Our Santa Pics

Jackson has discovered Thomas the Train, and now loves, loves, loves, choo choo trains. So, a lady at my parents' church told my mom that Santa was going to be at the Train Depot this Saturday morning, taking Santa photos. We decided to go, and I am so glad that we did. Jackson loved watching the trains, but didn't love Santa so much. It was so still lots of fun, though!

Seriously?

Okay, okay. I am normally not the ranting type, but this week, two very odd things have happened in the land of motherhood. My reaction time was a bit delayed on both, and maybe next time I will be a bit better prepared.

Situation #1:
On Tuesday, I met Melissa and Abby, at Chik fil A. After a nice lunch, we headed down the mall play area. The novelty of the play area seems to be wearing off for Jackson since he has discovered the "transportation area" to the left of the play area (the cars, trucks, etc. that you pay to ride, but Jackson doesn't know that they really move, area). Anyway, Melissa and Abby continued to play in the play area while Jackson was climbing and playing around on the cars. I noticed a lady and possibly, 2-3 year old twins were doing the same thing. After a few minutes, the lady looks at me and says, "Hey, I am going to run my packages out to the car. I will be back in a few minutes." And off she goes down the mall. What in the world? Who does that? I yell across the mall to Melissa, and explain the ordeal. She is cracking up, and then says, "Oh my, what if she doesn't come back?" Wow. Didn't even think about that. I was seriously, speechless and thoughtless! What am I supposed to do? Sure enough, a few minutes later, this mother/grandmother/or relative yanks the two kids up by the arm, and starts walking out to the car, and looks at me and says, "Oh, thanks!"

Situation #2:
Now this just made me mad! Today, I was strolling through Target, and some random lady walks up to my cart, as if she were inspecting the contents of it. Hmmm, Huggies and Zip Loc bags, not too exciting. She then looks at me, and in her teacher voice, says, "I really wish you would use the strap on the seat, and buckle your baby up." I think to myself, I really wish you just would shut up and leave me alone. I know, that is not very nice. She rambles on about this story, about how her daughter in law didn't use the straps, and her grandson fell out, and hit his head, and got a concussion, and how she wishes I would just use the straps. Are you kidding me? I just came to buy diapers, lady. I mean, I am really sorry that happened to your grandson, but are you now on the safety board for cart patrol at Target? I may not be Mother of the Year, but I don't think I am totally inept, either. I have seen parents do some pretty crazy stuff to their children, but I don't really feel like it is my place to tell them what to do with their baby, I mean, its not like I left Jackson with a stranger in the mall play area so I could take packages out to my car! So, all you idiot mommies out there that don't use the safety straps , buckle those babies up!

Has this crazy stuff happened to anyone else?

Trim the Tree Party

Tonight, after our crazy busy day, we had a party at our house. We had both sets of parents, and Brad and Lydia over to decorate the tree. We had soups, cookies, donut holes, and punch. My tree. Well, as you can see from lots of our posts, it is pretty much Jackson's world around here. Our house has a very open floor plan, so there is really no way to block anything off, if that makes any sense. So, the tree....I took all of my sentimental ornaments and put them in my bedroom on a tree that he can't reach. We put some shatterproof ornaments on the bottom, and Jackson took them off and threw them across the room, bowled with them, and played soccer with him, and cheered for himself, having the best time. So, he has some ornaments to play with, and only about 2/3 of our tree is decorated, which is the part that he can't reach. Seriously, I don't care. I am LOVING this chapter of my life and love having a 1/2 decorated Christmas tree.

He took this stocking ornament off, and tried to wear it.

I found a Hot Wheel car in my Snow Village. Love it.

Do you love it?

Oh, check out my cousin Jennifer's, blog (linked on the side). Her updates about her poor tree are cracking me up!

Trip for our Christmas Tree

Today, was a super busy day, but we had lots of fun. We started off the day with the wonderful snow. I then went to a Christmas breakfast/gift exchange with my mom at her church, while Blake went to practice for the Christmas program at church. When he got home, we headed to the middle school basketball championship game. Blake's school won the championship!!! THEN, we headed to pick out our Christmas tree. We decided we would get a smaller tree, that wasn't too full around the bottom, so it didn't take up too much space.

Snow on Saturday

Jackson woke up about 5:00 this morning, and couldn't seem to go back to sleep. Blake peeked out the window, and much to our surprise, it was snowing!!!! Snow is rare here. Snow in December, even more so! We had to check it out.

At 7:30, the phone and text messages started rolling in, telling us to check it out.

He liked the snow, okay. He didn't like being cold or wet, though. I am not sure if it just because I haven't seen a real snow in a while, or not, but I thought it looked so beautiful outside today. Just perfect!

Little Pack Rat

Jackson received this truck last year as a Christmas gift. I would say it is one of his favorite toys. He rides around the house with keys and a cell phone numerous times through out the day.
Several nights ago, I was doing the nightly toy clean up. I picked up Jackson's truck, and noticed there were lots of somethings under the seat of his toy. I opened it, and here is what I found.

Several eating utentils, medicine droppers/syringes, a couple of Christmas decorations, my wire for jewelry making, and two medicine cups.

Last night, the whole nativity scene was camping out inside. The animals were in his Fisher Price play barn. Wow.

Wordless Wednesday