Holiday Season Commence!

Joy

To the World

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas

Joy to the World

Oh Christmas Tree

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

HOHOHO

HOHOHO

HOHOHO

Ahh...The holiday season...  I do love the season that brings families together, has delicious and much too filling meals to be shared, and all the trimmings of our childhood Christmases like trimmed trees and music while white snow is covering the ground outside.
Oh...no snow yet...Well, I'm sure it'll show up just in the nick of time (to make driving to those meals extra difficult)!
My little family is apart this holiday season but we will have fun anyways.  We will try our best to keep it as normal as possible and as special as we can all at the same time.  I'm hoping that schedules work out to have a Skyped Christmas this year!  Our personal family xmas is usually on xmas eve morning to kick off the non-stop two day holiday.  We are super excited and I hope Alyssa cooperates for some video taping this year.  Last year was a little slow on the unwrapping (she wasn't even one, c'mon!).  This year I think the problem will be teaching her the waiting of turns process....hmmmm, wish us luck with that one....
I have done my best too keep the house clean with the tree taking up some of the little space we have which meant that most of the toys were tossed carelessly into the toddler's bedroom at the end of every day (or multiple times a day if she is home).  Of course this only extends to the living room and hallway for cleanliness.  The table is mountainous and the kitchen has a pile of dishes every day.  Bedrooms we just shut the doors on...Oh, the bathroom is pretty darn clean too since it is the place with all the water and soap that isn't powder for a machine.  Someday I'll get this housekeeping idea figured out....When I don't have kids in the house from what my parents and grandparents' examples show.
Happy Holiday Season folks!  I hope we all have wonderful times with family and friends!  Let the craziness begin!

"I'm a big kid now!"

I will start by saying "You're welcome."   You're welcome for not taking or sharing photos of this monumental event in Alyssa's life.  Alyssa has used the potty!!!  (If you are not a person interested in potty training toddlers--you probably don't want/need to finish reading this post.)

She has been pulling and dragging me into the bathroom for the last couple days simply to flush the toilet.  We had to put a stop to that after about a dozen times in an hour clearly for pure entertainment purposes.  She also would go in there with her pullup needing to be swapped.  This last time I was thinking--sure, she just wants to flush the toilet again.  She was pulling and tugging and grabbing my whole arm and I got up with her.  I figured we would go in, she would try to flush the toilet and I would carry her back out.  Nope....She grabbed her potty seat, put it on the big toilet, moved her chair/stool over and then stood there.  She started going potty in her pull up before I realized she was actually serious!  Dumb Momma!  So we stripped the pull up and finished on the potty!

Super proud moment and she was super excited to flush something besides a wipe down the potty!  Yes--I am clearly an overly excitable parent right now.  We got a rubber stamp star design and a multi color (pinks and purples) ink pad and got TWO stamps on the tops of her feet.  (She adores stamps...)  Wish us luck for the future!

Tae...Tre...Tree-Tree

AKA--The development of the words Trick or Treat for a Snow White toddler from last night.

Snow White had immense fun as soon as she realized that people were giving away CANDY every time she walked up to a door and knocked.  I look forward to the day where I can explain and be understood that this only works once a year.

We got dressed at Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Walkup's and started with one of their neighbors.  Snow White held my hand and went up to the door but when the door opened and the woman came outside, my little TrTing princess wanted to leave....well, until she saw what was in the bowl.  We began the phrase of the night.

Momma:  "Can you say trick or treat?"
Alyssa:  "No."

***

Momma:  "Can you say trick or treat?"
Alyssa:  "Tae"

***

Momma: "Can you say trick r treat?"
Alyssa:  "Tre"

***

You see now how this developed.  Over the course of only one night we got to Tree Tree.  I think we did amazingly well!  She got really good at putting her candy into her bucket and carrying it around on her arm.  She LOVED being handed candy or getting to choose it herself.  We didn't go to many houses (one cul d sac and one block elsewhere) but she got a haul.  To think...this was supposed to limit our candy intake by reducing the amount of houses...dang.

I'm going to leave you with one more picture of Snow White and I hope you had a Happy Halloween!