Out with the old year, in with the new

Wow. Where did the year go? How is it 2012 already?

 

2011 was great. We took some fun trips and learned new things. Allie turned 2 and started talking, running and jumping. She became a big girl! Mama lost 43 pounds and got a new job. Dada endured the NFL lock out and got a Redskins helmet for Christmas. We took fun trips to St. Louis and Minneapolis and lots of new places around home.

I can't wait to see whats in store for 2012!

Presents, presents and more presents

When we got to Grandma a.nd Grandpa's house last week, the presents were all sitting out by the Christmas tree. A bit mound of boxes wrapped in shiny paper. It didn't take long for Allie to invade the presents. So we all helped take the presents to Uncle Jeff's room.

Thursday morning Grandpa was wrapping a present for a friend and Allie was fascinated. He gave her another small box and wrapped it. She played with it awhile and then opened it, then asked Grandpa to wrap it again. She opened it again... and then asked Grandpa to wrap it again. This went on about three times, I think until we were ready to go out for the day.

Then when it was time to open presents on Thursday night, we all brought the presents back out. Allie took great delight in bringing the presents down the hall!

 By time it was time to open, Allie was raring to go. She wanted to open everything.

In true kid fashion she ripped through the paper and barely looked at what was inside!

She opened her own presents but didn't stop there. She opened almost all of Grandpa's, and some of Dada's and Jeff's.

Then we got to open more presents at Aunt Julie's. She helped with the distribution by ripping off the gift tags. Then she enthusiastically ripped through these presents.

On Christmas morning there were more presents! These presents were special delivery from the North Pole. But I think by Christmas morning Allie  was a bit bored with presents. We had to keep calling her back to open.

For this one I'm not even sure she looked at what was inside!

Christmas night we were at Grandma and Grandpa Swanson's with MORE presents! Allie was much more intrested in the cookies that her aunts and uncles were sneaking into her hot little hands.

At least she drank her milk! Finally on the morning after Christmas, we had our little family gift opening. Allie was a little more focused on that, maybe just because there weren't so many people around.

She got some really nice things. A cooking set, a new baby, stuffed animals, pajamas and books. One special item was the scrapbook Aunt Jocelyn (sitting next to her in the picture above) made. She said she's going to add to it as Allie gets older. It was so thoughtful! And useful since I don't even know where Allie's baby book is, let alone add anything to it.

Of course with all the new toys, we need to find space to put everything!

The tale of Woody and Buzz

Allie loves Toy Story. LOVES Toy Story. If we put any of the Toy Story movies on, Allie is mesmerized.

We started a tradition of buying Allie a Christmas ornament every year. When we went out to see Santa the Thursday before Christmas in Carbondale, we stopped by JC Penney to look for this year's ornament. Toward the top of one of the display trees was a Woody ornament, which we thought was perfect since Allie is obcessed with Toy Story!

Grandma Durso also bought her a stuffed Clarice from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. She wouldn't let go of either Clarice or Woody! We had to sneak them away from her when it was time to see Santa.

We got home and Woody slept on the table next to the crib while Allie slept. Woody was never far away.

She even hung Woody on the Christmas tree!

Woody was plastic and part of his boot broke off. That didn't phase Allie!

One of the things Woody says in the movie is "there's a snake in my boot." Allie started saying "snake boot" over and over after we said it once! She kept calling Woody buddy.

But alas, Woody didn't leave her presence for two days, and as we were packing up Saturday morning, Woody disappeared. We looked all over the house and couldn't find him. We thought he either got packed or thrown away. Now that most of our stuff is unpacked, I'm sad to say he must have gotten thrown away :-(

Allie's asked for "Buddy" a few times since we got home. We change the subject. I'd like to try and find a replacement ornament but I don't know how much luck we'd have since it was on clearance in the first place and now Christmas is over. We'll have to get another ornament for this year. We're also going to look into getting a real Woody doll!

We lost one toy but gained another! Today at daycare one of the girls gave Allie a Buzz Lightyear to calm her down at naptime. She's been climbing out of the pack n play she sleeps in at daycare lately but she was occupied with Buzz and fell asleep and actually had a good nap!

Once she got up Buzz was glued to her the way Woody had been last week. We asked Allie who that is and she says "Buzz Year!" It was fun watching her run around flying Buzz and shouting "to infinity and beyond!" with her.

Buzz is bigger than Woody so I'm confident he won't go missing! He's going back with her to daycare tomorrow to hopefully continue to occupy her at naptime so she doesn't climb out of the crib.

Vacation from vacation

We're back from our holiday travels. Mama and Allie are back at work but Dada gets to continue his vacation another week.

Truthfully I'm relieved to be back at work. Vacation is fun but there's so much going on, no time to exercise or eat right, lots of traveling. It was so nice to sleep in our own beds on Sunday night and even nicer to have yesterday off. But it is oddly comforting to be back at my desk here at work. One of my good friends calls this "vacation from my vacation."

We had a great Christmas. It was a great vacation too. It was SO nice seeing some friends we haven't seen in a long time and spending a lot of time with family. I feel like we watched Allie grow up on this trip. It was so fun seeing her interactions with people. She usually had to warm up a bit but she was fast friends with everyone. She had a lot of freedom and she was so good. We started carrying on conversations. I would ask her if she needed to be changed and she said yes! She got lots of great gifts and has had a wonderful time really playing with them. She played hard and slept harder, though not nearly long enough!

But perhaps the best part was seeing her really experience Christmas. She loved the presents, though I think she was kind of tired of them by the end! She also loved all the cookies and surprisingly she also liked Santa.

Christmas magic

Christmas week! Vacation! We made it! Last week was a bad week, but now vacation is here and its all fun. We got all the shopping done last weekend and I've even finished wrapping except for one item. We're leaving for southern Illinois tomorrow, and all thats left to prepare for the trip is packing!

Yesterday Dada finished shopping for Mama and Mama finished the wrapping. When Dada got home we all sat together and watched "The Polar Express." Allie has been really interested in TV lately and she's been enjoying the Christmas shows on ABC Family. But her favorite by far now is The Polar Express. Its Christmas and its a train, her favorite thing in the world right now. We all sat together on the couch watching. Monk even laid on the couch next to us. We all clapped when we saw the happy ending to the movie. Allie was saying "polar express!" all night long.

Today has been a relaxing day. We decided to stay home and relax so that Allie could have a good nap, a restful day at home and then go to bed early. She won't sleep enough once we're traveling! While Allie slept, Dada took Monk to the kennel and ran a few other errands and Mama finally got the baking day she hadn't gotten yet this season.

I've made ginger creams and am baking double chocolate chip cookies. There's dough in the fridge waiting to be baked into oatmeal raisin cookies. More cookies than we need, but I love baking! We'll take them on our trip this week to share.

When Allie woke up from her nap she joined Mama in the kitchen to watch the baking and mixing. She likes watching but got quite worked up asking for a cookie. We gave her one but also some yogurt... but since she was very engrossed into the baking, Dada fed her the yogurt while she was standing on her stool watching Mama mix. It was some fun family time even if Dada was sitting on the floor!

I wish we could have taken a few pictures! It was so fun seeing Allie's face as she watched the mixer go round and round.

The terrible twos are rearing their ugly head though and Allie was a bit too disruptive in the kitchen. To get Allie to come out to the living room, Dada asked Allie if she'd like to watch The Polar Express again. She's just as engrossed in the movie again right now!

I'm loving the Christmas magic already. The rest of the week just holds more. Its so fun now that Allie is getting old enough to understand about Christmas and enjoy it!

Snow!

It snowed! I wish I'd had the camera to see Allie's face when we opened up her curtains to show it to her. She kissed and hugged the window because she wanted to kiss and hug the snow!

These pictures sort of show how she liked seeing the snow!

Here she is trying to hug it! There wasn't enough snow to play in, only about 2 inches or less, and we didn't have time for it today anyway. We did see people sledding on the big Elver Park hill.

Today was a full day of Christmas shopping! Allie enjoyed it at first but she lost interest by the time we got to the mall. It was the fourth stop, and Mama and Dada were losing interest too! We went out to lunch at Applebee's though and that perked all of us up! After lunch we went home so Allie could nap and then Mama went out for some more shopping. Its almost all done, just one more item needed! Thats somewhat strange for us since Christmas is still a week away!

What's the deal with this guy in the red suit?

On Tuesday night we went to a daycare Christmas party. The flyer for the party said we'd be having pizza and some surprises. Well one of those surprises was a visit from Santa!

It was this night I found out that Allie's not so sure about this Santa guy. She kept saying she'd see him, I think because all the other kids were, but then she'd change her mind. She finally did go see him, with Mama as her bodyguard. We got a cute picture to document the moment. I wonder when, if or how we should navigate seeing the mall Santa?

Unfortunately Dada couldn't go to the party with us. He was home sick that day and very sad about it! Mama and Allie had fun though. Allie got a doodle pad (magna doodle style, I'm not sure what they're called now) that she loves to draw on. She also got a coloring book and small box of crayons. And in a victory for Mama, she ate two pieces of pizza with minimal mess and great behavoir! If only all meal times could be so smooth.

The party was at a pizza place inside a bowling alley in town. In the pizza place was a small arcade of the sort where you can play games and earn tickets for prizes. Unfortunately not much of it was stuff Allie could do. But she did get a kick out of riding the train twice. It was a little train car that moved back and forth. She seemed to like it although she was trying to get out while it was still moving and it moved with such a jerky motion that Mama had to hold onto her so she wouldn't fall out.

Starting this evening we're on vacation! Well, I'm sort of on vacation already, but only because I'm home sick today. We have a bunch of Christmas stuff we want to get done. All three of us have been sick this week so we haven't been doing many of the Christmas things we've wanted to. Hopefully I'll be more punctual with blog entries once we're busy again!

'Tis the season for... rain and fog?

I took these pictures on my phone the other night walking out of work. It was foggy and rainy and not terribly cold. It felt more like early spring than mid-December! It was kind of neat to see the top of the Capital obscured by fog.

I have heard the news off and on that its supposed to be a snowy winter, but other than a few flakes back before Thanksgiving, nada. Of course I don't mind! It was kind of strange though to have my birthday pass without a big storm or any snow at all. The last few years we've had blizzards on or around my birthday. As long as we can travel to southern Illinois for Christmas next week, we can handle any snow after that. Of course I say that now, but I'm sure I'll sing a different tune once that snow actually comes! I just have to wonder if all that snow we're not getting is going to save itself for a bigger blizzard than the ones we've seen the past few years.

ABC!

I've mentioned Allie's music that we listen to in the car before. Lately when we get in the car to go home from work, she asks for "mugik." And once its on she shouts "ABC!" The ABC song is the first one on the CD and we listen to it two or three times before letting the CD keep going. Allie is getting really good at singing along. Sometimes she sings almost all the letters, and other times she only sings certain letters. Its funny because she just sounds like she's singing along to a song she doesn't know the words to. You know, like where you gibberish the words you don't know? Thats the best way I can think of to describe it.

Christmas choo-choos and fishies

We love Ella's Deli. I went there when I was a kid, but didn't remember it until I saw it after we moved here. Its always busy and loud and fun. We've taken Allie there a few times and she's enjoyed it, but nothing like today. As she's getting older she's gaining so much awareness of whats going on around her.

There was a lot to look at from our table. Allie really liked Spiderman. But near Spiderman was also a basketball guy and the Beatles as the Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, complete with a yellow submarine. I didn't get a picture of that, unfortunately.

 On the other side of our table was a circus train and Superman underneath.

So there was a lot to look at, and it really surprised us that Allie actually ate well! Its always a nice surprise when she eats well. Before we ate, Allie studied the dessert menu. But we ultimately decided against dessert.

After lunch we were on to the main attraction of our afternoon: Olbrich's Holiday Express! Its their annual flower and model train show. Its one of those events that we hear about every year and want to check out, but still haven't, until today. We're really trying to get into the Christmas spirit this year and exposing Allie to a lot of new experiences.

I'm not really sure what I expected, but when we walked in, it seemed a little underwelming. But then I realized all the detail and all the work! But the real treat was Allie's reaction!

She LOVED watching the trains go round and round. there were two big tracks set up. One had two trains and the other had three.

There was only one running at a time on each track, but they switched a lot. Allie was absolutely DELIGHTED!

She was shrieking and shouting and giggling and jumping around the whole time. I think she would have stayed there all day if we had let her.

We really were surprised at Allie's reaction to the trains. She also liked looking at the poinsettias and the lights on the trees.

Our admission to the holiday express also included admission to the conservatory, so after we looked at the trains for awhile, we went to check out the conservatory. This was another big hit with Allie, though she seemed a little scared at first.

Her favorite things were the two waterfalls and the pond with the fish. She kept going back to the bridges and looking at the fish. This was another place she would have stayed all day!

The exhibit in the conservatory right now is treasures of the rainforest. We've only been in the conservatory once before, for the blooming butterflies exhibit almost five years ago soon after we moved here. It was when we went to that exhibit that we decided we wanted to have our wedding at the botanical gardens. Anyway, the blooming butterflies is a special exhibit and I didn't realize they change other exhibits too. This one goes til March so we'll have to check it out after March.

We went up to the second "floor" and saw the top of the rainforest. That was pretty neat. Allie liked looking up at the birds.

It was a lot of fun to walk around and see the cool plants. They had objects on display near some of the plants showing the products that come from the rainforest. That was pretty interesting.

We finished our afternoon with some cookies in the car on the way home. Allie took a nice long nap and Mama did the grocery shopping. This was a great family activity for a rainy Saturday and a great way to get into the Christmas spirit!

Moving on

It was strange cleaning out my cube today. I didn't have much time to reflect. It was a busy day of doing as much as I could to train my replacement. I think it was a great thing for me to be really busy on my last day in my old job. I had to stay a few minutes longer than my shift to fit in some last-minute training and clean up my cube. I left my box on my old desk and will take it to my new one on Monday.

I can't help thinking of the last time I cleaned out a work desk. It was three years ago a few days after I was laid off from my job at the Wisconsin State Journal. At the time I had no idea what I would do with the rest of my life. It took a year to get a job, and two more years after that, but I think I've found my career. I know what I'm doing for the rest of my life. Even though my next job is another project, I have the confidence that I will get permanent. I will continue to move up. I'll hold the same job for more than three years and be a lifer in unemployment insurance.

Nervous doesn't begin to describe how I feel right now. I'm excited for the opportunity, nervous to start doing totally different work than I've ever done, sad to leave the safety and comaraderie of my current office. While I didn't really have a lot of close friends there, I definitely have people I'll miss. Yes I'm just moving down the hall, but to a totally different department and I don't know how often our paths will cross. Its just weird. I'm the new girl again. It was easier when I started here two years ago because there were 16 of us starting together. This time I think its just me.

The next adventure starts Monday!

Sing a happy tune

Allie sings songs. Its music to my ears. We have a kids music CD that we listen to in the car almost every night on the way home from work or just whenever we're in the car. Allie sings along with the songs, but just certain words. She's getting more letters in the ABC song. She sings "home," "range" and "play" in Home on the Range. She claps when the song is over and then starts on the next one. We sing the 10 in the bed song, I'm not sure what its called. "There were 10 in the bed and the little one said roll over, roll over, so they all rolled over and one fell out." After everytime one falls out they say "oops" or "ouch!" or "again?" I love how she shouts "ouch!"

We sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as part of our bedtime routine. I lay her down but she stands up right away and we dance and sway while we sing. She sings along, more and more every night. I really want to try bringing the camcorder in with us one night to see if I could tape it. I know I say everything she does is precious, but this is awesome.

Her babies can ride in style

This week Allie got a late birthday present from Bridget, Teagan and Gianna. Its a stroller for her babies. It was a process to put it together, but Allie helped!

 Look! Monk poses for the camera too! We haven't taken any pictures of Monk lately.

Unfortunately by the time we got the stroller put together, it was past Allie's bedtime. But we did let her play with the stroller a little. She put her baby Sara, another birthday present, in the stroller. She was more interested, however, in the extra plastic things that we had to cut off the stroller pieces (that's one in her left hand in the bottom picture). Its still funny to us sometimes the things that catch her eye. After these pictures she threw Sara out and put the plastic pieces in.