant was over, we jumped into the Funbus and headed to the Honda Center to watch the Ducks v. Senators.

The game not only went into overtime, they also had a shootout! That is always fun to watch- even if the Ducks lost. :(

The small men were entranced by this floating sheep blimp, which I snapped a quick photo of after the game:


We were waiting for the Dearest to come out on the ice for the post-game skate (his team sold enough tickets to be able to play their own game on the rink after the pros were done!). The guy 'piloting' the miniblimp was sending it all over the stands and the kids were going crazy chasing it!

Here's the best shot of the Dearest I could get with my iPhone:

Ummm...he's the guy in the dark jersey who's all the way to left of the frame LOL  Luckily a couple of other people brought cameras and took better pictures than I did!

I also managed to get our Christmas cards finished and ordered over the weekend. Here's an outtake from Monkey Boy, who decided he was DONE with photos:

Little Man, on the other hand, is a photo-pro!

He even tried to get MB to smile more:

These two were so silly!  But at least the cards are done and on their way to me...last year I didn't get cards done till a week before Christmas. Bad mommy! Bad photographer! LOL I checked with my lab this morning and the cards are en route via UPS...whew!

into the holiday swing

The past week has been quite the holiday whirlwind. We had a Christmas music class through Music Together:

The small men really enjoyed the music; it took Little Man a while to warm up to the instructor, but eventually he go into it as you can tell! LOL Then on Saturday night we went to the local train station to watch the Santa Train roll into town.

Metrolink, the commuter train service, does this Santa Train every year. It's a way to collect for Toys for Tots, and the kids get a kick out of seeing the little show they put on. Our neighbors, P and her son, came along for the fun as well. It was pretty crowded on the platform, but luckily everyone was in good spirits....We ended up pushing the kids to the front of the crowd and sitting behind them. Look at how entranced the kids are!

After the show was over, Monkey Boy wanted to wait for the train to leave so we walked up the platform a bit and waited. The train pulled alongside, then stopped right where we were, playing music the entire time. That led to some crazy dancing!


I also have video of Monkey Boy's preschool Christmas pageant, but they're currently uploading to Flickr so I'll be back later to update this post. It's raining and grey here today in So.Cal, Yay! MB and I are going to put on our wellies and go Christmas shopping together...wish us luck!

thankful thursday

Good morning all!  I'm sure that most of us in the States are sitting in houses full of the yummy smell of cooking turkey, hanging out with family (hopefully minus the family drama LOL), and gearing up for the feast to come.

This year, we have so much to be thankful for....here's my short list:

-thankful for being blessed with so much when there are so many families out there with so little

-thankful for the continuing good health of everyone we love

-thankful for great friends

-thankful for amazing So.Cal weather, which means we will have blue skies and 80F temps today

-thankful for Little Man's thoughtfulness: he made made us "breakfast" yesterday:

When I came downstairs, I found these Nutella and banana sandwiches all set up on the table. And LM had even put away all the ingredients and put his dirty knife into the sink!

-thankful for a very silly Monkey Boy, who makes me laugh at least five times a day

-thankful for having our extended families so close that we can visit any time we like

-thankful for the Dearest, who is an amazing dad and hubby

So, from our family to you...

Wednesday amusement

Both the small men had today off (actually, Little Man has the whole week off, what?) so we decided to go to Legoland. I was worried that it would be crowded, but I think a lot of kids had school and didn't get out till noon because there weren't a lot of people there when we arrived at 10:30am.

We headed straight to the back of the park, where there were almost no lines (since everyone else was still at the front of the park). We hit the Dragon Coaster and the Knight's Joust in quick succession:

While Monkey Boy was on the Knight's Joust, LM and I went to the Knight's Tournament, where they strap you into a huge mechanical arm and throw you around. We usually do Level One, which is totally mellow. But today LM wanted to try Level Two- not so mellow! I didn't realize that they turn you upside down and sideways! OMG! I was proud of LM for trying it, though, because he's generally so cautious.

We also went on the Lego Boats:

By now the park was starting to get crowded so we hit a few more rides before leaving. I was worried we'd get stuck in the pre-holiday traffic, but it wasn't too bad. We got home fairly quickly and the Dearest ran off to rescue a client while the small men and I hung out at home. We ended up strapping on our hockey skates and playing some hockey in the street till it got dark, then headed inside to play with Legos and eat dinner.

Luckily, we are not having Turkey Day at our house tomorrow; we're going to MIL's house, which means I didn't have to clean or prepare too much. I'm going to boil some eggs and potoatoes tonight since the Dearest volunteered to bring potato salad for dinner. Wish me luck, as I don't normally make potato salad! LOL The Dearest looked up some internet recipes, though, and I'm going to try following one of those.

My sis is coming out this weekend so we will be Thankgiving on Saturday at our house. Instead of turkey, the Dearest got us a turducken...!  I've never cooked one of these before so hopefully it turns out good!  The one we got is HUGE...the turkey alone weighed 20lbs!  I think we're going to have leftovers for months!

wordless wednesday

brave lil man

Little Man complained a couple of times last week that one of his molars was bothering him. We were supposed to go to the dentist on Tuesday to get a small cavity filled, so I figured I could ask the dentist about the molar then.

Of course, I got a call Tuesday morning from the dentist's office saying he had the flu and so LM's appt. that afternoon had to be rescheduled. When I went to pick up LM at school, he showed me his tooth and the whole filling had fallen out.  And there was a big crack in the remaining tooth! Luckily it wasn't bothering him much, aside from the funny feeling of the crack.

We were finally able to get back into the dentist's office on Friday, by which time the cracked part of LM's tooth had finally fallen off (he was pretty upset as he thought he wouldn't get $$ from the tooth fairy for the cracked part). Well, the dentist took a look at the molar and we decided that since it was a baby molar and it ws already loose, he would pull it out.

LM was SO brave!

 I was very impressed with how well LM held up- he tends to be very sensitive about physical discomfort (he's the one who screams when he gets a papercut). So I was expecting a lot more drama when the dentist told him the tooth needed to be pulled. But the only sign LM was really worried was the little wrinkle in his forehead. He did great- the whole tooth came out in two pieces, and the dentist told him that since the tooth got pulled, the Tooth Fairy would bring 2x the $$, which seemed to make it all better in LM's eyes!