Our Baby Size Life!

Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category

It’s taken me a little longer than last year to write a Christmas round up, well, mainly because the post Christmas-I’m-fed-up-with-anything-Christmas feeling I get lasted a little longer than usual.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a wonderful and happy Christmas with family and friends. Things couldn’t really have gone better, but I think the Xmas burn out is due to the fact that this year was Sam’s first real Christmas.  Last year, he was like a bump on a log, sitting and watching all the merriment and traditions happen around him. He barely touched some wrapping paper. This year was a completely different story. He’s almost two, and the hyper-active, ever inquisitive little guy was fully in the Christmas spirit: which burned us out!

Continue reading here to see what Sam got himself into…

Hey everybody! No the blog is most definitely not dead! Yes everyone is doing just great! We were just away from our online lives a little bit for the holidays! And now that those depressing, dark and long January days are now here, it’s time to shut out the real world once again, and delve back into our digital persona’s to help make us forget the cold outside.

Since I didn’t do this before the holidays, Melissa, Sam and I hope you all had the best of holidays! We can, however, still wish you all a very happy, healthy, successful, sexy and rich New-Year!!!! You can re-arrange those characteristics in the order of  your preference

So, check back in soon, for some Holiday Hijinx as I am waiting on my bro to get me the pictures he took over the holidays! Come on brotha!!!

Until then, here’s a family pic we took in our pyjamas one night in front of the tree. Ahhh, cozy winter nights, snuggled with my loves! Nothin’ beats it folks! Nothin’ I tells ya!!!

Every parent does it. I am sure of it. It’s a weird situation, because people with no children see other parents do it and say:

“Poor kid, I’d never do that… It’s kind of tacky!”

Then, those same people have a kid and then a holiday rolls around and BAM! They buy the kid theme pyjamas.

Guilty as charged!

Continue reading here to check them pyjamas out!

Sammy loves to dance since he’s been training at his daycare for a Christmas show, which will be tomorrow. Melissa and I figured out something was up back in early November when Sam would start dancing to the music from his toys.  He would just bust out some moves we had never taught him or seen him do elsewhere. It was really fun to see him go and was a genuine surprise to us… One of those special moments you can’t plan for. Well, I finally managed to catch Sam in the act last weekend at my parents.  My Dad, a Christmas junkie, has a singing snowman that belts out Jingle Bells with accompaniment from his dog.  You start the thing by pressing the snowman’s hand and the good times start. Sam figured this out quickly enough, and once the power to command was in his hands, there was no stopping him! Dance Sammy dance!!!

You may have noticed the speakers on the singing toy start screeching some static, that’s because Sam played it so often, the speakers are starting to suffer some wear and tear! Go Sammy go! Wrecking Granpa’s Xmas toys!!! So Sam is told to put the toy back, which is where he brings it towards the end of the vid… right back where he found it! Also notice Sam almost losing control in his spinning and getting dangerously close to the village that took me six hours to set up!

Have a great weekend folks!

This past weekend, we packed up and headed to my parents house to spread a little Christmas cheer.  We were a whole 5 days into the month of December and my parents had not put up their Christmas tree or their Christmas village, which I look forward to every year.  Now folks, this is an injustice.  My family has been pretty adamant about putting up decorations for the season since my youth: I’ve been tempered in the tradition of kicking off the seasonal cheer as close to December 1st as possible. Now, It was our turn to step in and get their house ready as they have way too many decorations for two people to handle. We got the tree up pretty quick as we all chipped in and got it done. And folks, leaving your lights on the tree from the year before works. Saved us HUGE amounts of time, which let me be free to work on my favorite piece: the Xmas village.

A Christmas village doesn’t seems like a big deal, but my Dad was a pretty heavy collector of the Dickens Village, Heritage Collection by Department 56 back in the day… well most of the nineties.  Which means his collection has grown to the point of near insanity.  It took me a marathon 6 hours to set this puppy up, and that’s with some help from Melissa and my parents… Oh! And Sam’s occasional mad dash to grab a piece.  Some of these pieces are priced in the hundreds as the amount of hand painted detail is pretty crazy, so it was constant vigilance with Slippery Sam sneaking around! So check out the slideshow below and see if you can find what Melissa and Sam were doing while I was playing mayor in Christmas town at 11pm… All I can say is that they sure do look comfortable! ;)

My little Xmas Elf!

Well we are now in December and the season is upon us and so far, Sam has not disappointed.  Melissa and I really get into the spirit of things, as you can see on the left, and we love the goodwill that flows this time of year… Too bad it’s not year round eh? Now I realize that this isn’t the first Christmas we’ve had with Sam, but this year he is much more aware and active than his younger self was last year. This is a huge difference for us, not only the way it brings us back to our own childhoods and the innocent wonder of the season, but also on a level of parent alertness that was previously, seemingly, dormant. Take for instance, the Christmas tree…  Continue reading here…

The days and nights are getting chilly around here.  That means when we go out for our walks in the evening, we need to pack that little guy tight as to not freeze his bits off. Thus, I give you, the Elmer Fudd hat!

We’ve also acquired a pair of winter gloves that look like we ripped off a hazardous chemical suit. They look warm and they can stretch up to his shoulders if we wanted to… we don’t, but if we wanted to, they could… Not that I tried it on Sam…

Sam loves his walks, especially with all the Christmas lights going up around the neighborhood.  He just loves walking right up onto the people’s lawns, and blatantly stared at their lights… even if they happen to be changing in the window at that very moment! Yeah, then I look like the perv!

Keep warm folks!

More on this great Christmas gift later, but for now, enjoy!

Sam and Mom, cheek to cheek

On with the rest of the Christmas pictures!  Melissa, Sam and I are lucky to have two great families to spend every Christmas with.  On the evening of the 24th, we had great fun with Melissa’s family for a traditional “réveillon” as you saw in my last post.   Sam had a great time and ended up fast asleep in his “mamienounes” bedroom, no doubt dreaming of what Santa would bring him in the morning… or maybe he was dreaming of whatever babies dream of… a bottle? Milk? Nipples? Toys? The birth canal? Who knows!

After we got home from Melissa’s parents at around 1 in the morning, Melissa and I put Sam to bed and we had our own little gift exchange… hehehe But seriously, we actually traded gifts so get yer mind out of the gutter (but just for a little while)!  We then hit the sack ourselves around 2:30 am  only to be up again at 7 am to pack the car and head over to my parents house, which is about an hour’s drive away.  I think we were the only car on the road.  It was dead.  We got there in just under 40 minutes. Sweet.

We had a great day full of good family fun, including our annual Toronto Vs. Montreal street hockey game, which Montreal won again, for the tenth year in a row… go HABS! Mom and Dad had all kinds of food out all day long, so we naturally stuffed our faces silly.  I took it upon myself to cook everyone our traditional “Big Christmas Breakfast”, which I did not mess up too badly, dishing out bacon, sausage, eggs, ham, etc. In the early afternoon, we had our secret Santa gift exchange that brought us some good laughs and plenty of picture opportunities.  Then came supper with a gorgeous and scrumptious turkey with all the fixings. Mom and Dad have really mastered the Christmas dinner, it was beyond excellent and they are to be commended in the efforts! Sam, however, did not taste the turkey as he was busy puking up his own meal… Poor little guy, we’re guessing there was a little too much excitment for him, so he projectile vomited all over his high chair!  He was fine after, even managing to score some nice fruit puray for dessert.

Following dinner, we had our “5 dollar just for laughs” mini gift exchange, which is always full of suspense and “gotcha” type moments.  The only rule that applies is that the gift you buy has to be of a 5$ value.  So it can be anything… and that may not be a good thing if your left standing with a crappy gift!  This year, I actually stole my Godson’s gift: a giant universal remote control.  I’m a geek. It was cool. It was mine. Then we had some dessert (Mom baked four types of pies!!!! Pumpkin, coconut, chocolate and lemon! They were filthy good folks… F-I-L-T-H-Y G-O-O-D!

Mom giving it a shot

My bro hitting the tough part

We then polished the evening off with a fun little tradition we started last year, which consists of wrapping a gift 50 times with all sorts of boxes and paper.  The letting people have a chance at trying to unwrap it with oven mitts!  This game rocks people! The rules are that you must put the gift in the middle of the floor and all the players must sit around it.  One person takes a pair of dice and throws them. If they roll a pair, they can put the mitts on and start to unwrap the gift. If no pair is rolled, the dice are given to the next player and the gift remains unharmed. The next player then rolls for a pair as well… and so on and so forth.  Whom ever successfully and completely unwraps the gift gets to keep it.  It’s nothing but fun and hectic times ahead if you try this game, as the pace quickens as the gift is unwrapped.

As you can see, it was a busy Christmas on my end, and I am thankful for every moment.  Sam had a blast playing with his aunt and uncles, grand-parents… and, of course, his cousins!  Here are some pics from the day, as I am out of words… and tired of writing!

Our family on our first Christmas together

The family tree with the gifts being guarded by my nephews	My bro and his daughter, a proud irish girl
My nephew with Sam	My godson after he won the oven mitt gift game!
My sis and niece take a quick picture break from the frantic oven mitt game	My bro-in-law sweating with the effort... he really gave it his all!
Next it was my brothers turn, he hit the duct tape!	My sis taking care of Sam as she always does when she's in town!
The frantic family dinner table	Sam and his uncle sharing a ribbon
Me in my new Irish colors...	... and my niece in hers!!!
Grand-parents with the grand-kids!	Three generations... I've waited a long time to take this picture!
Sammy rockin' it with his cousins... he later beat them up!	The grand-parents fightin' over Sam... like usual!
Sam makin' a move for a tree ornament!	Nanny with Colby, my sis's dog.
Me acting stupid... what else is new

As always, thanks for reading!

Well folks, as I write this, my holiday vacation has little less than twenty four hours of life to it, but don’t get me wrong because I’m not complaining.  It’s been a very busy, wacky and wild two weeks, and maybe a little relaxed, slacker time at work is just what I need! My bosses read my blog on occasion, so I really hope they picked up the sarcasm there! If not, I may be staring an unemployment related blog soon, stay tuned

Our Christmas festivities started off in the evening of the 24th, over at Melissa’s parents house.  The whole gang was there dressed to the nines and Sam was at his attention grabbing best.  Being passed around from adult to adult without the slightest frown or sob, Sam soldiered on until Mom plopped him down in his retro 80’s feeding chair that his “MamieNoune”, Melissa’s mother, had bought for him. The buffet was laid out and Sam was eating like the rest of us. He seems to enjoy that, I think it makes him feel like one of the big people. That when Sammy boy decided to shake things up a bit, and when Mom wasn’t looking, that’s when he struck! Mom’s head was turned and out flew his hand.  The slap completely knocking over his bowl of chicken pot pie and pea puray… all over his bib, the retro 80’s chair, the floor… and Melissa’s black dress pants! Merry Christmas Mom!

The rest of the evening went really well, except for the abrupt end that hit around 10:30, when my God-Son Jeremy, after an understandably exciting and long Christmas-Eve, was strung out and tired. So much so in fact, that after getting his “big gift”, the train set pic, he did what any five year old pooped out but over zealous kid does on Christmas when told by his parents he can’t open the “big gift” now:  complete meltdown! Quite the tantrum, so the family packed up an left with the little guy steaming… oh well we had some good fun anyways. Besides, if I’m still blogging in five years time, I might be writing the same thing about Sam!

Here are just some of the pics from the evening, enjoy: