Thanksgiving 2008

Merry Christmas Eve! What better time then Chrismtas to do a post on everything we are thankful for, right? In other words, please excuse the fact that my Thanksgiving 2008 post is just over a month late.

This year marked the beginning of a new tradition at Casa Gifford .. the "Thankful Tree". We started off with a bare trunk and branches. Then every morning during the month of November Jack would tell me one thing he was thankful for. We'd write that thing on a leaf and Jack would add it to the tree.


A close-up of all his thankfullness. Keep in mind that he was not prompted at ALL in coming up with what he was thankful for. He came up with every.single.item all on his own. Even "Mommy's Eyes". No, seriously!

Click on the picture to get the larger version that you can actually read.

Uncle Michael, Aunt Stephanie and Evan came into town for turkey day week. We were lucky enough to have them stay at our house Thursday through Saturday. I can't even tell you how much fun the cousins had. They are both at an age now where they can truly play together and interact and watching them do so was just SO much fun. They especially liked running laps around the kitchen/dining room/living room area. Over and over and OVER. I swear I lost 5 pounds just watching them exert all that energy.

Not-so-lucky for me I found those 5 pounds that I had lost(and THEN some!) while dining at Aunt Sue and Uncle Paul's for Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner was amazing as usual and a great time was had by all.

Jack was able to steal Aunt Sue away from her dinner making duties to play a rousing game of "cars":

Then the two of them recruited Gran:


The Uncles:

What's so funny, Uncle Michael? What? What's that? You say moments before this was snapped Mike G's left hand was giving a gesture not-so-suitable for blogging? Not nice to tattle, Uncle Michael!

A little quality time with the grandpas:


Gran and Gramps reading Jack the book they brought him:



Gran and Gramps brought Evan a book too - apparently Aunt Steph thought it was VERY cool!


The boys running those laps they are so fond of:



Hydrating post-lap running with a spooky looking Uncle Michael:


Right before dinner there was a minor break-down:


Which led to Jack eating T-giving dinner like so:


Which led a sympathetic Uncle Paul to delay his turkey indulging to hang with Jack like so:


The rest of us wern't as sympathetic - we chowed down!



After dinner it was time for my surprise birthday celebration (see previous birthday post) and after that the boys looked like this:



Which caused Mima to be all "WOW look at the time! Have you seen my shoes?"


And that brought TGiving 2008 dinner to an end! A BIG HUGE GINORMOUS thanks again to Uncle Paul and Aunt Sue for hosting and putting up with all the crazy. Everything was DEE-licious and we all quite obviously had a blast :)

Happy Birthmonth to me!!!

Can you believe this is the first time I'm bringing it up!? It's my birthmonth! Yey! Go me. It's my birthmonth. Gonna party like it's my birthmonth. Gonna drink some decaf grande skim with whip mochas like it's my birthmonth.

So today is the actual DAY of my birth but if you know me then you know I celebrate all month long. On and on 'til the break-a break-a dawn! Well these days it's more like on and on 'til the break-a break-a 10:00 p.m. And that's on a weekend night.

The party actually started back in November with a little surprise party of cake and presents after Thanksgiving dinner! Since everyone was in town and we were all in once place everyone thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to celebrate my big day. A good idea indeed. There was cake:



Evan was all "Mmmmmmm cake" said Homer Simpson style:



Blowing out the candles with the help of my assistant:



And there were presents:

Me thinks someone needs to tell the boy they are MY presents. It's MY day! You've heard of the term "bridezilla"? I'm like that but with birthdays. I'm a "birthdayzilla".


Then last weekend Jack and his Daddy surprised me with flowers, an early birthday present and an A-mazing dinner on Saturday evening. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the event. I know - SO not me, right? Unfortunately my camera battery was dead and for some reason I completly forgot that I have the ability to take pictues with my cell phone. I know - SO me, right? Oh how I wish I had pictures of that dinner. I'd have those pictures blown up, framed and hung in my kitchen to give all future dinners something to aspire to. My meal consisted of a lightly seasoned dry-aged filet mignon that Mike grilled to PERFECTION himself, a side of pommes frites (b/c we're fancy like that) and finished with a sinful 3 layer chocolate mousse cake that was so rich and delicious that eating it was like floating on a chocolate cloud through chocolate Heaven! And yes you heard me right - I said Mike grilled my steak. In case you don't live in the NoVa area then let me just point out that Saturday evening it cold. VERY cold. I just checked Weather.com to find out just how cold it was during the time that Mike was out there grilling for me. Weather.com says actual temp was 30 degrees but it felt like 22 degrees. TWENTY-TWO degrees. Is there no end to this man's love? Because really that is just above and beyond. As if that meal were not gift enough he also gave me the photo editing software that I have been not-so-subtly dropping hints about for months now - Photoshop CS4. I never thought I could be so excited over a piece of software. Know how excited I am? Had he surprised me with a new Coach bag instead I would not have been as happy as I was when I looked in that gift bag and saw Photoshop. Seriously - THAT excited!

Today I woke up to birthday wishes from both of my main men. Jack sang - but he didn't sing Happy Birthday. He sang Weird Al Yankovich's "Jedi Song". Haven't heard it? Hear it here:
Clicky for Jedi Song
I believe the song itself is a few years old - but it's currently in heavy rotation
on Sirius Sattelite Radio's "Kid Place Live" station. And Jack LOVES it. He told me "I'm gonna sing to you - but not Happy Birthday. Your new birthday song is that My-My-Anniken-Guy song. NOT Happy Birthday."
Alrighty then!

I was greeted by numerous surprises upon meeting up with Mima this morning to do the Jack-drop-off. First there was a deeee-licious fruit tarte and more singing:


And the fruit tarte approximately 15 minutes later at my desk:




Jack has this weird thing lately where he cannot STAND the smell of fruit. Any fruit. To the point where he goes all Oscar-worthy dramatic about it with gagging noises and all everytime fruit of any kind is within 5 feet of him. He held his nose until the fruit tarte was completly out of sight:


Here is Jack presenting me with a special present. Mima had to "remind" him what he was supposed to say when he gave it to me. Jack was all "This is for you. (WHATS next, Mima?) And if you ever miss me during the day when you are at work (Now what do I say Mima? WHAT?) then just look at this and it will make you happy."


There was actually one for me and one for Jack. Check it out:

BEAVERS! Because Jack loves beavers. So when we miss each other during the day we each have a special little something to remind us that we are always in each other's thoughts. HOW cute is that? Seriously are you crying? ARE you? Because if not, you are totally dead inside.

Mima also gave me a sparkly poinsetta b/c sparkly poinsetta's are ALL the rage this holiday season.

Let's hope I don't kill it before Christmas. Generally Me + plants = NOT a good outcome for the plants.

I wanted to get a picture of me, Jack and the sparkly pointsetta. That didn't go so well. The attempts:




Here is the best one we got:


Then it was off to work for me. I actually had a half day today due to our company's annual holiday lunch! We all go out and eat like there is no tomorrow then we get the rest of the day off to do our holiday shopping. The lunch this year just-so-happened to fall on my birthday. I just-so-happened to point out that fact about a bazillion times to our office manager. And whaddya know - there just-so-happened to be a cake for me at said company lunch. Aren't they the sweetest?


After lunching and shopping it was home again home again for my surprise party! My surprise party consisted of Jack hiding behind a wall as I entered the house and then jumping out and yelling "SURPRISE!". I knew about it beforehand because this morning Jack told me "When you get home tonight I'm going to have a surprise party! You're going to walk in and I'm going to yell SURPRISE!". Even tho I knew it was coming it was still the best surprise ever. We dined on delicacies from one of my most favorite restaurants - Bonefish Grille:



I stared at my beautiful flowers that Mike and Jack presented me with over the weekend:


And we ended the evening with a rousing game of cars and planes:


Does life get ANY better then this? Does it? Because seriously, I don't see how it possibly could.


PS: I'm pretty sure that this is THE longest blog post of 2008. And it's all about me. If anyone knows of a good birthdayzilla's anonymous support group please send me their contact info.

The Santa Experience!

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Disclaimer: I started writing this on Friday and planned to post it that evening. Then in typical Kelly fashion I got distracted. Started again on Saturday. Distracted. Sunday I rested while my amazing husband took over my laptop to install my new Photoshop CS4 that he surprised me with for my birthday. YAHOO! Monday I *almost* had this done and posted, but then I received an email about a sale at Ann Taylor Loft. That made me think about how I could really use a shirt for my holiday Christmas lunch at work .... which in turn made me think about tacos because there is a Chipotle Restaurant right across from Ann Taylor Loft and I was really really hungry ... and of course once I thought about tacos I thought of my black open toed super cute sling backs because those are the shoes I was wearing the night we ate at our resort's Mexican restaurant when we were on vacation in Mexico two years ago and MAN did I love those shoes (and the tacos) and then I was off to go look for my shoes. Have you ever read that book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?" Story of my life. Seriously. I've considered contacting the author about collecting royalties. Anyway so I'm posting this on Tuesday - but know when I refer to "today" in the Santa story, I'm actually talking about Friday.

Whew. Doesn't reading that make you want to call Mike just to say hello and see how he's doing? He lives with that every.single.day of his life. Bless his heart. On with the show.
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So for the last week or so Jack has been overflowing with excitement in anticipation of his visit with Santa that we scheduled for this morning. Jack has been particulary good using his manners and listening lately and he was very much looking forward to bragging all about it to jolly old St. Nick in the hopes that he'd sky rocket to the top of the "Nice" list.

Last night and this morning we worked on "The List" which we will actually be referring to as "The Booklet" going forward. "List" sounds so demanding. It screams "HERE is what I need you to do!". "Booklet" is way more "I-have-a-few-requests-if-you'd-care-to-look-at-them-kind-sir", don't you think? We decided to go low key this year and limit our requests as to not appear too greedy. We also decided to mount our requests on red scallop-edged craft paper bound with a thin, chocolate brown satin ribbon - because hey - it's all about the presentation. And kissing up to the guy with the gifts never hurts either:

Yes that is an accordian that you see on page 5 of "The Booklet". Jack has been asking for one for quite some time now. Did you know that Jack's Mima actually played the accordian as a young girl? Lugged that thing to lessons all by herself on a city bus and everything! True story.

Anyway...
Last night before going to bed - totally excited to see Santa.
This morning when we woke up - totally excited to see Santa.
In the car all the way to the mall - totally excited see Santa.
Walking from the car to the mall in the frigid 30 degree weather - totally excited to see Santa.
RUNNING thru the mall to the Santa set up - totally excited to see Santa.
Approaching the Santa set up - totally excited ..... totally excited .... totally excited ..... then "Um Mommy - no. NO. I don't WANT to go see Santa. I DONT WANT TO. You go."

Then he ducked into Sephora and wouldn't come out. Seriously. And I took the morning off for this. Just like that - excited...excited...excited...NOT doing it. We got there before Santa even arrived so I'm not sure what changed things. I got him to semi-pose in front of the Santa set-up. Note how he refuses to look at the camera. That is because he was looking behind me to make sure Santa was not approaching. He looked as tho he was ready to run for his life at the first sight of red velvet:


Lucky for us, seeing Santa these days is so much more then simply standing in line and sitting on a lap. The line for Santa at our mall actually has a theme, "The Polar Express". They play parts of "The Polar Express" movie at various stations along the journey through line and have different little train activities throughout. Then right before you get to see Santa you enter a life sized snow globe where it actually snows down covering you in little white flakes of God knows what. (Always makes for an interesting return to work for me - I'm like the poster child for Head and Shoulders shampoo.). I knew Jack would want to see that part of the "Santa Experience" so I told him that we'd go thru the line and once we got to the end if he still didn't want to see Santa then we'd just keep on walking.

Here is JGif in the "engine room". He got to work the break:


And blow the train's whistle.

He loved loved LOVED that and had I let him he'd have stayed there doing that all day. Seriously we'd still be there. I must admit the train whistle thing was pretty cool. It sounded like a real train whistle and the harder you pulled the rope the louder it got. Wooo WOOOOO!

This is inside the life-sized snow globe. Jack walked out of the shot just as I was pressing the shutter button and wouldn't come back for me to try it again. He was completly pre-occupied with the fact that Santa was just right around the corner.


Sneaking a peek:



And when he turned back around:

Um - yeah - not exactly what I'd call "tiny tots with their eyes all a-glow". I asked if he wanted to go talk to Santa for a bit. He said no. I asked if he wanted me to go give Santa "The Booklet". He said no. I asked if he at least wanted to get the sheet of stickers that Santa was handing out to all the children. He said no. And with that we waved as Jack walked right past Santa refusing to look directly at him again. I must admit, judging from the expression on Santa's face I was a bit frightened to go talk to him myself. Jolly old St. Nick this guy was not! Well, he had the old part down pat - and I assume he was smiling for pictures, but in-between takes - not so much. Mima actually summed it up pretty well when she said "He looks like he had a really bad case of acid reflux or something". And this was 3 kids into the day. I can't imagine what the man looks like by dinner time.

After that we went to the playground at the mall, walked around a bit and had one more chance encounter with the big guy:

Jack was much more comfortable with him from this distance and was actually shouting "GEO TRAX! I want Geo Trax trains, okay Santa? GEO. TRAX.". Let's hope Santa heard him.