Brayden now sings pretty much all the lyrics to Jingle Bells. It's the sweetest thing ever and I love listening to him sing in the car. I actually got video of it today, but I haven't figured out how to upload video from our tablet to youtube or flickr. Anyone know how to do that?
We took the boys to look at Christmas lights last night. It's one of my all time favorite Christmas traditions from when I was a child, and we've decided to carry that over to the boys. They were both in awe. Brayden especially likes the flashing lights, and the large blowup Santa figurines. We were really bummed that the super cool house with lights that is in unison to music was not turned on when we drove by. I think we'll be trying to go by this weekend sometime. Brayden will be in LOVE with it.
Connor had started letting go of furniture this week and just standing on his own. He has been SO proud of himself and will beam so big when he stands there. Well, tonight I was trying to coax him to try to walk and he took 1 step towards Drew! He was SO SO SO excited. I wish I had it on video! I will try to video him again soon. I am thinking that we may have a walker before 2011 comes to a close! Lord have mercy on me... it just means we're one step closer to more double trouble with these boys of mine!
And I thought I'd link up with Mama M's 5QF today since I haven't been feeling all that creative with my thoughts lately. It's nice to take a break sometimes, don't you think? Happy Friday yall!
1. What's the best Christmas present you've ever received?
7 years ago I got a combined anniversary/Christmas present. Under normal circumstances, I am not a big fan of combined presents. But 2004 was an exception, and I got Toby, our Cairn Terrier. Best Christmas gift I ever received.
2. Worst/Funniest White Elephant gift ever received?
Off the top of my head I am having a hard time recollecting the white elephant gifts we've received. There are some funny ones that circulate through our annual white elephant gift exchange with our friends. We have a GAUDY crystal frame (I think it's like 11x14, so it's GINORMOUS) that circulates it's way through the group every year. It was a wedding present to one of the couples and they didn't know where it came from so they brought it the party one year. Then there is the ugly conch vase that circulates every year. I need to take a picture of it so yall will believe me when I say it's ugly.
3. Is your Christmas tree plain and simple (white lights and matching ornaments) or is it wild and crazy (colored lights with lots of ornaments collected over the years)?
It's kind of both actually. I'm not a fan of colored lights so we stick with the clear white lights for the lighting. But our ornaments are kind of a smorgasborg of sorts. My mom has a tradition of getting us each our own ornament every Christmas that represents something that we experienced that year. The boys have them now too, so we have a lot of the ornaments like that. Then I bought some random ornaments I thought were cute, and we also have the traditional glass ball ornaments as well, plus some candy canes, because I for one feel that no tree is complete without candy canes (one of the main food groups of elves I might add).
4. "How" do you iron your clothes? The old fashioned iron/ironing board way, the shower, back in the dryer, etc.
Iron my clothes? Errrr, Ummmmm.... do people still iron clothes?! haha. Here's the deal. I swore to Drew that once I stayed home with the kids that I would iron his clothes. Because, for some reason, I thought that being a stay at home mom meant that I would have all of the time and energy to sit and iron the hub's shirts and pants for work. Little did I realize that in addition to not having the time or energy to iron clothes, I'd also have small monkey's occupying my home, and the possibility of one of them hanging on an ironing board when I swipe a hot iron over a dress shirt is very real. SOOOO... I reverted to my college ways. You see, in college I worked for a dry cleaner. And I got spoiled. Oh did I ever get spoiled by having my clothes professionally cleaned. And if you get your shirts professionally cleaned then you'll know what I mean when I say that a professionally starched shirt beats a home starched and ironed shirt anyday. So we get our clothes professionally cleaned and ironed. Although I do have to say that last week when Drew asked if his t-shirt looked wrinkly I pulled out the Downy wrinkle release. Worked like a charm.
5. How much baking do you do for Christmas and what are your "must make" items? (I'm looking for recipes here, peeps...)
When it comes to domestic ways, I slack in all areas of baking. Which is sad, since I greatly delight in my mom's home baked goodies that she makes every year during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Perhaps I'll pick it up when the resident monkey's grow up a little and will actually sit and watch Bob the Builder instead of SAYING they'll watch it and then decide 4 seconds later that they want to qualify for minute to win it and start pulling out kleenex's at rapid rate. I DO have an easy, go-to recipe for Tiger Butter that I love if I need something quick and semi-homemadish for Christmas parties. That's about as domestic as I get in the baking department during Christmas time.
