Really Mom? Really?

So I've started to plan a jungle themed birthday party. Saw these hats at Party City. I didn't buy them, but what do you think?

Vake is one patient baby.

Balancing Act

"So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains." — Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You'll Go!)

Guess who's getting really good at standing?

That's right. Vakealicious is standing by himself- tonight he stood alone for 10 seconds.

We had a rough week this week. I wasn't feeling the work love the way I usually do. The Audi went BACK into the shop. E and I did the budget for FY 2010, which is never fun to do. And Vake was supercrabby for super T, who said she had never seen him as grumpy as he was.

But persevere we must.

At least I finally got the house cleaned up from Christmas today.

Craig's List Living Room

So Eric and I had two loveseats in the living room- I bought them in 1998 and they had a good run. But they were exactly the wrong size for our new living room and exactly perfect for Anne and Dennis' living room, so you know where they went.

Unfortunately, that left us with very little furniture.

Also unfortunately, we are trying to be exceptionally careful budgeters. So I've been combing Craig's List for a sofa, a pair of armchairs and a coffee table (oh yes, and a train table for little V!).

I found the train table today- $20.00
And the huge piece de resistance, a great coffee table AND accent table for $150.00. What a bargain.

I definitely wanted a square table to help alleviate some of the "bowling alley" length of the room- and this is a great one that is almost $800 at Pottery Barn.

Here it is in the room...

And I got a table to go in between the two chairs (eventually this will be a matched set of armchairs). But I feel really good about this purchase- I would have bought something similar and I think I saved big money!

Christmas Day

We woke up on Christmas morning- Vake was NOT happy that I slowed down getting him out of the crib in favor of snapping a Christmas morning shot...
Once we got up, though, he was in a GREAT mood.

Here's my little Christmas elf with his letter from Santa Claus, who encouraged Vake to work on walking and talking this year.

And Santa was so generous with everyone this year!

Here we are unpacking Vake's stocking.

Vake really liked the orange in the toe...

I had thought he was going to be more fired up about unwrapping packages- he was pretty uninterested. Oh well.

I do have to say that he is a total snugglebunny of a little boy- he is VERY into handing out hugs, especially to Daddy.

And of course, a holiday would not be complete without Dennis and Domingo!

Vake, who is a GREAT shopper, got his Uncle Dennis a Snuggie.

Here we are, opening presents and trying out new modeling poses...

One of Vake's favorite presents was a set of serving spoons. Go figure.

So now we're fast forwarding to dinner- I had one picture left on my memory card- and we were able to capture Eric's perfect holiday dinner! Yum!!! He made standing rib roast and individual Yorkshire puddings!

a KINDLE!!!

Super E got a Kindle for me for Christmas! So exciting! More and pictures later!

Christmas Eve Continued...

Hi there- it's Alison again- MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

As you can see, the house was a frenzy of baking and crafting this afternoon. Here are Anne and Louise working at decorating gingerbread men made by Eric- I don't think they turned out exactly the way E planned- oh well...
And here are the miniature Christmas trees that will be tomorrow's table decorations. The one closest to us in the picture is the one Eric did- apparently I am not the only crafty one in the fam!

And here's a picture of E's shortbread- took him two batches to get it up to snuff.

Here's the family before we went to the 4:30 church service. Suffice it to say that Vake is LOUD in a big vaulted church- everyone knew he was there and the highlight for us as parents was when he drooled on the 8 year old in the pew in front of us.

Am I getting shorter, btw? Or is it just that Vake is so big that I cannot stand up straight if I am holding him? E looks like a giant in this pic.

My little pumpkin tried one piece of shortbread before we went to church- it was delish.

How funny is this pic- V is sitting on the dining room table and you can see Stilly's nose hoping for a handout!

After church, we went to Grandmary's for dinner- Eric was the carver!

We loved getting some time with Aunt Anne and Uncle Denny!

When we got home, we put out some cookies, Chex Mix and scotch for Santa.

My First Christmas - Part I

DaDa is filling in as guest blogger to help me to tell you about the first part of my Christmas Eve Day. (DaDa is my first word - I used to say it about everything, now I use it to talk about DaDa.)

Left Bank Granny sent me a nice story about the snow and travel plans getting ruined. It had pictures and everything. I'm hoping this blog will tell her the rest of the story of this Christmas.

When I got up today I was in my Santa Pajamas.

I looked at our Chrismas tree. Momma and DaDa did a good job decorating it - it doesn't look nearly as Charlie Brown-ish as it did in the store where it was only one of three left.

It even had a special ornament that Momma and DaDa got for me. My first ornament.

Then I took a tour of the house - I'm getting pretty good at crawling fast. I looked at all the neat Chistmas cards people sent us. I even pulled a few down.

DaDa was cooking in the kitchen. He made Makia Leipa, a traditional Finnish bread. Yum!

Then Stilly helped me get a gingerbread boy off of the counter.

It was delicious.

I shared some with Stilly.

Then I got tired. It was time for my nap.

I'm sad that I'm going to miss all of my Sampson relatives this year, but DaDa says we can go this summer to get away from the oppressive Richmond heat, so we've got that going for us.

More updates later from my first Christmas Ever!

Everyone's heard the one about the man who complains about his dishwasher. I think the punchline is along the lines of telling her to get back to work in the kitchen. Fortunately for the Martins, our dishwasher is extremely enthusiastic!

Here's a video of the little helpful helper himself- of course, I need to apologize for being a moron and flipping the camera vertically instead of horizontally. (Neil got his sister a Flip- one of the little portable video cameras- if it works half decently I am going to try to talk Eric Martin into one). At the end, when I am talking to him, he's pretty conversational. Even though he's obviously talking in crazy Vakey speech, he's got some information that he wants us all to have.



I promise that I will get some holiday decorations pictures posted soon- E spent all day today baking and cooking so I will try to snap some pics of his shortbread, braided bread and gingerbread people.

5,000 hits (and I'm not talking cocaine or heroin...)

Oooh. Did you notice? We are almost at 5,000 hits to this blog. Yippee!

Pat the Bunny

You have to be somewhat patient with the quality of this video, but Vake is LOVING Pat the Bunny these days- he loves to play peek-a-boo with Paul. (For those of you who haven't had a plot refresher lately, Judy and Paul are the protagonists. They do lots of things, patting bunnies, smelling flowers, looking in mirrors, feeling scratchy beards.)

Vake's fave page is peek-a-boo with Paul, followed closely by looking in the mirror like Judy- however, at the end of this video (and much to Daddy's continuing relief) he gets distracted by his football.

Oh Christmas Tree!

So with the advent (no pun intended) of our failed trip to the Pacific Northwest, Eric and I are trying to get the house whipped into a Christmas frenzy.

(Ok, perhaps that's overdue for a rephrase. Eric's holding on as best as he can while I make up for the fact that we did NO holiday decorating...)

So the first thing we needed was a tree. Look at my little holiday pumpkin who had to wear a H-A-T to go out in the snow.
Mommy, I WILL not smile for the camera.

Nope, not going to do it, no matter how many ridiculous things you and Daddy do.

He did think that SNOW was pretty interesting though!

Here's the sight that awaited us at Lowe's. Three trees. Each more pitiful than the last. We picked out the best of the bunch, we think.

It was so cold and so miserable that there wasn't even anyone in the Garden Center that I could corral into taking our family picture.

But Daddy took one of Vake and me and I took one of Dad and the tree.

When we got home, there were some nice people walking by who were happy to take a picture- what a happy family.

I'll follow up with pictures of the decorated tree later today!

This is not exactly what we meant...

...when we said we were dreaming of a White Christmas.

E held with United for an hour and a half after they cancelled our flight to Chicago this morning. When he finally got someone on the line, our options for getting to the West Coast were: standby Monday or a flight to Chicago Wednesday night, then overnight in Chicago, then a flight to Portland Thursday. Maybe we could have done this EXCEPT the two seats were not together. Sucks.

It's Coming...

...the best children's consignment sale in Richmond- Kids' Layne- is having a sale in early February. I've got a poster but it is refusing to upload.

I'll be checking back in with the details...

10 month stats!

I took V to the pediatrician for his second part of the flu vaccines- and I asked them to measure and weigh him just to check in.

He's now officially a member of the 30 pound club- he was 30 pounds 2 ounces. He's also 32.5 inches long- so for the first time he's off the charts for height, too...

And. I'm 62 inches tall. So at 10 months, he's more than half as tall as I am.

Rocky Beats Death! Again!

That's right. The score is now Rocky: 3 Death: 0. I got a terrible call yesterday- Rocky, Grandmary's scrappy little dog (truth be told, he started out life as my dog but after a vacation at Grandmary's house, the two of them loved each other so much I couldn't break them up...) had been attacked at Doggie Day Care and was in emergency surgery.

He's resting comfortably and VERY quietly now.