Brothers & Sisters

Nate and Tessa have your traditional brother and sister relationship. From day one, of Tessa's life that is, we have told Nate that he has great responsibility as a big brother. Big brothers protect little sisters. All the teachers at school have told us how protective he is of her. They give examples that he tries to check on her in the preschool classroom several times per day and he always saves her a spot in line with him. But, as most brother and sister relationships go, it's not all love-love. I hesitate to use the word hate because I used to get in trouble for saying hate, oh my god and sucks when I was a kid. But, where there is yin there is yang. Therefore, where there is love there is *@^#, you know. So they hug but they also hit. They kiss but they also bite. They share but they are also borrow without permission. So, when I found a small toy gun aimed at Miss T's face while she was napping on the couch one day, I wondered if her brother was showing love or not so much? It is not a secret that I am NOT a fan of guns. Toy guns included. But, I did get a little chuckle out of it all. And, I choose to believe that it was set there for her in case she needed to protect herself while her brother was busy playing Geotrax!

*I had to include the picture of Troy playing on the computer with the kids. His hair is looking rather Lloyd Christmas-y!

Final Round Presents - Baughman Family Christmas

Kelly and Sam hosted the Baughman family Christmas this year. This final stop of our Christmas vacation filled the van to the brim! We'd walked in the door and Gramma Gayla was already sitting the kids down and handing out presents. She explained that she had a gift that just couldn't be boxed up for very long. Mommy and Daddy's eyebrows raised and the kids were bonkers. Gramma brought out little hamster boxes that said PetCo on the side of them. The kids were screaming....the moms and dads were growling. We welcomed Chunk and NumNums into our family. Thankfully they were ZhuZhu pets and not the real deal. Otherwise, Gramma Gayla would have had a houseful of reject Christmas presents or hamsters! In true Gramma Gayla fashion, the ZhuZhu pets came with all the bells and whistles and accessories like running tracks, rolling balls, running wheels, carrying baskets and beds and linens.
Gramma didn't stop there though. After all the boxes were torn open and we were swimming in a sea of wrapping paper, she took all the little ones out in to the garage. Awesome, shiny new bikes awaited! Tessa's came with rainbow streamers and a baby seat attachment. Nate got a maize and blue hot rod decked with block Ms and a bell. Of course, right away, Nate commented how it would match his bike helmet and was asking to have the training wheels taken off. They zipped around the garage for quite a while and can't wait until bike riding season!

Cousin Cole got Nate the Batcave and that definitely ranked as one of the best gifts of the season!

Tessa was happy to try on her new jammies from Cousin Haley and couldn't keep from texting on her new kiddie cellie! Now she won't have to play with mommy, daddy and everyone else's phones.

Christmas with Papa O'Hara

Papa O'Hara still makes the rounds at Christmas every year. He starts out in Huron and then hits Sandusky, Napoleon, and Cincinnati all in one weekend. A mere 87 years of life hasn't slowed him down yet! He rolled in to Napoleon on Christmas afternoon. Papa 'Hara, as most of the kids call him, was on the super-nice list and we managed to get him a few presents to open too. Nate and Tessa were happy to assist with the unwrapping.

Presents Round 3 - Christmas Morning

Gramma Char and Papa Kenny's house must have been one of Santa's last stops on Christmas Eve 'cause Santa sure was SLOPPY! The kids awoke and ran out to the fireplace and were shocked to find that Santa had left a mess. He knocked over the logs in the fireplace, messed up some of Gramma's decorations, left a footprint on the chimney wall, dropped part of the naughty and nice list and left his glasses behind! We were all thrilled, however, that Nate, Tessa and Paige were on the nice list and Jim Tressel had been naughty! Apparently, Prancer got in the house too. He left a mess! In all the commotion though, Santa did not forget to eat up all the cookies and leave lots and lots of presents behind for the kids. Nate had asked for GeoTrax Timbertown and being on the nice list paid off as it was one of the first boxes he tore open. Tessa's favorite Christmas song is the Hippopotamus song which left her asking for a hippo. Thankfully Santa realized we wouldn't be able to properly house and care for a hippo, but the consolation mounds of baby stuff, purses and a cell phone made her incredibly happy.

Please note that Aunt Laura is sitting the background of many of the pictures. And, yes, she is wearing a Snuggie!

Presents Round 2 - Christmas Eve Chaos & Santa's Visit

Christmas Eve was full of chaos. We got all gussied up and went to church. As soon as the children started singing at the service, Tessa announced that she was going to go up front to dance in her dress. It was a little difficult trying to convince her that she was not a part of the performance. Her patience ran low since we wouldn't let her dance, she ran out of goldfish crackers she was generously sharing with our thankfully kind and understanding neighboring church goers and she couldn't even see the Baby Cheese (better known as Jesus for most Christians) from our seats! Nate was very well-behaved. Apparently the threat of no presents works well at his age.

After church Santa and his elf came for a visit to check to see if the kids were being naughty or nice! The kids were bonkers! Tessa is still a little weary of the man in the red suit. Remember how much she loved the Detroit Tigers mascot, Paws? Well, she now claims "No like Santa. I like Paws!" She did pose for a picture though, only in the safety of her cousin Paige's arms.

After Santa left to continue his whirlwind trip around the world, the kids remembered that there were presents piled high in Gramma Char and Papa Kenny's basement. Gramma and Papa got all of the grandkids little couches to mark their individual posts and the presents just didn't stop coming. Nate was done in a hot minute. He managed to don a GI Joe costume that Gramma and Papa had gotten him and have all of his opened presents organized in piles before Tessa could even be coaxed to open her second or third box!

Presents Round 1

Nate did a lot of wrapping of presents this year. While he may have used way more tape than necessary and the packages didn't look exactly perfect, it took a lot of patience to wrap all those presents for other people. So, finally, on Christmas Eve morning we let them each open up a present. Their former day care provider had given the kids presents in November but wanted them to wait until Christmas to open them. Torture, huh? They may have begged every day if they could open them, but they patiently waited. When they were given the green light, it was clear that these kids are no strangers to tearing open boxes wrapped in paper. As a matter of fact, Nate is so good at opening presents at lightening speed that I didn't even get a chance to grab my camera until he was assembling his marshmallow shooter. This was just the beginning of the spoils of Christmas 2009.

Christmas Card Rejects

The Christmas Card. It is no secret that I am a fan of pictures, especially of my munchkins. So, nevertheless, I am going to send out a picture card for my holiday greetings. Yes, every year. You can expect it! Of note, I also love receiving the picture cards of all the families and kids and animals, too. Please keep sending them to me.

I am not organized enough to have a professional picture taken and order a gazillion christmas cards and expect to have them out by Christmas. I am also one of those mothers who has visions of my little darlings looking clean, cute and directly at the camera with perfect ear-to-ear grins. However, I am more often the mom who struggles with getting the kids to sit down, to sit together, to look at the camera, to not make goofy faces, to not put things in their noses and all the while try not to raise my voice inevitably resulting in someone crying. As usual, my pictures were on a whim this year. I was cutting it close as we were nearing single digit days left until Christmas. So, after cousin Cole was gone from our fun weekend, it was picture time. I completely banked on getting one of those lay-outs in which you could use a couple different shots and not have to have the one, single, money-shot. Our card turned out pretty cute considering I only snapped a record SIX shots in a fifteen minute session and was off to the nearest Kodak machine. So, here are the couple reject shots. Still cute, but didn't make the cut. You'll notice also that my flying-by-seat-of-my-pants procrastination led me to send out a holiday card with my son dressed in a shirt that has a skull on it. Nice.

Cousin Cole's Visit

Cousin Cole came 'up north' for a visit this past weekend. The kids played and played and played. They were all so good! Troy and I were wondering if we could make arrangements to have Cole every weekend! No one cried and whined and neither Troy nor I had to play GeoTrax once all weekend! Sunday morning involved a trip up to the Dexter bakery for some donuts. Who doesn't love a chocolate donut with sprinkles? And, reading the newspaper with a warm sippy cup of hot chocolate?

Winter Wonderland.

Gramma Char came up this week and spent some time getting the Baughman household in holiday shape. Last year, we had just moved in and didn't even get a chance to really deck the halls at our new pad. At that same time last year, I complimented Gramma Char on one of her many Christmas trees in her home. It was swirled and twirled with peppermint candy decorations and I loved it. I initially tried to take advantage of the holiday season and my mom's generous nature and merely suggest that she just give that tree to me. Well, she wasn't down for that and it worked out to my advantage because the tree would have looked quite small in our new house. However, I did manage to get her creative juices flowing. We all know the woman likes to shop. So, she went on a post holiday sale rampage and got all kinds of holiday decor, including an incredible deal on a 10 foot, prelit wonder. We had to wait all year to really see what we got, though. Well, after a couple days of bow-tying and garland-twisting and wreath-hanging, the outcome was great! It's hard to capture the magic in a picture. Take it from me, it looks grand. Thank goodness she had the foresight to get shatterproof bulbs!


This tree below is our "old" tree. A Big Lots, maybe 6' special. Troy couldn't believe how Charlie Brown it looks now. We used to complain about having to find space for the tree every year.

Gingerbread Train Derailed.

We got in to the holiday spirit this week by making a Gingerbread Train (a new era version of the gingerbread house). Nate sorted and directed. Tessa mostly tried to sneak the candy in her mouth before it made it to it's designated spot on the frosted and candied structure. We enjoyed the train for about a day and a half. Well, Nate and Tessa enjoyed it a little more than anyone as we kept noticing less wheels, bells, whistles and decorations on the train and more and more green, red and white lips, tongues and fingers in the house. Now it is a pathetic, finger-licked compilation of gingerbread forms and scant frosting. So much for taking pride in your work.