Welcome, 2014

Eric and I brought in the New Year in a pretty exciting fashion. Chinese food, Law & Order SVU and then Modern Family...Mr. BMan going to bed at 8PM....I'm just happy I made it until midnight (shocking, I know).  We're looking forward to an exciting 2014 but I don't have any actual resolutions for 2014. I'd like to be more positive, get more done at work so that I can spend more time with my family and less time on my computer when I get home. Workout more (duh) and eat better.  Like I said, we ordered Chinese food.  In typically Lauren fashion, I managed to get a fortune cookie that was....less than desirable. Let me first start by showing you the fortune that Eric got.

 Wise words, no? I'm sure that if you have any resolutions for 2014, you could tie this quote into them. And on the back of all fortunes these days they teach you Chinese, right? And they give you lucky numbers...so Eric got "Exciting" as his words and 25 happens to be my lucky number, and look at what Eric got....

Ok, so you're probably saying that's not terribly exciting...well somehow, Eric turned out "Learn Chinese" words into 2014 fortunes.  Which wouldn't be so bad if my word was exciting. Instead you may as well just call me spud...because my "Learn Chinese" word was "Potato"...potato?  I don't think I've ever eaten any Chinese food that even has potatoes in it. How random....

 So you're now thinking that at least my fortune will make up for it, yes? Well let me tell you, womp womp. Tonight will be a lucky night. Can't even take that and apply it to all of 2014...or part of 2014....or any night other than tonight. And not only that...it says that tonight will be a lucky night. Not even your lucky night. Super. Clearly the fortune cookie gods don't have a particularly exciting 2014 planned out for me.

....Happy New Year!

And the Christmas fun continued

The other day, I told you all about our Christmas day and B's first real Christmas.  After our day was over, we woke up the next day, had some breakfast and headed to my parents house.  What should have been a two hour drive ended up taking four hours.  BMan had his new car seat and luckily he napped for an hour (thought we were on a roll there for a while, since you know, we were "halfway there")...and then was okay and busy babbling for another hour....and after that, little BMan was nothing more than a little fuss bucket.  No worries, I didn't take pictures of the fussiness, that wouldn't be fun...just the cuteness!

So we finally made it to my parents house, we opened gifts, had lots of food, saw old neighbors, got some sleep and spent time with family.  I was going through the pictures and we actually didn't take too many! Our little bug did get some awesome boots from my parents.  B always fights us when we put shoes on. Even if they stay on for a little bit, he gets fussy later on (particularly when we're in the car!) and wants them off. But these boots that B got? He loves them. I'm not sure what it is about them, but he wore them for most of the night after he opened them, and then the next morning he asked for Eric to put them on! (You know..."ah, ooohhh" while pointing at boots).  Either way, I'm impressed that they stay on his feet and he actually likes them!

 BMan also got a music-making gator that squeaks when you put the pegs on and plays music when you put the pegs in his mouth. It also plays music every time you move it.  That's not an exaggeration, I can't point the toy away without it making music...thanks Nana and Papa..! At least B likes it!

It was a great time and I think everyone had fun! We did have to head out the next morning because we left our pup at home (yep, he's an outdoor husky) and when we got home, we could tell he had been playing with a stick miniature log and managed to get himself pretty tangled on his runner!

When we got home, the little man had a package waiting for him.  He got a great toy that he drags around like a puppy now! Thank you, Sarah! BMan loves his new toy!

 A couple of hours later, Eric's older brother and his fiancee came over and had more gifts for bug...thus proving why we didn't get him many gifts ourselves this year!

We still haven't gotten batteries for this toy yet but that hasn't stopped B...he loves throwing the balls into the gator and taking them out! We've definitely had a busy Christmas week!  Luckily, Eric and I are now off for the next week! Should give us some time to relax and regroup! Woohoo!

Our Christmas Story

You know that feeling after Christmas? Where your heart sinks just a little bit....even if it was the most wonderful day? Well that's what Eric and I were feeling last night.  I think it's because there's such a huge build up to Christmas.  My favorite season is from Halloween through Christmas.  Three holidays packed close together, Eric's birthday and BMan's birthday are in there there, too. Even though there's a new year coming, I hate for this season to be over.  Let's be real, New Years is fun, but I'm not even sure I'll make it to midnight this year. Our Christmas was great.  We started with Christmas Eve at Eric's parents house - just hanging out, lots of snacks, Chinese food for dinner...can't argue with that!  BMan even got to open a gift early...LOL Elmo.

 I think he's still trying to figure out how to make him laugh....and for some reason, this Elmo came with a squeaky toy that has a fish in a fishbowl on it...B enjoys stuffing that in Elmo's mouth instead of making Elmo laugh.

B got changed into his Christmas jammies, had a bottle and ended up drifting off...but not for long.  There was too much going on and he ended up hanging out for another hour or so.  We took off for the night and when we got about 15 minutes away, Eric's parents called to let us know we had left a card, Eric's wallet and our camera there.  Woops...we turned right back around to grab it all.  Once we left their house for the second time, we took a little detour to a house that was right off the main road on our way back home.  This house was awesome...we didn't stay long because B was sleeping, but there were tons of cars on the road, the owner (presumably) was dressed up as Santa in the driveway wishing the little kids a Merry Christmas...this is just someone's house!

What a neat thing to see on Christmas Eve....hopefully they'll keep doing this and we can take B to walk around next year!  We finally made it home, got B in his crib and waited for Santa to come finished wrapping gifts and getting name tags on everything :) BMan woke up a few times but luckily he has no concept of who Santa actually is...nor can he get out of his crib...or over the gates to get upstairs.  I guess we had it easy this year!

Even though B doesn't have any concept of Santa, this year was the first time he could had some fun on Christmas (he wasn't even a month old last year) and Eric and I had a great time watching him. Now I know I'm going to be judged for what I'm about to tell you, and I'm actually totally okay with that.  Brady got a total of three presents from us this year.  Four if you count the PJs that we gave him on Christmas Eve, but those weren't even wrapped.  He got a Charlie Brown Christmas DVD, a Christmas outfit and a new car seat. I know you're probably saying, no toys? No toys for a one year old?!  Yes, it's true.  Allow me to explain.  BMan just had a birthday, and we were sure that our families were going to get him toys and books and maybe even some clothes.  So you're saying that's not enough for him?  Check out what makes B's day:

Yes, the picture is blurry...but that's B, running around like a little maniac with two empty rolls of wrapping paper. The cardboard that helps the wrapping paper stay in rolls.  YES. That's what BMan loved.  His room and our upstairs look like Toys 'R Us threw up all over them. Did I almost have a meltdown get really snappy with Eric when we were doing Christmas shopping and we had nothing for B? YES. Something about spending a lot of money on yourselves and not on the little guy just didn't feel right.  But you know, on Christmas, B proved exactly why we did what we did. These wrapping paper rolls and a set of 10 white sports socks that I got for Eric kept him mesmerized pretty much the entire time we were opening gifts.  And watching B open his car seat was super cute, but neared painful after the first 15 minutes. :) All I can say is that if we had gotten him more, gift opening probably would have taken 5 hours. It took about 10 minutes to get him over to the presents to even start opening. Why you ask? Because of the best gifts ever (wrapping paper rolls!)...

 When we finally got him over to his big gift (which, in his defense, he did walk over to first thing in the morning, he just got distracted pretty quickly...) Eric showed him how to start tearing the wrapping paper and he did get going....I'll give you the abridged version here (because I have about 50 pictures of him opening his first gift!!)

I told Eric that I can't wait for him to be old enough where he has some concept of the fact that 1 - there's a gift that's in the box (not all about getting the wrapping paper off, my bug) and 2 - I can't wait for B to be at the age where he starts to open a gift that he has wanted, and once he sees what's inside gets super excited.  Opening his car seat was super cute (don't get me wrong) but when he started out, he would tear off a tiny piece, bring it over to Eric and be so proud of himself...he had to be tricked back in to opening the rest of his present! The good news is that once we took the car seat out, he seemed to like it!

Once BMan figured out how to unwrap gifts, he helped us with the rest of ours

 But I would say he got a little tired after a while...so tired, that he needed to take a break:

In case you can't tell, BMan was lying down, but those tootsies were still moving around and kicking wrapping paper. Eric and I had a year of great gifts.  Not many surprises (ok, Eric had 0 surprises other than his stocking and I had one).  We actually went shopping together - we both needed clothes and we got a lot of them (and some bags, but mostly clothes)...

 I realized just now that we don't have a pile of all of our gifts...just the aftermath...

 Now don't get me wrong, next year B will definitely get lots more gifts and Santa will definitely be stopping by.  But this year, I think our little Christmas was just perfect - everyone was a happy camper.  After we had our Christmas morning, we (sort of) cleaned up, had some breakfast, took a shower and got ready for Eric's family to head over.  Eric's parents and one of his brothers came over and let's just say that the little BMan definitely got some gifts. He got a little "Cars" chair, a helicopter, some legos and mini John Deer tractors...

 We had lots of great snacks, most of which I consumed so there was barely room for dinner...

 Good food, good company...makes for a great Christmas! And don't worry, stay tuned for more Christmas adventures to come!