12.4.10: 21 days

Tonight was read Christmas stories at Borders.

We didn't get a lot of reading done.

Rex loves to read, but only under certain conditions--in his room cuddling with Mom with nobody else around. Today we read on the couch under a blanket while eating popcorn. Point is, we didn't really read at Borders. Rex played with the bead board thing, and Greg played with puppets. Rex was not very sure about the puppets, but he frew used to them after a while.

We did buy 3 books: buy 2 Dr. Suess books get one free. We bought one for us, one for Greg's nieces and nephews, and one free one for Rex from Santa.

Then we walked around the Shoppes at Riverwoods for a while and found this rad new toy shop. Rex enjoyed it.

12.3.10: 22 days to go

Tonight was, drum roll please, Ward Christmas Party night.

Lame I know.

At least we got free food. Well sort of free, I did take rainbow jello, which doesn't sound expensive but I had to buy 5 things of jello at $0.79 a piece plus plain yogurt (the excess of which will rot in my fridge) for $2.59, plus the entire day I spent making it. So dinner was not free.

On the bright side, I did get to hold a 6-week-old baby for a few hours, which Rex was not a fan of--he tried to push her off my lap--and talk to a good friend for a while.

Speaking of holding a 6-week-old baby, you know how many people informed me it was time to have another one? I'm not that offended but honestly, I don't (often) walk up to you and ask how often and in what manner you and your significant other are being intimate with each other. And just for those of you who want to ask but are too polite (thank you), we would like to have another baby soon.

So that was day 22 of advent. Not the most exciting--look at Rex's face--but we did something, which is better than nothing.

12.2.10: 23 days until Christmas

For tonight's activity we went with our friends, the Thayers, to the Living Nativity. It was a 20 minute re-enactment of the Christmas story performed Manti-pageant style. But despite its corn-y-ness, I had a little tear in my eye as I tried to explain to Rex what was going on (that he cared, but I thought I should tell him about Jesus and why he came to Earth). Rex, however, was not interested and really wanted to go outside. We stood in the back.

Here's Rex and his friend waiting for the show to start--Rex did not want to sit still.
After the show, we went to the lawn outside the Provo Tabernacle to see some animals. We saw a sheep (pictured above), a goat, a baby yak (Greg thought that was particularly cool), and a pregnant camel--it was huge, but my camera battery died just as we got to the camel. Lame. Not that Rex cared. He was afraid of all the animals, as shown by him running away in the picture above. He did pet the camel because we could pet the butt part, which was far away from the scary face.
He warmed up to petting the animals a bit when his daddy held him. Isn't it sweet how much he trusts his daddy?

12.1.10: Day 1

Today was day 1 of Advent. We were supposed to put up the Christmas decorations, but because we did that over the weekend, we painted holiday figureens.

But we only had 1 paintbrush (poor planning I know), so Rex painted, while I tried to keep him from mixing the paint and Greg looked on.

Here's Rex hard at work.

And because he's a boy, his gingerbread man and snowman got in a fight and shot each other.
The finished product, proudly displayed on the shelf directly next to the front door.

12.10: The Advent

A German lady in our ward did the mid-week Relief Society meeting last month. She talked about the German tradition of Advent. I thought, I did that growing up. Every morning you wake up and race Dustin to move the little mouse to the next spot in the calendar, just to find out he cheated and did it the night before. She explained it a little differently. I won't bore you with the details since they're probably on Wikipedia anyway, but I decided to do Advent this year. Every day for the 24 days before Christmas I have a little family activity planned. I bought 12 pieces of card stock, cut them in half, clued number circles to them, wrote an activity on the back, and strung them from twine across my window, hanging them by clothes pins. They add to my eclectic, vintage-themed Christmas decor.

I'm excited.

11.26.10: pre-Christmas

For some reason, Greg is really excited about Christmas this year--maybe it's because Rex is so cute and is actually aware of his surrounding this year, maybe it's because we're doing Christmas at our house, or maybe it's the pile of presents under our tree already, but whatever it is, we started Christmas earlier than we usually do.

(I like to let Thanksgiving take an entire weekend and not start Christmas until December 1st, but Greg was so excited).

I think we're the only people still in existance that buy real trees every year, but we do. We first went to a lot, but the tree we wanted was $65, so we went to Smith's and got one for $25. The $65 one was prettier, but they will both die and neither one is Rex-proof.

Greg and Rex standing next to our tree.
Greg and Rex examining the trunk of the tree. Greg built a new stand for ours this year that makes tipping very difficult and forces the tree to stand up straight.
Then we went to see the lights on Temple Square with my parents and Noah, but me being so Rex-centered failed to take pictures of anyone except Rex. He refused to wear his gloves so his hands turned red and were so cold, but the rest of him was warm.

Then on Saturday, for the U v. BYU game, I got sick. I didn't miss much.

I was still sick on Sunday.

By Monday, I was ready to decorate the tree.

After reading various other blogs I have learned that my Christmas decorations are supposed to be themed, match, and be color coordinated. I felt bad about myself for a while about this, so I talked to Greg about it. He insisted that he liked our more eclectic style and that it reflected us more because our decorations are gifts or things we've gather in our travels, etc. so they mean more. We also decided that we are going for a more colorful vintage look. I don't feel so bad about myself. I really liked how our tree looked--and then Rex took all the lights off, several times a day...I'm not so sure it's going to survive until Christmas (another reason I like to wait). Whatever.

11.25.10: Thanksgiving

I considered doing a sappy post about all the things I'm thankful for, because I really have a lot of things that I don't feel like I deserve and if I woke up one morning and they were all gone, I wouldn't have a right to complain because I had the good things for so long (don't get me wrong, I would still complain, but I don't deserve to complain).

However, I have a few other things I need to get done tonight so this adorable picture of Rex helping with the traditional Robins Thanksgiving puzzle will have to suffice. I honestly (and I know this is super dorky) hopes he grows up to love puzzles as much as I do. They are great for developing spacial reasoning skills.

The next day while I was in the shower, Rex pulled every piece off the table. This is the first year since we started this tradition way back in Tracy that I haven't finished my puzzle.