Teaholic not quite anonymous

After a very quiet and uneventful Thanksgiving, Matt worked on Friday. He had a few goals he wanted to accomplish that go towards his bonus. Saturday and part of Sunday we spent the day decorating with Christmas stuff. We set up our Christmas tree and then looked at how puny it is and said, "We need a bigger tree." So out Maddy and Matt went to get a bigger tree! I kept decorating at home. Maddy and I spent most of Sunday decorating the trees. We kept the old one up and put it in our family room and put the new one in our living room. We have a mini one up in our rec room. I ran across the pickle ornament and it was broken. I was so sad! So I promptly went online and bought a set of three, small medium and large. It's perfect for our size trees!

We stayed in most of the weekend and Maddy sure showed it by last night. I couldn't wait for bedtime. She was into EVERYTHING all the time. WOW. But the weather was junky and it was cold. Today we got out of the house and went to Target to pick up some stuff we needed and I also Christmas shopped for Maddy (and St. Nick shopped) behind her back! I couldn't believe she didn't really notice the majority of it. She noticed a couple of toys that I let her hold and then would sneak into the cart and she didn't notice it much after that. We also went to Costco and I picked up a few things there, too. Not too much. We didn't get done shopping until late so we ate some pizza and icecream at costco and headed home. The kiddo went down 45 minutes late for her nap! YIKES! But that's the way it goes now and again. Still need to make the rest of our list Christmas stuff this year.

But I think I'm going to lay down for a bit too. I'm tired! Have a good one!

Maddy had her 3 year doctor's appointment on Tuesday. She did really well for it. There weren't any shots, thank goodness, so she really enjoyed going. She kept saying, "Just like Mommy!" They even felt around on her tummy and she really enjoyed that (she used to HATE it) but because the doctor feels around on my tummy she liked it! We did a quick grocery store trip after that.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. We got a lot of stuff done around the house. Not nearly as much as I would have wanted to get done, but oh well. It will all happen eventually. We did bake a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and that was fun. We played a lot of games had a good time.

Last night I did some MAJOR Christmas shopping. In fact, I'm almost done! Just a few more small things and I'll be set. Of course then I have to wrap it all. :) It was a lot of fun getting out though. I even closed down Bed Bath and Beyond! It's been a long time since I've done that kind of thing.

I am paying the price today. I'm tired! I didn't go to bed until almost midnight and then Maddy was up a few times last night and then up at 6:30 for good. So I think I'm going to lay down. Maddy had playgroup today with friends and decorated and baked cookies. She had a blast!

Have a good one!

I do love St. Nick. We stuffed Maddy's stocking two nights ago and it was STUFFED. It was my old stocking as a kid, knitted, very cute. It used to hang on the stairs with our other three stockings but I used it so it was gone. Of course, Maddy noticed it was gone last night, where's the red and green stocking? So I'm going to need to be a bit more careful the next years.

It was fun watching Maddy open it, small note pads, gel pens, a mini doll, a santa fishing rod, sparkle bounce ball, recorder, bell necklace, etc... She had fun with it. I guess it makes up for having to get up at 6:20!

Today Matt and Josh are installing our central humidifier. I'm hoping to get the grass cut and install our Christmas lights outside. The inside is decorated, but the outside is not. I need to do a bit of shopping but that won't happen until after nap time, I think. Sooner or later I also need to plan out some meals. This last week was rather makeshift so I'm sure we'd both enjoy some decent dinners this week!

Ok, off to feed the cats who want to eat! Well, I still have 10 minutes. Oh, Joe is off his morning insulin now and is only on insulin in the evening. At this rate our bottle of insulin is going to go bad before we use it all!

For crazy weekends! This weekend was very busy. All day Saturday Matt and Josh put in a new humidifier. It is lovely to not wake up dry as dust every day now. Honestly, I could tell the difference in minutes. It was so nice! Sunday Matt put up the Christmas lights and we ran errands all over God's green earth. Then Matt took Maddy out that night to run a couple more errands and we saw Santa on the firetruck too. Maddy loved it! She was shaking she was so excited. It was cold though, about 28. Of course, Saturday morning was St. Nick's morning and Maddy really enjoyed opening up her St. Nick's gifts. I've been very impressed with Maddy's patience while we've been out shopping. We've had a lot to do and she's been stuck in the car a lot and she really did a great job.

This week I'm hoping to take Maddy to see Santa at the mall--probably tomorrow and run a couple more errands. I don't think she'll have any issues sitting on his lap this year. She's been so excited for it!

Ok, off to make a list! Have a good one everyone!

Maddy LOVES the mall! She loves everything about the mall... the music, the stores, the decorations (especially now at Christmas) escalators, elevators, family bathrooms (with the kid toilet that is her size--she really got a kick out of that) the food. She loves it ALL. If she could, she'd go to the mall every day.

She saw Santa today and did a fabulous job. She was so excited to see him! On the way to the mall she told me that she wanted a computer for Christmas and she was going to tell Santa. But once she got there, she was so in awe of him that she didn't say much but sat on his lap, smiled up at him and stared. It was all we could do to get her to look at the camera and then she didn't want to get off his lap when it was time to leave! She asked to get back in line for more Santa. :) It was really cute.

Then we went to have our snack. First I stopped at Caribu Coffee for a gingerbread latte (down with Starbucks!) and it was good, almost too sweet though! Then we went and had chocolate icecream and a pretzel to share. It was a nice time. We walked around and looked at the decorations. I don't know why but our mall has a Noah's Ark themed Christmas thing. We watched Santa from above and road the escalators/elevators a few times. Then we went to Apple to look at a couple things for daddy and she found the kid's computers where she plopped herself and played Green Eggs and Ham. I thought for sure she was going to throw a fit when I made her leave it! She loved it that much. After walking by Ambercrombie and Finch (sp?) she danced to the music in front of the store. Anyone who walked by cause she was shaking her rear to the music. Too cute! It was time to go home then and she REALLY didn't want to, but after a very slow walk to the car, we came home where she collapsed on her little recliner and we had some lunch and now she's down for nap!

I received my Christmas postcards in UPS yesterday! They look just AWESOME. I think they turned out perfectly. I somehow did the math wrong and thought I needed more than I really did. But I did need more than the 100 so I feel justified buying a second set which should come today. I printed out my address labels which turned out pretty well and used them. I did buy too many postcard stamps too since some people will be getting regular envelopes with Maddy's 3 year pictures as well so I needed regular stamps for those. But oh well! I'll get a better count next year. I still have some I'll need to send out tonight!

I made a couple errand runs yesterday after Maddy was in bed--bank, take something back at Target and the Post Office. Maddy slept ALL night last night and didn't get up until 7:10 this morning! It was great. I slept soooooo well!

Ok, off to get a few things done. I did upload her picture to our gallery so go and check it out!

Forgot to add that we saw a motorcade this morning! It was a ton of police motorcycles and even stopping side street lights to let the motorcade through! I was excited for Maddy's sake who has never seen one. In Northern VA you tend to expect motorcades with all the politicians and dignitaries we host in DC it's pretty mundane--almost annoying actually since it stops up traffic.

However, today's was DIFFERENT! After the long line of motorcycles a motorcycle in the middle comes along with a sidecar and who is in it??? SANTA!!! No kidding! Santa comes through waving and saying ho-ho-ho! After the motorcycle comes a police car and who's sticking out the window but Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Maddy was sooooo psyched! (Yes, I know, it's a 90's word but there's no better word to describe it). She said, "But mommy! Follow Santa! That way!!!" She knew we were going to the mall to see him. I told her that he has a short cut and he'd meet us there.

So when we were at the mall I told the Santa, "It was nice seeing you in the motorcade today. Maddy was worried when you were going the other way but I told her you had the short cut." He said, "Oh yes, shortcuts and lots of magic dust, too!" He was a great Santa.

Even though it's only 3 am. But I'm awake. So there ya go. I did treat myself to an mp3 download this early morning though on Amazon. I finally bought Amy Grant Home for Christmas. I owned it a long time ago on CD and have given up hope of finding it. I've organized my CDs/DVDs and they are all in one place so I can basically guarantee that we don't have it. It's amazing what you can do at 3 am online. Decide I want the CD, buy it for $7.99 online and am listening to it in 5 minutes flat. Huh.

It was a very busy but fun weekend here! On Friday night Matt's parents came up and Maddy was sooooo glad to see them! Unfortunately I ditched out as soon as they walked in the door (literally) and went to our Mom's Night Out Christmas party where we shared a lot of great food, great laughs and great drinks (well, not me, but yeah). We had our white elephant exchange and all in all it was a fabulous evening! I did get home relatively early--11 pm. The party partied on until 2:30!

On Saturday morning Matt and I ran around getting a few errands done. One of my mom's group friends, Tara, was so kind to give us her glider. It's really nice and will definitely get some good use when Adrian comes.

Yes, we have decided on a name--Adrian Allen. We've been playing with it for a few weeks now. It came to me even before I knew Adrian was a boy in the middle of the night. I just woke up with it in my head. The same thing happened with Maddy even though I knew I wanted Madeline only after I knew she was a girl. I guess Adrian knew even more definitely what he wanted his name to be!

Friday we went out to test drive cars and walked away loving one of them. We went to look at midsize SUVs and walked away loving a minivan. Who would have thought? Not me! I so did not want to be a minivan mom. However, for all the functional use and amenities really, it is the best bet. We did find it cheaper at a different place with less miles so we actually bought that last night!! It's a 2005 Nissan Quest.

Saturday night we went to Matt's work Holiday Dinner. It was a very nice time and there was a lot of great food. I wore a dress I've had for years that has an empire waist with ruching above the waist and through out the arms. It's long and black velvet. I wore my gold spun necklace that Matt bought for me before we had Maddy and cute peep toe heels with a velvet bow in front, nice with the dress! We didn't get home very late--about 10. Not bad at all.

Sunday we spent hanging out with Matt's folks for a while before they went home. They left about 11 and I felt rude that I barely saw them all weekend! Maddy and I took a good nap while Matt went and purchased the van (and signed my name to quite a few papers).

Well, I'm back off to bed. I've been awake for an hour now! Time to try to get a few more hours of sleep (ok 2.5) before Maddy's up!

So I had my 6 month, (24.5 week) doctor appointment today. It went fine. In fact, I even found parking not too far from the building! I was glad for that since our weather has been rainy and cold. We started talking about my due date and scheduling a C-section for Adrian. I can't believe it's already time to schedule it!! I mean, it makes sense. They schedule it six weeks before the big day, so it's getting there. The appointment went fine. We talked about my insomniac issues. I was told I could take tylanol pm or melatonin. Heck, she had no issue prescribing some Ambien for me, either! But I wanted to start off as natural as I can get so I'll start with the melatonin. We'll see how it works. If that doesn't keep me asleep I'll try some tylanol pm although that tends to leave me hung over in the morning. But heck, I'm hung over anyway from not sleeping so I may as well! I was also prescribed an iron supplement that goes above and beyond over the counter stuff. Even though I'm basically normal now, they want to get my numbers up because I came in really low at the beginning of my pregnancy. And with the C-section and loss of blood they like to see that number be a bit higher.

On the way home we dropped off the prescription and went out to lunch at A&W/KFC. I picked up the melatonin at GNC and then the prescription. Tonight Matt and Maddy went to BJs to get stuff for this weekend's party. They got back pretty late, but the nice part of Maddy going to sleep late is that she goes to sleep without any fuss!

Matt went to install the car seat in the van today. However, he is missing a stabilization tether because my car was not equipped to use it. We have NO idea where it could be so we'll need to buy a new one before we get it checked by the fire department on Sunday. Matt is going to put it in himself tomorrow night after Maddy and I take his car to get the clip. Maybe I'll even be able to get it in early on Friday so that way we make sure it's properly installed.

Well, it's already 10 pm! Time to start settling in and go to bed. With the way I've been sleeping lately, it's a welcome retreat.

Tea of the day: I had half decaf and half regular this morning, just enough to wake myself up.

So Friday and most of the day Saturday we busted butt around here getting ready for Matt's work party. Well, not quite, but mainly it was Matt's coworkers and their spouses. I baked and baked Thursday and most of Friday. I had a TON of stuff! I baked snickerdoodles, molasses spice cookies, carameletas, peanut butter bonbons and chocolate covered pretzels.

We were able to get everything done before it needed to be and the party went really well. I think everyone had a nice time. It ended relatively early according to my normal standards--10 pm. I'm used to my mom's group parties running to 1-2!

Maddy had a great time with grandma and grandpa on Saturday and Sunday. Maddy left with them without issue on Saturday and they went to the hotel where they swam for hours. She skipped her nap and slept well that night. They went out for Pizza on Saturday and had fun with that. Then they woke up at 7:30 on Sunday and we met them at Arby's for lunch at noon. She was so excited to see us and we were excited to see her, too. Although, it was nice getting up at 8:30 this morning and being able to sleep with the noise maker on last night!

Matt is very proud of himself! We took the van in today to get the carseat checked and it was installed correctly! They were very pleased. I had Maddy stop back later to give them some baked goods as a thank you.

This week won't be very eventful. I plan on taking it easy until Christmas minus wrapping some gifts. That's about it here! Oh, I should plan Christmas dinner as well.

Tea of the day: Some great new stuff I received as a hostess gift. It has about three different teas combined so really, I'm not even going to try to name it--but it's a white tea from Teavana and it's FABULOUS.

Well, Christmas Eve has always been my favorite part about Christmas. I enjoy the dark, the quiet, the Christmas lights and music--add in some eggnog and cookies and I'm all set. Of course, now that we open presents in the morning instead of at night, it's a bit different, but it's still fine.

For the last week I've been really trying to stress the meaning of Christmas with Maddy. To me Christmas is harder than Easter. Christmas is important, of course, but Easter is more the point. Christmas points towards Easter. If we didn't have a Christmas we wouldn't have an Easter. So we've been talking about how Santa brings us gifts to remind us of Jesus' birthday on Christmas and how Jesus is our gift. So today we made a birthday cake for baby Jesus.

We finished all the wrapping last night! Nothing like cutting it close to the day of, huh? Maddy and Matt are going to 'camp out' tonight to wait for Santa. We'll have to see how that goes. I'm hoping to carry her up into bed at 9ish so we can lay out gifts. Tomorrow is sure to be fun!

Tonight our good friend Josh is bringing over our Christmas dinner--well, part of it, our smoked ham! Josh has a smoker and we had his smoked ham at Thanksgiving and absolutely loved it. So I asked him then if he wouldn't mind making us one for Christmas as well. I am so excited for it. It's been a nice lazy day here. I definitely can't complain!

Have a very Merry Christmas!

So our Christmas morning went well here. Maddy was up at 6:30 and a lot of times she'll crawl into bed with us for snuggles before we go downstairs, but no sir-ree!! Not on Christmas morning! She was way too excited. I was surprised that Matt even tried. Anyway, we came downstairs and she was SO excited to spy the presents under the tree. We took our time and opened them at her pace. She wanted each present opened as she unwrapped them and wanted to play with each one. So it took her 2 hours to open all her gifts! It's not like she had an exorbitant amount, either. Well, add in that it took poor Matt FOREVER to open every toy box--they pack that stuff like armor now-a-days! I think some of Maddy's favorite toys are her remote control dump truck, her cash register and her musical car. The day was pretty uneventful overall. Maddy was a bit beside herself at times, just from all the excitement, but did well. She watched The Grinch and loved it. I was a bit unsure since I thought it was a bit freaky (the Jim Carey version) but Matt kept close watch over it. I took a lot of pictures so go and check them out!

Matt and Maddy camped out in the van the night before. By the time Maddy went out it was 7:35, so a bit earlier than bedtime which was perfect since it allowed her to get settled in. But Matt totally forgot to get ready for bed before he went out there so he still had his contacts in and hadn't brushed his teeth. So I went out at 10 and told them they needed to come in since Santa said that he needed the car moved so he could get the toys in the garage. Matt's first words were, "How did you know?" Turns out he was bringing her in right then, too! So it all worked out great.

We had left over smoked ham for dinner on Christmas night. It was as great as it was the first time around. Matt made me a smoked ham and cheese omelet for breakfast and it was just delicious. I also made another batch of chocolate covered pretzels which we gave to the neighbors. It worked out great since one of our neighbors came over with goodies for us.

Friday was just another day around here. Matt worked. So I planned this week's menu, made the list and went grocery shopping with Maddy. Of course, I totally forgot about the appraisal guy who was coming to assess our house for our refi (it's a great time if you can get in on it now). So we missed him. Oh well. I'm glad I did as the house was not in the most wonderful state to show. Matt came home a bit early from work and we worked on cleaning up a little bit since the guy said he'd come back this morning.

This morning we finished straightening up, the appraiser came, I quick threw some bean soup (with left over ham) in the crockpot and we left to go sell my car! It came out about the same as Kelly's blue book so we took it and ran. So at least now we won't need to continue to pay insurance on it or taxes. So I am officially a minivan mom now. I also wrote out and mailed the thank you notes to the very kind people who sent us unexpected goodies in the mail this year for Christmas. It was very sweet of them and very unexpected.

Right now Maddy is napping with Matt and I am listening to the bread maker spinning with its 9 grain bread in it and smelling the soup cooking. This should be quite yummy tonight! I love homemade 15 bean and ham soup with bread!

A couple other little things. I've been enjoying a lot of new tea lately. I bought some new tea for Matt's dad for Christmas and of course I couldn't pass it up for myself. So I've been enjoying a lot of teas made by the Eastern Shore Tea Company. My favorite has been Jack Frost--it's a sweet mint decaffeinated tea. I've also been enjoying some from Gypsy Tea like Pumpkin Spice and Apple Cinnamon, both decaf an both delicious, too!

Today at Carmax we had a Indian man who helped us with the trade in of our car. On the way out the door he stopped us and said that he has been in our country for 20 years and he and his wife were never blessed with children. So we should be very thankful for ours. He also said that he's seen a lot in this business over the last 20 years and was very complimentary to Matt and I about our parenting of Maddy. He mentioned how she says, 'Thank you' without prompting and asks nicely for things and listens when we ask her to do things. He says she is a very sweet girl, but can tell that we are very good parents who love her very much and realize it's not about 'things' but about the 'love' we give our kids. Anyway, it was very sweet of him and while I've had people compliment Maddy on her behavior, how cute she is, how sweet, etc... I've never had someone, a stranger, actually compliment our parenting. It was pretty neat.

Have a great rest of the weekend, everyone!

Yesterday was a very nice and uneventful day here. We spent most of the day just relaxing. Matt and Maddy went to home depot for a bit and Josh came over at nap to look at a house project Matt is planning. He is hoping to build some overhead storage in our garage since our ceiling is so tall in there. It would get a lot of the bulky things off the floor and some bins/boxes too.

Last night Matt surprised me and set up the bathroom for a hot bubble bath for me! He put in my docking station for my iphone for music, lit all the candles, brought up some sparkling cider (which was supposed to be for new years), my bathrobe, etc... All he didn't do was run the bath since he knows I'm pretty fussy about temperature. I stayed in the tub for almost 2 hours!!! It was the longest and nicest bath I've taken in a long time. I do love having our soaking tub. It's so nice. I slept like the dead last night because of it.

This morning I spent most of the time sorting through Maddy's toys and putting things away. I officially made her dress-up trunk that Josh and Karri bought for her a dress-up station with all her jewelry in her jewelry box, all her dress up clothes and makeup/beauty supplies. We'll see how long it all stays in there, but I did it. Plus, I put all her play money back into her register. Again, we'll see how long it stays nice, but it's in there now. It took quite a while to get it all settled out, but it's all neat and sorted again. Plus, there's not that much extra junk laying around which is pretty darn good since her birthday and Christmas just came and went!!

Well, I may as well nap while she is. Have a good day everyone!

Tea of the day: Gypsy Manderin Vanilla Tea