Advent activities.

While we are not religious, we do have an advent calendar. Or, a countdown to Christmas calendar, I guess you could say. It's the same one that hung on the wall when I was a kid. It has a pocket for the 24 days before Christmas and traditionally, it had little candy bars in every pocket. Since we don't let the kids eat candy, I decided this year to put a little Christmas activity in each pocket. Clearly, some of these are super basic, but here's what I came up with. These aren't in any order, I will order them up according to TV programming schedules, travel plans, etc. As they get older, I hope to add more service related ones, but at 1 and 3 years old, I don't think they would get it. Day 1 will be meeting our elf, as rumor has it an "Elf on the Shelf" will be joining our family this year. And, hopefully the tree is going up on Day 2.

Let the season begin!

1. Make snowman cookies.

2. Watch Charlie Brown Christmas.

3. Watch Frosty the Snowman.

4. Watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

5. Watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

6. Visit family for Richmond Christmas.

7. Sit on Santa's lap.

8. Take a walk to see Christmas lights.

9. Make sugar cookies.

10. Go to the Rolesville Christmas parade.

11. Have appetizers for dinner, with hot chocolate and Dunkin' Donuts for dessert.

12. Buy your sibling a Christmas gift.

13. Make an ornament for the tree.

14. Listen to Christmas music with dinner.

15. Have snowman pancakes for breakfast.

16. Make reindeer food.

17. Decorate a gingerbread house.

18. Read Christmas stories before bed.

19. Meet an elf from the North Pole.

20. Decorate the tree.

21. Do a Christmas craft.

22. Learn a Christmas carol and Skype with the grandparents and sing it to them.

23. Wear Christmas pajamas to bed.

24. Color a picture for Santa.

THREE.

DSC_0055, a photo by MelissaandSusan on Flickr.

Today, our baby boy is three years old. I can't even believe it's been that long. In some ways, it seems he's been here my whole life and in other ways, it seems like yesterday I held him for the first time.

He is so funny and sometimes, without meaning to be. He gets very excited about things he is passionate about (water, escalators, to name a few). He loves to sing and is the sunniest, smiliest boy you will ever meet. He has still never had a temper tantrum, although he has his own way of letting you know he isn't happy. Usually, it takes less than 30 seconds to turn his mood around. He says cute things like "last mornin'" to mean anything other than right now. He is a good big brother and is still learning his own strength when it comes to loving Lucy. He goes with the flow and takes everything in stride.

He counts, he knows a word for every letter of the alphabet, has known all his letters for some time and can point out "what word starts with ___" from a group. He loves to be read to. He's been potty trained for six months (woo hoo!) and the carseat is the only trace of baby left around for him. He absolutely loves preschool and asks every morning if it's a preschool day. He's learn such good independence there and we are so happy we sent him early.

He is the perfect first addition to our family and handles his role as first born well. We adore him and just can't imagine a world without his sunny smile.

We love you, Theo. Happy Birthday!

Almost a sad Halloween.

DSC_0623, a photo by MelissaandSusan on Flickr.

After having beautiful weather for all our fall events thus far, it rained on Halloween. We'd made plans to go ToT'ing with a friend who lives in the neighborhood we hope to move to, but due to the rain we decided to stay home. My thought was we could each take him to a few houses and switch off staying with Lucy.

We carved pumpkins, had pizza for dinner and by that point it was POURING. Theo was so, so excited, so I bundled us up and out we went. Only, our neighborhood sucks and we walked up and down the street in the rain to find only one house with a light on. I had tears in my eyes seeing him shuffle down the street in the rain, with his big, excited smile and empty little pumpkin.

I gave up and came home, apologizing that no one was going to give him any candy. By that point, Lucy needed to be nursed and go to bed, so Susan put him in the car and drove him to a very close neighborhood. I got Lucy down and then sat on the couch and cried. I hate where we live on a good day and I was hating it even more now that his first big ToT'ing was ruined. I was just so disappointed. Well, a bit later, he and Susan walked in. He was soaking wet, but had a huge smile and a bag full of candy. Susan said the other neighborhood was full of people happy to hand out candy and that Theo had a blast. She offered to switch with me, but at that point it was late and dark and he was wet and had had an awesome time and that was all that mattered.

I took off his costume and his wet shoes and socks and we let him eat one piece of candy and offered him a very special treat: a Halloween donut. He ate off a few sprinkles, took a tiny bite and declared himself "done!"

I'm so glad his big day ended well and hope that very soon we are in a much better neighborhood.