Anyhoo – just work and germs and the normal stuff. I’ve met up with friends, have had two prospective client meetings (yeah!) and ummmmmm let’s see. I got the rest of the holiday stuff finally packed up and tucked it away in the attic. So that’ about covers things. Oh, and my dear friend Nikki sent me a plant and that pretty much made my snot-and-congestion-filled week.

One of my potential-client ‘meetings’ was at Zona Rosa in KC, so the boys tagged along and checked out a few stores while I had the meeting. Then we grabbed some lunch and walked around a bit. Scott decided to sit next to Pete this meal, usually that is my spot, and he wrapped one arm about Doots while his eyes rolled heavenward. For about 75% of the meal. Welcome to being the toddler wrangler in a restaurant, my dear. That kid is adorable but he sure is squirrel-y when cornered into a restaurant booth.

We have only been to Zona Rosa one other time, true story. It’s a cute little area; we’ll have to head back some day. Pete certainly enjoyed tearing around the place (like seriously, where do toddlers get all that energy? That kid wakes up wanting to run and ends his day doing laps in his room before bedtime, no lie. It is baffling).

(PS – Those post-bath, pre-bedtime laps are quite entertaining due to the fact that he disrobes from his towel and happily chirps “I AM A NUDE CHOO-CHOO!” while doing them.)

I feel like I’ve been slacking with the blogging. I’ve shot a few good recipes even, just can’t seem to find the time to edit and do a write up. I’m hoping to change that soon, I have homemade Pop Tarts and Cinnamon Cake and a cool little Double Apple Bundt Cake to tell you about.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I promised an update on that blonde, curly-headed chap awhile ago, but with work and the photography business stuff and the holidays and all that other fun junk called Boring Grown Up Responsibilities, I plum forgot.

So maybe we just sneak that in now, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen: This is the chatterbox, the jokester, and my sunny little sidekick – the one and only Peter Ray The Doots.

He thinks his last name is “The Doots”, anyway. Don’t try to convince him otherwise, he’s rather adamant about it.

He really is a dream of a kid. We have struggles with independence and tantrums, I mean it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t, but for the most part he’s just a goofy little ham. His favorite phrase is “sure we can!/sure you can!”, and we hear it a lot. Whether or not we are actually speaking to him or just muttering things to remember to ourselves. He sings all his songs to the tune of Jingle Bells, regardless of the words, and you can hear many an improvised song being belted out up in his room when he’s supposed to be sleeping. He’s fighting potty training tooth and nail, but in a polite way. The more we bring up how awesome the potty and underpants are, the more he will randomly stop to tell us about how much he just looooooooves diapers. Well okay, then. We’ll get there before preschool, that’s all that matters.

He is still obsessed with trains, but now is into the whole Disney-Cars thing as well. He eats clementines about at the rate of one an hour. At first he thought an ‘Eskimo kiss’ meant you rubbed your nose. Like, stand back and rub your nose with your hand. I did my best to explain. Nowadays it’s a very serious affair, he grabs your face and looks you square in the eye, then plants a big kiss on your nose and ‘rubs it in’ by rubbing noses with you. I plan to never correct him on that.

The Doots is fiercely protective of his kittens (also affectionately referred to as his ‘friends’ or his ‘babies’). They come down with him in the morning and sit with him while he has a cup of milk and some cereal, they come along for the car ride to daycare. Every evening he spends the drive home talking to them quietly in the back seat, gently patting their heads. He drags them around everywhere, and at bedtime they have a tea party on the floor before they all hop into bed. At this point I’m not sure what bond is stronger – the one with choo-choo trains, or with his babies.

He loves ‘sandwich’ hugs, and earlier this week informed us that when we do them, that he’s the cheese. He knows several types of train cars and will put you to shame by pointing them all out when we see a train on our way to daycare. He named his nightlight “Bald Man” and makes sure he is perched precariously on his headboard every night before going to bed.

He sleeps with about two dozen stuffed animals in his bed (no, really), and sometimes when I go up to get him in the morning and he’s still asleep, I’ll find him snoozing away while perched on top of a mountain of them – something he did a ton when he had his full leg cast last year and wanted to sleep on his tummy.

He’s pretty bad at brushing his teeth, but we’re working on that. If he is thinking really really hard about a situation while trying to talk it out, he sounds like Milton from Office Space and it is pretty darn awesome. He thinks all soda is medicine and therefore steers clear these days (thanks to 7up and my colds for that brilliant idea). Today I put him in time-out in the usual spot, the stairway to his room, and when I went to get him out he wiped his eyes and pointed to the framed Chicago World’s Fair poster in the stairway and told me about the big As and small As and that there were 3 Os. I mean, there were actually 5 Os, but I let that one slide…

He’s just the sweetest thing and I count my blessings every day that he’s really ours. Even though when he gets bored on car rides he does bizarre stuff in the back seat, like spend 10 minutes pretending Momo’s tail is a flute.

Maybe this week is The Week, where those Terrible Twos finally emerge and he’s hateful and a monster but his personality is pretty mellow so I’m hoping we get to skip that whole mess. What we have now is so much more lovely.

Also Pete this week has started playing this, like, REALLY FUN game where we all pretend to sleep and then he ‘surprises’ the rest of us to scare us and wake us up. Repeat fifty bajillion times.

He’s lucky his fake-sleeping act is entertaining to me, is all I’m saying.

So this week we did shopping and wrapping and baked a carrot cake, all in anticipation of our final Christmas celebration this weekend. We have a late one, but it’s kinda nice to have all that extra time to procrastinate finish our shopping and more importantly, have some family time and enjoy a little more holiday fun before it’s all packed away until next year.

Here’s the carrot cake. Pete helped with the frosting, by dumping about an extra cup of powdered sugar into the (currently mixing) bowl and then proceeding to happily eat the leftover powdered sugar with a spoon.

We’ve hit a whole new level of car-trip chaos this go around, while Pete can be (THANKFULLY) self-entertaining he is also very, very needy when he’s bored. He’ll ask for me for a snack, to play with him, to hand over my phone, to fix his seat belt strap, to hold his hand… pretty much nonstop, I have about 2 seconds between each “Mooooooooommmmmmeeeeeee…”, and oh my goodness does that ever cancel out the 45 minutes straight he was able to make do with a rubber band and green Mega-Block. Or that 15 minutes he goofed with his sunglasses.

We finally made it to the in-laws’ house and jumped right into the fun.  And by that I mean: the Unwrapping of the Gifts.

We had a blast.  The youngest hands out the gifts, but since Pete is a total slouch about reading (slacker, and totally behind his peers), Uncle Eric helped him out.  Everyone got what they always wanted: Pete and I got entire bags of oranges to ourselves (clementines and blood oranges, respectively, and seriously: don’t touch our oranges, you’ll lose an arm).

Pete got tons of Melissa & Doug goodies, I got a new Roku for meeeeeeee for the home office and that awesome camera bag I was salivating over and oodles of pampering items, and Scott got a Forever Lazy.  So we are all pretty much set at this point.

Shortly after much more family showed up, including Pete’s buds Morgan and Duncan, so it was pretty much a flurry of present-unwrapping/playing/screaming/chasing/playing-again madness up in these parts.

Then we tossed them outside to fend for themselves while us adults had a nice civilized gift exchange.  I mean, we fed them first, so they were fine.

Then we started the traditional game of Skit-Scat (a.k.a. 31).  Scott killed it and won the pot, as he has done the past few years, I promise we don’t cheat for Those-Winning-Quarters-That-I-Steal-To-Use-For-My-Diet-Soda-At-Work money.  Pinky swear.

At the end of the day, everybody headed home and to our beds after a lot of great food and fun. And then we all passed out into our food comas. The end.

Sunday morning we took our time getting up and going, watched Cars 2 and had some biscuits and gravy. Um, the diet starts Monday. Anyway. Pete refused clothing, and since we refused to let him put back on his jammies he preferred to go nude. Diaper-only, my friends. He got a little cold and wore his billy like a toga for a while. Still didn’t seem to slow him down much.

Welcome to the Twos, I know.

And now I will force you to look at a bunch of pictures of my son playing with his toy truck/car-carrier thing while only wearing a diaper. Sorry. It was pretty much the only time I busted out the camera so that’s what you get.

Okay, one more that’s it I swear.

Now you can finally go home. Pete’s finally in bed, truffle fries have hit the table and goat-cheese flatbread is in the oven, wine is in the glass. Time to really watch these Golden Globes. Happy week, all!

PS – I am sooooooo tiiiiiired of actors receiving awards for biopics. Were Joaquin Phoenix and Jaime Foxx good? Absolutely. But I can’t really say much about their performances beyond “wow, he sure looked and sounded like Johnny Cash/Ray Charles.” I think it’s too easy for actors to focus on that and the Academy/HFPA to go “huh, that’s an uncanny imitation” and hand them an award. Snooze. So done. Viola Davis was robbbbbbbbed.

Okay signing off for REAL.

And then SixThirtySix Studio officially came to be    :)

*~*~*~*~*~*

Consider this the official announcement: I made the plunge, it’s officially official – I have a photography business.  Well, I kinda had a business for the last bit of 2011, but now I actually have a real actual professional blog and web site and camera and all that good stuff.  So get ready to add some goodies to your Readers, folks:

The website can be found here:

http://sixthirtysixstudio.com/

The blog portion can be found here:

http://sixthirtysixstudio.com/blog/

And all the goodness from Kennedy’s first birthday party can be found right here:

http://sixthirtysixstudio.com/2012/01/kennedys-first-birthday-party/

Aiiiight, that’s it my friends.  Add me!  Enjoy!  Glad to have you along for the ride!   And away we go!!

That would be the new camera on the left, I was shocked to find that sucker sitting on our front porch when I got off work on Friday. Darn that appointment we had so I didn’t have time to charge the battery right away; had to wait until after we got home and got dinner started and anyway, it was too late for any good photos by the time the battery was charged and I had breezed through several pages of the manual. Didn’t stop me from shooting away throughout the house, though, breaking in the new lens as well (new camera + fx format = finally got that 50mm because it will actually WORK like a 50mm, what a concept).

Old D40 (obviously) on the right. I loved that thing, I did. There are still dried bits of flour deep in the crevices from my food blogging days, it makes a whirly-grind noise instead of that glorious soft fluttery noise when it was new, but I still love it so. I think I’ll have it refurbished when I have the chance. And it’s not totally going away, it’ll be perfect for now for those days when I’m too chicken to take out the new camera on some extra-dirty adventure. Let’s just call it semi-retirement for the old D40, shall we?

So yeah. That was the highlight of my week, given that work was insane and I’m still fighting the sinus infection (so tired! And still smelling that weird metallic smell that I do when I have sinus infections, gross). I could not wait for Saturday morning, as soon as the sun peeked over the trees I stepped outside and took a few shots. Here is what I am calling my first official shot (although really it’s just my first without glaring artificial light of my living room).

Then I stepped inside and shot the coat rack by the door. Exciting stuff, my friends, I am sure. Well, to me anyway.

And then the boys were my guinea pigs, they thought they were safe hiding in the comfort of down blankets, but heh – no, my darlings. At least Pete was game to be a test subject.

And then he started to screech like a howler monkey for milk Milk MILKY MOM MOMMY MOOOOOOM WHERE IS MY MIIIIIIIILK, so we headed to the kitchen to get some freaking milk, omg. And Scott made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Where would I be without a husband who loves to cook breakfast, I have to wonder? It would be a sad world of bland lumpy oatmeal or cold cereal for me and the Doots.

I gave one last smooch to that adorable face and then hit the shower, packed my camera bag, and headed for KC for the day.

I had a photo shoot, some errands to run, and then relaxed in the evening with my favorite girls at the End Of Year Book Club Holiday Extravaganza. I should probably mention that I am not actually a member of this particular book club, but they were nice and let me in the door anyway. On my way home I stopped at Price Chopper (PC) – Amber, I partially like going to your house for its proximity to PC, and I won’t lie, and it’s abundance of Shatto Root Beer Milk. So I picked up a half gallon of the Good Stuff on the way home and Pete’s been begging for never-ending cups of “the ‘peshul ‘peshul milk” all day today.

Sunday we met up with my parents and Tinnie and Cat – my niece Cat was in Kansas for a visit, so we had a quick visit over lunch at The Legends and it was way too short, then she was off back to Milwaukee. Sniff. Longer visits next time, for sure. Afterwards we bummed around the stores a bit and checked out the fountain before hitting up Trader Joes for some goodies – you will never guess who we ran into while there, oh no just guess, oh no but yeah: my parents and Tinnie. AGAIN. Hee! If I am ever unable to locate family members I will make sure to check the Ward Parkway Trader Joes first before calling the authorities.

The shoot this weekend was a perfect start to 2012 – a lovely party for a sweet baby girl, with a nice fire-alarm surprise tossed in for good measure (because Kennedy cannot have a normal party, oh no, she demands excitement and a party that no one will forget). But more on that to come later in the week

Have a great week, all!

Anyway, I feel a million times better now.  And no one wants to see a picture of 3-boxes-worth of used Kleenex, nor do they want to see the charming array of drugs on the bathroom counter that rival your grandmother’s daily stash, so I have no pictures to share about that whole chapter of my blessed life. Instead check out a picture I snapped of the book our dear neighbors gave Pete for Christmas this year. I can’t stop staring at it, mainly because the child in the book looks eerily similar to someone and oh gee I just can’t quite put my finger on it…

WEIRD RIGHT. And they can’t figure out why they were drawn to that book for him…  Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, stuff. So the week was spent languishing at home and I swear to god, if for my hips alone I was very glad when closing time rolled around on Friday. That and the weather – oh my goodness, the glorious weather. Friday evening and Saturday were both spent enjoying some outside time. Bubbles and chalk, both saved from the dreary shelf in the back hall where we were storing them for the winter, allowed a short reprieve while this mid-60s and sun were on the forecast.

After all the fun outside time, we celebrated New Year’s Eve – made a ton of dips, broke out the old chip-n-dips, and whipped up some cocktail weinies (Pete was all nonchalant about the whole thing until he spied the cocktail weinies, asked “oh hey, are those baby hotdogs?” and proceeded to eat the entire dish. Atta boy. And no yeah, but really: “oh hey” is seriously part of his vocabulary. As well as “oh yeah?” in a classic Wisconsin accent, he randomly referring to us as “you guys”, and he prefaces any good stall with “oh hey lemme show you sumpin’ first”. Definitely his mother’s son).

Shortly after the child went to bed, and Scottie and I rang in the New Year with a few rented movies and some Sam Adams Infinium (note: I still can’t smell/taste anything, but that stuff? Definitely could tell it was sweet; and it was fizzy, so a decent stand-in for champagne). I pretended not to zonk out on the couch and Scott was nice enough to pretend to talk to me like I totally wasn’t snoring in his face, so that I’d wake back up in time to ring in the New Year. Thanks, baby.  So huzzah, welcome to 2012! About 20 minutes later I finally admitted defeat and dragged my sorry self off to bed. The end.

And the next morning the boys kicked me out of bed and proceeded to take over.  HELLOOOOO, RUDE.

The next couple of days were spent packing up holiday stuff, cleaning, and baking this awesome chocolate cinnamon coffeecake concoction (blogging about it later, PROMISE).

We also ventured out to get me a camera upgrade.  My friends, I oh-so-naively thought that I could saunter into an electronics store that advertised (online) that they had it available for purchase, to pick one up or at the very least, order one to come in later.  Ha.  HAAAAAA, HAHAHAHAHAHA.  No.  It turns out that, to add insult to the injury of paying three grand for the thing, this camera also happens to be hard to actually OBTAIN anywhere.  Lovely, just lovely.  So I claimed defeat and sobbed into my sad little hands about OH MAH GAWD THE HUMANITY all the way back to Lawrence.  And Scott, my dear ever-suffering husband, did some online sleuthing and found me one (…of only two that this store had in stock) and ordered it.  As well as the next lens I desperately need.  So I will soon be the proud owner of one hell of a camera upgrade, and frankly not soon enough as my dear current camera has seen many a better day.  Thank goodness for husbands, is all I have to say. *

So, yeah.  We went back to laying about, and maybe somewhat doing something (like ordering a few gifts online and me FINALLY finishing the editing of all those vacation photos from September, and popping them online to maybe FINALLY pull together a photobook like I’ve been talking about for months).  But for the most part, we took it easy and enjoyed the last of our holiday days.

This evening we did more holiday shopping (still have one last Christmas in a few weeks, gotta prepare), and had dinner downtown. Second time in a little over a week, at the same old favorite spot (even Pete, when we drive past Free State, will usually tell me “I want to eat there now”).  A few of the holiday lights are still up, I’d imagine not for long though, so I took a few shots.  Every year I talk about taking photos of my favorite holiday window displays downtown and every year, the hustle-and-bustle of the holiday gets in the way and I don’t do it.  Next year, I promise.  2012 looks like a good year for that sort of thing, hitting my goals.

* Speaking of goals: I have to say, if you had told me last year at this time that I’d be several photo sesssions deep into an actual, honest-to-god photography business, and that I had just purchased a D700 and had a few more nice lenses under my belt (as well as a website, like a real actual business website, more on that coming….) I would have told you that you were really and truly insane.  And yet, here I stand.  Life is a weird, strange, wonderful thing, and I really truly do look forward to what 2012 brings.   Happy New Year, my darlings, I hope everyone had a fantastic night and best wishes for a good year ahead!

I thought I’d share a few photos from the lovely holiday, just a quick basic edit to the pictures and up they go.

On the 23rd, we did a TON of baking, then packaged up all the goodies and did the rounds to drop off goodie boxes with all the neighbors. Then we headed out to deliver our daycare provider’s gift, and stopped for dinner on Mass St.

After getting home, we opened gifts from Annie and Paul – lots of goodies, kitties, and choo-choo stuff. The new stuffed kitty is officially named “Charlotte” and she fits in with Momo and Cotton nicely.

Eventually we talked Pete into putting out a cookie plate for Santa and whisked him off to bed. Santa came to visit on Christmas Eve morning for us this year, as we had some traveling to do.

And then next thing you know it was time to wake up and check out the Santa loot

Later that afternoon we hit the road – off to see the Kemmeters! The cousins, as always, were quite happy to see each other. We caught up, had a nice dinner, then opened gifts.

Just a sampling of Pete’s gifts.  Spoiled thing.

We all headed to bed early, and went to the early Christmas Mass. I packed Pete’s gray mod suit, and planned to have him wear it with his new choo-choo shirt, black herringbone boat shoes, and matching gray fedora (with a holly/berry sprig tucked on the side). Well, we got the suit/shirt on him, but he insisted on this hat instead and refused to leave the house in anything but his slippers. Lovely ensemble.

Christmas was really low key, we all just sat around and stuffed our faces (Cinnabons for breakfast! Huge spread for lunch! Roast and all the fixings for dinner!). I was already feeling a wee bit under the weather so didn’t take many photos.

And that was pretty much that. We left for home around 5pm, and before we pulled out of town Pete was already zonked out in the back seat (did I mention he didn’t nap for 2 days, with all this holiday excitement?). He didn’t wake up until 8am the next morning. No lie, it was a total Christmas miracle.

That’s it, my friends, the full story. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for some steroid treatment and more antibiotic and my sorry butt is crawling back into bed. Have a good week, folks, and for goodness sake take your vitamins so you don’t end up a sad sack like me.

All quality tested at home and Mueller approved You can find the recipes as follows:

Walnut cookies – this was a new recipe for me, to break in my new walnut cookie mold. Total pain-in-the-butt to make, but taste lovely and very pretty.

Chocolate-covered Oreos – easy and quick and always appreciated. A holiday gift staple.

Spritz – broke in my new cookie press! Used the old (new) reliable recipe, worked like a charm. Think it’s a keeper.

Grandma Bars – a definite family favorite, I may have dipped into the tin of these a few times already today…

Layered Peppermint Crunch Bark – not something I usually attempt, however this recipe came well recommended, and it’s pretty darn good I must admit.

Peanut Butter Balls – yum. Forever thanks to my sister Coco for passing this one along.

Cherry White Chocolate Shortbreads – these are also new. Very pretty and super-yummy. I used candied cherries rather than maraschino cherries (like the kind you probably buy for fruitcake; I got mine at the Nifty Nuthouse), worked really well.

Molasses cookies – my grandma’s famous recipe (sorry, I’ve posted that sucker NOWHERE, it’s safe in the family recipe vault. Well, and in the family cookbook you can probably find on Blurb. BUT YOU’D HAVE TO BUY IT TO ACTUALLY GET THE RECIPE SO THERE).

*~*~*~*~*~*

Happy holidays all!

I don’t have a card tree or any of that fancy stuff, I’ve been attaching cards to doorways in the past but they kinda don’t work as well.  This year I’ve been taping them to the frames in the living room and it seems to be working just fine.  We’ll see what it’s like when the tape comes off…

This weekend was our official visit to see Santa, along with the Kansas Southern Holiday Train (thanks to my friend Robin for passing along her tickets, so we didn’t have to languish in a long line!).  I bought Pete an awesome plaid blazer at a vintage shop, it was from 1961 and I just adore the thing.  He’s worn it a few times already, a few months ago when it first started getting chilly, but we wanted especially to put it on him this year for his Santa visit.

There we were, five minutes before we left the house, squishing him into the thing.  Er, he seemed to have grown a bit since the last time he wore it…  We got it buttoned, and he stood there, stock still.  Scott told him, “try to lift your arms, Pete”.  Up slowly went the arms, and ZIIIIIIING off flew one of the gold buttons, it could have taken out an eye at the velocity it shot off.  Um.  Yeah.  Off came the amazing vintage blazer.  I made Pete model the thing one last time today, so you could see its awesomeness before I have to pack it away in the attic.

So we got to Union Station for the holiday train/Santa thing, and stood in the line to see Santa.  And about 3 kids from the front, Pete turned to us and said “um, no.  No.  Mommy?  Uh-uh, no.” and that was that.  He was super-excited to see him and planned his speech about what he wanted for Christmas, but when it came down to it he was a little overwhelmed.   So we hopped out of line and went directly to the holiday train.

This train took maybe fifteen minutes tops to walk through.  No matter, it was pretty cool and worth it.  There were four train cars to walk through, all decorated to the hilt and with model trains going.  There was a flat car with reindeer, and the engine “Rudy” was decorated with lights.

Afterwards we headed back into Union Station, to take in the lights and model train exhibit.

All of Union Station is pretty gorgeous this time of year.

We walked along Freight House Bridge to see everything from above.  We were lucky enough to catch a train while up there.

We were going to hit up Jack Stack for dinner, but at 4:45p there was already a 70-minute wait (I should add that the place was teeming with Packers fans at the time, they were EVERYWHERE.  Not like I’m complaining, but I do blame them for the wait…).  We decided to drive to Waldo Pizza for dinner instead, and took in the Plaza lights along the way.

No holiday season is complete without a stop to see the Falmouth house, which is exactly what we did before leaving Kansas City.  Pete wasn’t scared of the animitronics this year, which was nice, and we also got the obligatory photo in the sleigh before leaving.  Uh, the place was packed this Saturday, like PACKED.  We parked well down the block this time, and counted 3 limos stopped to watch the display.  Hilarious.

* Side note: on Sunday Pete got yet another fat lip, this time from biting it on the kitchen counter while helping Scott make chili, and it is so heartwarming to see the update from last year at this time to see that hey, lookey there, Pete got a fat lip…

We got home late-ish, Pete went to bed without so much as asking for an extra bedtime story, and next thing you know it was Sunday morning.

We decorated our gingerbread house.   First thing on Sunday, coffees in hand and Pete ‘secretly’ jamming as much of the candy in his mouth as he could whenever I wasn’t looking. Whatever, I saw you dude.  Pete put random pieces on the house and I filled in the roof/sides with stuff.  Okay, I have to say: kudos to those of you that I know who do gingerbread houses (my niece included, hers is the 2nd from the left that they all drool over in this video  ) – our house is all crooked and smeared and not quite that pretty, and it took me a loooooong time to add all those butterscotch chips to the roof, yo.  So anyway, I envy you professional gingerbread masters out there.

Then we knocked out some of the holiday treats, namely chocolate-covered Oreos.  Pete added the sprinkles.  He’s a Nazi with the sprinkles, there was no taking them away from him.  He really loves the red sprinkles.

I planned on busting out a few more recipes, but ran out of time.  C’est la vie.   Pete and I played a bit and he grabbed my sunglasses (no longer a sunglass killer, this is a good thing) and pretended they were an airplane for a good 10 minutes.  Then he pretended to put them on backwards, which made me laugh. Because I laughed, in usual toddler fashion, he then did it about 27 more times.

Sunday afternoon I attended a baby shower.  A penguin-themed baby shower for Ashley, and it was freaking adorable and I could never plan anything that cute in my life, the end.  The cake was huuuuge and decorations were adorable and it was amazing, right down to the penguin jell-o treats and grown-up root-beer floats.

The Packers/Chiefs game was one while there.  The Packers lost, they LOST.  And I was in a sea of Chiefs fans when it happened.  It hurt, but can I say?  If the Packers went down to any team, I don’t think anyone was more deserving than the Chiefs, they had a hard year.  So there is that.

Next week we have a few holiday parties (and mommy has a dinner/movie date with her favorite Julies) and then there is that little thing known as CHRISTMAS at the end of the week, so yeah – probably lots of fun updates ahead   Have a lovely week, all!  See you again soon.

St. Nick stopped by on Tuesday.  Our St. Nick doesn’t leave treats in boots/shoes, but instead drops a bag-o-goodies at the back door at some point in the evening.

Pete scored some candy, toy cars, a new ornament (a train, which totally distracted him from even the candy, he obviously he was mind-blowingly excited), and the usual new toothbrush.  This one lights up and flashes for the full time he needs to invest in brushing the bugs off his teeth, so that made it kinda cool.

Hilariously enough – the St. Nick bag mysteriously disappeared for a few minutes and then magically re-appeared with my name on it.  Containing a new pair of ear buds for me.  Man, it’s funny that St. Nick knew to get me a pair, because I’ve been driving Scott absolutely NUTS because I keep stealing his after I wrecked my pair last month…

Other weeknight activities included lots of photo editing (done for the year!  Yeah!) and taking Pete to the sitters one night so that us grown-ups could take in a KU game.  We also drove around and looked at lights.  Frosty was on TV on Thursday night, and Rudolph was on (again!) on this weekend. It’s been lots of holiday goings-on, I should just say.

Also: I was going to make an animated .gif of the awesomest display in town (it takes ‘synchronized to music’ to a whole new level), but got lazy and so here you go, just one murky shot taken from inside the car.  Sorry I didn’t try harder at that one.

Nikki came to visit one day.  We had a lovely breakfast of Munchers and coffee, sat around and chatted for a loooooong time, then did some shopping and had a lovely lunch/movie date.  We saw J. Edgar, and for the record: it pretty much sucked.  I usually try not to be annoying during a movie but thankfully we were in an almost-empty theater so we were free to giggle at the terrible writing and insanely-bad make-up as much as we liked.  We also saw what was pretty much the hugest spider either of us have ever seen in our entire lives.  We stared and it for awhile and kept asking each other if that actually truly was a spider, I mean it was just so big, then finally decided to drop a heavy box on top of it in an attempt to kill it.  Or maybe just smother it, I’m not sure if even a heavy box would have actually squashed that thing.

A picture of delicious cream cheese donuts just isn’t the same after a story about spider guts, huh?

Saturday we hit up the Farmers Market Holiday Mart.  Lots of fruits, veggies, baked goods, cheeses, homemade gifts; just all sorts of awesome things.  It was packed, as usual, but wider aisles this year so we managed fine.

We picked up some cheeses, gifts, and this awesome gooseberry chutney.  We’ve already inhaled half the jar.

Pete wasn’t doing too hot at the holiday mart, so we skipped the other shopping plans for the day and went home instead.  He was feverish and had that hallmark barking cough, we knew it was croup.  He had some trouble breathing in the evening but it was nothing a good steam treatment couldn’t fix.  Besides, I let him stand on the counters and dig in the upper cabinets (steam was better up there), and he discovered a huge box of purple cannons.  So he spent his 20-minute bathroom quarantine shooting cannons at poor Mo-Mo.

Then he insisted on bringing his purple cannons into the living room where they magically became finger guns and yeah, okay. I am Officially Over the kid digging around in my cabinets.

Sunday he woke up a little better.  So we were able to get a few more things knocked out – we shopped, worked on holiday cards, and wrapped gifts.  We got all the mailing packages packed up and in the car (WHEW), we made some pretty awesome cookies that will probably be blogged about in the near future.  Cherry white chocolate shortbreads, mmmmm.

I am not the world’s best gift wrapper, and there were a few things that didn’t fit as I had hoped so they had to be stuffed in unexpected packaging (or I used a lot of tape to get the job done.  A LOT of tape).  But they are officially wrapped and under the tree.  That’s kinda all I care about at this point.

I had a few more stories, like the fact that I introduced Scott to the cimematic masterpiece that is known as Heathers (he had never heard of it before, TRUE STORY) or how I stubbed one of my toes and am now randomly missing a huge triangle-shaped piece out of the center of said nail (yeah, just the middle), but those are admittedly probably not anything you guys want to hear more about, so will refrain from going into more detail.  Will have another faithful update next week, until then: happy holidays, all

Enjoy guys! Thanks for meeting up with me, I had a great time

Little lady Emilie! She was a dream, not so much as a squeak from her. Best baby ever.