It has come and gone and once again I am late, late, late with a blog post. I am going to need to break this up to a few posts so lets start with Christmas Eve. It was great I actually had the day off, we relaxed made our reindeer food and went to church at about 2. I have never seen so many people at a church, we stood by the exit so I could open the door when I needed to breathe. (For those who don't know I get a bit claustrophobic) One thing I really like about our church is during each mass the priest calls all the children to the alter. He sits down with them and chats. It is so funny to hear the exchange between them, and Johnny is always in the middle of it. I wish it would have been less crowded so we could enjoy it more but I am glad we went. After church it was time for probably one of the longest running traditions in the Gold house. Japanese on Christmas Eve. This tradition started in 1988, after mass when there was no where else to eat but a habatcie restaurant. It was the first time Jenny and I had been and I must say I am glad it became a tradition and I am glad our table has grown.
After dinner we went back to the house to decorate Santa's cookies, which is always fun. Nathan was playing his annoying brother roll by sabotaging every ones cookies. You know sprinkles where they dont go, putting his on top of ours, fingers in the icing typical little brother antics. And he was pretty proud of his creations here we have the super cookie. As he placed it on the cookie plate he said "No one better eat this one tomorrow, its mine" (this is imoportant information which will lead to my favorite part of Christmas)
More cookie decorating ...
It was getting late so we headed home, there was still a lot to be done! Reindeer food, milk and cookies for Santa and bed! Johnny was so excited we kept tracking Santa on my phone seeing how close he was getting. He wrote a note, set out the milk and cookies and had no problem falling asleep. It was Christmas!!!!
Traditions are such a nice thing to have, and I love creating new ones. A couple years ago we came across a cute tree farm not too far from the house to cut down your own tree. The trees that grow there remind me of Whooville, I love them! They grow a little crooked and have so much character. And if a Whooville Christmas isn't your style then they have a great selection of Frazier furs as well. Then as if trees wernt exciting enough there is a small petting zoo and bowld peanuts. This year Johnny got to feed the pigs and goats pumpkin, he was cracking up the whole time.
I really enjoy going with my family and finding the perfect tree to bring home and decorate. This is the one my Johnny wanted, I told him we wouldn't have to cut it down, we could just pull it out of the ground. LOL
And because one camera just isnt enough anymore here are the instagram shots....
After a recent stop to the pet store a Bearded Dragon has quickly made its way to the top of Johnny's Christmas List. The sales person loved these lizards, seriously I saw her kiss it. She was going on and on about how cool they are and of course let Johnny hold one. After just watching the recent documentary on lizards he was more then excited to have it sit on his shoulder. And I will admit it was pretty cool how it just sat there.
But being that I hold the title of the meanest mom in the wold, I immediately shot his dream down. I do not want to be taking care of a lizard! All weekend it is what the boy talked about and realizing I was not going to buy him this lizard he got smart. He went and asked GiGi and Poppy, these two are worse then Santa. Who knows what Christmas morning will bring for Johnny Blue. He may have a new pet that will live at Gigi and Poppy's house. LOL
But I walked in on him singing the Bearded Dragon Blues and had to share. Please know he will die if he knows I showed anyone (of course I uploaded it to you tube) so you may never speak to him about this song.
So we went to see Santa. We have a really good one not too far from the house at Bass Pro (where you will also find Nafie). They close off a huge area of the store and make it a winter wonderland, there are toys every where, crafts, games, trains and yes Santa himself. It really is a fun experience. We got there and while standing in line Johnny looked at me with a smirk and said im nervous. (Hmmm maybe if you knew your were on the good list you wouldn't feel nervous. lol) I asked him to talk really slow and tell Santa everything he wants, hoping that would keep him up there long enough to get some good pictures. Yea that backfired. He was on the lap and off within a matter of seconds! I was able to get a couple shots, he looks so grown up I cant take it!
We spent a good hour looking at every single toy and then playing with everything that was out and then of course we just had to look at one more thing. It was a good evening, and hopefully he told Santa just what to get him.
That little elf sure knows how to have fun! Here are some of the latest places we have found our buddy!
Replaced all of our stockings with Johnny's underware. LOL (he didnt find this one too funny), got trapped under a glass by a Dino, TP our tree (pictures of these soon)
Building a snowman
Flying a plane
And my favorite so far, he decorated Johnnys room with snowflakes. He must have worked really, really hard to cut out ALL of those snowflakes.
I couldn't get a good shot of the room, but I love what Zippy did I just might do it throughout the house :)
I think the reason I like Christmas so much is it is filled with magic. Everything about it, the lights, the excitement, Santa its all so much fun. Tonight Johnny wanted to start his letter to Santa, and I say start because he informed me it will take him a few days as he has a lot to write. It made me smile, he put on his Christmas jammies from last year, which are way to small and missing a few buttons. He got out a red pencil and wrote Dear Santa about 4 times until he was satisfied with his handwriting. (Afterall this wasnt for Mrs. Graham it was for Santa!) He sat and thought, and asked for things I have never even heard him talk about. After spending a good 10 min at the table he decided that was enough for the night. I was so worried once he started school that the magic was going to start to die but I think its just getting to the good part.
I cant wait to go see Santa, hopefully John will be home this weekend and we can start all of our traditions!!
Pushing down on me, pressing down on you... oh come on I know all of you started singing. Man last week I had to take a step back and look at everything. Two nights in a row Johnny had an emotional meltdown at Karate. Im talking about the ugly cry, peeling him off me to get in front of his class. It was crazy, and I have never seen him like that at karate before. It was sad.
He is now in an Advanced Karate class, most of the kids are 8-10 years old and are red/brown/black belts. That in itself is intimidating, but you add in the fact he was stripped of his belt and it was hanging on the wall of pink belts (which he got made fun of) and I can see how getting in front of the class could be hard. Alright rewind to the belt part, Johnny has been getting N's at school in behavior. Behavior such as singing in the bathroom, skipping in the hallway, wiggling in line. I kid you not, while I think a lot of this stuff is just BS he needs to learn to control himself at school. I told him the other week if he came home with another N he would have to turn in his blue belt. Sometimes being a parent is so hard, and following through with punishments just sucks. But I had to stick with what I said. So no belt, big kids, doesn't know the form yea that's a lot. Oh and his dad has been gone again for the past month and his day starts at 5:15AM.
No belt, big kids, pressure to do good in school, pressure to earn his belt back, he doesn't know the form and missing his dad. Oh and he is 6. Yea this is when I realized - he is 6, he is a kid a kid who doesn't need to be stressed out. So I backed off, I can not stress out every day about whether or not he is getting a check mark in class if its something bad enough his teacher will contact me and other then that we will deal with it on Friday when I get his weekly report. We practiced the form, and practiced a lot. Johnny has to get a stripe for this form or he will not graduate. In order to get his stripe he has to go in front of the class and get graded. Last night he was called to get in front of the class
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