It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Today we decorated the house for Christmas. The Christmas bug bit me bad this year for two reasons: one because it's our year to have Little Man on Christmas day, and two because we didn't have much of a Christmas last year due to moving on the 26th. I've been restraining myself from decorating by buying presents, but now that I'm 99% done, I could withstand it no longer. So without further ado, I give you a picture montage of our day of decorating.

Little Man helped me put decorations on the tree.

Putting on the star. (please ignore my monkey toes)

It's a completed Christmas Tree!

We only have fake plants in our house, as I am only capable of killing live ones. So I spruced them all up.

A candycane (and "Holy crap what are we going to do with all these extra Christmas balls?!") staircase.

Decorated baby pictures. I just love these.

Stockings, hung by the dog food with care.

And after all the decorations were up, we made a Gingerbread house, complete with a hand full of icing for Little Man.

And that was our Christmas spirit filled day.

Eloped part 1

It’s been ten months since Darling got down on his knees and asked me to marry him. Ten months of joy and excitement mixed with worry and stress. Ten months of trying to find a way to pay for the modest wedding we want without having to wait 10 years or take a second mortgage on our house. Ten months of worrying that the people we love who are spread across 2 countries won't be able to come to our special day. It's been a difficult ten months to say the least.

So when Darling came to me a week before Halloween and suggested we elope in two days I was a little shocked. This wasn’t the first time we had discussed eloping, but it was the first time he had brought it up as a possibility instead of dismissing it. I wasn’t sure he meant it until I looked at him, his cheeks flushed and his eyes shining as he looked back at me.

I felt a rush of excitement as we discussed pros and cons, and the logistics of planning an elopement/honeymoon with only a couple of days notice. The timing was perfect. We weren’t scheduled to have the boy next week, Darling wasn’t starting his new job for another couple of weeks and I had plenty of vacation time. After making sure none of our parents would be offended if we ran away and got married without them, the reality of what we were doing started to sink in. I became more and more excited and nervous as I spent the next two days searching for an acceptable dress to get married in and preparing for our trip. Darling spent the next two days clomping around with blocks of ice for feet.

On Tuesday morning, after getting up very early to make myself pretty, I shoved Darling into the car and we headed out to pick up Little Man from his mom’s. At 9:30am we stood together in front of the man who was to marry us. As the officiant spoke, Darling took my hand and squeezed. At that moment I knew that he no longer had cold feet and we really were doing the right thing. We laughed our way through our vows, as Little Man scrambled on the floor for our rings because he had dropped them. By 9:45am on October 28th, we were husband and wife.

After a celebratory doughnut (with Halloween sprinkles!), we dropped Little Man back off at his mother’s and set out on our next adventure: The Honeymoon…

How We Got Engaged

It is Christmas morning, just the two of us. It’s kind of a depressing Christmas. We did our Christmas celebration yesterday since this is Little Man’s year to have Christmas Day with his mother. There is no tree downstairs that we lovingly decorated weeks ago. No presents wrapped with care and placed under the tree. No little footsteps charging down the stairs and no little boy voice exclaiming over the train chugging around the base of the tree and his mountain of presents. The house is full of boxes and piles of miscellaneous crap because we’re moving… tomorrow. Why we decided to move the day after Christmas is beyond me. I’m claiming temporary insanity.

Fortunately, I had my wits about me when I suggested it would be a good idea for us to save one gift to open with each other this morning. I’m unable to wait more than a few minutes after we wake up to give Darling his gift. It’s an ipod, and the only thing he really wanted this year. I know he knows what it is, but I’m excited anyway. After he’s opened and examined it thoroughly he says thank you and gives me a kiss. I look at him expectantly. “Uh, mine is going to take some preparation” he says. “And I’m going to need you to go away for a bit”. After some questioning, he tells me that he can do some of it while I’m in the shower, but after I’m done I’m to be banished to the guest room.

My excitement mounts as I wait in the guest room. Questions race through my mind. What kind of preparing is he doing? Is it big? Small? What IS he doing?!?! Finally, he opens the door and tells me I can come out. Again I look at him expectantly. He smiles and hands me a thumb-tack. Obviously, I am confused. Is this some kind of new fetish thing he wants to try out? Poking with tacks? Does he want me to poke holes in the walls we just finished filling all the holes in? He sees the confusion on my face and tells me to go down the stairs. I’ll know what to do with the tack when I get there.

Down the stairs I go. At the landing halfway, I see a balloon. Ah-ha! Thumb-tack, meet balloon… POP! Inside is a rolled-up slip of paper. He’s made me a scavenger hunt. Reading the slip of paper I discover that not only has he made me a scavenger hunt, he’s made me a RHYMING SCAVENGER HUNT. Each clue has a rhyming couplet on it. How cute! I travel through the house finding balloons and popping them to get the clue inside. Soon I discover that there are actually two clues on each paper. The rhyming couplet clue is to lead me to the next balloon, but below that is a smaller clue to what my present is. Darling follows me around from balloon to balloon. He seems anxious.

Eventually, I begin to get an inkling of where this is going. Head spinning, I dig through our dirty laundry for the last clue. Pop goes the balloon, and I unroll the clue. “Say yes and marry me,” it says. I turn around and there he is on his knees holding a box with a ring inside. I’m speechless and trying not to cry. I promised myself I wouldn’t’ get all weepy when this happened. He looks concerned. Apparently, I am making a funny face and is thinking he made a grave error. Finally I choke out a “Yes! Of course I will!” Falling into his embrace, I simultaneously laugh and sob into his neck. We are getting married!

After much kissing and hugging and grinning, we both run to call everyone we know. First and most important to call is The Boy. I watch as Darling tells him the good news. His response of “Noooooooooooo!!!!!” and hanging up the phone is not what we were hoping for. Fortunately, his response is not negative because he dislikes me or does not want me around. It is negative because over the past few months, Little Man has developed a rather large crush on me. (For months after this he will randomly tell me that he doesn’t want me to marry Darling, he wants me to marry HIM) We are unsure how to handle this, and look at each other for a few minutes trying to figure out what we can say to him. The phone rings. It is Little Man. The conversation is short and sweet. Darling says “Hello”, and Little Man says “Ok, you can get married, but NO BABIES!!!” and hangs up again. *Sigh* Oh well, at least he’s ok with the wedding. We’ll cross the baby bridge when we get to it.

The Green Eyed Monster, The Bee, and Me

This is my pup Holly:





Only the first part of this post is about her, but she is much too cute not to post pictures of, don’t you think?

Occasionally, I bring Holly to work with me. When I do, we usually go for walks along a little path around the corner from my office. Right now, the foliage on either side of this path is in bloom. It is also full of bees. While frolicking through the buzzing flowers today, Holly let out a yelp, sat down right were she was and started licking her back paw vigorously. I was worried that she had been stung by a bee, so we hurried back to my office for a paw inspection. The last time she was stung by a bee (or so we suspect), her face swelled up and we had to give her a dose of Benedryl. Of course, we didn’t notice that she was having an allergic reaction for a little while. Quotes like “She looks extra wrinkly today, doesn’t she?” will forever be laughed about in our home.

But that is not the point. The point is, worrying about her possible bee sting made me remember the last time I can remember being stung. My, but that was a long time ago. I must have been 6 or 7 years old. At that time I had two best friends, Victoria and Dessie, who were one and two years younger than me. Each of them had already been stung that summer, and each had been carried home by their respective older brothers to be pampered. I didn’t have an older brother, just a significantly older sister who had gone off to college and left me behind. I also didn’t have a bee sting, and all the extra attention that goes along with it. So, with the help of the Green Eyed Monster sitting on my shoulder, I came up with a plan.

I remember this day very clearly. I woke up this summer morning and got dressed, except for my shoes. After breakfast, I told my Mom I was going outside to play, and I left the house barefooted, determination in every step. I knew where there was a patch of clover not far from my house that was infested with bees. Being the meticulous child that I was, I couldn’t just go storming into the clover and hope my foot made contact with a stinger. Oh no, I inspected each and every bee before I found the perfect one to squash into oblivion with my naked foot. It was then that I realized my mistake. My eyes widened in horror as I rediscovered that bee stings hurt! The tears welled up and I opened my mouth and SCREAMED. Fortunately, my Dad had been working in our back yard, heard my screams and came to my rescue. Who needs a big brother anyway when you’ve got a big strong Daddy carrying you off to be pampered?

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the pampering had to wait. In the few minutes it took my Dad to get me to our house, my foot had started to swell. In the few more minutes it took to make a poultice of baking powder and water for my wound, my foot had swelled up to almost twice it’s normal size. Of course, I had chosen the perfect bee. The bee with the largest singer and the most poison in said stinger, which would make my foot swell up for the next few days. A normal bee sting will hurt, but a sting that makes your foot swell up is agony, especially when you’ve got a deflated ego to go with your swollen foot.

Moral of the story: Don’t listen to the Green Eyed Monster when he tells you to get a bee sting on purpose, even if it will give you a funny story to remember later.