Help-Ah-Me Christmas



 

Last years Christmas was just three of us, Ryan, Elsie and myself. Elsie was almost a year old and enjoyed the noise of the wrapping paper and playing with the boxes more than the gift that was inside. A year later we have expanded to a family of four, Elsie is almost two years old, and Ander is 4 months. Ander practically slept through our Christmas morning at the house, and napped through all the present opening at the Buzzell christmas, but while awake he enjoyed jamming along with Rockin' Elmo (loud gift #1 from Uncle Chapin). Elsie was on the move this Christmas looking for presents to open and toys to play with!



Rockin' Elmo



I like to refer to this Christmas as Elsie's Help-Ah-Me Christmas! Any present that Elsie saw she wanted to open. She had difficulty getting it started so she would grab the present and say "help-ah-me"! I was thankful that we had both Elsie and Ander presents to open, so when Elsie ran out she could open Ander's and not get into anyone else's presents! Once the present was unwrapped we heard another "help-ah-me", at this point the toy was suppose to come out of the package!

Elsie started with a haul of gifts from her Aunt Cheenie and Uncle Richard and Chappy. This year they were very proud of their purchases. Cheenie, for her tradition of supplying my kids with stylish shoes- Richard for his incredible bargins, and Chappy for his obnoxious, noisy toys! I appreciated Chena and Richard's gifts, shoes and clothes are a necessity. Chapin on the other hand provided Elsie with Rockin' Elmo as well as a drum, tamborine, maracas, clicky clacky clam looking things, trumpet, a whistle and cymbals (noisy toys #2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8) Thank you Uncle Chappy for all my headaches!

Ryan and I spent the day making room for all the new toys and clothes and getting our lives back in order. I can only imagine what next Christmas will be like when Ander is on the move and we have two crazy kids to chase after!

The Bell family had a wonderful Christmas full of many great memories! We are looking forward to 2011 and all that it has to offer our crazy family!





Tattoos by Elsie

Elsie loves to color. She has tons of crayons (most of which are broken, biten into, and have the paper peeled off) and color books. Each page is scribbled on in a different way, she is quite particular about what she colors and has a great time drawing circles. 99% of the time she colors in her high chair. I could care less if she scribble on her tray or her seat, and every once in a while she finds a pen and scribbles on a piece of furniture. Today she had a pen while in her chair. I was busy in the kitchen preparing for the week ahead, and I turned around to this...

We have a new tattoo artist in the family...who'd a thunk it! So we washed it off, and Elsie was a little mad, but got over it! Pen's are off limits from now on I guess since the concept of colors are for paper isn't quite understood yet!

Christmas Cards

I know for sure that the Christmas season is upon us when we have snow that actually stays on the ground, and my husband sleeps 98% of the time he is home. UPS has kept him very busy since Thanksgiving and I look forward to the season of online shopping and shipping to be over so we can get back on a normal schedule. So while he sleeps I attempt to accomplish some of the usual Christmas necessities. Christmas shopping is done and now just a little wrapping to finish up. Peanut butter balls have been rolled, dipped and spread to a couple families. And one of the most important tasks is to get out the Christmas cards. Last year we took a simple family picture, but this year I wanted to do something different. I thought I would take a little extra time to send out cards with wallet sized pictures inside. I would get a wicked cute pictures of the kids sitting all pretty in their Christmas outfits; pop it in the card, write a note and off to the post office they would go. Unforunately, it didn't go quite like that.

I set up an "appointment" with a friend. I have seen her capture so many cute moments of others kids I couldn't wait to see what she could do with my kids! A make shift studio in the basement, lots of toys, M&M's and screaming/giggling results in some precious pictures of my kids. I didn't get that perfect little picture of Elsie and Ander sitting all pretty and handsome looking straight at the camera...that would be too easy. We bribed with M&M's and photshopped colored drool and chocolate stains on the new white dress. We chased around and gots the kids yelling at each other to the point that they giggled. We went through a whole zoo of animal noises and "cheese"s. Laughing and crying...but she did it. Becky captured some beautiful and unique pictures of my kids. They weren't all perfect, but they were my kids. There personality was shining through like no other other photo has ever captured. So instead of that perfect little wallet sized photo I was going to use I changed directions back to the photo card with multiple pictures of the kids. It was impossible to choose just one.

I am not able to send Christmas cards to everyone, so her is a sampling of Becky's wonderful work!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas season full of memories with family and friends! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Cat Food Soup

I'm not quite sure what the fascination with cat food is, but Elsie seems to love it. Typically, our cat doesn't have water in her dish. She begs to drink water out of the faucet in the bathroom, and jumps in the tub after we get out to slurp up the last few drops before they escape down the drain. For once, Hobbies had water in her dish, and Elsie decided it was time to play. Not sure splashing in the water, but making a nice little soup. I would have posted a picture of her wonderful creation, but I'll spare you all. Once I had quarantined her from the area, put Ander in a safe place, and attempted to clean it up the food had absorbed all the water and made more of a slop. Nasty doesn't even begin to describe it!

Other than this nasty event, Elsie had a wonderful day. We have been learning how to say the different characters associated with Christmas...tree, Santa, Snowman, reindeer, etc. She is pretty good with them all. As we looked at the 3 stockings hanging in the entry (Ander's hasn't been delivered yet) Elsie looked at them and said "Santa". I then proceeded to say..Daddy, Mommy and Elsie, as I pointed to the various stockings. It was then that Elsie said her name for the first time. I pushed the envelope a little more the next day when we repeated this situation, and said..."What is your name?" and she responded by pointing to herself and saying "Its Elsie"! She knows who she is!

As most know Sesame Street is a huge favorite in this house. We have seen all the old episodes, the new ones, and tons of the movies. One of the newer episodes of Sesame Street has the dog Iggy, who steals the letter I from Telly and makes him chase him until he finally gets the "I" back. Elsie brought one of her foam letter, the "I", to me and said "Iggy". She is too smart! And it is so much fun watching her learn all these new things!

Ander is doing well as well. He will be four months soon, and has just recently started giving me a decent nights sleep. He also has begun to enjoy his exersaucer and Bumbo seat more than ever. He still is startled quite easily when Elsie comes around, but someday he'll be able to dish it back!

Looking forward to the Christmas season, we hope everyone else is as well!