the long and short of it.

oops. i thought i posted this already. oh well...it's a day late.

i have a love/hate relationship with long weekends.

i love them. oh...how i love them.

but man! that monday morning afterward is brutal!

i'm already dreading it.

this weekend has been fun though. very relaxing...which was nice.

thanksgiving day we spend over at john's parents house. they did the turkey and so i just brought a few odds and ends. mashed potatoes, cranberries and these AMAZING sweet potato biscuits. we ate pretty late...around five or so...and after that...i just knitted while elijah and his cousins watched 'cars'.

during the day, we walked over to john's parents old house (which they still own) to check on the turkey. they cooked it in this giant hole in the ground. it's hard to explain and even harder to master but it was a good bird! elijah, miguel and john hung out in the orchard and played on various recreational equipment while john's parents and i did our best to find a decent orange from their plethora of citrus trees. we found a couple of okay ones...but they need a couple more weeks on the tree to be really good.

friday, i spent the whole day debating going to the grocery store but never actually made it. haven't made it yet, to be honest. tomorrow. for sure, i'll go tomorrow.

a little update on elijah and his sleep battles. he is doing so much better at nighttime. last night, he only got up once and the night before that, he didn't get up at all. naptime, however, is a whole different ball game. i might have to think up a different strategy for naptime because this one isn't working so well. he just cries and cries and cries for john, which is easy to remedy on the weekends when he's home. john just goes in there, elijah stops crying and goes to sleep. if john's not home (like yesterday), sleep really just doesn't happen. yesterday, he finally fell asleep, after an hour of crying, only to wake up fifteen minutes later crying for john again. so...naptime continues to be a battle but hopefully soon, he'll get the idea that mommy means business! :-D

i had to pull my maternity pants out this weekend when my "in between" sized pants wouldn't button. but of course, they're still huge. i think i'm going to be wearing a lot of sweatpants for the next couple weeks until my belly does a bit more popping. i really dislike this stage of the belly because, while i think i'm sticking out there, it isn't really obvious to most people. honestly, if you didn't know i was pregnant and just ran into me in the grocery store, you'd probably just think, "that chick needs to lay off the donuts". (not that people pay that close attention or even care...) i can definitely feel this one moving around a lot more...especially the past couple days. just little flutters and kicks but it feels like they're having a good time in there. i have an ultrasound scheduled for the tenth...am excited to see this little one moving and grooving around. john doesn't want to find out whether it's a boy or a girl...and i think he's actually talked me into it. while it would be nice to know, it's not as necessary with the second one...plus...what a fun surprise! we'll see...

sleep, baby, sleep.

the dude and his tongue. it's his latest thing.

had a rough night with elijah last night. actually, he slept all night long...it was just the getting to sleep part that posed the problem. basically, the poor booger wants us to lay with him while he falls asleep. it's a whim i've given in to for far too long...mainly because i've been too exhausted to deal with the alternative (crying, sleep deprived baby). but since i've been feeling much less out-of-it as of late, yesterday, i decided to do something about it. so, i went and bought a gate for his door, set up the music player in his room and just generally prepared myself for a civil war.
last night was hard, i won't lie. he stood behind the gate at his door (we put the gate up only after he'd already gotten up three times) screaming and crying like he hasn't in a long time. part of me wanted to laugh...but mostly i wanted to cry. poor baby. i felt like i was abandoning him. that is, until he figured out how to climb over the gate. then i was just mad. after about an hour of the battle of the wills, he did settle down and stay in his bed. he was asleep in minutes after only one loud thump (which i'm still not completely sure of the origin).
i debated what to do for naptime today...mostly i just really didn't want to deal with the hour-long saga we had last night but i figured, we might as well get it over with. he, of course, got up immediately after i left the room. and i warned him that if he continued to get up, i would have to put the gate up (i returned the one from last night and got a different one this morning). after the third time, i went to go tuck him back in so he'd be out of the way while i put the gate up. as i was doing this, his little voice informed me that he had "poo-poos". at first i thought it was a stall technique but nope, my nose confirmed the dirty diaper. so...i changed him...of course. but a funny thing happened when i took the diaper away. i dealt with the poop (flushing it) and took my time throwing the diaper away and washing my hands. when i started back down the hall, no sniffling boy greeted me. only silence. so...instead of going back to his room (which is where i thought i was headed), i hung a right into my computer room (the mess room) and checked my email. still no little boy poking his head out. i got on facebook. took my time on there. still no little boy. checked my blogs. by this time, i had to go check. i had to know what he was doing in there. i tiptoed up to his door, walking with wide legs so my pants wouldn't even swish together and peeked. he was asleep. seriously. sound asleep with his sweet little lips puckered up in a sigh. oh, i am a happy mama today. i didn't even have to put the gate up! not sure if this will be a trend or if it was just a fluke...but at this point, i don't really care. i'll take what i can get.

oh the joys of toddlerhood.

e has been learning how to dress himself lately. most of the time he does pretty good with his shirts...though sometimes they end up being backwards. but the pants are a bit more tricky. plus, most of the time, he really just doesn't want to do it himself (he's too busy playing) so i end up doing it myself. which is fine by me...no need to grow him up too fast!

living for the weekend.

just wanted to share some pictures from this weekend. nothing crazy...we just went to the park and enjoyed the sunshine. love afternoons like this one...

waiting.

i'm waiting for the most recent pictures of our little life to make their way upstairs and onto my computer. funny...they're not getting the hint.

got some fun ones that i want to share from this past weekend...
maybe tomorrow?
by friday...definitely.

oh christmas...

an apple a day.

i've been thinking a lot about christmas lately.
actually, i've been thinking about it for a while now, which is not unusual at all for christmas loving me. but this year, my thinking has been a bit different than other years. typically, my thoughts revolve around gifts to make and give, our family christmas card, where we should put the tree and how many twinkle lights are too many. and while those things have crossed my mind more than once, i've also found myself thinking about other things. i've been wondering about the necessity of giving gifts at all. i've decided to skip the holiday cards this year. i've even debated getting a christmas tree. (gasp!) i'm not turning into a scrooge...in fact, it always has been and always will be the complete opposite. i've just been thinking about the contrast between the sheer simplicity of Christ's birth and the utter chaos our culture has produced all in the name of CHRISTmas. i've struggled with finding a happy medium between wallowing in the excess this american society perpetuates and celebrating the wonder and majesty of an event that occurred thousands of years ago.
a lot of this pondering comes from a financial angle; we simply cannot afford an extravagant holiday this year. but stemming from that is the thought, "do we EVER need extravagant anything (materialistically speaking)?" i can pore over the glossy pages of my magazines that promote perfection, lavish decorations and piles of presents all i want. but in the back of my mind, i'm continually asking myself, "is this necessary?".
the answer, of course, is no.
and i know that. instinctively. without second thought, i know how unnecessary this excess is. but still, i battle with that knowledge. i WANT a beautifully bedecked tree in my living room. i WANT a pile of perfectly wrapped presents resting underneath its boughs. i WANT to serve my family a delectable christmas meal with ALL the trimmings. but just as i'm letting myself think these things, i hear a gratingly whiny voice above the din, screaming, "I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!". and that is, honestly, the last thing i want.
immediately, the words to that derek webb song jolt into my head:
"i repent. i repent of my pursuit of america's dream".
i am, in the very fiber of my being, fighting not only about christmas trees and presents, i am fighting my very sin nature. i'm fighting my selfish need to have every thing my way.
so i guess it's not simply a holiday struggle, though it feels very much that way. it's an every minute of every day of my entire life kind of struggle that seems to peak when costco pulls out its inflatable santa claus'. i'm reminded of my own human frailty...which, when you think about it, is kind of the whole point of christmas, isn't it? Jesus, coming to earth, wearing the skin of our humanity and conquering our shame. conquering death. living victorious. isn't that really what we should be celebrating?
it doesn't make my inner struggle to buy oodles of unnecessary holiday trappings any easier. i still want the picture perfect, martha stewart-esque month of december. but, i suppose if i continue to remind myself of the true reason to celebrate, the importance of certain things does begin to fade in the reality of Christ and His birth so long ago.

oh, my boy...

yesterday,
sitting at the kitchen table,
eating lunch,
elijah was being a bit goofy.

after a few minutes of antics,
he turned to me and said,
"mama, i funny!"

yes, my little man, you are.

tricks and treats.

they're off and running...

they knew what to do...

grr. someone (john's dad) helped him open up a sucker. he kept digging them out, asking, "more? candy? more?" *sigh* it was bound to happen i suppose.

getting treats from abolita.

the trick or treating gang.

buddies. (matching was not done on purpose)

the cape in action.

here's a brief synopsis of our halloween. sorry i'm so tardy posting it.
elijah awoke at two am friday morning burning up with fever. this did not bode well for my halloween plans. undeterred, i embarked on my very first sewing adventure using my sewing machine. (yes, i waited until the actual day to start it. that's just how i roll.) thankfully, i had no major mishaps and i ended up with a pretty cool cape for my boy. he was a SUPER dirt bike rider. see, our friends gave us riding pants and a jersey for elijah that their son had outgrown but seeing as elijah doesn't yet ride dirt bikes, he never really gets to wear them. knowing that the pants were starting to get a little tight in the waist, i thought this would probably be the last time he'd get to wear the outfit. and what a better excuse than halloween?!? so super dirt bike rider elijah man it was. he wasn't thrilled with the cape during the first fitting but i think he was still feeling a bit yucky. but a long nap later, he was ready to go. he and his little neighbor buddy kendall went trick or treating together...just around to the houses we know. it seemed like they enjoyed themselves. once john got home, he got his dirt biking uniform on too and took elijah around on the bike. elijah didn't go to bed until almost 10.30pm; he was having so much fun (that and he'd had one too many lollys...grrr.) anyways...it was a fun night.