Christmas 2011

Christmas is busy! We're lucky to have our East Coast family to spend it with...

The Christmas Eve post-feast recline at the Hawk's...Tavish felt it was his duty to help everyone open their presents. He did turn out to be a great trash-picker-upper.

Someone is about to get spoiled...

Exhausted boy...right in the middle of dinner at MarJo's he said "I want to lay down in your lap"...this picture is about two seconds later :)

Happy couple :)

Gingerbread, Stockings and Santa

Yesterday I finally hung up our stockings...we don't have a fireplace in the apartment and I was trying to figure out where to hang them when I remembered this rack. I got it when Mom was visiting and I took her to my favorite antique shops...she told me she would take me out over this awesome mantle we both loved, but it turns out I don't have a house to put it in right now and she couldn't fit it in her suitcase. So I got the rack instead and it's perfect for our stockings. This morning we woke to find Fizbee, our elf, perched on top ready to keep an eye on Tavish and report back to Santa.


Then we went to visit the big man himself. This was Tavish's first visit to the mall Santa and he did great...he's had lots of practice with his own private Grandpa Santa. Here he is waiting for his turn at the North Pole...it looks pretty but fake snow doesn't brush off well and the people in line behind us didn't appreciate it being thrown on their baby (too bad Fizbee wasn't watching then...)


In the evening Tavish got to decorate his own gingerbread man. Trader Joe's has these awesome kits that includes everything so mom doesn't have to do anything :) Tavish loved decorating it and has been loving eating it every day since.


Here's the final product...fast forward three days and you would find he has no arms or legs and his belly is rapidly disappearing.


And here's our cute little gingerbread man in his new winter hat.

Debut

Now that Tavish is three and it's almost January and he's almost a Sunbeam, his nursery class has been attending singing time with the Primary kids the last couple of weeks. They have been practicing for their performance at the church Christmas party which was Saturday evening...


Tavish was so excited to get up on stage with the "big kids" and sing their Christmas carols. He was standing above the piano and was watching the pianist intently most of the time he was up there. Their first song was Silent Night and he did a good job singing it but the next song was one he didn't remember and so he called Rafal over to the stage to tell him he didn't know the words *cute!* Not so cute...unbeknownst to me, right before he went onstage, he told Rafal he was too hot so Rafal took off the fleece he was wearing and let him go up in his too small, slightly see-through undershirt, and I know you can't see it in this crappy picture...but his belly is hanging out...awesome. Nothing says Holy Night like a little belly...

Holly Jolly Trolley

On Saturday we headed over to the Capital Trolley Museum because we heard a certain someone might be there...

All aboard!

Tavish held his ticket tightly...

He picked out his seat and waited patiently to go...but he did say "it's not chugging!" while we were waiting.

Guess who rode on the trolley with us?
Santa came up and talked to each kid on board...Tavish was excited but refused to look him in the face.

Well, hello! Do you want come sit with me?

Afterwards we got to pose with Santa...

...and check out some of the other trolleys in the car barn.

Tavish had so much fun we went for another ride!

Party like a rock star...

like 3 year old rock stars...
This is Tavish with his GF Elaine (the future Mrs. Tavish)...they both turn three right in the middle of holiday season so we moms decided to do their party together at a little monkey's gym...it was super fun!



there was playing...



and climbing...



bubbles...



and music...



games...



and Tavish loved this most of all...
they put him in the middle of the parachute and all the kids spun him around while they sang Happy Birthday to him...he was soooo excited he was jumping around...it was hilarious



there were cupcakes (which Grandma Pat spent all day Thursday baking)



two birthday kids...



and two very happy three year olds!

His family birthday party that evening was a little more tame, but still fun with grandparents, aunt and uncle, build-your-own pizzas, a giant chocolate cake and lots of presents! We no longer feel bad about him losing most of his toys in the flood...his toybox is full again!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Seattle, actually...

This isn't snow it's rain...
Grandma Pat is visiting and we wanted to take her to see the lights at the Temple, tonight was the only night we could go so of course it rained...mom felt right at home :) and it actually turned out great because rain=no crowds.

The view of the Temple is beautiful but if you turn around and look back, this one is pretty awesome too...

We checked out the outdoor Nativity...I'm sure the wise men wore galoshes...

Then we checked out the Nativity collection in the Visitor's Center...here's the one from Poland.



and South Africa wins the prize for coolest animals in their Nativity...I think that's a warthog in the front!

An Outing...

While Grandma Pat was here we took her to my favorite holiday display in DC...the Botanical Gardens, every year there is a different theme with little trains running through it, this year was animal and fairy houses...these are a few of my favorites...



















And for some reason, although Tavish can spot the actual Washington Monument miles away, he couldn't find this one right in front of his nose...

Gratitude

Coincidentally, Tavish ate his last piece of Halloween candy on Thanksgiving. Today, while we were driving in the car, he asked if we could go to church to get some more Halloween candy (where we had trick-or-treating)...

Me: it's not Halloween time anymore buddy, it's Thanksgiving time.
Tavish: Thanksgiving time?
Me: remember the big dinner you had at Auntie Wana's house yesterday? It's so you can remember what you are thankful for...what are you thankful for?
Tavish: ummm, water (he's holding his cup of water)
trucks
cars
buses
stop signs
popcorn (he's eating popcorn)
towers...they get knocked down and you fix them (we're driving past a tower)
signs (we're driving past a bunch of them)
cupholders (he's putting his popcorn in the cupholder of his carseat)
Christmas trees (we're driving past some)
Me: I'm thankful for the sunshine and the beautiful day
Tavish: (excited) I'm thankful for the beautiful day too! And you like carrots!

there you go...we are thankful!

oh Tavish...

I'm putting Tavish to bed last night, we read books, cuddle, say good night and I turn out the light...
Tavish: my eyeballs are turned on but I can't see!
Me: oh Tavish...

Thanksgiving 2011

The feast...looks good Auntie Wana and Uncle Joe!

Note the empty chair in the front...that's mine...I got to spend the day in the OR removing foreign objects from parts of people's bodies where they didn't belong.

Guess who the turkey is here?
Answer: not the actual turkey.
This is Tavish's "time out" face (per him)...we see it a lot.

Progress

Uncle Tom is back so the reno train is going at full speed...


Where you once had to walk through the house balancing on floor joists over bare dirt, surrounded by half walls, there is now this...




Where there once was a drafty nine-paned window from the 1950's, there is now this...




Where there once was a hole in the middle of the guest room floor where Rafal fell through the rotted wood, there is now this (complete with a new Polish roommate)...




Where there once was a cement slab and the exterior of the house, there is now this (with granite countertops to boost!)...




But my favorite new feature of the house is this...can you guess what it is???
Look close...
Heated floors in the main bathroom! I hate cold feet!

Trick-or-Treat

Halloween was a lot more fun this year because Tavish is starting to get it...this was the first year he had a definite opinion about his costume. I had wanted him to be a dinosaur or a dragon, but he caught me looking at costumes online one day and saw this robot costume and that was it...he wanted to be this robot. Every time I asked him for the next six weeks what he wanted to be for Halloween he would say a robot, specifically the one he saw on Auntie Sarah's TV (we don't have a desktop computer so he thought hers was a TV). Of course the last week or so before Halloween when I asked him what he wanted to be he would say random things like applesauce.




Here we are trunk-or-treating at church...it snowed that day so it turned into chair-or-treating in the gym. They set up chairs in a big circle in the gym and each family set up their trick-or-treating station and all the kids went around the circle collecting their goods. Tavish got really excited seeing all the different costumes and when I tried to take him around trick-or-treating he would get distracted by the candy and want to stop at each place and eat the candy right then and there. The only picture I could get of him was with his BFF Brett.




After the trunk-or-treating we headed over to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum for their "Air and Scare" celebration which would have been fun if it wasn't 7pm by then and Tavish was hopped up on candy and always ends up running around screaming because it's such a big place. Here he is discovering, much to his mother's disappointment, that the OFF button on his costume doesn't actually work...




The big day...every robot needs a "swinky" in one hand...we trick-or-treated around our apartment complex then headed over to Auntie Wana's...she and Sadie trick-or-treated with us, then we hit up Brett and Shelby's and Grandpa Santa...back home to bed, and mom and dad are enjoying the fruits of his labor.