The first item on my agenda is to rename my children. I'm really sick of this "CTP" and "RAP" stuff, so I've decided to come up with some nicknames for them. From now on, my 5-year-old son, formerly known as CTP, will henceforth be known as "Stomper," due to his adoration and constant imitation of dinosaurs. And my 2-year-old daughter, formerly known as "RAP" shall be dubbed "Bitty," because that's what I call her all the time. There.
I wanted to post some funny videos of Bitty. The first one is of her having a conversation with Troy's t-shirt. He's got this t-shirt with a flaming skull on it, and I think one evening while I was gone and she was upset, he distracted her by putting his hand under his shirt, making the figure bounce around and talking for it. They named him "Edgar the Friendly Monster," and now every time he puts on the shirt she'll go chat with Edgar for a minute. The second video is of her telling a story, and it's just cute. She's been really into stories lately - especially one about jingle bells being stolen by a dinosaur and taken to his castle. Love it.
A funny Stomper story from the week - he's gotten really into Godzilla. I guess his buddy has a couple Godzilla books he was showing him and they both just got sucked in. I guess it's a natural progression from dinosaurs to superhero monsters. Coincidentally, Troy was flipping through the channels and found the Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick that was made a few years ago. Stomper was of course immediately enchanted, and we let him watch it. Well, in the old stories Godzilla is a good guy who saves people. I guess. That's what I remember from the Saturday morning cartoons - Godzilla and Gadzooks! Remember? Anyway, in this movie, Godzilla is just a big destructive monster and everyone is trying to kill him. Stomper was rooting for Godzilla the whole time, yelling for him to bust through walls and stuff. Sadly, at the end, I believe Godzilla gets wiped out. The last two or three minutes were cut off, so I don't quite remember, but all we saw was a dead Godzilla. Stomper turned to me, quivering lip and brimming tears, and said, "I didn't want Godzilla to die." And then he started sobbing. And sobbing. I just rocked him for a long time. Remind me to never let him see Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern grows. He was so sad!
We had a great storm this week. I have been so excited this month because we have had a pretty snowy December, and it's just so Christmassy! But last week the snow started melting a lot, enough for me to do some raking of all the leaves that got trapped under the snow. Our favorite weather man Kevin Eubanks kept predicting snow, and once even wore the white coat, indicating snow the next day, and it didn't happen. He wore it on Thursday night again, and we were doubtful that any snow would really show up. Friday was this super warm and windy day, and when I went to the pharmacy at 4:30 in the afternoon I could see blue sky. Admittedly the line at the pharmacy was pretty long, but I was shocked to find when I left that Kevin's predicted storm had arrived, and how. It was like we got hit with a baseball bat. The temperature totally plummeted and we started with a hail storm of mighty fury. Then in settled into a nice long snow that gave us at least five or six inches to coat our town in white again. It's been cold ever since, keeping the branches packed. And what I'm really excited about, especially now that both of my brothers and their families have arrived safely in SLC, is that we're to get another 2-4 inches this evening. A snowy Christmas eve! How fabulous!It's been such a busy month, plus dealing with Bitty's sleeping, meaning that I never let her nap so she'll go to bed before the next day, I'm a little disappointed that we haven't been able to do some of the things that I wanted to for Christmas. I of course wanted to take the kids downtown to see the lights at Temple Square, and the lights at the zoo, and the fun stuff going on at Wheeler Farm like Santa and wagon rides and hot chocolate and stuff. I just couldn't make it work with the freezing cold evenings and napless days, and being up to my eyeballs in a teddy-bear project. I'm sad, but you know, I think we'll live. We're all still excited about the holiday and are really enjoying our family, and what's more important than that? Next year will be better for all that stuff because our kids will be bigger but not too big yet, you know?
Last night we had a really fun party at my parent's house. My entire family was there, which hasn't happened for at least two years. It was so fun to have us all together. Adam and Whitley and Peter and Sheri got to meet each other's babies for the first time, we had Kent Miles, a really great photographer, come and take pictures of our family, we had really great food (I made it, so what else could you expect, right?) and we exchanged gifts. The winner gift of the evening was an evil plot developed between Adam and myself where we orchestrated for his son and Stomper to receive mini-marshmallow shooters. Adam and Margaret and I did a lot of pre-party laughing as we imagined my father's reaction to the shooters - you load them with mini-marshmallows and the pump them up and they fire the things all over the place. Dad's reaction lived up to our expectations. He was not so excited about them. I didn't actually see any veins in his forehead pulsing, but it was close. But really, the little kids gobbled up the marshmallows as fast as Smith and Stomper could fire them. Here's Dad:
And here's the gunmen:
We really had a fun evening, enjoying our family. Tonight holds more family time, as does tomorrow, and I'm sure by then we'll be about familied out. Merry Christmas to you all, with much love and gratitude.
Here's some more pix from the evening:
No comments:
Post a Comment