Christmas 2007

Over the last several days alot has happened due to the holidays. Mike's family came to visit and my Mom made her annual trip. This was her first Christmas morning with Mike and I (and Rooney too!). The tradition of orange rolls proceeded but many traditions have to adapt to new families being formed and we "forgot" to watch Christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve! Chevy you were missed. Christmas morning found us without a working camera so hopefully I'll get some pics from Mom soon (no pressure Mom but the world is waiting) and so much happened that I could not possibly go over it all. I'm posting a few pics here but hopefully we'll have a whole series posted on Flickr soon!

Sing For Your Breakfast

A Cupcake For Cheesie

Since we formed our new group we've been as busy as ever. Really...just the way I like it! But recently we've been able to reconnect with some of our old friends we don't get to see as often. This weekend we went to a friend's birthday party where we built graham cracker houses. Mike built the structure then I decorated. I really decorated the hell out of this thing too. It was beautiful. So beautiful and tempting in fact, that when we got home and relaxed after an afternoon of 2 year olds hopped up on candy, we were horrified to find out Courage ate the house! Good bye house. I loved you for the 2 hours I had you. Thankfully today at Toddler Time at Krista's house we made new graham cracker houses. I didn't get to spend as much time on this one but Roonster and I are proud.


Rooney is really talking now. He knows all his colors and can even say purple. Sometimes his words sound the same but Mom can usually decipher what he is saying. He is also starting to count. Sometimes when he is chasing Dad he'll say 2-1-Go and sometimes he says 2, 1, 3, 7, 8, 9 but he is getting the concept. He has also discovered the dramatic arts and has taken to acting like a dog.

The other day while I was making Rooney a sandwich I was giving Rocco the cut off crusts if he did "sits" and "downs". As I went to give Rocco a crust I see Rooney next to Rocco in the "down" position and he was doing a little barking. So I gave him a crust. This went on for awhile until I ran out of bread. Later that night I made Rooney a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. This is not something I was able to get him to eat in the past but I thought I should try again. He wouldn't sit down at the table to eat so I let him get up. I started cleaning up the dishes when he started doing his doggie noises again and was down on all 4's. I was able to get him to eat 1/2 of his sandwich this way. Not something I would normally look favorably on but sometimes you just have to go with what works.

Finally, I'll end this post with some random pictures from the week. With the new club we are making new friends and getting to play at cool new places. However, right before we left MOMS Club a picture was published of us in Renton Magazine. They did a story on MOMS Club so we became famous. Click on Renton Magazine to check out the article. We are on Page 12.

Creating Fuzzy Memories

The holidays are really upon us. I have managed to put that fact to the back of mind for a little while now. I did do my Christmas shopping early but I kept fooling myself that we had alot of time left but you know what...we don't! Mike and I better get on the ball and start creating some memories for Roon!

Last week Mike got our Christmas lights up. Checked off this list. Christmas cards sent out. Crossed off the list. Mike's Christmas shopping. Can't find it on the list. No, no it all got done (except the Christmas cards- sorry where did the time go?) but we did manage to get our tree up (fake again! Where did the time go?) and decorated and we even managed to get a little house decorating done too! We desperately need to clean though. Still on the list but we've got time, right?

Despite all the above nonsense we did get out with our new club members and visited the Botanical Gardens: Garden D'Light. This was really cool because they created all these plants out of light. It was beautiful and the kids all really seemed to enjoy it. Not really a Christmas themed event but they have it every year at Christmas time.


We have a week left of Christmas themed activities before family starts arriving to really kick off the season. Wednesday we have Storytime with Santa. I'm interested to see how this will go. Rooney is frightened of the giant blow up Frosty at the Community Center. I wonder if a living, breathing Santa will intrigue him or scare him? Maybe a peace offering of cookies will keep Santa subdued! Or maybe I'll try to desensitize Rooney to Santa if I keep showing him his 1st picture with Santa.

That picture isn't scary at all!

This post was authored by Q

Rooney's Dream Kitchen

So it's been done. Our new moms group has been formed, it's been put online and we have some members. Whew! That was the scary part. Albeit most of the current members are our old friends from the previous club but we have several pending members. So we're off and running. I've linked the new badge to our group below on the sidebar of the blog.


In the attempt to write this post I realized that sometimes spending a little money at an unnecessary time could really prove to be necessary...if you know how to shop. Just this week I saw this incredible deal during my recent classifieds search. Someone was selling a play kitchen stocked with play food for $15. I was not in the market to buy Roonster anymore toys but I thought what a great deal. I sat on it a day or so but in that time, the places that we went, had play kitchens and Rooney was very occupied with them. Because of this (and the great price) I decided to purchase the little kitchen. We got it the day before yesterday & I cleaned it all up and washed all the play food last night. Rooney solidly played with his little kitchen for over an hour- then I forced him to take a nap. However, he did manage to convince me to let him sleep with not one, but two, of his fake cupcakes! This morning I have yet to have to usual "momma's bed" fight with him because as I write this post he is happily playing with his little play kitchen and is surrounded by all this fake food that he knows I will never ask him to eat.


He really has the best of both worlds right now and Mom can sit in wonder again at his imaginative play.

Hooray for fake food!

Rocket Man

Since Roonster and I haven't been as busy lately we have to make our own fun. Lucky for Rooney Mom is selling baby/toddler toys. Rooney is playing with a new toy we received. Can you believe I had to teach him how to stomp on it? I may have shot myself in the foot with that one but he had alot of fun and he even taught himself how to put the rockets back on the launcher. I was really trying to get an action shot here to put on my BabyCrazy website and after many, many pictures I thought these were pretty cute.

Recently, Mike and I fully baby proofed Roonster's room. We did this for a few reasons (besides safety). We anticipated having to do this for that dreaded day when Rooney is a. climbing out of his crib consistently and b. when he is finally in a toddler bed. There is another reason too, which is, now we have a safe place to put Rooney for his tantrums (they have started) and also a safe place for him to play if we have to be away from him for awhile. So far it has been working great. We put a bookshelf at little boy height and a little rocking chair too. He loves it! Roon is definitely in the two's now. He has successfully climbed out of his crib twice and has stripped himself naked once. He calls Mommy & Daddy's bed "my bed" and he wants what he wants and you'll do yourself a favor if you can anticipate what that is before he thinks of it. These moments are generally more funny than irritating though and if they do become irritating we have a fully childproofed room to let him work whatever he needs out. Whew!


Finally, today is the 1st day of December and it is also the 1st snowfall of the winter (hopefully the last). We woke up to a pretty little sheet of snow. Courage and Rocco loved it. Sadly for them (good for me) it melted pretty quickly.