Merry Christmas!

We had the most wonderful day-- one that started AND ended with giant mimosas and had a fancy brunch at a hotel and tons of presents in the middle. It was awesome.

The Cloud is being weird, so I have pictures from my real camera instead.

The boys chatting last night:

 Dorothy and me and her newly ever present Belle dress:

 Cooper, being Cooper

 Too cool for pics.

 She loves her new bed so much.

 I made them take a picture before heading downstairs to open presents.  They were all up by 6:40, despite being up until after midnight. SO CRABBY.

 I stuffed all the stockings with clothes, which were minimally satisfying.

 My new favorite picture in the world:

 She fell in love hard with her Frozen castle, which she first spotted at a Peoria Costco a few months ago and HAD TO HAVE.  It looked, um, smaller at Costco.

 Oh, Jack.  So sweet.

 I love the matching jams.

 Cooper's odd little world, all that remained after we finallypout everything away.

We should be home by midnight...

...And you know how well the kids do when they're off their schedules. Hahahahahahahaha. 

We had such an awesome Christmas Eve. We wanted to sleep in, but somebody has an ear infection and came in our bed at 5 am and slept loudly-- ahem-- Dorothy-- ahem. I took a walk outside and ran a little on the elliptical while Ben took her to the doctor. We had lunch, got dressed, and went to the Chicago suburbs to celebrate with Ben's parents and grandma. SO FUN!

Ironic Christmas t-shirts!

I did my hair in the car

The official measuring of the children on the Christmas snowman

I am becoming one of those fat ladies who only likes how she looks in selfies and is horrified when she sees a full body shot taken by someone else. 

Yay Christmas!

A Belle dress from Disney World-- she'll never take it off

OMG! Star Wars for the Wii U!

Harry got the Millenium Falcon giant Lego-- and equally big hit. And Cooper got a bunch of Star Wars guys and ships-- the little dorks are in heaven. Dorothy is on her way to having a killer Calico Critter collection, and she is telling us over and over that she wants to play with it in her yoom (room) when she gets home. We keep explaining that it's bedtime, but you guys, this is NOT GOING OVER WELL. 

Then we had Christmas Eve at Ben's grandma's just like he used to when he was little. 

See what I mean about the selfie v. The massive full body shot??

But I am not going to meet my fitness goals this weekend, so let's eat, drink, and be merry!

Buddy the crabby elf

I meant to blog yesterday, but I was up until after 1 wrapping presents, and you want to know the punchline?  Wait for it... I HAVE MORE TO WRAP TONIGHT.  Just the stragglers that were delivered today (Amazon FTW), but still.

Tonight in the next chapter of I-am-becoming-a-cliche-and-stressing-about-the-small-stuff-to-the-point-of-screwing-up-my-holiday-mood, I will be making cinnamon rolls and monster cookie dough and possibly fudge and drying the dog pee laundry I just did (towels that I used to soak up the river pf pee I stepped in on my way into Dorothy's room) so I can wash the matching Christmas jammies our Elf on the Shelf will deliver tomorrow.  We have late-night plans and will come home just in time to throw our exhausted selves in bed after laying out magical special presents and setting the table with Christmas Spode, hence the make-ahead rolls tonight.  I think I can still make the glaze on Christmas morning while Ben is wading through mounds of discarded wrapping paper and the kids are eating Fannie May suckers.  GAH.

Speaking of magical childhood memories, we held our annual cookie massacre yesterday:

Jack is so floury.  Dorothy and Cooper are so intent on their cookie making.

 Dorothy has been playing with gingerbread play doh and cookie cutters at school all month.  She's a pro.

 We dressed up fancy and di our hair and makeup for the occasion.  Obvi.

 Cooper only made zombie cookies.  He gets that from his father who always makes t-rexes among all the stars, trees, bells, stockings, wreaths, and snowmen.

 The aftermath of Dorothy's frosting area:

What if this is my last Christmas with a baby in footie pajamas?  If it is, I took lots and lots of pictures.

BREEEAAAK

I JUST SUBMITTED MY GRAAAAAAADES!

I am so, so, so happy about this.  I meet with my TAs one more time this afternoon and then BREAK!

Lest you think I was too busy to post yesterday because I was working, let me tell you that I was instead cleaning the house, dragging 2 preschoolers to the damn mall, and seeing Sisters.

Sisters was AWESOME, BTW.  You should probably go see it.

Cooper puked last night, sometime in the wee hours.  I don't know because he didn't wake us up.  He just wiped his chin on his shoulder and climbed into bed with Ben.  In the morning, in the context of a lazy how-did-you-sleep convo before we got up, he said, 'I sleep OK but I threw up a lot in my bed.  I couldn't go to the potty because I opened my mouth, and the puke was already there."  We bolted up to begin the mountain of laundry-- Cooper's bed, Ben's, all their pajamas, some stuffed animals, a pair of slippers, etc.  And then I went merrily to work.  I definitely go the better deal today even if Ben has the longer break.

Throwback to a time before the vomit (like Saturday):

Advice?

Halp!

Dorothy has has a cut on her face since JUNE, and she can't leave it alone to let it heal.  I put a Nexcare waterproof bandaid on it, and it irritated her skin and she scratched open all the irritated part, and now she looks like this:

 Adorable but totally scratched up and bleeding from the face almost everyday.  We have trimmed her fingernails, and we have tried not mentioning it at all, using Neosporin, using Mederma, and using liquid bandaids which she hates and no I can't take them off because to take them off you have to put them on again and then wipe while wet, and I don;t want to traumatize her.  Any thought?  I send a message to her pediatrician.

We went to Harry's hockey game and Costco today and left Beatirx outside pretty much all day and when we got home, she was brown and gray.  FILTHY.  Ben thinks she de-mulched the area under the boys' window and rolled aggressively in the dirt.  He had to bathe her the the tub downstairs and wash her dorky little harness.  Now she is clean and fresh and sparkly and he dried her with a ShamWow, which was amazing.

Last year's resolutions

Last year, I had grand resolution ideas for the new year, which I will revisit and update below.  I also had a great idea to do a gratitude jar.  In a perfect world, I wanted to usher in the new year reading our gratitude post-its on the beach somewhere.  But, alas, I am still afraid to fly (nightmares on the regular, even), and so we'll be reading them in cold, cold Madison.  We kind of stopped writing things down in this final quarter, but it was a really fun exercise.

The rest of my resolutions?  Not as successful.

• LOSE 20 POUNDS, DAMNIT.  For real.  Damnit.  I am tired of pictures of my face poking out from a mound of fat. This one did not happen.  Obvi.

• Read 100 books (again)  The month of December has been a complete reading fail, but I have definitely surpassed 100 books  Phew!

• Print photos every month and put them in a damn album already  This DID happen, but not until October.  In October, I printed every freaking picture I have taken since Dorothy was 1 (because when I have a small baby in the house, I do print pictures monthly because babies make everything better.)  And now, I just have to print a few every month to stay on track.  The album part did not happen, though.

• Finish Dorothy's baby book (SHAMEFUL, I know)-- this might be kind of a sub resolution of the photo one, but whatevs.  I AM GOING TO DO IT. Nope.  The half-finished book and all the keepsakes to tuck between its pages and all the pictures to cut up and paste in there are still sitting in my closet in a reusable shopping bag where they have been since her birthday party.  I kind of feel like that's as done as the book is going to be...

• Write.  Something besides this blog.  Poetry?  Fiction?  A goddamn journal article?  I DON'T CARE. ANOTHER FAIL.  But damn do I  wish I could do this.

Ok.  So.  I sucked at last year's resolutions.  That much is clear.  Less clear, though, is what the hell I am going to resolve to do this year and whether or not I can stick with it.

I think I can, if I use Gretchen Rubin's habit strategies.  I also need to pick things I want to do anyway, like the reading.  I have a few ore days to contemplate-- what about you?  Any good resoluition suggestions?

Yesterday in pictures (and 2 from today)

I was almost late to pick up the little kids from preschool because my mani-pedi ran long.  So long that my toes were wet, and I had to wear the stupid pedi slippers, so it would have been really obvious why I was late.  Not cool.

 My big toenails are bruised, so I can only do dark colors.  But that's OK because I am getting monthly massages and mani-pedis this year, and I decided to kick it off early.  Best New Year's resolution evar.

 Cooper helped me mail a few Chrismukkah cards

 And was really proud of his mailbox-flag raising skillz

 Oh, Dorothy.

 She's too much

 She even wears herself out.

 These guys were awesome gingerbread helpers.

 But I lost enthusiasm for the project way before it was over.

 STAR WARS DAY!  Ben and the boys loved the movie tonight, and everyone wore shirts to school.

 Dorothy was my sweet little dinner date.  And by sweet I mean she only tried to run out of the restaurant twice.  So.