On the subject of Harriet...

Yesterday, I went in for my 3rd ultrasound on Harriet. We found out lots of things about her. Some we already knew. She's stubborn for one. She also moves around a lot and her head is very low and ready to go. She's a big baby apparently. They estimated her weight at 3 pounds which is the 92nd percentile for her gestational age (at 28 weeks the average weight is a little over 2 pounds.) I'm thinking this could be good or bad. If she ends up delivering early, she will have enough weight on her that she'll probably be healthy. If I carry her to term and she keeps growing at this rate, I'm going to have a very large newborn to deliver! I'm just glad she's ok and she's going to stay in for the time being - I'm not in pre-term labor at this point. Yea!

Our lives are currently shaped and focused on Harriet's arrival. Even Grace is starting to realize that it's all about the baby - especially now that I've been pretty "disabled" and can't do the things she would like me to as much. She is getting nicer when we talk about it and even asked if she could go to the doctor with me to "listen to Harriet." However, she maintains a certain level of being spoiled and is sticking to her guns as the current only child. We've been setting up bedroom #3 for Grace so that Harriet can move into the nursery. Grace is reluctant to share with Harriet, but she is excited about her new room and especially her new big-girl bed. We don't have anything else done in the room, but her bed has been set up for 4 days now and she has slept in it every night without complaint.

Having no one conveniently around who can help move furniture, David boldly took on the task of doing a lot of it himself. We will get some help with a couple of big heavy dressers, but he single-handedly moved the queen bed out of the room and downstairs to the den. (we'll leave it there for the summer until the Harriet visitors have come and gone.) He also moved the big couch from the den to the basement by himself. Then, for dessert, he got underneath our over-sized computer desk like a turtle and moved it down the wall for the new arrangement. He's also been tasked with painting and putting new hardware on the bedroom set I've had since I was 4 years old for Grace. It actually looks really good and I'm so excited to get it moved into her room. Usually, painting, moving furniture, and the likes can cause lots of marital stress - especially when one spouse isn't doing what the other wishes they would do. But, since I'm totally worthless to help paint or move anything, we have been fight free!

So, for our friends and family out there, we thought we should start taking a little poll. If you want to log in and comment with your answer, that would be great!
1- what do you think will be Harriet's day of arrival?
2- how much will she weigh?
3- what do you like better as a middle name?
Our options so far are: Anne, Ann, Marie, and May (assuming she's born in May!)

We'll figure out a prize for the winner of the predictions.

Buhler??? Buhler???

Elder Buhler and Elder Peterson were our friendly local missionaries for the past several months until Elder Peterson made his last transfer to go home to a small rural town in southern Utah. Mission well served! Elder Buhler who is still here has a connection with us here in Massachusetts. He actually was in Mr. Covili's English class at Hunter High. Does he look familiar Jared? He claims that Mr. Covili was a great teacher. Too bad no one else will ever find that out. Now Mr. Covili gets paid to geocache (and do a few other things I'm sure).

Grace loves having the missionaries over (and just about anyone for that matter) and one of the advantages of living in Massachusetts is the fact that Mormons are few in number so you get to interact with the missionaries quite a bit. While neither Michelle nor I are great reference machines we at least do our part to put weight on our missionaries with some good food.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!

Well after several days of enjoyment it is finally time to post about the Super Bowl. I have waited 26 years for this to happen and all I can say is let's get going on the second hand. I know that some people have been saying the Super Bowl was rather boring this year, but I actually thought it was a good game. Neither team was dominant and it was a hard fought close game with the game not decided until the fourth quarter. You have to like that. It will be interesting to see how this team responds next year. They will have a few things to work on like pass defense and while Willie Parker had a nice year I don't know that he is the answer for the running game in the long term. I just can't believe that there will be no football for 7 months. Is that legal?

BTW--Pittsburgh 5 rings, Cleveland?

Happy Ground Hog Day!

Well, ground hog day is just as exciting a holiday for me to celebrate as any. I was talking to Jared about why I don't do blog entries as often as he does. I told him that most days are very much the same for me and who wants to hear about our same boring routine? He said "your life is ground-hog day!" He's totally right. You could just put a looping video tape in for what we do most of the time. Since I have been really pregnant, Grace and I are late late risers. We get out of bed around 9 or 10. Grace watches some morning PBS shows while I check e-mail and shower. Then we have lunch (usually consisting of Grace's favorite - Ramen "doodles") and play for a bit before she takes her afternoon nap. I cook dinner while she is asleep and we wait for David to come home. Rita keeps telling me that if I don't feel up to it, I don't have to feel obligated to work for her. I told her that I wasn't quitting until a doctor tells me I have to. My Tuesday/Thursday afternoon job at her barn is the only reason I put on shoes and start my car twice a week! That's not entirely true, but very very close.

So what if every day is ground-hog day around here. Grace and I are pretty happy with it. We have lots of time to spend together which is exactly what I wanted to do when I quit my full-time job teaching. I love being able to mold my day around what she wants to do (most of the time) and letting her learn about how to do things from watching me do them.

So, now that we're home from Utah and we'll be here for many months... Happy Ground-Hog Day to us!

More Family Time

Like I said, the last half of our trip was really spent with family. We did visit a few friends from our old ward as well as Jared and Tara and Kennedy. I have a hard time choosing who to see when I go back. There are scores of people who I miss and who I'd love to stay in touch with, but it is really hard to keep close connections with lots and lots of people. I do my very best to stay in touch and I hope that no one gets offended when I don't visit them. There's only so much you can do in 2 weeks and I did all I could...

Anyway, we really did have a great time with our family. Here are a few more pics of the family fun:

walking to church with mo'Debbie... having a bath with baby Sean... hanging out with Grandpa Lyle... reading a story with Grandma and Grandpa Chapman and Aunt Christine...

We'll see you all again this spring or summer! Thanks so much to everyone for everything you did for us to help us visit and have fun. We love you!!!! We had a really hard time leaving this time. Usually, Grace helps me when I start crying about it and tells me that everything is going to be ok and "don't worry mom." This time, she was just as sad as I was which made it even harder for me and everyone else to say good-bye. Is there any way we can visit next time without having to do the good-bye part? Can we some how skip over that last day and instantly arrive on the plane? Well, it's still worth it to visit even if the end is sad and it is good that everyone cares so much that we all cry when it is over.

Gracie's first Dentist Apppointment

Grace got to go see her Uncle Randy for her first trip to the Dentist. She wasn't too sure at first, but the hygenist was very cute with her and made her feel very comfortable and secure. By the time she left, she was more than happy to be there. Her Uncle Randy counted her teeth (10 on top and 10 on bottom.) She reports that she has 50 teeth. She is also, thankfully, cavity free. Now she really thinks that Uncle Rand is cool and is so excited about the new fun toothbrush she got and the prize they gave her. I hope she has her Daddy's teeth and won't need lots of fillings or braces like her Mommy has had.

No photos, please...

Thankfully, we didn't document this part of our trip with a photo. Apparently, I have made a habit out of checking myself into the hospital when I travel. 2 trips ago, I thought I had a blood clot in my leg from flying, so I went to the emergency room in the middle of the night for an ultrasound. It turned out to be just a really bad broken blood vessel that had gotten all knotted up, but it did happen on the plane. Now, I'm paranoid about it when I fly. This trip, I ended up checking myself into the Labor and Delivery unit of the hospital. After being in Utah for about 8 days, I started getting very tired - more than normal and my pulse just kept going up. After 3 days of it with a pulse of 133 and a very limited ability to breathe, I called several health-care people for advice. They all told me to go straight to the hospital, which I did. I spent most of a day hooked up to the monitors and getting blood work done. It turns out, I had some sort of altitude sickness as well as anemia. After living at sea level for almost a year, I've apparently got fewer red blood cells than I need to supply me and a second person inside with oxygen. After being on bed-rest and an iron treatment for the week-end, I started to feel better. However, I'm still on "watch." I followed up with my doctor when I got back to Massachusetts and they are putting me on a lay-low system for a couple of weeks. I'm hoping I can go back to normal soon and that I can keep working at the barn a little longer. But, I'll do whatever it takes to avoid having a preemie in the NICU. I stink at being pregnant! I'm just glad that I got to do most of what I wanted on my trip before it all happened because the rest of the trip was pretty low-key...

Grandpa Earl's Birthday

We got to help Grandpa Earl celebrate his birthday on our trip. It was actually on February 1st, but we had an early birthday party on January 27th for him. Grace absolutely loves birthday parties - especially the "happy cake" that gets served. She is anxiously planning her own 3rd birthday party coming up soon. We really love Grandpa Earl and we were so glad to get to spend some time with him and bring him a birthday present. Grandma Barbara, of course, fixed us a great dinner too. We really miss being able to eat dinner with our families on a regular basis. We miss them so much and we miss the night off from cooking too!

Riding at Shupe Acres

After a few days spent with family and getting to know everyone again, Grace and I made our quarterly visit to Shupe Acres. My friend Jaimy owns and runs the barn there. She and I rode together when we were teen-agers and got hooked up again about 5 or 6 years ago when she came to look at my horse to buy for a student. I ended up not selling my horse, but just moving him to her barn and we picked up right where we left off as riding buddies. Only, this time, we were both on the verge of becoming mommies. Her little girl, Reese, is a year younger than Grace and they are becoming riding buddies as well. Jaimy and Reese are always so nice to let us keep coming to Shupe Acres to ride when we're in Utah and Reese is usually a gracious host to Grace in sharing her pony, Tucker. She wasn't as happy this time to share as most 2-year-olds don't like sharing at all. Still, she was very nice and let Grace ride her pony and they had many turns together. I did bring Grace's own helmet from Massachusetts with us this time. Everyone thought I was nuts to cart it all the way to Utah for just one pony ride, but it was a very good thing that each girl had her own helmet - sharing the pony was quite enough! Jaimy and I only wish that we could ride together more often than every 3 or 4 months and that Grace and Reese could grow up together a little more closely. Maybe Grace and Reese can go to Hybid Farm's summer pony camp together when they are a little older.

Winter Vacation

I was going to try to blog things as I was on my trip to Utah, but never got around to it. So, now I'll catch up...

Grace and I started our trip on January 17th to Salt Lake. We decided to take a trip after the holidays to avoid all of the confusion and stress that occurs with holiday travel. Being pregnant and traveling with an almost 3-year-old, we didn't make huge plans for activities, but just wanted to spend lots of time with the people we miss and do some shopping that seems to be hard for me to do as I live in Massachusetts.

Our big goal was to get to know my sister's baby, Sean, better and to have Grace spend as much time with grandparents and aunts as possible. We couldn't believe that Sean, a once fragile and tiny little infant with lots of health issues has grown into a very plump and healthy baby who even laughs and smiles and will now let you take him out of the house for more than 20 minutes. He is 5 months old and weighs more than Grace did when she turned one. They are definitely different, but you can tell that they're from the same stock of stubborn and Mitchell blood, both being equally spoiled. Melissa and I debated a lot on whose kid was more demanding of us.

Grace started the trip as she ended the last one, very jealous of Sean and not wanting a thing to do with him. She has never liked babies or dolls and we have been getting worried about how she will react to her quickly arriving little sister.

SUPER BOWL BOUND!!!

My obsession with the Pittsburgh Steelers is an odd one for a boy growing up in SLC, Utah. I am too young to have watched the Pittsburgh of the 1970's but my brothers who were indoctrinated me in the true way of football. Unfortunately for me, Pittsburgh has had a rough time of it in the 26 years since their last Super Bowl victory. Many seasons I have been left utterly disappointed because quarterback after quarterback could not take care of the ball. I have waited patiently for this day to come and finally will be able to watch the Steelers in a Super Bowl. The last time Pittsburgh was in the Super Bowl (1996) I was in Brazil and was unable to watch that game. I remember hearing about the game the next day and I was extremely disappointed that the Steelers couldn't pull it off (O'Donnell's interception doomed us). Since that time I have seen the Steelers lose time and time again (at home) to other teams (who shall remain nameless, I can't believe I live where I do now) in the AFC Championship game. Finally I will be able to watch the Steelers in the Super Bowl. I hope that they have one more victory in them this season.

This year's team almost feels like a team of destiny. Unlike last year when they were 15-1 and the top seed, this year they had to work for it. Three road games against the top 3 seeds in the AFC and having to win their last game of the regular season to get it have made this team really come together. They have been in playoff mode for 2 months and it is showing. With Bettis possibly retiring after this year and a Detroit native it only seems proper that the Steelers and Bettis go out on top this year.

Come on over, pull up a chair, have some chili-cheese dip and cheer on the Steelers. Long live the Steel Curtain!!!

111111

Well this post is for my friend Jared because I know that I will be scorned by Michelle and my friend Bryan will only role his eyes in disgust for the boring and meaningless post. But I had to post because I haven't done so in quite awhile, and my odometer rolled to 111111. It happened as I was coming home from work this evening right as I got off the Air Force Base in the historic town of Lincoln, MA. It was last January in SLC driving on I-80 over State Street that I passed 100000. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera so no picture to post. However stay tuned for the ever exciting 112358 (Dr. Warnick figure out the significance of that one!!) and of course the ever popular 123456. And if I still own my car in another 9 years I will be sure to get a picture of 222222.

Oh Sweet Child o' Mine...

As her mother and the person who "made" her, I have total rights to bragging, so... after dinner tonight, I just had to "blog" her. She is a pretty unique kid in that she will eat very "grown up" and healthy food and usually prefers it to junk food or sweets (except chocolate - that's the only way I know she's really mine!) I always feel so sorry for my friends who have to make 2 options at every meal-time (one for the adults and a separate bland boring dinner for the kids.) Grace eats and always has eaten whatever we choose to eat. And, if you know us well, we don't usually eat foods that kids would like. I remember when she was just over one year old, we were eating chinese food and she went to town on my cashew chicken and rice. Tonight for dinner, we had cod with spicy mango salsa (cod caught fresh by our neighbor Roger in the Atlantic), greek roasted potatoes, and asparagus. Most kids would look at that and immediately ask for Mac and Cheese or a chicken nugget. Not Grace. She ate a good portion of the cod and roasted potatoes and chomped through 4 asparagus stalks like they were candy canes. Earlier today, we were out shopping (at the one shopping strip within 20 minutes of our house) and she got hungry. There was a health food store nearby and I asked her if she wanted to go in and get a snack. She agreed, so we proceeded in the store. She passed up some cheese puffs (organic cheese puffs?), some chocolate bars, and several other snack options. We came to the produce aisle and she said "I want pink bell carrots." (pink bell for Tinkerbell who also enjoys carrots for a snack.) Unbelievably, they didn't have any carrots at the HEALTH FOOD store, so we left empty handed. When we got home she ate half a bag of baby carrots.

Of course, she will eat mac and cheese and a chicken nugget and fries when offered to her, but they are hardly the substance of her diet like they are for most kids. I can't really claim that it has anything to do with my parenting skills. She is just a cool kid on her own. I think she was born with a craving for good food. When I was pregnant with her I always craved fruits and vegetables that I wouldn't usually eat in that frequency and I regularly turned down dessert which is definitely not me.

She's just a mystery to me sometimes. You might think from this picture that she has sweet little curls that she has in cute pigtails with bows all the time. Really, she just likes to have the curlers in her hair, but won't let me brush it on a daily basis, much less put cute bows and barrettes in it. She usually has what she calls "crazy hair" and loves it that way. I was always bugged by little girls I saw in stores or at church who hadn't had anything done with their hair, but now I'm not so judgemental.

I'm not quite sure who I'm raising, but I really like her and she's taught me a lot about being an individual and not doing things just because other people do. She definitely does what she wants to do almost 100% of the time yet she does it (and I quote from another parent who sees her a lot) without being tyrranical about it.
I can't wait to see what her little sister has in store for us!

Christmas 2005

It has taken me a few days to post about Christmas, but that's only because I literally JUST washed and put away the pans I used to cook Christmas Eve dinner. It's a bit slow going to clean up. Of course, we spent our first Christmas in New England this year and our first without family around. It was both very sad and at the same time sort of nice to not have to go to any family parties or have arguments over what we were going to do for the holiday. We knew what we were going to do - pretty much hang out with ourselves!

We do have really great friends here and that made the week-end go by a with a little less homesickness. On Christmas Eve, we invited our friends, the Yoho's, over for a fun dinner. They have 3 kids and Grace had a lot of fun with their 3 year old boy. They are from Utah too and were home this year without family as well. We have really enjoyed getting to know them and have quite a bit in common with them.

On Christmas day, I made the mistake of waking Grace up early to open her presents. The bit of kid in me just couldn't force myself to wait until after church (we had to leave at 9:30am all dressed for church.) So, after all of us going to bed at midnight, I woke myself up at 7:00 and then Grace up at 7:30. (very early for us - the two of us usually wake up around 9:oo or 9:30!) She really did have fun opening the presents she had patiently waited so long to tackle and was so excited to see that Santa really did bring her the things she asked for. However, I think she would have been even more animated and more excited if she had been half awake.

This was definitely the year of the train for Grace though. She got tons of Thomas the Tank Engine pieces from many different people (including Mr. Claus himself) and also discovered a new favorite movie "The Polar Express." She's watched it about 8 times since Christmas Eve and we went out and bought the book today (couldn't believe we didn't have it already!) Anyway - our lives are now centered around the adventures of all of her train friends - even the beloved horses (who are still beloved) have taken a second seat to the trains for the time being!

Anyway, by the time we got to church, she was not in a very good mood and then by the time we got home from church, she was down right mean. We forced her to take a nap rather than play with her new toys and then woke her up again to take her to Rita's house. She was soooo mean when we did that. Luckily, though, she adores Rita's boys (age 23, 19, and 14) and they adore her too. So once she got there, she had a total blast playing with Tom, Andrew, and Coleman. We had a really nice afternoon with people who really feel like family to me. Rita has really stepped in and taken care of us this year and we are so grateful for our relationship with her, her barn, and her family. It has allowed me to survive and be happy here and consequently to be a good mom and a nice wife.

Well, we are all very lucky and very blessed to have received so much from everyone for Christmas. Our family and our friends are simply generous and amazing and made our Christmas very rich (in more ways than with the incredible presents that showed up on our porch and in our mailbox during the month.) Grace of course got very spoiled from all directions. I think about all the kids in the world who don't have a single thing that she does. I wish I could fix all that, but I guess the best thing to do is to be grateful for what you have and try to share and be as generous as possible. I think we try to do that, but we know that the scales still tip very much in our direction.

Thanks to everyone for everything that was sent our way - gifts, cards, letters, phone calls, e-mails, prayers, and thoughts. We were very happy to receive every single one.

Grace and I will be traveling to Utah from January 17th through the 31st. We will try to contact and visit as many as possible. We look forward to seeing you all again! Happy New Year (what is it - 2006??!!!!)

I'm 30???

Old enough and young enough that no one took a picture of me on my birthday! Well, actually, I've been saying I'm 30 for almost a year now. David is about 9 months older than me and as soon as he has his birthday, I forget how old I am and I say his age. It's totally true. My birthday is so close to Christmas that by the time the holidays are over, I just forget about it altogether. However, I really am 30 now and have joined the ranks of the 30-somethings. No more being associated with those 20-somethings. The 20's were great - college, new jobs, parties, crazy trips with friends, horse shows, weddings and a few babies here and there. But, I'm ready to be one of those generic people who just strives to keep a clean house, a car that runs and isn't sticky inside (although, I'm still young enough I'm not willing to hand over my pathfinder for a minivan), clean and happy kids, a good marriage and a few close friends. It's nice not to worry so much about what I wear, what people think of me, and whether I have the latest hairdo. (well, I guess I never really worried about that, did I?) Now, people just look at what Grace is doing and wearing and saying and they assume that if she's put together that I am too. So, naturally, all my focus goes to her. That doesn't necessarily come with turning 30 years old, but being 30 instead of 22 sure does help.

It's a GIRL!!!!!!!

Well, I suppose we can understand those who like a real surprise on the day of delivery to find out the gender of their baby, but David and I are way too "type A" personality to wait that long and leave that much planning to chance! So, we figure, it's a surprise and really fun no matter when you find out who your next kid is going to be. We had our ultrasound yesterday and found out that we will be having another darling little girl. My mom said "you mean another barn rat." She's probably right. Grace and I will have her riding before she can eat solid foods. We'll have to resist stopping at the barn on the way home from the hospital in May. Of course, David (as all fathers do), was hoping for a son. He is still excited to have another "daddy's girl" and if she's anything like Grace, she will love to do the things he likes to do too. Grace loves all the sports, the outdoors, the hiking, the camping... He is going to be very out-numbered in our house though as every breathing creature here is female except for him! I told him I'd get him a male fish, but that didn't seem to help.

I am very excited that Gracie will have a little sister to be her pal. My sister, Melissa, and I have been best friends our whole lives and I hope the same will follow for Grace and.... (what's her name?) We've been debating on names. We had the boy name all picked out - very solid - to be named after my dad, but the girl names are becoming more of a struggle. Names I had once been set on aren't sounding right to me. David came up with Harriet quite a while ago and at first I thought it was just plain silly (if you were raised in the same SNL generation as we were with Mike Myers and the gang - you probably know the movie "So I Married and Axe Murderer." In the movie, Mike recites a poem about "Harr-i-et" and that is definitely going to stick!) However, the name is growing on me. I didn't even know what nickname you would use with Harriet (she MUST have a decent nick-name!), but my mom said that her Aunt Harriet was called "Hattie" which I think is actually pretty cute even though my mom doesn't like it at all. Gracie and Hattie? We'll keep thinking about it....the middle names are an equal dilemma....

Anyway, no need to go shopping for "boy stuff." I can delve into the 20 some-odd bins of girlie stuff I have in my basement and pull out all of the darling outfits I was hoping to use again. :-)

Let it Snow!

Well, we don't want to completely bore you with Boston weather, but we did get 2 feet of snow last Friday. It was pretty crazy and it has been so cold that very little of it has melted. Unfortunately Grace has been sick so we didn't go play in it much. She did ride Tinkerbell in it the next day and the two of them could barely get their hips above the snow. It has been nice though, to have white on the ground for the month of December. I can think of a lot of ugly Decembers when the Christmas lights try to reflect off of the brown ground and the grey sky.

David, of course, gets the job of snow clearing around here. He probably doesn't appreciate the snow as much as we do! Now the dog-gloo's really do look like arctic igloos. (like the dogs go in there anyway - it's so cold and the snow is so deep, they go potty as close to the house as possible and run straight back to the door to beg to be let back in)

"It is a bad bad weather day" (says Grace)

After lots of warm fall days, I'm afraid winter has finally set in. The snowstorm over Thanksgiving was cold but quick and it has been warm ever since. Today, it snowed again and I think it's going to be cold for many many weeks. (this is a view from my living room window looking across the Assabet river)

Yesterday I was just saying how I think my favorite season in New England is winter. (I'm not so sure about that today...) In my adult life, winter has been my least favorite season. Somewhere between high school and college (after I quit skiing and thinking that riding horses in any temperature was fun) I started really feeling the cold. I have terrible joints and as everyone says "no meat on my bones" and I get very cold in even the slightest chill. I also get winter-time depression. In Salt Lake, both of those things added up to hating winter because of the temperatures and the long gray inversions. Here, though, I'm at least finding a bright spot to winter.

I do still get cold and hate being cold and today - I AM VERY COLD!!! But, with all the trees in New England and the humidity and the bugs, summer is very claustrophobic for me and I dreaded going outside almost more than I do now. The sun never shone in my house through spring, summer, or fall because of the trees (sometimes, I was even turning on lights in the middle of the day during the summer), but now that the leaves are gone and the sun is low in the southern sky, I have sunny south-facing windows! I have enjoyed them every day. The sun comes across the river right into my living room and den and I remember now when we were looking at the house to buy last February, that I decided I could stand to be cooped up in the house in the winter with babies if I could sit in one of those sunny windows. Also, with winter, the bugs are gone as is the humidity.

So, winter is not all bad. I just wear so many layers that it is a chore to get dressed and undressed and do all my laundry. Also, with my new automatic garage door opener that David and his Dad installed for me, I don't have to scrape (nor do I have to go anywhere in the morning!) It doesn't compare to the days when I left my house at 6am in the dark and had to scrape my truck and warm it up before trudging off to work.

I do love Christmas and I love snow at Christmas time, so I guess I will endure the cold for the time being. I think I will want spring somewhere at the end of January though. Spring came very late last year here. In fact, we really didn't get spring. It went straight from winter to summer in the middle of May. Next year (as in 2007), David promises that he will take me somewhere tropical for a vacation in February to make the winter shorter. Hopefully, after the snowstorm passes, the sun will come out and I can sit in my window...

dancing sugar plum fairies and girls in velvet dresses...

Last night, we took Gracie to her first Nutcracker performance. We debated about attending the Boston Ballet at the opera house downtown, but decided it was too much for a 2 year old and also a little too expensive. We opted for a local performance put on by a traveling ballet company called "Commonwealth Ballet." They performed at the Acton High School. I was so excited to dress Grace up in her red velvet and satin dress (she wouldn't let me do much with her hair though) and take her. I have always loved to get dressed up and go to the Nutcracker. My grandmother has taken me every year for at least 20 years and now I get to keep the tradition going with Grace. The performance was done for a fairly small crowd and you could see very well from all of the seats in the auditorium. It definitely wasn't of the caliber of Ballet West and Capitol Theatre, but it was still really fun and they did have a few guest dancers from professional ballet companies who did a great job in the solo roles and such. Grace was really good through most of the performance. She was mesmerized by the dancers and the music. She got a little tired at the end, but still didn't fuss much. At one point, she was trying to move her arms like the ballerinas and singing quietly "do as I'm doing." We ran into several people we know (which seems weird now, to know enough people to run into them in public places...) Our friends, the Whatcotts were there as well as some girls from the barn. Grace pooled some money from her piggy bank with some money she took from my purse (she is very good at increasing her funds from going through my purse) to buy herself a little nutcracker and a ballerina to put on our tree. She is so much fun to have at Christmas, now that she understands and is big-eyed with wonder about the magical things to do with the holiday.

A little full, lot of sap...

The best part about the day after Thanksgiving is not all of the leftovers or great deals at stores, it is simply being able to begin thinking about Christmas and decorating the house. It seems as if every year, the stores start promoting Christmas earlier and earlier. I remember walking into Costco the week after labor day this year and already seeing Christmas items. I thought to myself, "Unbelievable."

Growing up, we always had an artificial tree that we put up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving. As I got older I became the setup and light man as my dad had lost all desire (or maybe just patience) after having done this ritual for so many years. Even after being married, I would still help my Mom out because I knew how much my Dad loathed the Christmas tree lights. Michelle and I always have had a small artificial tree because we have never had a place large enough for a big tree. This year we decided to do a real tree since we have a little more space and we both enjoy the natural pine smell. So after Michelle had spent all morning shopping (and spent all her money), we loaded up the family and drove to pick out the Chapman Family Christmas tree. While quite a few people around here like to cut their own tree, I saw no need to trudge through the cold with a 2 year old in tow. So we went to the local nursery, Stow Gardens, and picked out a perfect little tree.

As I hoisted the tree up on top of the car I couldn't help but think of Clark Griswald and hope that I was going to make it home without incident. Long story short, we got home with the tree intact and decorated it last night (little toy train included). Grace is so much fun this year as she is to the point where she understands what is going on. She was excited to help decorate the tree and now can't wait to give her presents we bought to people. I just hope that she keeps Michelle's present a secret. I have given her proper anti-revealing training, but she will probably be under heavy interrogation. Hopefully my techniques will keep the secret safe.