Brain Freeze!!!!

Poor Bug she experienced brain freeze yesterday. She and her daddy were sharing a frosty and she got just a bit too big of a bite. Still didn't deter her from helping daddy to finish the frosty, but Pink Bear and Silkie were called in for support after the trauma. For those of you who don't know Pink Bear and Silkie are her comfort things. Pink Bear and Silkie go practically everywhere with her. Well, they aren't allowed to leave the car if we're going in a store or something. that way, they don't get lost. Pink Bear is the TY "awareness" bear that my ma bought her. Bug picked him out from amongst many other "pink bears." Apparently there was something special about him. Bug only has one pink bear and I've been thinking of trolling ebay or some hallmark stores to see if I could find a possible "back-up." We have 2 Silkies. One was a gift and hails from here: The Comfort Silkie and the other I luckily found on ebay. Sometimes Pink Bear is swapped out for a few hours for Hammie (a TY hamster beanie) or Wallace (another TY bear...I believe he's supposed to be scottish....) but if it's bed time we better know where silkie and Pink Bear are or we're frantically tearing the house apart to find them. Usually they are in plain sight and you think to yourself *facepalm* when you find them. Anyway.......

Ok so we had made it up to Christmas. Christmas was nice this year. David had a good chunk of time off from work so we had lots of family time. Bug LOVED our Christmas tree. She was unbelievably good about it too. When I decorated it I tried to make sure that the ornaments on the bottom were ones that if she took off the tree she couldn't hurt. We had to have the tree on all the time. She also decorated the tree with some of her own toys at times too. (I'm telling you nothing is so beautiful on a christmas tree as a plastic, aqua colored, "barbie" bracelet. ) In fact she was so upset when we took the tree down that I now have christmas lights on the fake ficus tree that we have to turn on all the time.

On the 22nd we went to Grandma Clark's for Christmas and Bug did really well. I think it helped that she had her cousin Jordan to play with. Jordan brings Bug out of her shell which is nice for David and I because then she's not attached like the little octopus she can be. (We've all heard David refer to her as a "kling-on" but I've been thinking lately that maybe she tends to be more like an octopus. She wraps her little self around you and suctions on. When you try to remove her it's like she has extra arms and legs that she wraps around as soon as you remove one. I'm surprised sometimes that David doesn't have sucker marks on his arms and legs.) Anyway, we had a nice christmas at Grandma Clarks and from there we went to have Christmas with Jimmy's family. (For those who don't know, Jimmy is David's best school friend. Jimmy's family is large and loud like mine (in fact some of my family actually knows Jimmy's family: the Toons!) and they osmosed David into their fold kinda like our family does to anyone that comes within arm's length of a family member. We're like the blob.....) Now, Jimmy's mom and dad have this really large entryway. As soon as you walk in there are stairs to the loft and bedrooms upstairs so the ceiling is really high. In years past they always found a live, giant evergreen to put in the entryway. It was always huge and gorgeous. This year it took me a few hours to realize it but the tree was artificial. Still unbelievably gigantic though and it was so pretty. Christmas at Jimmy's is always chaotic like with my family and loud and fun. Bug helped Jimmy pass out presents and ran around like a maniac much to David's and my surprise. Of course she slept most of the way home. :)

The following day was pretty quiet and we went to Nanny's for the vegetable soup and some cookie decorating. Bug met Gr'auntie Judy's friend Amy. She took a real liking to her. And she actually ate some of the vegetable soup. Not from her bowl of course, she had to share with Dee Dee and Daddy. I believe Papa actually snuck her some of the broken cookies too..... The next day was Christmas Eve. Josh and his friend "Sean From Canada" (there's a big long story behind that, that I won't go into here except to say that he really is actually from Canada) came to spend the night with us. Sean's actually from Calgary and couldn't afford the time off of work or the airfare price to go home. (according to mapquest it's a 40hr drive to Calgary and as of today a roundtrip ticket is about $1500...OUCH!) So we osmosed him and he came for Christmas. Bug loves Sean. She took to Sean like we've never seen her take to a person (a stranger-type person) before. Thankfully Sean didn't seem to mind.

So now we've finally made it to Christmas. The big day! For Christmas this year we got Bug a kitchen. And not just any kitchen mind you. We got her this kitchen. (although we got a really nice price for it thanks to Sam's club) David and I had fun putting it together. Of course because the kitchen is in the loft right outside Bug's room, that made it interesting to put it together, but we did. The next morning we actually had to wake her up! Ma came up to do Christmas with all of us. Bug didn't want to come downstairs until she realized she had presents to open. (She was too busy in the kitchen.) Bug knows exactly what to do with presents. She loves tearing into the wrapping paper. I think it was a bit overwhelming but she was having LOTS of fun. She also got a little beanie baby-type Kipper that came all the way from the UK. If it isn't a book or a DVD good luck finding "Kipper" toys here in the US. Thanks to ebay I was able to find a cute little gift set that had the little beanie Kipper, Kipper's blanket and the original Kipper book.

After we did Christmas at our house Bug went down for a nap and Sean, Josh and I headed over to Chrissie's a little early. (David was going to bring Bug after her nap.) When we got to Chrissie's the only ones there were: Nanny, Papa, Chrissie, Lauren, David, my mom, Laurie, Bob, and their 3 kids. Now, Josh had been warning Sean that there were alot of us. So apparently when we got there, I went about my business but Sean looked at Josh and Said: "Wow! you were right. There are alot of people here." Josh in return said to Sean. "Dude, there's no one here yet." Sean osmosed very well into the family even when everyone was there. Bug had lots of fun eating probably nothing but cookies. (she was being Dee Dee and Gr'auntie Judy's octopus most of the time......so I have no idea what she ate.) Then we opened presents. Of course Bug had great fun and was very good about knowning that not all the presents were hers and she had to wait. The older kids though, let her help them open their presents.

So after all the presents and all the awesome food it was party/semi-clean-up time. (that means the kids go play and the adults gossip and clean up.) Well, let's see Josh, Lauren, David, Sean, little David, me, Michael, and a few of the other kids were in Chrissie's living room just being slugs. Lauren decided to play "Dance Dance Revolution." Josh started teasing Sean about being a DDR genius because he's asian. (Sean happens to be Taiwanese and Irish and if you know my brother and his friends stuff like that is always open game for comments and teasing) There's this stereotype that to be any good at DDR you have to be a either asian or a pair of tiny japanese girls. It's sad but, really, it is almost true. (Seriously, go look DDR up on youtube and watch what some of the people are able to do..nm I'll post a link for you here .....these kids have routines and they use stunt bars and do flips and stuff it's crazy......) So Lauren challenged Sean and Sean told us that it was only like his 2nd time ever playing. Now while Sean didn't do spectacularly, he also didn't suck. So of course Josh had to tease him even more that he was ashamed that he didn't do so well and he expected more from him since he's half asian to which Sean replied something to the effect of "That's Ok I can always fall back on my irish step dancing....."

Meanwhile .........So, Bug has been watching the big kids doing DDR. Now if you watch someone doing DDR at times it looks like they are running in place. Bug decided she was going to do DDR. She stood on the mat and ran in place like crazy. it was hysterical. Yes we have video, no I can't post it yet because I don't know how to get it off the video camera. As soon as David shows me how I will get it put up here. The day after Christmas we went to my Dad's and Bug got lots of cool stuff for her kitchen from Mimi, Logan and Grandpa Terry. She also decided she was comfortable enough to run around their house without having to be an octopus. Christmas at Mimi's was nice and relaxing after the chaos of the day before. And, of course, Bug got to eat more cookies.....

New Year's was somewhat quiet. We had Nanny, Papa, Dee Dee, Gr'auntie Judy, Lauren and little David up to hang out and eat yummy Chinese. It's tradition for some odd reason that we get Chinese (and then of course Nanny also brings TONS of snacks for later on) and watch movies and play games. Of course Bug and Judy and Lauren and Dee Dee and little David all had to go play in Bug's new kitchen. They played chinese take-out. Which I'm sure all of you can visualize how that went with little David, Judy and Lauren. Bug will still stand in the middle of her kitchen and scream indecipherable things at the top of her lungs. At one point it was funny because Bug didn't like little David in her kitchen. She kept telling him to get "Out!" I was going to let Bug stay up until 10 but she didn't make it. She went into meltdown around 9:30 so off to bed she went.



Next time i'll cover her 2nd birthday; while not as exciting as Christmas it was still fun. :) if you've made it this far, good for you!! :)