The Many Days of Christmas

We're a fast moving family. We had a nice Thanksgiving, we went over everything we were thankful for...then bam! On to Christmas. A little while ago I had an idea of wanting to do an advent sort of calendar/countdown to Christmas with Nate. Now that he's for sure at an age where he can appreciate the holiday, understand what's happening all around him, I thought it would be a good time to incorporate activities/books/crafts, etc in our countdown to Christmas. It goes something like this :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, I tried to coordinate books with crafts and shows/movies along the same theme of the day (some with "special" holiday outings or activities). We try to stay busy and quiet during Aaron's nap in the afternoon so I thought this would be a great idea. Each day has Christmas themed worksheets to do and a cotton ball to put on our Santa beard countdown (below) :

 

 

 

Each morning/afternoon he'll unwrap the day's "agenda" taped to a different Christmas book. We're beginning our countdown tomorrow :)

 

By weekend's end I expect all our holiday decorations will be up. We've already started- Eddie the Elf has made his arrival -

 

and after receiving our cute pumpkin light for Halloween , I thought we needed a Frosty one this season -

 

Trying to stay a little ahead before we're away from home next weekend. The holiday will really creep up on us fast!

 

18 Months!

Aaron is hitting the 1.5 yr old mark this weekend. Wow. Before I know it, my youngin' will be two!
:(

At 18 months, Mr Aaron is....

--Pretty much just as active as his older brother. Sure, maybe he's not tall enough for some play structures to do himself, but he tries! He can slide down small slides himself. We're so happy our weather has cooled down to start enjoying the park and the zoo!

--Generally is a little bird snacker, but is open to a lot of foods. His favorite is strawberries, or as he says, "barbies" (that's what it sounds like to us!) He tries to eat things off our plates, which isn't a bad thing. I want him to be open to trying all kinds of food compared to Nate.

Eating pretzels, one of his favorite snacks.

 

--LOVES to play with cars and trains. Nate wasn't ever into those things that young, but then again I don't think we had any of those yet. Bless his little heart-Aaron does well entertaining himself. When I go to check on him, he's usually playing with some cars or trains.

 

--On the same sort of note, Aaron continues to enjoy baths and now likes to run around with his hoodie towel on for a bit before PJ's. Silly boy. Oh, and he likes a good pose in the mirror too ;)

 

--Tries to repeat any words you tell him. He knows a lot of food vocabulary in particular (that's my boy!)

 

It's going to be a fun holiday season. Aaron is in love already with the Christmas light displays/Christmas trees that are lit. Now the real question will be how everyone will do with Santa this year...

 

Happy Thanksgiving! I can't believe it's two weeks away. I'm very thankful for the men in my life :)

 

 

Just Keep Running...

I don't recall if I've mentioned this on my blog yet or not, but over the last several months I have been doing quite a bit of running. Why you ask? I'm turning the big 3-0 in almost another month, and I thought it would be neat to run almost thirty miles as a little present to myself (in other words, I'm training for my first ever MARATHON!) I've done a few half marathons and felt that I wanted an additional little challenge-ok, a pretty huge challenge - and to show myself that with determination and hard work I could reach something I never thought possible.

So, in a little less than a month, hubby and I (and my sister, her husband and my good friend and her hubby) will be traveling to Vegas for my race. I'm super excited for my night marathon there and to have my family and friends to support me along the way.

 

In typical Vegas fashion, I do plan to mix a bit of fun with business ;) Well...I have to be careful not to have too much fun, I need sleep for my race!

 

It is most certainly going to be extremely challenging. At first I tried to stick to a training schedule (running four days a week), but it became too much. I determined my body didn't perform well running consecutive days and of course trying to juggle training around the kids' and hubby's schedule has been difficult. I try to run/do other workouts during the week a few times and do one long run on the weekend.

 

I just completed a half marathon today!

 

I'm pretty sore, so it makes me nervous how much pain I'll be in later. I really only have one more long run left before I should start tapering them off to save my legs. I think I'll need hubby to slyly hand over some rollerblades halfway!

 

Now you know what I'll be up to over the next few weeks-running! Practice, practice, practice.

 

Halloween

The kids had a great evening Trick or Treating. Nate's poor little face was plastered to the window the whole day, watching and waiting for the sun to go down. Finally, it did! :) With hubby out of town, I had my sister and her husband and my parents over to help go out with me. Aaron even walked most of the way and liked looking at all the different decorations.

Before school

 

Scary!

 

Ready to go

The "Cat in The Hat" family! Coudln't get Aaron to wear his hat.

Checking out the loot

 

Now we're already onto Thanksgiving activities. Busy is our middle name around here!