The 12th day is here

The 12th day of Christmas is here which unfortunately means it's time to take down the Christmas decorations. As I started to take the ornaments off the Santa tree Maison started redecorating it. In her defense, she is my child. Then she started shouting, "Mommy, Christmas tree is broken." Yes, my dear, it is. It just looks sad and lonely when it's not covered in beautiful twinkling lights and sparkly goodness. It's VERY DIFFICULT to explain to a 2 year old not to worry, we will put the trees up again next year.

So just for Maison, pictures of some of the Christmas 2011 decorations she can look at anytime:

The silver tree or as Maison called it "Mommy's tree". She said "night, night Angel" when she went to bed each night.

The Santa Tree (aka Maison's tree):

The mantle:

The Holly:

The pictures don't include the Hello Kitty tree in Maison's play room, the tree in our bedroom, or the outside decorations. Shh, don't tell my mom but I had already started taking down the other 2 trees when I took these pictures. My mother thinks it's a sacrilege to touch the decorations until after the 12th day and I couldn't agree more. With a toddler on my heels, it took me weeks to get it all put out, so I figured it would take me weeks to get it all put away and thought I'd get a little bit of a head start this year. Don't worry Noo, we're "burning" the outside lights tonight. Happy 12th Day of Christmas, Y'all!

Gifts Galore!!

Maison is really starting to think every time she sees someone they should have some sort of present in hand for her. We continued day two of Christmas/Hanukkah overlap with a visit from Santa...

Waiting on the princess to arrive:

What did Santa bring me? Disney Princess Castle, Rapunzel's Tower, and every Disney Princess!

Taking Rapunzel down from her tower:

Do you want to brush baby Rapunzel's hair?

What did Santa leave in my stocking?

Checking out my stocking stuffers:

Lighting the menorah with Daddy:

More Pooh Bear figures for Hanukkah:

HAPPY HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! and still 2 nights of Hanukkah to go!

Holiday Overload

This is the first time since having Maison that Christmas and Hanukkah overlapped. It was quite the action packed night for Miss Maison...

Lighting the menorah with Daddy:

Receiving Pooh and Piglet figures for Hanukkah:

Helping Daddy open gifts from Mommy:

Mommy was just a little excited to get a Kindle Fire (it was a total surprise!) from Daddy:

After presents at our house, it was off to Camp Gooey to spend Christmas Eve with the Ellington fam...

Snoopy shirt from Aunt Shari:

This is the LAST picture you will see of Maison in her Christmas dress. After receiving this shirt she literally pulled her dress off and refused to wear anything but the Snoopy shirt.

Checking out the Disney Princess tent from Nooey and G'Daddy:

Maneuvering my new CPK, Josie Marie, around my new table/chairs in my new stroller:

Taking a spin in my new Benz:

Checking out my new house from Uncle Bubba:

As usual, I have no idea how Santa is going to top this!

What's up?

What's up with UPS delivering after 10pm not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 nights in a row??? I really want our Christmas gifts to arrive on time but not at the expense of waking up my sick baby. Last night when the doorbell rang at 10:05pm I knew it was UPS again and I was not happy...

Until Adam brought in the Pali box. What is Pali? It is the Italian furniture manufacturer that made Maison's crib. We bought Maison's crib from a local baby store that went out of business. We did not buy the toddler rails or full size conversion kit when we bought the crib (I know, totally stupid! and yes, MY MOM told me to buy them with the crib). When Maison had already climbed/jumped out of her crib twice I started searching for a store that carried the toddler rails. I found a furniture store in LA that carried Pali cribs and I ordered the 2 sets of rails in June. They told me it would take 6 weeks to have Pali make them and ship them from Italy. In November (that's 5 months!) we had received the full size rails but not the toddler rails.

Adam had called them every week starting in September and received a different story every time. He finally told them to forget it and to credit back our card. So the search was on for another store that carried Pali. I found another store in San Francisco, apparently no stores in Texas carry Pali, and ordered another set of toddler rails.

To our surprise, they arrived last night...well before the 4-5 weeks the store quoted. I guess this once I can't be mad that UPS rang our bell after 10pm!

The more things change...

Shari, our mom, and I eat at the Zodiac Room every year the week of Christmas. We'd always had a great experience until last year when things started going downhill (see The Grand Zodiac Room). They did a buffet again this year but the entree selection sucked so bad we all had a carb fest for lunch. The service again was optional to the point the manager said to my mom, "I can tell by the look on your face you need another drink." yet he did nothing to correct the lack of service.

So for this year's review:

Food - Fair, entree selection blew but a plus for no blue jello this year

Drinks - Anything is acceptable when it's washed down with 2 bottles of wine, 5 grand champagne cocktails, 2 coffees with grand marnier and frangelico, and a chocolate martini (don't worry we had a driver)

Atmosphere - Sub-par, I expect more from Neiman Marcus than mono-chromatic white trees

Company - Exquisite, the only thing better than the drinks

Bottom Line - Already making reservations for the Aldophus next year

The more things change, the more things stay the same...

Can't Miss Out

This morning was Maison's school Christmas party. We let her go despite her c-diff and ear infections...poor baby can't miss out on all the fun!

Mommy and Maison working on the Christmas craft, making a stocking ornament. Mommy may or may not be sizing up the competition...

Maison eating the only sugar free treats: turkey and cheese croissant

Checking out the book from the book exchange:

Maison eyeing someone else's gift or the Sponge Bob gift bag:

The "juice thief" wasn't there today and the "drama boy" (not to be confused with the Drummer Boy) was low key since his dad was there. Oh well, it was drama free but fun just the same!

Atlanta Vacay Day 7 ~ High Tea

After our star studded affair yesterday, we couldn't wait to attend another event at the St. Regis. My brother invited us over for high tea before he had to leave to return to Dallas. We did not have any celeb sightings this time, but we had an exquisite time. Maison was so excited to have her own 3-tier service of tea sandwiches and treats. The teas were amazing! My mom and I had the Mad Hatter (of course, my mom did since this is her nickname from my Aunt Gail). My dad had the St. Regis peach which is only served at the St. Regis in Atlanta. It was literally some of the best tea I have ever had.

It was truly a wonderful afternoon. I just wished I had pictures to share but the battery was dead in the good camera and the new small one apparently needs a memory card. Oops! Only I can bring two cameras and neither of them work...bummer.

Merry Christmas!

Despite Maison being sick (still!), we had a wonderful Christmas this year. We went to my parents on Christmas Eve for dinner and to open presents. It was so much fun to experience Christmas with Maison. She was just so excited the entire night. Everyone went a little overboard with gifts for her, seeing as she is the our only child, the only grandchild, and the only great-grandchild in our family. It literally took hours to open presents; mostly because Maison was busy playing with something she just opened and couldn't be torn away long enough to open another one. We had to start hiding them from her just so we could keep the process moving.

Per my dad's tradition of taking a picture of your pre and post Santa loot...this is Maison's take this year.

Gifts from the fam:

Gifts from Santa:

On Christmas morning we rushed downstairs to see what Santa had brought Maison.

I love the look of surprise on my little elf as she spots her new kitchen.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

The Grand Zodiac Room

My mom, Shari, and I have a Christmas tradition of having lunch at the Zodiac Room at the downtown Neiman's the week of Christmas. Leading up to Christmas, the Zodiac Room is very busy and thus does a buffet. Extremely busy can also mean bad service which is what we unfortunately experienced today.

We had wine with lunch and were hoping to order some post-lunch drinks while we waited on dessert. Our waiter was too busy flirting with the hostess to notice our lack of beverage so my mom decided she would take a restroom break. When she got up to go, she said, "my name is grand f***ing champagne cocktail"...which after laughing hysterically, Shari and I realized that my mom wanted us to order her another grand champagne cocktail if Casanova could be torn away from the hostess long enough to go fetch us some drinks.

We did eventually get our post-lunch drinks and our blue desserts which included BLUE JELLO. Apparently, there was some sort of blue ice theme this year and all the desserts included blue...like blueberry sugar cookies. It was quite odd, to say the least, but the blue jello was a little much. You would have thought they would get the hint when every bussed dessert dish still included the blue jello.

So my 2010 Zodiac Room Summary:

Food - Average, blue jello really brought the stock down

Drinks - Great, once you could get one

Atmosphere - Sub-par, blue ice theme was like a weird scene in Rudolph

Company - Amazing

Bottom line - Zodiac Room was anything but Grand this year

Happy Christmas, Shari Style!

Last night we went to Shari's condo for her pre-Christmas party. Normally, Adam and I host the family pre-Christmas party but we just have too much on us this year with Maison being sick. Shari certainly made the party her own. She had is catered by Sushi Sake which is her favorite restaurant. She literally eats there 2+ times per week. It was delicious as always.

After dinner we played a game similar to a Christmas gift exchange or a white elephant gift exchange, but this game was SO MUCH BETTER. In Shari's game, she bought gift cards for everyone at the party. Then we had to choose a number and then a bag. You then followed the numbers to steal others gift cards. It was so much fun.

We then had Santa's milk and cookies and watched Love Actually, one of our fave Christmas movies. Only 5 more days until Christmas Eve...how will I ever get it all done?

Shari's beautiful Christmas tree...it seriously looks like one in a department store!

Santa Screams!

Even though Maison is still sick...over 2 1/2 months now....we decided we would take her to see Santa.

All dressed up and ready to go see Santa

We went in the middle of the day to Willow Bend where on a good day they have 10 customers and we lucked out. NO ONE was in the Santa line. We walked though the 'snow globe' and right up to Santa. Given Maison's reaction to him we should have just played in the snow globe where they had falling fake snow. I don't even think she had time to ask for a Dora the Explorer doll before she started screaming...

But she was definitely in high spirits dancing around the mall as we left.

I'm sure we have a few more years of screaming at Santa ahead of us but it's a right of passage...so you have to do it, right?

I'm Happy Holidays

Happy Birthday Annie Boo! Today is my maternal grandmother's 89th birthday. We were supposed to be in Atlanta for her birthday party but since Maison is still sick and Nannie has the flu we were unable to make the trip. So on this 13th day in December, I started thinking about my sweet Annie Boo and all the fun times we have had with her. Bubba, Shari, and I absolutely loved going to Annie Boo's, especially on Christmas. We couldn't wait. It was really more fun than Santa coming.

She would literally let us play with anything. Fine china to play house, anyone? 600 thread count sheets to build a fort? How about a life-size mechanical Santa that checks off the "Nice" children from his list? Oh, and his list had OUR names on it. Yes, Annie Boo had it all and shared it with everyone.

One of my fondest memories at Christmas was going through all her Christmas cards. She has lived in Norcross most of her life and would get hundreds of cards. She had a big felt Santa who's beard was a pouch that held cards. She would receive so many that Santa couldn't hold them all and they'd be stacked on the end table beneath him. Every year, Shari and I would go through each one. If we didn't know who the person was she would tell us who they were, how she knew them, and other little tid bits about them. We always wondered and asked about the cards that said, "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas", being too young to realize that not everyone celebrated Christmas, like us. Little did I know then that I would later become part of a multi-religion family and I would be "Happy Holidays".

Annie Boo suffers from severe Alzheimer's so I know she won't be reading this, but we are so sorry we missed her birthday and didn't get to come to Norcross and go through all those Christmas cards with her. Happy Birthday, Boo!

Our "Season's Greetings" card this year:

A baby's 1st Christmas

Christmas was so exciting this year for everyone since it was Maison's first Christmas.  It is just so much more fun to experience it with a 'little one'.  As usual, we went to my parents on Christmas Eve for our family dinner and gift exchange.  We did 'secret Santas' again this year for everyone except Maison.  Maison was so good and enthralled with the lights.  She sat in Adam's or my lap during dinner and then quietly sat in her bouncer while we opened presents.  She received more toys and clothes than you could ever imagine but she also got some really amazing and touching gifts from my family....some of the highlights:  Shari gave her a performance stage with lights and a microphone...a perfect gift for a little drama queen in training.  My parents gave her a Spode Santa Cookie plate...it's never too early to start her China collection, a Red Envelope ABC quilt with her name and birth date monogrammed on it (it is truly precious!) and Silver Christmas ornaments to denote her first Christmas.  Nannie gave her her 1st American Girl doll so that she could build up a collection before she was old enough to play with them.  

Maison all dressed up in her Christmas dress ready to open presents...

ABC monogrammed quilt and Spode Christmas plate from my parents:

    

The most amazing gift of all was from my brother....he requested Shari to set up a trust fund for Maison that he will be funding to pay for her education and travel expenses until she finishes school.  Adam and I were both speechless at how thoughtful this was of my brother and what an unbelievable life changing gift this is for Maison.  We have been VERY WORRIED about the proposed changes in the Plano school district (busing in kids from economically disadvantaged areas or large number of ESL students, redrawing lines so a large number of these kids would be in 'our' central cluster) and now we definitely have the option to send her to private school if deemed necessary.    Not to mention, we will never have to worry about how to pay for college or expensive international (yet very educational ;oP ) vacations.

Ready to go to bed...gotta rest up for Christmas Day!

It is tradition in our family to open all non-Santa gifts on Christmas Eve so after all the gifts Maison got the night before she still had Santa to go on Christmas Day...

Maison coming down the stairs at Nooey's and G'daddy's to see what Santa had brought.

Maison checking out her swing and other presents from Santa.

      

Hanging her "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament on our tree at home.

When we were little my Dad always had us lay out all our presents and took a picture each year.  So here is Maison with her 1st Christmas 'loot'...

Maison was the best 'present' of all!

It was truly a magical Christmas this year and a great first Christmas for Maison!