Merry Christmas!

We are getting ready to drive up to Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Mike's, but I wanted to quickly post a Merry Christmas.

Here is a picture of the kids last night in their Christmas pajamas in our bed getting ready to watch Prep and Landing before going retiring for the night.  They were incredibly tired kids as they had not napped and had had a very busy day with our Perrysburg family celebrating Christmas.

I am Such a Proud Mom

I think that I am about the proudest mom in the world tonight.  Despite the fact that Isaac is fighting going to bed right now by telling Daddy that he has to go potty and then not leaving the bathroom.

This morning while I was driving the kids to daycare Mackenzie told me that she wanted to get her cousins Christmas presents.  I told her that I had already gotten her cousins presents from her and Isaac.  She then told me that she wanted to go to the store and use her credit card to buy presents for her cousins.  My Grandma Conklin sent both kids a $5 Target giftcard, which they call their credit cards.  My Grandma Krotzer also sent a $10 check.  Isaac opened that card and was very excited about the check and would not give it up.  So I told him that I would cash the check and that he and Mackenzie could spend the money with their credit cards.  So by the time we got to daycare the two of them had decided that they were going to buy gifts for all 7 of their cousins with their money and credit cards and I told them that I would take them to the store after school.

I figured that I would take them to Target where they could shop at the dollar section right inside the door.  Honestly, I expected that once we got there they would want to buy something for themselves.  But I was pleasantly surprised when we got there that they went right to work picking out presents for their cousins.  They even picked out something for all of their grandparents as well.  I was extremely proud that they stuck to their original intention and that they chose to use their presents to buy presents for their cousins.

 Merry Christmas to everyone!

Oh Bother

So, it was evidently a good idea for us not to go to Grandma and Grandpa's last weekend.  Not because of the kids' germs, but because of mine.  I was pretty sick last night.  I am not sure if it was the flu or food poisoning yet, but I am guessing within a couple of days I will know.  If no one else gets sick poisoning, yay!

Currently the kids are watching our annual Christmas showing of "The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town".  I need to separate the holiday movies out of our movie case and pack them up with the holiday decorations.  For anyone who doesn't remember "The Eater Bunny is Coming to Town" good for you.  The song "What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg" is terrible and it gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day.  I asked Mackenzie if this meant we could put our Christmas decorations away and she said, "No, I like Christmas and Easter."  I asked her if she knew what Christmas was about and she said, "Yes, baby Jesus."  I then asked her if she knew what Easter was about and she said, "Yes, eggs."  I guess we have a few months to work on that one.

I think Brian and I may watch "Christmas in Connecticut" if the kids go to bed on time tonight.  Much more seasonal.

Christmas is Almost Here

Our three months of Christmas is speeding by lately.  We went to see Santa last Monday.   The kids had a blast.  We went to Bass Pro Shop and they had a pretty nice setup so that the kids were occupied while we waited in line.  The baby in line in front of us had a classic "Get me off this stranger's lap!" pose, but Mackenzie and Isaac loved it.  Mackenzie asked Santa for Xia Xia Crabs and Isaac asked Santa for Lightning and Mater.  I have a feeling that Santa will deliver.

The kids and I were not feeling well all week as we had a really terrible cold.  Then on Friday Mackenzie's teacher warned me that the flu that had been going through the preschool class had hit Mackenzie's class pretty hard and that two children were out Friday.  I won't mention the gory details here, but it sounded terrible.  So Brian and I decided we shouldn't share our definite and possible nasty germs with my parents.  The kids were super depressed that they didn't get to go see Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Mike, so I decided to try and have lots of fun things for them to do this weekend.

Yesterday we made a gingerbread house.  I made the dough in the morning as it had to chill for at least 2 hours.  I cut out the house pieces while the kids were doing their quiet time and then Mackenzie came down and made cookies while Isaac slept.  She rolled the dough out and cut out all of the small stars and gingerbread boys on her own, and then used the spatula to move them to the side so that I could put them on the cookie sheets after the house pieces finished cooking.  I was extremely impressed with how well she did.

Finally, once Isaac woke up we decorated the house.  The kids decided that each of them would have a side and Mackenzie decided that she would use the red candies and Isaac would use the green.  They each got a "boy", Isaac is under the double peppermints and Mackenzie is under the wreath.

Again, I was extremely impressed with my children's talents.

We were going to go to the mall today and I was going to let the kids pick out some Christmas gifts for their grandparents and godparents.  Isaac has never been to a mall.  However, we checked when we got up and most of the malls here don't open until 11 or noon.  We do most of our activities in the morning since Isaac still naps and since we get up at six am.  So that made a trip to the mall pretty unlikely.  Instead we did some online shopping, decorated the star cookies and played outside, which the kids loved.  Meanwhile I got some presents wrapped and Mackenzie put them under the tree for me while Isaac napped.  Bring on Christmas!

Them Bones, Them Bones

So we had an awesome Thanksgiving.  We got to spend Thursday with Brian's side of the family and then headed up to my parents' on Friday night.  We got to spend a lot of time with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, which was really great.  The kids enjoyed hanging out with all of their family and they even got some bonus time on Sunday. 

Sunday morning I officially became an old lady when I fell on the stairs to my parents' basement.  Me falling isn't totally unusual, I have been a klutz for a long time, but my ankle and foot really hurt at the bottom where I laid on the basement floor and called for help (which no one heard) and then limped upstairs.  I iced my foot down, but figured it was just sprained and bruised.  When we got back to Perrysburg that afternoon and my foot still really hurt I decided I should go see a doctor.  Brian took me to an urgent care facility where they confirmed that "Yes, Denise, you are an old lady".  I had broken a bone falling on the stairs.  If only I had had a Medical Alert to truly solidify it.

Anyway, here is a picture of the x-ray confirming my fifth metatarsal is broken in my left foot.

The Lessons of Fairy Tales

So I read the kids a lot of the old-fashioned fairy tales.  All in all I figure many generations have been told these stories and most of us ended up alright.  However, as I have been reading many of them I think they are quite violent and scary a lot of the time and I often worry about them causing nightmares.  So as we were driving to Ohio Northern University to go to the Holiday Spectacular I was talking to the kids about godparents.  I was explaining to Mackenzie that my Aunt Bonnie is my godmother like Aunt Shannon is her godmother and Aunt Tina is Isaac's godmother.  Mackenzie then asked me, "So who is my stepmother?"  I then explained to her what a stepmother is and under what circumstances she may have a stepmother.  To which she replied, "And then I would get chores?"  I paused as I thought about that comment for a second so, to clarify, she added: "like Cinderella?"  Then I had to explain that not all stepmothers are mean like Cinderella's and Hansel and Gretel's.

The kids enjoyed the Holiday Spectacular very much.  Isaac sat incredibly well through the show despite having to crane his neck quite a bit to be able to see, even when he was on my lap.  Throughout the show Mackenzie asked me if many of the characters were real, such as the cow, the polar bear and the Frosty the Snowman.  I answered her honestly that they were costumes, dreading when Santa came out and wondering what I would tell her.  Luckily she didn't ask about Santa at all.

Okay Then

So I decided to start working out again this week.  We have a very nice gym at work with approximately 9 treadmills, 8 elliptical machines and numerous other pieces of equipment that are not important to this story.  I got to the gym at lunch time today and was the first person there.  There are 3 TVs in the gym.  One TV had a Housewives show on it, the middle TV had CNN on it, and the last TV had ESPN on it.  So I got on the treadmill that was in front of the TV with CNN on.  After being on the treadmill for about 6 minutes a man came into the gym and of all of the equipment in the gym decided to get on the elliptical machine directly in front of me so that I could no longer see the TV with CNN on it.  So rather than watching the Penn State pedophile station I started watching the Housewives show.  I watched that for about 3 minutes when another man came into the gym, turned the Housewives TV to ESPN and got on the treadmill directly between me and the TV, and THEN started listening to music on his iPhone.  I didn't really want to watch ESPN or the Housewives show, but I couldn't help but think, seriously of all of the dozens of machines in the room these two men chose the two machines directly in front of me and between me and the TVs.  The only three machines in the entire gym in use were within a few feet of each other.  I spent the rest of my workout watching the time on my treadmill which I think makes a workout seem at least 3 times as long as it really is.  But I made it through, so yay.

On a lighter note, Brian attempted to remove the leaves from our yard last weekend.  He got through maybe a quarter of the yard.  The kids had a ball playing in the leaves, so I thought I would post a picture or two:

Oh, and the reason for the title.  As I was attempting to have a conversation about why Mackenzie should spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's so that Brian and I could go out to a game watch last Saturday night she asked me whether I was going to sleep at Grandma and Grandpa's after we went out.  I started my answer with "No, but . . ." to which Mackenzie responded, "Okay then, I am not going."  It doesn't seem nearly as hilarious when I am typing it, but she seriously sounded so serious and adult that Brian and I both couldn't help but crack up. 

Tonight when I picked up the kids at daycare Isaac was upset and didn't want to go home.  So on the way to McDonald's he decided to tell me that he wanted Santa to pick him up at daycare and bring him presents.  That was funny enough and then Mackenzie chimes in with "Santa can't pick us up at daycare, you aren't allowed to see him."  I added that she was right and Santa could only come and bring their presents if they are sleeping in their beds at their house.  To which Mackenzie added, "Yeah, and he can only bring you ONE present."  Isaac got very quiet to think that one through.  Okay then.