Meet Chewy

How could I forget to introduce Chewy??? Jimmy and Melissa gave IV a chinchilla for Christmas. IV named him Chewy-- and the little booger is ALWAYS hungry. I accidentally gave him too many raisins-- I had no idea he could only have one a day. He was hanging on the cage and BEGGING, doing little flips for me, ..... so I kept feeding him. Oops.
He is really soft but isn't all that cuddly. And it is really unfortunate that his turds look EXACTLY like his food pellets, but he seems to know the difference--ha ha. Spencer and IV want to "play" with him but Chewy is still a little shy-- and fast as lightening. I think he needs to get used to all the noise and his new home!

Happy Christmas!

Spencer put out cookies and milk, left food and apples for the reindeer, put on his new Christmas jammies, said his prayers and went to sleep like a good boy Christmas Eve. I, on the other hand, stayed up half the night working on "things." It was worth every second-- he was so happy Christmas morning! He was excited and couldn't "land" on any one gift for more than 2 seconds!
My favorite part of the morning was when he stopped unwrapping his gifts midway through his big 'ol stack of presents. He ran upstairs to his room and brought down a bag of gifts my dad and brother helped him buy. The first one I unwrapped was a beautiful scarf and Spencer was almost giddy to watch me open my presents-- there aren't many 7 year olds that would stop unwrapping presents and get excited to see his mom unwrap a scarf.
The rest of the day was filled with lots of family fun and traditions. I, of course, got tons of pictures! Mom and Dad got me a new computer--this one is dying a slow and painful death. I need to get all my photos off of this one ASAP and then perform an exorcism. My new PC rocks, but I HATE HATE HATE Vista. Speaking of photos, check out Spencer in his cute Christmas Jammies, Mom and Dad, and me and my buddy: Drunk Julie.

Dashing through the...city

We are pretty lucky that most of our family live within a 30 minute drive--so today was Holiday on the Highway day. We dropped presents off for neighbors, friends, family/cousins, godparents, and Nana Becky. I love this picture with his cousins! Christmas Day may be State RED but looking at this picture Christmas Eve is all CAROLINA BLUE baby!

The most wonderful time of the year...

Who would have imagined.... Christmas Spirit came in a green Volvo today. I got a call from my Organizational Manager asking to drop off some donations for my Mobile Meals route recipients. She (and her family) drove all the way from Charlotte (at least 90 minutes each way) and brought me 14 bags of wonderful items that my Mobile Meals folks will truly appreciate. My route has several recipients who, after paying for their utilities and medicine, have no disposable income and are in poor health. Senior Resources helps with food and driving them to doctor appointments, etc. but some things you don't think about are actually luxuries to them: lotion, warm socks, slippers, lip balm, cookies, scarves, hats, robes, toothbrushes, etc. She organized an entire team drive to support these folks and I am just so impressed! Nothing fills your heart like being part of something wonderful.

Ho-Ho-Hold the phone!

Guess who called Spencer tonight??? Santa! I was really busy wrapping presents so Spencer answered the phone for me and it was Mr. Claus himself! He knew ALL about Spencer. He talked with him about his teachers, his class, his cousins, Nana and Boppa, which presents he wants, he even knew that Mommy has told Santa that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES is Santa to bring Spencer a puppy. Santa had a few special requests himself: he wants chocolate milk with his sugar cookies this year--and Rudolph wants an apple.

At first, Spencer was embarrassed and shy; but a couple minutes into the conversation he was delighted! Santa was awesome and he sure made my little guy happy!

So... we made a gingerbread house, had dinner, got a bubble bath, and was having hot chocolate and watching Frosty the Snowman when Santa calls up-- was this a great evening or what?

Gingerbread Mess

Spencer and I built a Gingerbread house this evening. I bought a kit for us, cause they had to be idiot proof, right? Well I showed them!

First of all, you have to have hands of steel to successfully squeeze that thick, gloopy, white cement they call "icing." They might as well call it candy glue.
One of our little gingerbread men was already broken when I opened the box, so Spencer decided to eat him. One bite in, he spit it out and thought I had tricked him into eating a dog biscuit. I could NOT convince him otherwise. If you see my son, please let him know gingerbread IS NOT dog food and Mommy was telling the truth.

We managed to build the house and Spencer decorated it with lots of candy-- it was fun! but... just after I snapped this picture, the roof slid off and collapsed. SO just in case you are wondering, the tensile strength of gingerbread icing is 15 gumballs and 4 spree.

On the naughty list!

Santa needs to put tech support on the Naughty list! I have been trying to recover files for work (on my FAVORITE project no less!) for hours and hours now! It's like beating your head against a brick wall.... You know I can't get my Fa-La-La on until I get this fixed!!!

Free Rice Addict

Have you see the Free Rice Site?
You can help battle world hunger by testing your vocabulary. It is a fun game that as you "win" you earn grains of rice for the United Nations. (The advertisers on the site donate the rice.) It's kind of addictive...
Go to the site: http://www.freerice.com

Celebration Station

We met Gena, Destiny and Steven tonight at Celebration Station for a mini-holiday party for the kids. They burned through game tokens much faster than Celebration Station can cook a pizza! The kids had a blast-- Spencer could barely eat a slice of pizza with the distractions of games, presents, rides and prizes! Gena and I decided that this was an easy play date for the kids and we are going to plan another one again soon!

Cherubs

Spencer and IV had their Christmas program at Church tonight. All the kids were fantastic! Kelley does an amazing job with them! Spencer cracked us up tapping his hands to the beat while they were still in his pockets! My pictures were horrible...between being too far away and the lighting-UGH!
Besides the bad pictures, everything else was great. The entire family was there-- we all had supper together at the church and then watched the Christmas program. At the end of the play, Spencer and IV RAN off the stage for big hugs-- they were SO proud of themselves!

Uh oh!

Spencer and IV both received letters from the North Pole today and ironically they said the same thing--- Santa has checked the "GOOD" list and their names weren't on there! Santa said he will check it again next week (because he always checks it twice!) to see if they have been good!

IV made sincere promises to Jimmy that he was definitely going to be good so he would get presents. My poor, sensitive Spencer cried. I am positive Santa did NOT mean for the letter to upset him-- just to motivate him to behave-- but he was so disappointed that Santa thought he had been bad that he was just heartbroken. I felt so sorry for him!

After a short phone call to IV, Spencer felt much better about it and will make sure he ends up on the Good List.

Croppin' instead of Shoppin'

I have a mound of should haves (should have worked, should have cleaned, should have done laundry, really should have Christmas shopped, should have wrapped gifts, should have baked, etc.) but instead I cropped this weekend. I had SO MUCH ELSE I should have been doing, why didn't I feel guilty?

This is one of my favorite layouts from this weekend. I got a package of the Basic Grey holiday undressed chipboard and "Peace" looked almost sarcastic on a page with Spencer and IV.... since we all know just how loud the two of them are together!

Kitty Kitty

Spencer used both of his Build a Bear birthday gift certificates tonight to make an orange cat (Baxter, of course) and dressed him as Puss in Boots from Shrek. SO yes, he made a cat and then proceeded to dress him as a cat, cause that's how he rolls.

We don't normally go out on a school night, but he was really down last night and I made him a promise that we could spend his birthday certificates tonight as long as we didn't stay out late. I'm not sure if he had a post-birthday and vacation let down or if losing his grandfather and our family pet in the same week caught up with him or if he just needed extra hugs. I'm not complaining though, I'm just glad he is still small enough to hold!

He also got new Heelys tonight. I will probably regret that purchase.

On the way to the mall tonight, I put the radio on the "all Christmas" station and the 80's fundraiser song for Africa "Do they know it's Christmas" came on. Man! that is a depressing holiday song when you have to try to explain it to a little kid! I just had to change the subject with him--he's too young for that burden. You know, they would never get that many artists in a room now days. No one can go anywhere without their entourage, plus all the feuds, etc. Sad, huh?

So, besides being slammed at work, I have a holiday party this week, indoor soccer registration, need to exchange Spencer's indoor soccer shoes for a different size and I HAVE GOT TO FIND TIME to buy Spencer new pants. We ran out of time at the mall tonight. We are down to two pair of jeans and he has NOTHING to wear to church! All of a sudden, none of his pants fit!

Happy Birthday Spencer!!

Happy Birthday Spencer! I can't believe my "baby" is 7 years old today! We had a great costume party today and we had a big inflatable jumpy with a slide - all the kids had a blast! For dinner tonight, Spencer chose HOOTERS...because he likes owls. Seriously, that's what he said.