Monday, November 27, 2006

I guess it's Christmas Time

Last night good old Mark Eubank (who gives his final weather report this Wednesday night!) wore his white coat. He said that we could expect some snow right around 6:00 p.m. today. I guess I didn't believe him, because at about 5:55 I took Alex out for a walk. After a day of RAP tantrums (she is turning out to be quite talented in this area) I needed some air. So we walk out the door, and I'll just say that when Mr. Eubank said six o'clock, he MEANT six o'clock. The clock struck six, my foot hit the pavement, and suddenly I could no longer see. I was being pelleted to death. This of course only lasted a few minutes before it settled down to some steady snow - it was beautiful to walk through the evening air and watch the snow drifting down in the light of the street posts - an image that gets me in the Christmas mood more than almost anything.

I'm glad it is snowing a little - Christmas can be so overwhelming for me to pull off every year, I get a little bummed out. But last week when I did some shopping for the kids and picked out stuff I know they're just going to LOVE I started getting excited. Kids make the season so fun. At church on Sunday, CTP was sitting with friends for a few minutes while I played the piano in sacrament meeting (Troy had taken a very sleepy RAP home). The dad showed him a picture of Santa. CTP said, in a very matter-of-fact manner, "Oh. That man is going to bring me dinosaurs." I guess he's got Christmas down-pat.

We had a nice Thanksgiving, hosted by my bro-in-law Van Lewis. Just the Romney family there, minus Adam and Peter and their wives and child. CTP was pretty excited about eating turkey meat. That boy is into carnage. I don't actually teach him - I think studying dinosaurs as extensively as he does helps him feel comfortable with the whole food chain/circle of life kind of stuff. Van brought the turkey out and as he carved it, he gave CTP an entire drumstick, which he diligently gnawed on for the entire meal, repeatedly asking who had killed the turkey, or if a scorpion had killed it. I belive he also wanted to know where all the blood was. He also demanded silence while regailing us with a tale of how he lifted a rock and found a billion scorpions and killed them all by stepping on them. Carnage.

Monday, November 20, 2006

One of those Days



This weekend I was in the living room and I heard CTP in the kitchen making a lot of paper-rustling noises. I went in to check it out and there he was with an entire roll of wrapping paper unrolled across the floor. I had a choice. Should I get mad? Generally the answer to that question is yes. However, I had already made that choice a few times that day and thought he had maybe had enough misery. So I grabbed the box of markers and we had a mural drawing day. We traced CTP's body and he drew his own face for the first time. He also took the trouble to include his blood and his heart. This was fun. Fun, that is, until I was cleaning the kitchen while RAP slept, and CTP took one of the markers and decorated our living room. Our WHOLE living room. Walls, tv, fireplace, windows, lamps, etc. That time I think I did get mad.

Monday, November 13, 2006

My little ballerina



In SLC there is a program called Global Artways where you pay 10 bucks and get six weeks of classes for your kid. In the summer we did parent/child art classes, which were pretty fun. This time around, I asked CTP what he wanted to do, and he really wanted to dance. Of course, he's the only boy, and prefers to spend the class running around the gym at top speed, but every once in a while he actually participates. It's pretty funny. What I really love are all the little girls in their tutu's and leotards, and CTP in his jeans. Nice. What with the dancing and him being a girl for Halloween, should I be worried? I don't think so.

The other day I went out for Indian food with a friend, and when I returned with my take-home box, CTP lit up. "Oh Mom! Let me see! Is it boy food?" He lifted the lid, slumped sightly, sighed dejectedly and said, "Oh. It's just girl food," and walked away.

Busy Weekend



Busy Weekend! On Friday night we held a half-way-there party for my friend, Terri Lyn, who is half way through her chemo treatments for breast cancer. She is such a trooper and we're all so proud of her. She was feeling pretty awful but needed a girl's night in a big way. We ate pumpkin soup, warm bean dip, and cheesecake. Can't go wrong with that. Then on Sunday evening we held a birthday party for Hannah, my now 10-year-old niece. Half of us, including me, had never seen the movie Cars before, so after taco salads and lemon cake we all snuggled down to watch. CTP loves the movie and owns several of the little matchbox-sized car characters, and spent most of the movie driving them around and saying, "ka-CHOW!" Fun movie.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Here I am!
















So here I am, joining the league of bloggers. It is a gorgeous day here in SLC - I believe the last warm day we'll have this year. We're just past the peak of the fall colors, but it is still lovely and yellow out, and the day demanded a long walk. We're still recovering a bit from Halloween. That's probably because there's still a fair amount of candy-consumption going on. We just wear out from the day's busy-ness, I think. This year, CTP is in preschool. His little class had a party with a pinata they made themselves. He was dressed as Violet from The Incredibles - he just loves her. I bought him a "Violet" wig, but he wore it for only a couple minutes. Then of course was a visit to both sets of grandparents and then trick-or-treating in a friend's neighborhood. We were also invited to two seperate trunk-or-treats, but I could feel meltdown time coming, and called enough enough. RAP was a very cute little trick-or-treater. She toddled down the sidewalk as fast as her stubby little frog-legs could carry her, and remained happy as long as she had a dumb-dumb in her mouth. Good thing she lets me brush her teeth already.