The Bed-head of Cheez-its

Dawson and his love for Cheez-Its

Dawson, did you just wake up?

Speaking of Dawson just waking up...

Ever since we've gotten the tree up, Dawson's favorite thing is for it to be lit up.

His way of telling us this is by saying:

"Mommy, turn on Cwistmas. Pwease."

Is that not adorable?

He's also formed a bad habit of falling asleep in our bed when he wants to nap.

Let me tell ya something. He's heavy.

Oh but I just remembered something else that he says that is too cute.
"Mommy, it too fit".

This is when something is too small. For instance he has a pair of pants I was putting on him the other day that were a little tight in the belly. "Mommy, it too fit". He didn't want to suck in like his mommy has to do to get pants on!

Random:

Jason is so proud of this cake he made and frosted.

My fingers are nearly frozen to the keyboard so I'm outy like Jason's belly button.

Leaving you with video of a funny boy.

Carroty Cash Residence

When I split up all the words of "Ginger + Bread + House" and looked up each word in the Thesaurus. The title is what you get.

Welcome to my world.

Jason and I decided to do a gingerbread house with Dawson this year.

Dawson just wanted the candy.

Here are the components of the "residence".

Preliminary stages of the building process.

(Not recommended to do this with a perfectionist by the way)

Fully decorated, from needless angles.

The frosting is nasty by the way.

Great job guys!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

It snowed.

I have pictures as evidence.

Dawson's new coat has 3 zippers. There is a detachable coat on the inside, plus 2 zippers on the coat attachment on the outside. Why is that necessary? I’m going to say in all honesty that I’m glad it’s not buttons. He has on a hat, gloves, snow pants and boots. And really he should be on the cover of a toddler magazine called “Snow” if there were one.

I told Dawson I wanted to make snow angels. So I showed him how it’s done. I laid down in the snow and he watched me but when it was his turn he wanted no part of it. So I had to do a 10 minute explanation on the importance of snowy angels and then he was convinced. I should be a lawyer. For the CIA.

My angel

His… angel. (?)

I'll leave you with video of what a big helper he is:

I really do flip the video if you just give me a minute. Sorry

Just a Reminder...

That when no one else is ready for that perfect shot...

I AM.

What is THIS?

Before this goes to court, allow me to defend my case.

Ahem.

"Ladies and gentelmen of the jury, I stand before you today as a mother. A mother who trys to be the best possible mother in every situation. On this day, the 29th of November, 2008, I was preparing for my annual toe-nail painting. You see, I can only paint my toe-nails once a year because I'm so busy tending to my motherly duties on all other days that I cannot fit it into my schedule. So as you can see, I was very excited to keep this appointment I had made, to go to the kitchen, sit on the floor, and paint my toenails. I decided it was best for me to sit on the kitchen floor, because it was Saturday morning, and Dawson was in the living room watching cartoons. I would be able to multi-task by painting my toenails AND keep an eye on my son at the same time. Very clever. I laid the supplies around me and as I did so, my curious 2 year old came over and plopped himself down beside me. Allow me to share with you the conversation we had."

Dawson: what you doin' mommy?

Me: Painting my toenails honey, why dont' you watch cartoons?

Dawson: painting you toenails? (sometimes he forgets to add the "r" to some words)

Me: I sure am

(At this point, Dawson takes off his socks and puts his feet beside mine)

Dawson: Mommy, you paint my toes?

Me: Honey, your daddy would freak out if I painted your toenails

Dawson: Daddy freak out?

Me: Yep.

Dawson: Mommy, paint this toe. PWEASE. Pwease mommy, paint this toe.

"As you can see, to ensure that I continue to be the best possible mother, I felt that I needed to at least paint his big toe. He was being polite. Thinking this would appease him, I just painted one toe. But then he saw I was painting all of my toes. On both feet. So he asked to have each of his toes painted as well. Which I did. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask that you look into your hearts, and find it within yourself to find favor with me. And possibly paint your toenails on this very night, so that you can empathize with a mother like myself.

Thank You.

Jason eventually forgave me.

Cheese Art.

This is just a preview of the great things I have in store from my talented son. Who knew what he is capable of? This could be sold on ebay. I think it looks like the Pope.
It's way better than those finger paintings by 4 year olds that are proclaimed as idealist style. I just made that up.
Now I just have to keep asking myself what the internal nature was of this creative genius that expressed itself through cheese and pretzels. And seriously. Does Dawson not know what waste this was? Pretzels and cheese do not grow on trees Dawson. Hey, that rhymed. "Pretzels and cheese do not grow on trees.". I may get that published in a psychological thriller I write someday. Because everyone knows that psychological thrillers about pretzels and cheese are a hot commodity.

Here he is, as though saying "Voila"!

You can see the detail in the arrangement. How he put all those crumbs to good use.

You can also see how stinking cute dimples are in toddler hands.

Dawson will be signing autographed pictures of his famous art at a Barnes & Noble near you.

This will be the professional photo on the inside spine cover his new book.

The Airplane.

Dawson's current favorite toy of all time is his airplane. He asks for it each day when he wakes up, and asks to take it to bed with him. On occasion he begs to allow the airplane to bathe when he does. And as a result of all this attention, the airplane has about 10 less pieces on it then when it was initially bought for him by Grandma G.

Due to the fondness he holds for this toy, he loves anything to do with airplanes at all. He found a book that used to be mine when I was little, and inside are several pictures of airplanes.

Dawson discovered this and couldn't stop talking about it, as you will see by the following videos:

The magazine Jason is reading has an advertisement in it with a picture of Abraham Lincoln. What you don't see is Jason holding up the picture and announcing that Abraham Lincoln looks like Kramer from Seinfeld.

He's starting to get just a little excited.

How high can it go Dawson?

Where would I be if Dawson could READ?

Gas Station Food

This morning on my way in to work I had to stop at the gas station to get gas in my car

I have an uncanny love for gas station cappuccino. When I used my thesaurus just now, to see if uncanny was the word I wanted to use, these were my other options:

Eerie
Weird
Strange
Mysterious
creepy

I preferred not to use the word creepy in my confessed love for gas station cappuccino's. Please forgive me.

While I was adding extra flavors (hazelnut creamer) to my french vanilla treat, a woman came up beside me and laid her gas station food on the counter right in front of me. This fine specimen she chose was wrapped in a package labeled "Tornado".

Hmmm.

As I considered the fact that this woman was going to consume this edible object entitled "tornado" I had a feeling that indeed it was going to be a tornado...for her rear.

In other news...

Dawson thinks he's Iron Man.

Jason wears these socks around the house because he keeps our house at 25 degrees in the winter to save money. Dawson found the socks and wanted to put them on. These socks are so powerful that suddenly he was transformed into his favorite superhero.

This picture looks like he's trying to get the camera, but in actuality, this is what he does when he's using his Iron Man arm to shoot me.

Unfortunately the all powerful Iron Man socks have no traction.

Decorating with Christmas Cheer

Can we just take a moment to discuss the ills of Christmas decorating with an OCD perfectionist?

Let me use an example from my own household that took place this weekend as we prepared to hang decorations on our tree.

Joy: I'm soooo excited to decorate with Dawson this year.

(I begin placing bows randomly on the tree)

Jason: Stop. Do you see this empty space? A silver bow should go here. Don't get them too close together either.

Joy. Are you being serious right now? Oh wait. You are.

Of course this is after 1/2 an hour of placing lights strategically on the tree to the optimum effect of the tree being well lit. In addition to the ornaments being laid in alphabetical order on the table according to height in preparation to be placed on the proper branch on the tree.

Yeah. That's what I live it.

I'm a neat freak, but I could overcome that if I really wanted to.

So begins the decorating of our house for Christmas in the year 2008.

Here's our strategically placed, perfectally ornamented tree in all it's glorious splendor.

This is the same tree when I use the flash on the camera.

Once Jason conquered his fear of badly placed ornaments he allowed Dawson to hang some:

If we would have allowed Dawson to do the decorating I fear Jason's whole Christmas would have been ruined. Or he would have to take a pill to overcome the shakes.

I have since realized this is the reason he waits until the very last minute to get our decorations down from the attic. He used to blame it on me saying I always want to decorate too early. I've deciphered that little scheme now. Another reason I should be in the CIA.

Here's my masterfully skilled camera work of our stockings hanging with care.

Now that I think about it, in Jason's defense, our tree is asymmetrically and aesthically pleasing to the eye. thank you honey.

And the previous pictures is the extent that we go to in decorating our house. No outside lights, though last year Jason splurged and bought 2 wreaths to hang on the lights on either side of the garage door. We also put out our brand new, never been used, nativity scene and I forgot to take a picture of it! Not that any are different really.

And since I was afraid to bore people with my lack of Christmas decorations I took the following pictures:

A picture of the tree looking through the mirror in the living room.

A picture of me taking a picture of the tree in the mirror.

Jason took this one. (I'm sure he was inspired by my creative genius) A picture of the reflection of the tree in the coffee table.

And in the spirit of things, here is my niece Kazlan's Christmas list, which I found to be so darling I asked my sister if I could have it to scan and put on the blog:

I'll leave you with the few pictures we snapped of Dawson with the tree:

Here he looks like he could be on the verge of being happy, thought slightly confused.

Here he looks positively terrified.

Here he is running from whatever it is that is terrifying him.

Perhaps it's the strategically placed silver bow behind his head.

Girls Night

You are about to embark on a journey like no other.

Prepare yourself.

******** .. ******

On black Friday my sisters and I always opt for a shopping day. We meet in the morning and beat up all manner of hoodlums as we purchase the perfect gifts for each other. That's what Christmas is all about, you know?

But this year, because our pockets were empty yet our hearts were full, we decided it would be Fantastically Fun to have a girls night. Where we'd get together, just us girls and eat, watch movies, play games, eat and possibly also eat, if we had time.

We made this decision on Thanksgiving Day and I told everyone to come to my house at precisely 5:00 p.m. for the partying to commence.

At about 5:45 (some of my sisters who shall remain nameless, do not live by clocks and therefore I should know to tell them to be somewhere exactly one hour earlier, but I didn't think they'd be late to party. I was wrong)

ANITA & KAREN:

Everyone who reads my blog knows you both now, and if they ever want to invite you somewhere they know you'll be late.

I feel better now.

(how'd the little boy in the blue pajamas sneak in there?)

We ordered Jim's pizza -a pizza which cannot be surpassed if you are ever in my area, though your arteries and colon will hate you the next day.

We all wore our pajamas.

I talked my MOM and my sister Bobbie into playing Wii bowling.

Neither had played Wii before.

I made artichoke dip, buffalo chicken dip and Jason and I made buckeyes.

We also had PEPSI (I refuse parties where Pepsi is not represented) and salad because Karen thought adding salad to the buffet would make life easier on our colon after the Jim's pizza.

Kazlan introduced new dance moves to Dawson.

Then we watched August Rush my sister Bobbie's absolute all-time favorite movie.

And then it was time for everyone to head home. Which made me and my house sad. I had to make my house feel better and eat 2 more buckeyes before bed.

Before I forget, Bobbie brought Dawson this hat which he wears all the time now:

He was saying "ooooh."

That's his new favorite thing to say.

My new favorite thing to say is "slog". So I'm going to use it in a sentence.

I slogged to the bathroom this morning after getting out of bed because I had my electric blanket on and it's 95 degrees warmer than our house.

I would also like to announce at this time that spell check has nothing to say about my word slog. Perhaps spell check has someone in the family with that name.

A Charlie's Angels Thanksgiving

By the way, that title is copyrighted, as I just made it up, yet I'm accepting offers to use it in a movie deal. Be sure to keep the figures in the 6 digits when you make an offer.

Can you believe I forgot to take a picture of my sister's centerpieces she had on our tables this year? Where was my mind? In my defense, I refused myself food all morning until it was time to eat Thanksgiving dinner and by then it was between 1:00 and 1:30. My mind cannot function properly without food. Which is the reason I could definitely work for the CIA because if I were ever kidnapped and tortured for information, they would never get the info they seek if they deprived me of food. And that is why I should work for the CIA. I've always wanted to you know.

HaPpY tHaNkSgIvInG.

Whew. That actually took me a few minutes to get all those letters to look like a ransom note. If you are typing out your blog right now and you don't have the time for frivolous things such as that, I don't recommend it.

My brother-in-law David has never in the history of our Thanksgivings in his home, sat down to eat his dinner. He makes the food, makes himself a plate and eats it while he cleans up. I think he has never been diagnosed with ADD but I don't want to be the one to tell him that. He does a GREAT job on the turkey though! Do you see our delicious spread there? Very colorful, I might add.

Here's the T-Day family. In the first picture, my sister Karen's head was blocking out my mom. So I had to retake the picture. If you look closely, you can kind've see the beautiful display of centerpiece arrangements my sister Bobbie created. She's quite the Martha. As in Stewart. Not as in the Martha of the Bible, because she got chastised by Jesus. Jesus was very proud of my sister's T-Day centerpieces. He told me so.

Here are my Thanksgiving day cousins, nieces and nephews.

I was so excited to have my cousin Mikey with us this year. I never get to see him.

He's TALL.

Actually, we all look dwarfed compared to him in this picture.

Dwarfed. That's a funny word.

I was quite the picture taking nazi this year. So I made my bro-in-law and my sis let me take a picture of them taking a picture of me. And I was very bossy about it.

Me with my sister Karen.

As you can see by the freaky smile, turkey has an ill effect on me. Once it starts kicking in, I get crazy. Another good reason I should work for the CIA. If I'm ever kidnapped, tortured and fed turkey, there's a good chance I'll go all kung-fu on the enemy. And that's when the idea for Charlie's Angels pictures hit me.

"Let's pose for pictures Charlie's Angels style!" I said.

It was because at this time, the turkey had taken the sleepy effect on the rest of my family and they were all compliant with this request.

My sister Anita, Karen and myself.

Warning: The following pictures show an absurd amount of my Thanksgiving Day "I ate half a turkey" belly. You were warned.

It was getting my mom talked into the pictures that encouraged everyone in the household to be free, come forth and conquer. And stuff like that.

This one went a little haywire. Sorry Karen.

My niece Shadow, me and my niece Felicia.

You can plainly see they did not eat as much turkey as I did.

My niece Kazlan wanted in on the action, and I must say, I think she's the real deal.

The MEN were not nearly as compliant. But photogenic nonetheless.

By now, I'm all charlie'd out. And it's time for my mom's traditional T-Day play.

This one was about King David.

My bro-in-law David got to be king just because of the name.

That happened to me in 6th grade when I wanted the solo to the little orphan Annie song "Tomorrow" in our fall concert. And instead the music teacher gave it to my classmate named Annie! Go figure.

The nieces and nephews were servants.

Dawson was supposed to be a servant too, but he refused to keep the scarf on his head that my mom brought for him. Instead, he crawled up and down the stairs while my mom read the play.

My sisters were scared to talk this year at Thanksgiving, for fear that I'd blog about it.

So I challenged my sister Nita and my nephew Mikey to a game of fish, knowing full well that the picture would show up on the blog. So there.