Christmas Vacation

It's a Burnett family tradition to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation every holiday season. Brent decided to go all out this year and spend Christmas Eve dressed up like Cousin Eddie.

It was a proud evening for me.

In case you've never seen this Christmas movie classic, here's a picture of "Clark" and "Cousin Eddie" in "the outfit." This is the best pic I could find, unfortunately.


In addition to Cousin Eddie gracing us with his presence, we had a great time in Sunriver with Brent's family.

Brent got in some skiing.

We went sledding. (The boys' enthusiasm is sadly accurately portrayed in these pics.)



The boys also found some new interests which include Foosball and "jumping parties". The jumping parties have continued at our house by way of Keith and Cole throwing our couch cushions on the floor and dive-bombing into them from the highest point possible.




Cousin Caden had the coveted toy of the season in his toy train. Said train was hidden several times to avoid child injury and conserve parental sanity. (You can just see the older cousins closing in on Caden's train.)

We had a fun time getting away for Christmas. Brent's parents spoiled us with a great place, delicious food and a "good old fashion family Christmas".

Fortunately, Cousin Eddie didn't wear his awesome outfit the entire vacation. :)

Miss Independent and Daily Dialogue

This little lady has a mind of her own. I couldn't figure out why she was being so fussy for the 4-5 weeks leading up to Christmas. After an exhausting few days over Christmas, it was time to let her "cry it out". Well, wouldn't you know as soon as I lay her down, she talked herself right to sleep? It turns out, I was only irritating her by walking her around to get her to fall asleep. She wants to do it herself. Go figure...Life is much better now--for everyone.


Now that I am not fighting Ally to go to sleep for 50% of my day, I have much more time to answer those burning questions spewing from my two inquisitive 2 year olds. Most of the questions are repeated at least (and I do NOT exaggerate) 30 times a day. No kidding.


"Where Baby Ally go?"
"Where Grandma go?"
"Where Grandpa go?"
"Where Debbie go?"
"Where Bucky go?"
"Where Dada go?"
"Does Mama know where Dada is?"
I typically answer this with, "You know where Dada is. Where is he?" And then sadly, they answer back, "Dada at work."

Some of Cole's best lines have come while noshing on string cheese. The most interesting this week came out of nowhere:
"I gonna punch Dada." (with fists ready)
"OK, Cole. You can punch Dada when he gets home. But you can't punch anyone else."
Surprisingly this has worked, so far. You can tell what Dad does as soon as he gets home from work. Keith and Cole are so excited to wrestle, fight and play hide and seek.
I mentioned to Brent that it's a good thing the boys are with me all day or they would never learn any manners. Brent explained that his job was to teach Keith and Cole how to "be men".



Awesome. So apparently, I should remain at ease when my son wants to punch the lights out of his dad since he is simply following through on his man-homework. I'm so proud. (Brent insists that Keith and Cole can tell the difference between "play-fighting" and the real thing. I disagree. How am I going to explain to some unsuspecting mom at the park, why my son socked her son in the gut? I can't possibly deny that my son ever learned that at home. That's exactly where he learned it!) Sigh...



Keith is one tough kid. He gets bumped around and shows little emotion. Most of the time, he's pretty happy working on puzzles, sticker-books, coloring or "reading" stories. Unless he feels very passionate about doing something, he is mellow to the core.






















Cole, on the other hand, eats up the sympathy. (Where did he get that drama?) While I was cutting his hair this week, he asked and answered his own question in a sympathetic voice, "Does that hurt? Yeahhh." He asks and answers similar questions when he falls. "Did Cole fall down? Yeahhh." "Did Cole bonk his head?" Yeahhhh." "Did Cole hurt finger? Yeahhh." You get the point.



Cole now jumps from crib to crib at will. It takes at least an hour and a half for them to go to bed at night. I'll hear a loud thud and then I can hear Keith cracking up. They'll wrestle around for awhile and then Cole will flop back into his bed. (This is repeated several times a night and each afternoon.) They were laughing so hard tonight that Brent went in to see what they were up to and they were each standing up in their own beds and had each other locked in a headlock, laughing hysterically.
Cole begs to go to bed and then can't wait to boot me or Brent out the door. "Mama shut door?" "Mama shut door?" And if we laugh at him, he says, "Cole funny." "Cole funny."



Keep in mind that each spoken phrase is repeated 2-7 times, depending on how long it takes me to repeat it back. Perhaps you have a glimpse into the fascinating dialogue that is my world.




Keith and Cole prior to me butchering their hair. I do not use the word "butcher" lightly. They were too distraught afterward for a post pic.

12 days of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

12 Broken Ornaments

11 Nights of dancing

10 Online orders

9 Christmas movies

8 Carols butchered

7 Rounds of Egg-nog (Brent makes a killer froth)

6 Trips to Costco

5 Sleepless nights

4 Opened gifts

3 Returns

2 Two-year-olds

And a pretty baby Ally

We hope your December has been as crazy (in a good way), busy and blessed as our family's has been.

Merry Christmas!

Mockery

I had hoped to avoid it for at least 10 more years. But sadly, I am mocked several times daily by my offspring.

Last night at dinner I was trying to keep Keith and Cole from putting their feet up on the table when Keith pointed his index finger and said, "I said no!" and smiled.

Cole finds it funny to hit Ally on the head or bang a maraca on the blinds and then ask, "Go time-out?"

Keith believes it hilarious to ask if he can kick Ally or throw food from his plate and then say, "Go time-out?"

If I say, "yes" to either request, both boys answer with an upbeat, "Okay" and put themselves in time-out.

If I ask, "Do you want to go in time-out?" they answer with, "yeaaah" and put themselves in time-out again.

The funny thing is that once they are in time-out they cry. Needless to say, I stopped doing time-outs when it became a game several weeks ago. But they find it hysterical to taunt me and honestly, they crack me up.

Clearly something is not working here. It would be a lot easier if they weren't so clever and comedic. If anyone out there has any ideas on how I can not fail at disciplining, send them my direction.

Even sweet little Ally has to get her digs in. Yesterday was her 4 month check up and she is in the 95th percentile for height. Considering her mother spent the majority of Junior High under 5 feet tall and was kicked out of more than one roller-coaster line, it is unclear from which gene pool she swam. The good news is that I might just have a basketball star on my hands. The bad news is that she may catch her brothers soon. She could end up protecting them from the "bad guys" that they pretend to fight, instead of the other way around.

Fight Club

From the moment Cole wakes up until he goes to bed, he does nothing but talk about who is fighting whom. For example:

"Monkeys fight gorillas?" "Bad guys fight hyenas?" "Mickey Mouse fight elephants?" He ends these phrases with a question mark because he expects an answer.

"Yes, Cole. Of course monkeys fight gorillas and bad guys fight hyenas."

He will continue to repeat each phrase over and over again until you repeat it back correctly. If you do not understand him and you try to repeat back to him what you are hearing, HE KNOWS. Don't try to fake it. (Did I mention that I am now fluent in toddler? I'm thinking of adding it to my resume.)

Occasionally, Cole changes up the fight scene to include members of the family:

"Dada fight T-rex?" "Mama fight penguin?" "Baby Ally fight monsters?"

And recently he throws in a few festive favorites: "Keith fight Santa Clause?" "Donkey fight Wiseman?" "Baby Jesus fight Snowman?" (Nativity characters are not off-limits in his world of combat imagination.)

Keith has decided to push buttons by testing out who he can hit, kick, and pinch. For example: "Hit Baby Ally with baster?"

"No, Keith. We don't hit Baby Ally with the baster."
(At least he asks first, right?)

"Hit Mama with baster?"

"No, Keith. We don't hit Mama with the baster."

"Hit Spiderman with baster?"

"Yes, Keith. You can hit Spiderman with the baster."

I've decided that I can't say "no" to everything. So, whenever Keith suggests bodily harm to an action figure, animated character or inanimate and disposable object, I let him dream big. The sky is the limit. I hope there is no limit to my patience with repetitious toddler phrases and boyish fight-scene imagery.

Little Ally just turned 4 months. She smiles constantly, especially when her Dad tells her that she is pretty.
She often puts up a pretty good fight before bed, but we still can't get enough of her. I think she's just a budding socialite who doesn't want to miss out on a thing.***

***Disclaimer: The reasoning behind the unfair ratio of Ally to brother pictures is purely practical: Ally can't move very far and the boys can't stay very still.