We've got the Holiday Fever

There is nothing like getting in the holiday mind set quite like creating a Gingerbread House.  Xavier got right into it this year.  He was a wonderful helper by eating a good 1/3 of the icing while I put the house together.  Needless to say, he woke up with a belly ache in the middle of the night, but he had SO much fun eating sugar paste by the spoonful!!

After Xavier got out of the bath and before bed he helped me put finishing touches on the roof.  We have a number of fabulous pictures of this, however he was naked and I am just going to hold those in my ever growing embarrassing pictures to bring out when he starts dating...awhhhaaaa!

The next morning and Xaviers excitement at seeing his "ginger house"

Xavier is 100% in total adoration of the "ginger house"  It is like a calm comes over our house when I bring it down to the table for him to look at and pull gum drops off.  He is very generous, he likes to pull gum drops off for Jeremiah and I, but only after having a few himself.  Xavier has definitely been on a sugar high since the holiday spirit has hit our house.  We had a cookie exchange at work and I brought home 6 dozen cookies (yes, 6 dozen), plus all the yummy holiday treats that seem to be all over our house, geema and papa's house, every store etc, teeth brushing at night has taken on a new meaning and has definitely increased in time and thankfully Xavier likes to floss his teeth, so we are diligently working at keeping his teeth clean after the mass amounts of sugar intake.  BACK to the "ginger house" it seems to have the effect of the Elf on the Shelf, I can say, "Xavier I can't bring out the Gingerbread house this evening if you keep this up." And boom, it is like his little guardian angel smacked the little wild angel on the other shoulder and said, listen up you fool, we want to see that "ginger house."  And piece and calm reigns again in the Fish house.  It can take Xavier a good 10 minutes to decide which gum drop to pull off and eat first.  He is a fan of the purple grape ones and seems to always give Jeremiah and I the red cherry ones.  At least it is helping with his colors!  I'm pretty sure he will have to go through sugar withdrawal after the holidays and it will be amazingly fabulous in our house for a few days!!!haha

 Below are a few cute pictures of all the other happenings in our house!  Last year, Jeremiah got a helicopter for Christmas; it was a big hit with Xavier and Jeremiah last year, but I think Xavier was a little scared of it.  This year when they pulled it back out again Xavier is ALL OVER IT!!  He is doing a pretty good job of flying it (as seen below with the controls), but the best part I think is that Jeremiah chases Xavier around the house with it.  What fun!  Too bad it only keeps a charge for about 30 minutes before needing to recharge, but it is a great energy burner for sure!!! 

 Xavier with his shop goggles on!  Tell me that is not cute! 

 And yes, the newest toy/playtime fun is actually the toy tub!  Xavier is in the dumping out everything phase, so every morning he comes downstairs looks over at his toy tub and instantly goes into destruction mode and MUST dump EVERYTHING out and then jump into the pile and lay there for a little while.  To a certain extent I have just given up on a clean living room (but this toys all over the place thing drives me bonkers!  I do not mess with his room or really the basement-I can handle toys all over the place there, but in the living room it just drives me bonkers-oh well, I guess this just comes with the territory of motherhood, learning to deal!)  So, one day while the boys were home, this became the newest and best thing!  He gets in this toy tub, Jeremiah picks it up and then tips it up and back.  I don't watch, but really cute pictures!

Stocking are hung with care

Ready or Not, Christmas is going to have a completely new meaning for Xavier this year!  On Saturday after Thanksgiving we headed down to the community center to pick up a Christmas Tree.  Xavier wasn't so sure about it to begin with, but by the time we had paid and Jeremiah was loading it into the back seat of the Jeep next to Xavier he was super excited about the tree.  The whole way home he kept saying,

 "This is my Cistmas Tree."

    Later in the evening we decorated the tree and quickly found that taking off the ornaments was more fun than putting them on.  Xavier kept moving the wooden birds around the tree.  I am pretty sure a few will be lost this year or hidden in places unknown to be found in July! 
                                               

The funniest part of decorating however had to be when Xavier kept taking the red ball garland, putting it around his neck and running into this room. I was able to catch him in the act!  Jeremiah ended up getting it laced into the tree, but I have a strong suspicion that it will be pulled out sooner or later.  We also have a gold garland somewhere, but it disappeared during the decorating and I can not seem to find it anywhere!!!

All lite up and ready for the 25th!!!

To Heath with Love from Xavier!

                                               You had best be ready come December 27th!!!!

Let him eat Cake

Cake and the Happy Birthday Song are permanent fixtures in our household during the late fall and winter months.  It seems like over half of the family has a birthday between September and January.  Needless to say, we have lots of family dinners and birthday cakes.  Xavier has just figured out the whole excitement around the Happy Birthday Song and when that gets sung that means there is cake and candles to follow.  He does not really care that much about blowing out the candles, he is just into pulling the candles out and licking the icing off the bottom. 
There are days when Xavier will ask me to sing the Happy Birthday Song and when I am done he will say, "Ok...Cake"  Obviously cake follows the song.  However, we do not always have cake, which was a very hard lesson to learn for him, it caused a few tears.
Regardless we are big fans of the birthday party and even bigger fans of the cake and candles.  Below is a lovely set of pictures from Geema's (my mom) birthday.  Geema had a wonderful pound cake with chocolate icing.  The best thing about the cake was that it did not fall apart and Xavier could just pick it up and eat it. My mom cut huge hunks of cake, so Xavier was in HEAVEN!!!  Fortunately, the bottom layer ended up falling off the hunk of cake and his nap was not sabotaged by copious amounts of sugar. 

                                                                       The first bite

                                                        Really I can eat the whole thing

                                                     Daddy where is YOUR cake

                                                        losing the bottom layer

                                          not so sure about the smaller piece...Giving in and eating...

Cooler Weather

Cooler Weather is here to stay for a little while I do believe, so we broke out the new winter coat, and well it did not go well at all!  Xavier does not like when he has sleeves hitting his hands and the coat is just a smidgen too big, so it is a little long in the sleeves which caused great big tears from Xavier.

When I pulled out the coat he was so excited to put it on, but once I got it on he just about had a mini 2 year old break down about the sleeves touching his hand.  I of course had to document the show down with the coat sleeves.  He just stood there for about 2 minutes with his hands sticking out, with big tears staying, "It's too big, it's too big."  I asked him if he would like me to take the coat off, which he promptly told me "You Can't."  I told him it would keep him warm when he went outside to play and asked if he wanted to go outside, "Ok". 

And they are now best friends.  2 year logic is fabulous, if only I could crack the code, I would write a book and become a gallizonaire!!!

Halloween

So I am only 2 weeks behind in my Halloween posting!  Not bad I guess...

Xavier had a wonderful time this Halloween, he got excited about dressing up (even though he had no clue why he was dressing up at the time), hated his hat, but let me get about 2 pictures with the hat on before completely boycotting it.  But once he got that first piece of candy at the first house, he was hooked and was so excited he did not know what to do with himself.  Very cute!  The funny thing is, we still have almost all of his Halloween candy, he does not ask for it for as far as I can tell, think about it or know that it is there.

Here is my very own Fire Engine Red Crayola

Being camera shy, but got a great picture of his 'color'

Getting ready to go trick-or-treating with his cousins, Kyra and Kelly the Which and Zombie.

After the first house...game ON!

sampling some of the loot with Daddy.

Out cold after a fun filled night of trick-or-treating.  By far his favorite part of the night was when Ginger gave him a digger (seen as his sleeping buddy in this picture) in loo of candy.  Can we say spoiled?  I think so!!!  The best is that he slept all night with his tractor (this is a normal occurrence in our house, Xavier does not sleep with stuffed animals, he sleeps with diggers, trucks, tractors, fire trucks; if it has wheels and can fit into his bed, he has probably slept with it at some point).  He is truly too cute for words!

Growing up

A 2 year old who flosses this teeth, all by himself!  100% growing up too quickly!

New hiding places

Xavier has found a new favorite pastime. He is opening everything and climbing in!  Cabinets, closet doors, boxes, dryers etc...We have officially unplugged the dryer.  The other day he was watching a movie in the basement and I ran back upstairs to do something and when I came back down he was gone, nowhere to be seen, I freaked just a little about losing my kid and then heard this faint, "mommy I'm in here."  And there he was, happily sitting in the dryer.  The scary part, he can actually close the door so it latches while he is in the dryer, he can get it open from inside by pushing on it.  BUT OH MY GOODNESS.  The other day he took his tractor in the dryer with him and was driving it all around.  Not a fun new place to play in my opinion, but obviously the new HOT spot in his. 

 Paper boxes are also fun.  He tends to like to 'tip' them over and then tell me he bonked his head and I need to come over and rub it.  Then he gets right back in and does it all over again.  Bless his little noggin. 

Fabulous Fall

Fall is here!!!  And nothing is more fall than Xavier deciding to test out his new fall clothes.  Geema and Papa bought Xavier this lovely vest to maximize his outdoor playing ability and let me tell you, it has been a huge hit!!!  When he first tried it on, he did not want to take it off, he wore it with his hat for an entire evening (please also notice that he has his "running boots" on, he calls his cowboy boots his running boots). A slight meltdown happened when we had to take off the vest and hat to get in the bath.  But doesn't he just look adorable!!!  So cute!

 Xavier and Jeremiah went pumpkin patch picking at Drumheller's Orchard last weekend and had a blast!  Per Jeremiah, Xavier was more interested in riding the hay wagon than picking out a pumpkin.  He quickly ran into the patch, picked a pumpkin and was ready to get back on the wagon for another ride!  We have not yet gotten a big pumpkin, but Jeremiah thinks we are going to get one tomorrow and do some carving, last year our lovely dogs ended up getting ahold of the big pumpkin from the porch and took a bite out of it, so hopefully this year it will not happen.  This little pumpkin that Xavier picked at Drumheller's is currently sitting on our kitchen table holding his Halloween costume hat!  Can't wait to get pictures of that!!!!

 Jeremiah and Xavier picked me up some lovely yellow delicious apples at Drumheller's and it has been discovered that Xavier is a yellow delicious dude himself!!!  Every morning when Xavier gets up he asks for a cup of juice and an apple.  So sweet!!!

Love the fall weather and we have been making the most of staying outside whenever we can!  Lots of walks, running around and playing at the park!  Happy Fall!!!

Fun Times

There is nothing better than a bubble bath that has 3 inches of water and 6 inches of bubbles. Xavier and his cousins had a blast while at Massahnutten Resort each night in the bath. They had to take showers after getting out of the bubble bath! In 3 days we went through an entire bottle of bubble bath, but the pictures and the hour plus bath every night was totally worth every drop!!! When Xavier sat down, just his head and shoulders would stick above the bubbles!

We had a great condo at Massahnutten, right across the parking lot was a playground, tennis court and walking trail. Dinner could not be finished quick enough to get out to the playground to burn off all last minute energy before the epic bubble bath and bed! Xavier had a blast on the motorcycles and rocket ship thingies. He wanted to get up and down all by himself and would have a fit if you tried to help him; he ended up with a rub on his back from sliding off, but if you came within 2 feet of him while he was on the motorcycle he was tell you to go away and that he was riding.

Xavier's first ride on a Ferris Wheel, he was a little nervous and did not crack a smile the entire time. Maybe next year...

Cleaning with Daddy. Xavier is a huge help around the house and has probably vacuumed miles. He prefers when you vacuum while he is vacuuming and wants to get the exact same spot that you are cleaning. I honestly think we have turn the vacuum on more in the last 6 months than we have since we moved into our house in 2007. They even vacuumed the window sills yesterday! I hope this love of cleaning continues, if only I could convince him that putting his toys away was fun too.

Beaching Fish style

The verdict is in, Xavier LOVES the beach. The sand is the biggest draw for him. Today, he just kept jumping in the sand, he would count to three, then jump again. He was covered from head to toe with sand. The above was taken while Xavier and Jeremiah were hanging out in the sand.

Swimming in the ocean with Geema and Daddy. It is killing him that he can't just run and jump in the water, the current is pretty strong. After a wave crashes, he will either run up and jump into the surf or run away screaming.

The great distructor. He can take down an entire sand castle and village in under 30 seconds!!!

Walking the beach with Geema

Beach Bums!

Great vacation so far! Hopefully more wonderful pictures to come!!!

Time with the Parks'

When you bring 4 boys under the age of 5 together you are bound to have tons of fun, exhausting for sure, a few tantrums and tears and many good pictures! Xavier and I headed down to Bluefield this past weekend to visit Merri and Rob and the boys. They just moved into a a bigger place with a fabulous backyard and it was high time for a weekend of togetherness. It was lovely to see how much Merri's boys have grown and their different personalities and to see how Xavier interacts with other kids (sharing is not his strong point). Rob had to work, but we got to see him for a few hours, it seems that whenever we get together either Jeremiah or Rob has to work, one of these days we will actually have both entire families together! Merri and I got a good old-fashioned gossip session in and she also introduced me to "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" Oh my, it is fabulous! Funny how much we both still love wedding shows; we used to meet back in our room during college to watch "A Wedding Story." So funny, but if you have not seen "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" I recommend taking in an episode-totally worth it!!

Highlights from the weekend below:

Ethan sliding down the make-shift water slide-"did I go really fast?" Ethan was tame compared to Davis as he went down the water slide, Davis was all about going down on his tummy and he had the red chest to prove it went we finally headed in for dinner.
Xavier's first attempt, with Ethan's encouragement, going down the water slide, it wasn't that big of a hit for him, which surprised me.

Taking a break in the pool before fulling the cups back up with water and hitting the slide again. Xavier was IN LOVE with the cozy coupe and drove it all over the yard. Xavier and Colin had some sharing issues with the coupe, but it seemed to work out. Xavier only pushes it backwards, and he ended up getting it 'parked' under the slide, which suited him just fine.
Ethan at the fabulous park in Bluefield. It was hot as all get out and Merri and I only lasted about 35 minutes before we were a little sweaty. The boys I think could have stayed out the rest of the afternoon.

Xavier driving the airplane, which he referred to as a helicopter.

Merri pushing Colin and Davis. If there had been more shade, we might have lasted longer, but chasing 4 kids around is hard work!

A little time on the stairs, Colin, Xavier and Ethan.

It was hard to leave on Sunday, especially the big play room full of toys and the cozy coupe for Xavier. We had to take a few minutes in the back yard to say bye to the coupe and then go back to the park to make sure all Xavier's energy was used up for a pleasant ride home. Xavier slept most of the way down to Bluefield, so he did not get to experience driving through the tunnels on 77, but on the way back home, he was still awake and loved going "in a mountain." He just laughed in the back seat and would say, "cool." When we got home Giema (my mom) had arrived back from visiting Uncle Heath in Wisconsin and I am pretty sure Xavier's life was complete then; had a fabulous weekend playing hard with friends, new mountain experiences and seeing Giema after she had been gone for over a week.

So much fun, I can't wait for the next adventure!!!