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Merks & T-Man Party @ HBHQ

My December dream came true the other day when Charlyn and I made plans to have our kids make sugar cookies.  Since it didn’t quite work out the last time I decided to call in the reinforcements and it worked out just fine and dandy. All that rolling, patting and marking that Maggie has done sure paid off.

But then she noticed that Cameron was nibbling on a cookie and the girl just went for it! She was practically taking spoonfuls of frosting by the end of it, but at least she had fun. Aside from the fact that Maggie ended up hitting (OMG!) Connor, it sure was a great visit. Both boys are so kind and gentle with Maggie. I noticed that Cameron stopped calling her Baby Maggie and I’m wondering if he now thinks of her as a BIG GIRL.

They got to run off some of their cookie-making steam by running around outside while we cleaned up and shuffled cookies from the oven to the cooling racks. I yelled a few ‘hold onto her hands’ and ‘go help Maggie’ from the doorway, but I think Cameron secretly liked being in “charge” and Mags liked running with the big kids.  I probably could have toned down my order and cut the apron strings, so to speak, but my BABY insisted on wearing her 3 sizes too big cowgirl boots outside and I didn’t want to see her take a nose dive. Such fun and I feel a tradition starting…

In between the Cookie Making Extravaganza and Thomas’ visit, we squeezed in a few visits from Grandpa Miller &  our friend Christina and even went to visit Sue (a.k.a. Ish) and 3G. Phew.  By the time Thomas, Deneva & Lara arrived at our door, Maggie was in full-on excited mode. Days ago we’d wrapped Thomas’ present and she’d been itching to give it to him.

What she wasn’t expecting was for Thomas to take her down WWF style (Barry says it’s WWE now, what do I know?). I tell you, there was something in the air today because as excited as Maggie was, Thomas was right there with her….until she started doing her ultra high-pitched screaming. T-Man does NOT like that and never has.

The gift exchange went off with a bit of confusion (maybe Mags was confused about the WWF/WWE take down?) about what to do with the gifts. Thomas tried to open a gift for my mom, one that I don’t think he would have enjoyed one ounce and Maggie thought the box WAS the gift.

After the gift opening, which lasted all of five minutes, the two little chickens ran wild around the house and Deneva, bless her, kept checking on them when they’d be in another room. I suppose Lara and I are of the ‘if we can hear them they’re alright’ school.  Devo did discover them having a party with the origami balls and glass vase in the kitchen. And by party I mean throwing them everywhere and hauling the glass vase from one place to another.  This year Thomas/Maggie gift exchange was much more crazy than last year, I can only imagine what it’ll be next year!

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Her Style

We’re all prepared for Christmas, with the exception of ONE very, very difficult person to shop for. We’re simply stuck and have ZERO ideas. Other than that, I think we’re pretty excited for the coming events. Linda sent Maggie some Reindeer Dust and we’re planning on sprinkling some on Christmas Eve. Maggie won’t really care or have an idea of what we’re doing, but I have no doubt that she’ll like throwing the stuff outside.

I’ve been feeling myself cranking the Christmas tunes (side note: have you heard the Lower Lights Christmas album? Cjane has heavily promoted it, and we got it. LOVE it. Find it here.) a bit louder and staring at our tree with a bit more feeling of excitement than in years past. I think it must be having a child in the house that is interested in the presents and Santa, or at least pictures of him. We wrapped a present for my dad that Maggie really, really liked and she keeps going and finding it under the tree, shaking it and saying ”Ampa, ________” (I had to put the blank there in case he reads it and then it won’t be a surprise, but I’m pretty sure that he’ll have to open that present FIRST this year.

We’ve been asking Maggie to get her vest on when we’re ready to leave and she totally does it, but it is almost always upside down. The first time she did it we zipped it up (or is it down) and went happily on our way. That night we ended up going out to sushi and Barry had to conceal our laughter when she crammed a bunch of sushi in without hesitating around the big collar of the upside down vest. Since then, I’ve just decided to go with it and every so often we’ll get some weird looks, but I’m secretly really proud that she’s getting her clothes on.  Because the alternative is this:

I’m thinking that it might not be socially acceptable for her to ride along in the ‘Beep Beep Car’ at the grocery store or pick out books at the library without any clothes on. You know? So we’re encouraging her in her fashion endeavors. She NEVER wants help and is very determined.

It isn’t clear who she gets her fashion sense from? Barry? Me? Clearly we had a little help, right? There is no way that I could have buckled my shoes with my chubby feet. And Barry getting his collar to perfectly fan out?

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Behind the Card

With the exception of maybe one or two people, there probably isn’t really anyone interested in seeing how we made Maggie’s Christmas card this year. It was a fun project to do, but I’m thankful that we don’t have to do it on a regular basis. I’d had an idea in my head and what we ended up getting was pretty close to what I’d imagined.

I picked up some extra tall wrapping paper and we taped it to the wall. We originally were going to try and do a whole family shot, but with the amount of space that we were workig with along with my camera that isn’t remote friendly, we decided to stick to a Maggie only photo.

Barry wasn’t opposed to being a test subject, however. Isn’t he cute? And now you know where Maggie gets the cheese-ball smile.

While we were setting up the wrapping paper, Maggie was entertaining herself in the other room trying to ride her bike in boots. The girl loves boots, I can not say that enough. We tried to convince her that she’d have better luck riding the bike without shoes, but she wasn’t into that. We brought her into the photo shoot room and she was ALL about being a test subject with Papa, cue the cheese-ball smile.

After changing her outfit and fluffing her locks, Mag-Pie was ready to work her magic.

But she kept wanting to touch the wrapping paper or the lights, which is totally understandable because it isn’t every day that we’ve got our wall covered in Ho, Ho, Ho paper and insist that she stand directly next to plugged in lights.

But I think she did pretty good.  I only wish that I would have thought to take pictures of Barry behind me and beside me. My Man was a clown and Mags ate it up. Again, cue the cheese-ball smile.

We tried to get her to hold the chalk board, but it was slippery and she was too busy laughing at her Papa to concentrate on holding it.

After a few more cheese-ball smiles, Maggie decided that she was done and proceeded to cross her arms in protest and announced that it was nap time.