Day 241 | History Museum: Wisconsin Version

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The museum bug even bites when we're on vacation. Today, Grandma Bibi took us to the Museum of Natural History. It was quite an impressive show of animals, eggs, and fossils. Chase really enjoyed collecting the animal trading cards scattered around the exhibits and Robbe just loved having so much open space to crawl around in and so many fun ledges to pull himself up on.

A great way to spend a chilly (5 degrees!) morning. 

Day 240 | A Gift to Myself

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I love having my fingernails painted. It just makes me so happy. What doesn't make me happy? The fact that they chip almost immediately.

So I finally succumbed to the hype and tried a gel manicure today. Will it last three weeks? Only time will tell, but it looks pretty great for the moment. Will it ruin my nails? I'm not going to worry about that-they have never been that fantastic. Will it become a new obsession? Maybe, just maybe. 

*Note: I was fully intending to give this to myself as a gift (hence the title) but Chris's mom swooped in and treated me to a late Christmas present. So sweet and greatly appreciated. 

Day 239 | Chris's Favorite Thing

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After sharing the boys' favorite things a few posts ago, it's time to highlight Chris's favorite thing: the day after sandwich.

It includes all the fixings from the traditional Thanksgiving dinner (and Christmas dinner this year) all in one sandwich for lunch the next day. That means turkey, potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and gravy all piled high. Not my idea of delicious but if it makes him happy, I'm happy. 

Day 238 | Merry Christmas: Part 2

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We enjoyed another lovely family Christmas celebration tonight. This time with Chris's family. It was a wonderful celebration of giving, receiving, and eating. Obviously lots of eating. If only the other third of the brother trio could have been here with his family, it would have been perfect. 

It's truly a blessing to have family that you can call friends and that you completely enjoy spending time with. We hit the lottery with all our family: immediate and extended.

*Note: I almost missed another post today. My schedule is just all out of whack! And maybe the two hours of putting together an awesome zoo for Chase added to the rush to get right into bed afterward...

Day 237 | Merry Christmas

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Merry merry Christmas. I'm wishing all of you love, magical moments, and family fun on this festive day. 

*Due to lots of quality family time and some pretty extreme exhaustion (have I mentioned how I'm not cut out to sleep with a baby in the same room as me?), I missed yesterday's blog post. The horror! I'll just tell myself that it was my day off for the holiday. Hope you don't mind. 

Day 236 | Christmas is Here

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We officially made it to our family Christmas festivities. After another four hours in the car (not my favorite, for the record), we're settling in and loving the quality time with our extended family.

Chase was reunited with his best friend, Frosty (who is about the same size as our toddler), and both boys have been enjoying the extra attention (surprise, surprise). And the photo on the bottom-right is Chase's vacation bed/pseudo-life raft. It's been a big hit. 

Day 235 | Ho Ho Ho

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Chase finally put in his gift requests to Santa today...just under the wire (but not entirely our fault).

He was a champ! Let's just say that the last two years didn't go well with our friend, Santa. Lots of crying. Not this time: he was all business and even plastered on a smile for the photo. He recited all his requests without hesitation and even put in an order for Robbe (according to the letters that we wrote).

And Robbe? No crying there either, and he went right to the strange man with a crazy beard. I'd like to think it's because Chase was by his side (that's sweet, right?) and not that he'd just go to anyone. 

One more check off our holiday to-do list!

Day 234 | A Tradition Continues

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The cousins got together for their annual gingerbread house construction today. Chase got pretty into it. His patience for these kinds of tasks always shocks me. His jobs today included: unwrapping the peppermint wheels, making marshmallow snowmen, adding smarties to the roofline, and sneaking just a couple sweets.

And the house turned out just perfect. 

Day 233 | Treats Galore!

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We have been innundated with delicious treats since our arrival yesterday. Is it possible to survive only on sugar for two weeks? We're going to find out.

And, as it turns out, the pretzel hugs my family has been making for years is the perfect toddler activity. Chase loved unwrapping the hugs and placing them meticulously inside the pretzel circles. He even helped place the M&M on the melted hugs after they had cooled for just a minute. Such a big helper!

Here's the "recipe". Delicious? No question!

Day 231 | Holiday House Scenes

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One of the hardest things about visiting family over the holidays (aside from braving the airports during the busiest time of the year) is leaving our own house behind. Oftentimes, I don't spend much energy decorating because it's just not worth it for the couple weeks we're home in December. Thanks to our holiday party (and mostly my mom!), this year was a totally different story. We're bursting at the seams with holiday cheer.

Enjoy the collage above depicting the festive environment that's been getting us in the Christmas spirit all season. I'll miss my own tree, mantle, and decorations as we jump on a plane but I'll take family over holiday isolation any day!

Day 230 | Rec Center Revelry

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We finally had the perfect day to get out and experience the

Tiny Tots

! program at our local recreation center. To call it intense would be a big understatement. It was Chase, Robbe, me and about 30 daycare toddlers with a handful of their caregivers. Whoa.

It took Chase a bit of time to warm up to the chaos but Robbe was right at home. He got lots of attention from the kiddos, as usual, and maneuvered the crowd shockingly well. 

One of the highlights for me? Watching the kids flock to the stereo every time a

Frozen

song came on (see bottom-right photo). Seriously, they paid no attention to any other Disney song but as soon as they recognized the beginning of a

Frozen

song, it was like a magnet pulling them in. They went crazy. It was more than a bit amusing. 

Day 228 | Christmas Came Early

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We head out for our Wisconsin Christmas adventure on Friday so we decided to celebrate our family Christmas yesterday in order to limit the number of gifts we have to haul back and forth.

It was a lovely evening of gift giving. The boys' faces were plastered with smiles and Chase was just as excited about watching Chris and me open gifts as he was about ripping into his own (ok, maybe not just as excited, but close). 

A few highlights? 

1. Chase got a shed for his trains! I asked him this morning if we should call it a shed or a garage and he replied, "let's call it Tidmouth Station" (where Thomas sleeps). It's a big hit. 

2. Robbe opened up a toy chair. It's the updated version of a chair that Chase loves at his grandparents' house so we knew it would be well received. And it's a good thing Robbe is willing to share. 

3. Chris managed to completely blindside me again this year (two years in a row, for the record) with a super sweet and thoughtful gift: a printed book of my first 100 blog posts! The best, right? It's so much more enjoyable to flip through a hard-copy version of the posts than sit in front of a computer and click through the links. I'm a lucky lady.

Day 227 | Santa Fail

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Our big plans to meet the jolly big guy today failed. Apparently even Santa gets sick (or at least that's what they said). Luckily there's a great train display around the National Christmas Tree so that was a fine consolation prize. You heard right, more trains. We've got to have exhausted all the train exhibits by now, right? We'll see...

Day 226 | More Trains? Yes, Please!

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We managed to find yet another holiday train exhibit to enthrall sweet Chase. Today's excursion took us to the College Park Aviation Museum for their "Holiday Trains and Planes" display. They put on a good show and Chase could not have enjoyed it more. That kid definitely loves LOVES trains. Thomas even made an appearance, if you can believe our good fortune. Robbe had a good time, too, although his activity of choice was pulling himself up on a little riser. Whatever it takes.

The top-right photo is from my muffin date with my big man this morning. We snuck away to Union Market for some Christmas shopping. The photo was too cute not to share.