What a Christmas!

I kept loading movies throughout the day today and so now there are several up on the new photobucket account. I also put up some photos. They're just ones I've taken, so they're not great like JM's. But she did take a few on Christmas Eve, so we might have some good ones soon!

Nicky had a wonderful Christmas. He came out of his room running and was just awed by all the stuff Santa brought.



It was a while before he even noticed the wrapped gifts by the tree (Santa doesn't wrap at our house). Tom helped him go through his Santa gifts and stocking and then we had breakfast.


After breakfast he got dressed and we went outside to see what Santa left outside. He had so much fun with his water table and sandbox.




Then he had a nap, lunch, more time outside, a bath and then it was time for Christmas dinner and more presents! It was after dinner that we finally got to the wrapped gifts. Each one took a long time to open. He was more interested in playing with all the toys he could see than in opening new ones.

Then today my dad and Gwen came by on their way back to GA. They brought even more presents! Nicky had a lot of fun playing with more new stuff.

Whew, who says Christmas is only one day? Ours was at least three.

Health update: Tom's sick, Nicky's sick, Donna's getting better and I'm still ok so far, just tired.

4000 minutes of uploading for this movie

Not sure why, but this video took FOREVER to upload. I actually started a whole new photobucket account for it because I thought maybe the old one was just too full. But it still took over an hour. But in my opinion it's worth it. This is a movie of Nicky running out to see what Santa brought him for the first time ever. What a cutie!

There are more movies to come, but if that first one is any indication they might take a while. I'm off to bed now. Donna is sick and Nicky, Tom and I seem to be coming down with it too. Tis' the season, or something like that.

Merry Christmas!

We've been having a busy few weeks here. Sorry I've been lax on the posting lately. I'll get better!

First Nicky came down with a mystery fever on Sunday two weeks ago. Tom was at church and we'd just put up the tree that day. Nicky was having fun playing with the tree and then we went to watch a movie so that I could clip his nails (it's my trick to keep him distracted and still). It didn't take long before I noticed his tummy felt hot. I thought maybe I'd dressed him too warmly, but his eyes looked a little glassy too. I took his temp before putting him to bed and it was 103.1. I gave him some motrin and put him to bed. I called his pediatrician and the nurse said as long as he's not showing any other signs we can probably wait till morning. The only thing we'd noticed was he hadn't eaten well the past day or two, which is unusual for him, but he'd been drinking fine, no puking, sneezing or anything else. He was still running a temp when Tom got home and we gave him more medicine at about 2am when he was still at 102. By morning it was down to nearly normal though. We didn't end up taking him to the doctor or anything. So we guess he was just fighting off a little bug. Amazing thing is this is the first really high fever he ever had. I don't think we'd ever even taken his temp before. I was so glad we'd gotten a good thermometer and I was proud of myself for handling it well with Tom out of the house. Good momma!

Since then I've spent every evening after Nicky was in bed making Christmas gifts. I have photos that I'll put up once everyone has gotten theirs. I think everything turned out so pretty! We did end up buying two things, but everything else, including the boxes, are homemade!

We do have one other project that Tom was working on with Nicky for gifts though. It's not going so well. Our first idea totally wouldn't work and now our second idea was a bust too. Projects that require the cooperation of a 21 month old aren't as easy as we thought they'd be. Especially when this 21 month old refuses to touch anything mushy or moist. Aw well. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve so I think we've called off that project. Maybe next year. See the videos here. I loaded up two of them.

Now we have Tom's mom, sister and brother in law in town. (Video of Nicky talking to Maryellen on the phone here.) My dad and stepmother are coming on Christmas day, so we'll have a big crowd for Nicky's second Christmas. I think it's going to be a lot of fun! We're all going to have Christmas Eve dinner over at Tom's dad and JM's house, kind of early I hope, and open gifts from each other (we drew names this year). Nicky will open a present too, one from Grandma and Grandpa. Then we'll head home and put Nicky to bed. Nana will stay with Nicky while Tom and I go to midnight mass. And then Christmas morning will be stockings and presents from Santa and everyone else for Nicky. He's got a lot to look forward to this year! I'll give a full report and photos after Christmas.

The Fab-Four Meme

Another meme. This looked like a fun one over at a new blog I just found. Hi Sweetisu!

4 Places I’ve lived:
* Woodstock, GA
* Davie, FL (near Ft. Lauderdale)
* Memphis, Tennessee (3 worst months EVER)
* Clearwater, FL

4 Jobs I’ve had:
* Telemarketer (it was HELL)
* Customer Service person (loved it)
* Elementary Teacher (still have nightmares)
* Coordinator at academic library

4 Jobs I wish I had:
This is an interesting one. I've asked myself recently what my ideal job would be and I truly can't think of one!! So how about one that meets these four criteria:
* Where I make enough money to live comfortably one one income (say 75k)
* Where I can use my teaching skills
* That is service oriented (rather than sales)
* Where I can make a difference

4 places I’ve holidayed:
What's a holiday? If it means sleeping somewhere other than in a family member's house these are the only ones I can think of. Clearly I need to get out more.
* Disney World: we camped at Fort Wilderness and visited the three main parks (best holiday EVER)
* We camped once for half a night at my inlaws horse farm in Citra, FL
* We stayed at a hotel once in Dawsonville, GA while visiting my dad
* We stayed the night at a hotel one night in Clearwater, FL where Tom's company had a fancy Christmas party in a hotel on the beach

4 Favorite foods:
* Sushi
* Pizza
* Tom's Chicken & Mushroom/wine cream sauce over rice
* Beef Stew

4 Places I’d rather be:
I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be than here in my house with my husband and sweet baby. Well, unless you're saying money is no object, cause in that case my hubby and baby can join me in:
* Hawaii
* Aruba or other tropical island
* The Grand Canyon (I'm GOING to see this place darn it!)
* Alaska (but not really NOW, more like in July!)

4 Bloggers I like to pass this meme onto:
Psst! I tag YOU, YOU, YOU, and YOU! Yeah, you guys, the ones reading right now!

Frustrated Over Lead...AGAIN

This is really getting out of hand! I'm so sick of hearing about lead and other dangers with toys. It's seriously getting to the point where I'm thinking we're just going to have to start carving, whittling, knitting and sewing all Nicky's toys by hand.

If you read that link and follow the links she has you'll find this article about how Fisher Price has recalled a toy in Illinois, but is still selling on it's website! It's a very popular toy too. One I would normally have considered getting for Nicky if he were another year older.

And if you follow the link to this blog and then to the source of that photo you'll see these ducks that Nicky's had since he was born! He's been chewing on those ducks in the bath forever!

Now the really funny thing is we just did some lead testing yesterday. We tested all four pieces of the art deco furniture for Nicky's room. It's really old and we were sure it was lead paint, but nope. It's lead-free! Awesome!

We tested:
his crib since some of the paint is chipping (lead free)
his Elmo phone (lead free)
his "the cow says MOOO" toy (lead free)
the old ceramic tiles in the bathroom (lead free).

And then today I see that his rubber duckies might have lead. (Who knows if they are from the same year/batch as the ones in the photo?)

How the heck are you supposed to trust anything that you don't test yourself? I'm telling you, a good business plan might be to shell out the 50k for an industrial testing device and charge folks to bring their toys to test. Charge 2$ a toy, you'd probably make money on it.

Why isn't that a service we have in our communities?

And more importantly, WHY aren't all toys randomly tested? As I understand it, the FDA randomly tests foods, drugs and cosmetics. Why aren't our toys tested with the same frequency? I keep hearing they have ONE person in charge of safety testing all toys! How is that even possible?

The Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator: Harry Potter Style

According to this I'm most like:


Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

I took the actual Myers-Briggs a year or so ago. I'll have to look up my results and see if this is close.

Tom is most like:


Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

And he just did one of these at a retreat last weekend and it came out this way.

Interesting.

Thanks to Sarah for the link!