Storytime.

Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss (Please ignore the creepy stalker at the top of the screen.):



Sally's Christmas Miracle, by Charles Schulz (Unfortunately, the camera battery ran out in the middle of this one):

Best gift ever.

Finally got a chance to try out the remote that Mark gave me for Christmas. In addition to self portraits, I can now easily take family portraits, action shots, covert photos of unsuspecting victims, er, I mean subjects - the possibilities are endless. And no more fooling with the self timer!

Oh, and it's much easier to take a decent photo of yourself when you're in control of the camera. I got this one on the first try. Everyone should have one recent photo of themselves that they like.



Or at least one that everyone can laugh at.

Santa came through.

This Christmas brought us more food, photos and toys than we know what to do with. I spent a good part of today just organizing the 200 plus photos that we took. I whittled it down to about a hundred fit to print. Then I picked around 25 to share online.

I won't elaborate on all the details of the holiday (As the majority of those who read this blog experienced it first hand.) I will instead let the photos do the talking.

Christmas Eve:



Christmas morning:



Christmas night:



As always, more photos (with captions) can be seen on Flickr.

P.S. I asked Mike why he was wearing pink pajamas in the photo posted below. He explained that he was an early supporter of breast cancer awareness.

Ghosts of Christmas past.

For Noreen:



Does this little mouse look familiar? Your mom made it for me for Christmas sometime around 1980. She sent it all the way from Florida. I remember that my grandmother let me have it before Christmas, probably because I was wound up a little too much and only an early gift could placate me. She always had a place of honor in my bedroom, but now that I'm grown up, she stays in my kitchen (Which is probably more appropriate, since she is a kitchen mouse!). Your mom probably never knew how much this little mouse meant to me, but at least now you know.



I'm very lucky in that I have a lot of photos from Christmas as I was growing up. Here I am, circa 1980, at my house on Christmas Eve. The (fake) guitar was a gift from my grandparents, who no doubt felt pity on me because all I had to perform with previously was a badminton racket. I remember that I was practically driven insane (and probably drove others insane in the process) trying to figure out what this gift was as it sat wrapped under my grandparents' Christmas tree.



Here is Mark (left) and his brother Mike on Christmas morning sometime in the mid '70's. Unfortunately, Mark has no recollection of this Christmas, so all I can do is leave you wondering why Mike is wearing pink pajamas just like the kid in a Christmas Story.

Vacances de noel.

Mark and I started Christmas vacation today. I don't have to go back to work until New Year's Eve; he goes back after New Year's Day. It's amazing how not having to deal with work for an extended period of time can vastly improve your mood.

Being that it was the first day of vacation, we took it easy for the most part. I did bake two batches of cookies and made some ornaments, but for me, that's a laid back day.

For lunch, we ordered some Chinese take out. Mark insists that we are the only patrons of our local Chinese restaurant. He points to the fact that they never take our name when we order. Then today, when he ordered plain rice with his meal instead of the usual fried, the woman who answers the phone asked him to confirm that he truly wanted plain rice. So maybe he's on to something.

Anyway, Lauren had already eaten her usual lunch of a peanut butter sandwich and cheesy poofs when she curiously spied my egg roll. I sat by in disbelief as she took it from me and started gnawing on it.

I was so excited, that I almost video taped the event. My child eating something as exotic as an egg roll. It staggers the imagination!

After about three bites, she gave up and handed it back to me (I guess it was at about this point that she made it to the vegetable filling.). I then told her that I was very proud of her for trying a new food and that she's getting to be a big girl because she's eats big girl food.

She replied, "But I'm already a big girl!"

I stand corrected.

Bring on the presents.

Okay, it's not the true meaning of Christmas, but you have to admit that it sure is fun to get stuff.

The first gifts of the season have arrived. Mark received a $50 gift card for Target and a keychain flash hard drive from his boss. My boss sent us Omaha Steaks. We got a package of 16 burgers, 8 bacon wrapped steaks, 8 hotdogs, 8 stuffed potatoes, and sing-it-with-me-'cause-you-knew-it-was-coming -- a partridge in a pear tree! Since we have a very small freezer, we were worried for a second that we weren't going to be able to fit it all (Call the neighbors, the Ross's are having a winter barbecue!), but we somehow managed to find make room by relocating our value pack of Pillsbury buttermilk waffles.

My crew gave me a wonderful gift box filled with the most amazing smelling bath and body stuff. And his may prove to be the best gift of all. You see, after I put on the Pink Buttercream Frosting lotion, Mark got a whiff and declared, "I'm going to eat you up!"

Oh, dear.

Someone's on Santa's good list.

These are for those crazy kids that report to me at work. The adorable treat holders came from the Current catalog. The gift cards came from Giant Eagle (Of course.). If you're going to give the classic low-effort gift, you might as well package it in a snazzy way.

Lauren is in the living room watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" for the umpteenth time. She is snacking on these new Garden Harvest veggie crackers. She has said "This good!" seven...no, there she goes again, eight times. They supposedly contain half a serving of veggies per serving of crackers so props to you, Nabisco!

In other news, Mark and I are both battling colds. Lauren has been dubbed "The Carrier" because every time she's around someone who is ill, she doesn't get sick, but we do. My father had a cold last week so Lauren successfully transferred the plague from one township to another. Pretty impressive, huh?

If you blinked, you would have missed it.

Yesterday, we had a nice snow storm with just enough accumulation to make everything look pretty and white. Then overnight, rain came through, so when we woke up, all of it was gone. Word has it that we're supposed to get more snow tonight though. I can't remember the last time that we had a white Christmas here, so I'm not getting my hopes up that our yard will look like this:



Spending most of the weekend on Christmas preparations. I was lamenting the amount of gifts that need to be wrapped when it dawned on me that about half haven't even arrived yet. Eep. In fact, I was greeted this afternoon by a surprise visitor - a mail carrier. Seems that the packages at our post office are piling up so much that they have to deliver some on Sunday. Anyway, I'm proud of myself for really staying up top of this year's holiday tasks and not procrastinating. If all goes to plan, we won't be out on Christmas Eve looking for gift cards or staying up past midnight wrapping gifts.

And on that note, I better hop to it!

Christmas morning practice run.

No, not really. Today is Mark's birthday! He is still on the good side of thirty, so I won't make any cracks about his age.

I had this evening all planned. With Lauren's help, I wrapped his presents Tuesday (Note to self - Toddlers and Scotch tape do not mix. Good thing I purchased a 4 pack!). Yesterday, when I came home from work, I baked him a cake (Pineapple Upside Down - to quote Lauren, "This is good, Mommy!"). Tonight, I was going to cook dinner and have everything prepared by the time he and Lauren arrived home.

But we all know that nothing falls into place that easily. On this of all days, I come home to find that Daisy has a tummy ache and as a result has left several "presents" of her own throughout our kitchen, leaving various stains on the hard wood floor. A half an hour later, I have the mess cleaned up in time for Mark and Lauren's arrival, but didn't have time to so much put a pot on to boil. Later, poor Mark spent most of the evening sanding the floor in order to get the stains out.

And people say that birthdays are overrated.

Trying to be nice, but naughty just the same.

Last evening, my company hosted a holiday party at the Carnegie Children's Museum. Lauren got to do lots of cool things, like control Mister Rodgers's trolley, drive a car, and pretend that she's holding a press conference.




I, on the other hand, was attacked by an alligator.



But probably the most memorable part of the evening was the goodie bag. When we arrived at the museum, the woman who greeted us instructed us to stop at the front desk before we left. Near the end of the party, Lauren was beginning to get fussy, so we wanted to make a hasty retreat. We stopped by the front desk like we were instructed, but there was no one there.

I noticed that behind the desk were bags. I went around and started to inspect them. Each one were labeled with the child's gender and age. I helped myself to a 2-4 year old female bag and off we went.

As we drove home, I started inspecting the contents of the bag. It was like we had the best night of trick-or-treating. Several full sized candy bars. Bags of potato chips. Christmas themed stickers and pens. A really cute stuffed puppy.



Then, the label on the bag caught my eye. I hadn't noticed before, but it had a last name on it.

Someone else's last name.

Oops.

For those keeping track, so far this holiday season, I've:

--Broken the baby Jesus.
--Sent someone a blank Christmas card.
--Took some child's goodie bag.

Santa is so not bringing me anything for Christmas this year.

Christmas card crisis.

So I have my stack of cards all assembled, stuffed in their envelopes, and ready to go to the post office. I then notice that have two assembled cards left over, which is more than I expected to have. I count the cards to see if I missed anyone.
According to my math:

I have 20 cards in envelopes.

I printed 21 inserts with our holiday greeting that gets attached inside the card.

I have 2 cards left over, each with a greeting attached inside the card.

This can mean only one thing. Someone is going to receive a blank card.

How embarrassing.

My first inclination was to rip open all of the cards and start over, but Mark stopped the madness by pointing out that whoever receives the blank one will know who it's from by our return address.

Still, I feel like I've committed an extreme breech of etiquette. If the person who receives the blank card is reading this, I promise that I will personally sign it the next time I see you!

Wednesday mailbag.

A lot of packages have been arriving at our house lately. I do approximately 90% of our Christmas shopping online, so almost every day we're tripping over packages to get into the door.

Today's package contained a vintage pair of ice skates. These are meant for decoration, but they are my size in case I want to try them out. I've always wanted to learn how to ice skate. I know how to roller skate, but I've never been on ice skates. I definitely planning to take Lauren ice skating when she gets older.

For Felice - I'm sorry to say that we didn't take any photos of the train display. My point-and-shoot camera takes lousy low light photos. BUT! Since Mark read your comment, he wants to go back and take photos with our "good" camera. So you may get your wish after all. Anyway, glad you are enjoying the blog - please e-mail me (melissannross(at)comcast.net) your mailing address and I will send you a Christmas card!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Actually, this title only applies to our house. It's looked a lot like Christmas everywhere else since, like, October.

This weekend, we took the Christmas decorations out of storage. Unlike last year, my sinuses are holding up well under the barrage of mold and must (Although this was the year that I managed to break the baby Jesus. Don't worry, Phyllis - Mark Superglued him back together.). Everything but the tree and the outdoor lights are up. I think that we're going to get a real tree this year. That excursion will hopefully occur later this week.

I also finished designing this year's Christmas cards. I'm on the fence as to whether or not I like them. I'm going the handmade route this year, which I expect will cause me to drown myself in eggnog.

In terms of Christmas activities, this weekend we checked another one off our list. Mark and I have lived in this town for seven years, and each year we miss the All Saints Church Christmas train display. We vowed that this, THIS was going to be the year we would finally see it.

Was it worth the anticipation? Sort of. It's a little smaller than the display at the Penn Hills Municipal Building which was a holiday tradition growing up. But the guys running the trains at All Saints made up for any shortcomings with their enthusiasm. Each of them took the time to talk with us (and give Lauren candy), eagerly telling us about how they were planning an even better display for next year. All in all, it very sweet. We highly recommend it.

Back in business.

It took $73.53 (plus $5 to park in downtown Pittsburgh), but we are back to where we were around 6:00 on Monday. We decided that, given our Power Mac G4 was seven years old, there was really no point in spending money to attempt to repair it. So on Wednesday, Mark won another G4 on eBay from a local seller. He picked it up at a downtown office on Thursday, switched out it's hard drive with the old one (which was thankfully unscathed from what ever took out the computer) and all is well once again.

It's specs are slightly laughable. It's 400MHz processor is about the equivalent of a hamster in a wheel by today's standards (Our old one was a later model that was closer to a somewhat respectable 1 GHz.), but with 1 GB of memory and a 80 GB hard drive, it's really not such a bad little computer (Cue Linus: "It just needs a little love."). It's doing what I need it to do, and that's all that matters to me.

Tomorrow, I will be spending some time organizing and backing up my photos. Lesson learned.

Just then, things went from bad to worse.

The evening started like any other. We ate dinner. Lauren watched Scooby Doo. After I finished eating, I decided to check on a few eBay auctions that were ending soon. Suddenly, the lights began to flicker. Then, there was a crash. Mark mumbled something about Lauren knocking over a wine glass. After that, darkness.

Once again the power was out. Mark cleaned up the broken glass as I entertained Lauren. Then, we searched around the house to find the big package of matches that we bought the last time the power went out. Once the candles were lit, we sat down and waited.

The electric company was really on top of things this time around, and our power was restored in about an hour. Shortly thereafter, I decides to return to what I had been doing. I went into the den and hit the power button on the computer.

Nothing happened.

I pressed it again, because, you know, maybe I didn't apply enough pressure the first time.

Still nothing.

I opened the case to see if there was any visible damage, but there was none.

I plugged the power source into another outlet (which I knew was futile, since the lamp plugged into the same outlet was shining brightly.)

Nada.

So, I guess I now have to resign myself to the fact that my computer is dead. I'm not so much sick over the loss of the computer itself, as it's an older Mac. What I am sick about is the loss of data. Over 1000 photos. Mp3s. Scooby Doo episodes.

Lucklily, i've been somewhat prepared for this. Most of my photos have been uploaded to various photo sharing services. However, I hadn't been as viligent recently, so some, like the Christmas card photos that I took yesterday, maybe lost for good.

At least it wasn't the TV.

P.S. I typed this entire post using my Ipod.

Just one of those days.

I was debating writing about today's events, but I suppose you have to take the bad with the good.

I would not characterize Lauren as an easy going kid. She's probably not as bad as I think she is, but sometimes, I just wish she would be a little more cooperative.

Today I had planned to take her to see Santa Claus for the first time. Now, my expectations of her were already quite low, as I was fairly confident that she wasn't going to get anywhere near Santa's lap. And I was okay with that, because I wanted the experience to be on her terms and not because I am a psycho mother who come hell or high water must have her child sit on Santa's lap each year. I even commented to Mark last night that it was going to be disaster. Little did I know how much so.

I had it all worked out. We were going to go into the city to the downtown Macy's department store. This was a no brainer for several reasons. One, my parents took me to see Santa there when the store was Kaufmann's. Second, instead of having him out in the open where everyone can gawk, they have Santa stashed in a private corner of the 6th floor. Lastly, no one goes shopping downtown on a Sunday, so the line would be minimal.

The morning started out uneventful. I even got her to sit down and eat her cereal without complaint. All was going well until I caused a meltdown by refusing to go upstairs with her to play because I was finishing my breakfast. At this point, I was still optimistic, so I thought one little meltdown wasn't going to ruin the day. But I was wrong, as the meltdown pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day.

As I was getting dressed, I could hear her downstairs whining and crying at her frustrated Daddy. So what did I do? Cancel the plan? Heck, no - I decided that since the weather was decent and she was going to be dressed up in her holiday finery anyway that it was a great time to have the annual Christmas card photo shoot.

Once she was dressed, I scooted her outside. All was going well once again, until she tripped in yard and landed on her knees. Was she hurt? No, it was worse. She had grass stains on the knees of her tights. Then, the wailing began: IT'S DIRTY! IT'S DIRTY! WIPE IT OFF! WIPE...IT...OFF!

I took her inside and consoled the inconsolable as best I could. Her spare pair of tights were in the wash, so I resourcefully took the soiled pair off and put them on her backwards. Santa would never know the difference.

It was then, we decided to stay home. Just kidding - we strapped her in her car seat, cheeks still wet with tears, and off we went.

As expected, we arrived at a deserted parking garage and easily found a spot complete with a view of a homeless man sleeping in an alley. No time for fooling around, we went straight to see the man of the hour.

As expected, the line was short. Bordering the line, was a cute display of bears. Lauren was immediately drawn to them, and we encouraged the distraction. Only one thing that we didn't account for: getting her away from the bears and over to Santa.

Cue HUGE meltdown: NOOO! I NEED TO GO SIT WITH THE BEARS! THE BEARS! THE...BEARS!

I know when I've been licked. We made a hasty retreat to the elevators, where I then had a meltdown of my own and began to cry.

There's always next year, I guess.

The Day After.

Instead of referring to today as "the day after Thanksgiving," I think that government should declare a national holiday and call it The Day After. Imagine how much retailers would save in printing costs!

We were good little capitalists today and participated in some holiday shopping. We didn't leave the house until 11:30 a.m., so although there were no door busters thrown our way, Mark did manage to get a new coat for 50% off at Old Navy as well as a really big pizza for lunch, which he and I almost finished just between the two of us (As Lauren merely subsists on milk, cheesy poofs and oxygen.). After dinner, we shopped at the mall and Home Depot. No one was maimed during either of these trips, so I think we can call them a success.

Speaking of dinner, isn't this the most glorious sight:



I think I look forward to Thanksgiving leftovers more than the dinner itself. There's nothing like turkey with a little mayo on a dinner roll. Yum!

As a side note, you may have noticed that I finally changed the blog banner. This was something that I meant to do periodically, but in the end never got around to doing. Hopefully in the coming year I will make good on this. If not, then everyone will have to enjoy red and evergreen in July. Anyway "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" is one of my favorite holiday songs (along with "Sleigh Ride") so it's more than appropriate for our new title.

Thankful.

Daisy is thankful for a warm couch and the American Kennel Club Dog Show.



Lauren is thankful for Scooby Doo episode downloads on iTunes.



I'm thankful for Steamfresh vegetables, Nikon, and the fact that I don't have to go to work tomorrow.

And Mark is thankful that our 6 trees are almost finished dropping their leaves.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

This Old House.

Haven't done this for awhile, so enjoy!

Saturday doings.

Today's big outing sent us to K-mart for some new shower curtain liners (I know, I know - if only you could lead such a glamorous life as ours!) . While we were there, we checked out Martha Stewart's Christmas decor offerings for this year. Martha's people came up with some really good stuff, like these cute little Christmas cottages (The Chinese who made them were a little glue happy, but they're nice just the same). Lauren immediately claimed the green one for herself. She even took it to bed with her during her nap! I had to pry it from her little hand to take this photo.



Today was our town's annual Light Up night. We had contemplated attending, but since it was pouring down rain this evening, we decided to stay home. Which wasn't a hard decision to make, since we can clearly see the fireworks display from our porch. I don't understand why the threat of rain can cancel 4th of July fireworks, but these fared perfectly fine during a downpour. Anyway, this was the first time Lauren saw fireworks. She wasn't terrified, but she wasn't thrilled with them either.

Lastly, our friend Melissa made it through surgery just fine, but since her recovery took a little longer than expected, she wasn't released from the hospital until today.

I had an interesting experience waiting at the hospital while she was surgery. First, I accidentally walked in on a woman in the bathroom. Then, I sat next to an affluent divorced couple who was waiting for their son to come out of surgery. For the duration, they discussed (in very formal tones) every aspect of their son's life, from his grades (3.75 GPA, but his mother is concerned about his lack of motivation. There were many mentions of Ivy League schools nonetheless.), his unpaid summer job (helping autistic children at the YMCA), his learning to drive "a vehicle", and of course, his sex life or hopefully lack thereof (He is definitely looking to have "sexual intercourse" with a girl, but they don't think that it's happened yet. His mom, however, had caught him surfing porn on the internet and posting suggestive photos of himself on his My Space page.).

It was both fascinating and frightening. And it definitely served as a wake up call for what Mark and I are going to have to face as Lauren gets older.

Here I thought that Lauren's insistance on watching the same episode of Scooby Doo over and over again was cause for concern. Apparently, I ain't seen nothing yet.

Our dirty little secret.

Tomorrow, our good friend Melissa is scheduled to have surgery. She was recently giving me grief about the fact that, although she is always hanging out with us, she never gets mentioned our blog. I told her that it's because she's our "dirty little secret."

Anyway, please keep her in your thoughts tomorrow.

Special Bonus Feature, Part 2! Things Overheard at the Ross House This Evening:


"Slow down, mommy. You give me questions!" - Lauren (Apparently, she didn't appreciate me interrogating her about day.)


"Daisy go to Giant Eagle. Mommy, you stay here." - Lauren

It's a mod, mod, mod world.

This past week, I've been really feeling the effects of the time change. Been going to bed early and just feeling generally lazy and unmotivated. I'm feeling perkier today though, so maybe the fog is lifting.

Yesterday, I was searching for a box of sweaters stored in our spare bedroom's closet. Also stored in this closet is part of my doll collection, including my small stash of vintage Barbie stuff (mostly Francie and Skipper dolls and clothes). So when Lauren came into the room to see what I was up to, she immediately spotted Francie's House. Since there was no use in explaining the concept of a "valuable collectible" to a two-year old, I, of course, let her play with it.



And she, of course, loves it. She made a beeline for it as soon as she woke up this morning.



The pink chair in the closet has been designated as the bathroom. The dollies must drink a lot because they visit there frequently (I think this may be a sign that we're ready for potty training!). And the green haired doll? Well, what mother other than me could instantly produce a doll with tresses the same color as Lauren's favorite hue?

Coincidentally, insider sources tell me that if she's a good girl, Santa will be bringing Lauren a doll house for Christmas. But until then, it makes me happy to see Francie's House get some use. Forty years later, it's still fun and cool.

Special Bonus Feature! Things Overheard at the Ross House This Weekend:

"I don't need my bangs trimmed. No thank you!" --Lauren (Her stylist thought otherwise and trimmed them anyway.)

"This is a good show." --Lauren, upon viewing The Brady Bunch for the first time.

"There goes an airplane!" --Lauren, in reference to the Starship Enterprise (We've been watching a lot of TV this weekend.).

Devilish.

If I had only known...

I decided a while ago that Lauren was going to dress up as Blue from Blue's Clues for Halloween. I even ran the idea passed her. She was all for it. Daddy was going to be Steve. Mommy was going to be Magenta.

But as Halloween approached, she wanted nothing to do with her costume. When I came home tonight, I put on my traditional Halloween attire of my black t-shirt adorned with jack-o-lanterns and my blinking devil horns. Well, as soon as Lauren got sight of my horns, she wanted to wear them. This from the kid who hates to wear anything on her head. So it became obvious to me that she should have dressed up as a devil. Oh well.

Mark eventually convinced her to put on her costume (after much kicking and screaming), although by that time, it was too dark to take any photos. She was a little hesitant about the whole trick-or-treating business, but eventually she got the hang of it and started to enjoy it. In the end we visited five houses in our neighborhood and had seven trick-or-treaters at our door. It was a light Halloween to say the least.

Scrapbooking: Green is good.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought Lauren some new Play-doh. The set came with a green can which she proceeded to carry with her everywhere she went throughout the day.



This example of Lauren's fixation with the color green inspired this page. As I was planning the layout, I knew I wanted to make a grid out of photos and patterned paper, but otherwise, I didn't know where I was going with it. The arrow was a last minute edition as I was originally going to have the title run along side of the page. This was definitely the better choice though, because I'm finally putting my chipboard collection to good use. But what I especially like is that although the page is about the color green, green really doesn't dominate it. Instead, it has a nice balance of different colors. And although you can't tell so much from the scan, the corners are rounded to match the pattern on the orange paper.

Shakin' and bakin'.

I got this crazy idea that letting a two year old help bake cookies would be a good Sunday afternoon activity. I had originally tried to coax her to put on her Halloween costume and "practice" trick-or-treating outside (My real motive was to get her outside in order to take photos), but she wouldn't have anything to do with it. She said, "No, I just wear my coat." So these may just be the only Halloween related photos taken of Lauren this year.



I figured that since she loved playing with Play-doh so much, that cookie cutting would be a natural progression. She was a little unsure at first, but once she got going, she was a real pro! I think I have my helper lined up for Christmas cookie baking.



Here is the end result. This was the first time that I made icing, and I struggled a bit with the consistency. Also, Frankenstein's monster could be a little greener.

After I had finished decorating the cookies, I went into the kitchen to clean up and made the mistake of leaving them unattended in the dining room. When I came back to retrieve them, some of them were missing noses and eyes.

I wonder who could have done such a thing?