...And a Partridge in a Pear Tree-Part 1

Wow! This has been such an amazing holiday season for E and his Moms. We celebrated Hannukkah with friends, met the jolly fat man in red, flew East for Christmas, and South for the New year, and here we are at home, recovering and grateful for all of our loved ones and our many adventures. So much generosisty was extended to our family this year. We feel pretty lucky. E has definitely learned what presents are. Lots of little wrapped boxes arrived in his lap through out these past three weeks. He now says "present" farely clearly. And, there are still more gifts coming his way. We thought we would start our many planned posts of the holidays with Hannukkah. Forgive the inability to rhyme. We are a bit jet lagged. Happy New Year Everyone!

On the first night of Hannukkah, my buddies gave to me:
A Thomas engine car, a spinning top, a hebrew alphabet set and lots of latkes to eat.
On the second night of Hannukkah, my aunties gave to me:
A pair of grammy jammies (thanks Charlotte), one Christmas book, a harmonica and one flute to toot(Thanks Christina! And yes, I insist on playing it upside down).


On the third night of Hannukkah, my Mommies gave to me:
One butterfly clicker, a puppet jungle glove and train tracks with cars that go coo coo.

On the fourth night of Hannukkah, my mommies gave to me:
A new Ezra bag that will house my playground snacks, my SIGG water bottle and spare hats and an extra pair of shoes.

On the fifth night of Hannukkah my mommies gave to me:
Lots of kisses under the snowflakes and cranes (ickcakes and canes)and bowl of Tom Yum Kai to ease our icky colds.


On the sixth night of Hannukkah, my Po gave to me:
A set of wooden blocks, the dot game of my dreams, a sharky bath toy, earplugs for my mommies and some really tasty Hawaiian shortbread treats (Thanks Po!).


On the seventh night of Hannukkah, my mommies gave to me:
A strum, strum on the big, big guitar.

On the eighth night of Hannukkah, I gave to my mommies:
30 straight days of pooping in the potty!



And then we packed our bags and flew off to NYC.....to be continued.

Gearing Up For the Holidays

Our family continues to build onto our holiday traditions. We've maintained a few traditions from last year and have introduced a few more. We still have our green and orange stockings made from old sweaters. They are hanging up and have been accepting gifts all year 'round. Momma continues to push the boundries about when we actually give gifts. Apparently, this year we've introduced PRE-Hanukkah gifts. Gotta love her! Her ability to avoid traditional gift-giving Eves is uncanny and makes for lots of entertaining negotiation. We decided not to have a Christmas tree this year and have introduced snowflakes and oragami cranes to our holiday aesthetic. We went a little over the top and hung many snowflakes from the ceiling while E was napping last weekend. He loves them. And, calls them blohplaxk.....he's almost got it, right? ADDENDUM: The new pronunciation for snowflake is Ickcakes!

We will have a little Hannukah party on Friday, and E and his little friends will dance under the snowflakes (ickcakes)and eat latkes and light a candle and sing songs about, um, a winter wonderland clad with menorahs and dreidels and lit trees and giant, jolly, white-bearded men saying ho ho. Then we are off to NY and NC to see those that we love and miss and celebrate more cold winter nights together (the idea of cold may be a bit different than what we've been used to).

Oh yeah, latest interests that have developed for E are:
-moons, stars, and yes, snowflakes
-any form of guitar and drum and his new love, the harmonica
-taxis, trains, buses, garbage trucks
-bagels, bagels, bagels
-music by Justin Roberts
And, lately his favorite video is this one:


Happy snowflake and moon dreams, everyone.