Christmas was crazy and never ending, but wonderful!  I got to see my cousins, Liora and Talia, and my Aunt Rachel, Uncle Ted, and Aunt Debbie (although now I’m calling her Deborah?  - I think Daddy taught me that). Then we drove to Gigi and Grandpa’s house and saw Uncle Joe there, too! 
So I guess you want to know about some of my presents.  Santa was good to me, first visiting me on a Fire Truck at our house last week.  He brought me a Hess Truck with a Dig-dig bulldozer on the back. 

And of course he struck again on Christmas Morning at Grandma and Grandpa’s house with a RC YELLOW car, some special track for my Brio collection, an Edward train (Edward is way better than Thomas because he comes with a full sized tender), and a slinky.

Some of my other favorite toys were a Lego Train, some chunky puzzles, and my own brand NEW KITCHEN (said in the voice to Bob Barker – like it was a winning showcase on The Price is Right).  This this is SWEET!  It has a micro-wave, a fridge and freezer, a phone, a stove and oven, and a SINK!  My parents assembled it last night, and all the while all I wanted to do was play with it.  I have a LOT of cooking to do. 

Mom decided that I was on Christmas overload, though.  By the time we were doing our 5 round of opening presents I was more interested in the bubble wrap than the actual presents.  And my favorites from Christmas day?:  Bubble wrap, a slinky, and a Mickey Mouse Pez machine.  It’s awesome to have new toys, but I think Mom is going to put some away and bring them out little by little, so I have more time to enjoy each one.

Here is where I’m going to post a bunch of Christmas pictures:

You can see the whole album HERE

From Mommy:
I have some cute stories – mostly not Christmas related – to share:

Flying to Texas:
Last week Preston and I had to go to the post office to mail a package being sent to Aunt Emily.  I explained this to Preston in the car, and he was not happy:
Preston: “I don’t WANT the post office to take our package”
Me: “But honey, I need them to deliver it to Texas for me”
Preston: “Hey Mommy, I have an idea, we could drive to Texas to deliver the package to Aunt Emily”
Me: “I don’t think so, honey, Texas is too far away to drive.  We need to take an airplane to get to Texas”
Preston: (without giving it any thought) “Ok Mommy, push the button”
Me: (confused) “What button, Pres?”
Preston: “We can be an airplane and land-off in Texas, push the Airplane button!!”
Me: “OH!!  You want me to turn the Jeep into an airplane?”
Preston: “Yeah!  You can push the button…. Oh, HEY, Mommy!  We could be a helicopter”
Me: “Does the Cat in the Hat turn the Thing-a-ma-jigger into an airplane?”
Preston: “Yeah, like the Cat in the Hat”

Ok, so this went on for a few minutes.  We did indeed turn our car into an airplane.  And we flew it ALL the way to Texas.

Preston: (As we are pulling into the post office parking lot)  “Yay, Mommy!  We made it to Texas!”

Preston’s Air Brakes (like those on a train):
I’ll apologize in advance for the potty story.  It’s too silly not share.

Last night Preston had to go tinkles.  No big deal.  Except that while he was on the potty he tooted a little bit.  Not a loud toot, just some passing air.  With the straightest face I have ever seen on him he said “that was my air brakes.”

I almost didn’t even put it together (because we had a brio train with us in the bathroom).  But then I needed some clarification.
Me: “Your toot sounded like air brakes?”
Preston: “Yeah, I tooted.  CCChhhhhhhhhh – Like air brakes”

Then I laughed pretty hysterically, and had to tell John the story! 

And here is a video of Preston "ducting" to some Christmas tunes:

My three year old is turning on me.  And I’ve decided that John and I are in trouble, because Preston is out-smarting us and using our own techniques against us.  Terrible twos??  Those days were a piece of cake compared with cunning, crafty, wily threes. 

Just one small example of his demands and negotiating skills:

This morning as I was trying to get him out the door I asked him to put his hat on.  He allowed me to put it on his head, thought about it for about 5 seconds, took it off again and said “I can watch Mickey Mouse on your phone… THEN I put my hat on.” 

Yeah, I was astounded.   And these sorts of negotiations happen ALL. DAY.LONG. 

“Preston, it’s time to go take a bath”
“I need ONE – TWO… LOTS AND LOTS of Candy Cane before my bath… OK, Mommy!?”

“This is the last book, then it’s time to turn the lights off.”
“This is MOMMY’s last book, then Daddy reads me books.”

“Here, Mommy, try this (soggy, half chewed, gross piece of something in his hand)”
“No thanks, I don’t want that right now”
“You LIKE IT, Mommy!! YOU TRY IT!”

“I can have Fruit Snacks now?”
“Not right now, I’m making dinner”
“It’s ok, Mommy, I can reach them”
“Preston, I said NO!”
“I just getting the chair for you Mommy”
Etc.

When you combine his master negotiating skills with Christmas Juice (makes kids crazy, hyper, and not good listeners), things have been more trying than usual around our house. 

I can’t fool him anymore!!

Oh Christmas Tree

We set up our Christmas Tree on Saturday.  We had a big snow storm in the afternoon, but managed to drive over to the tree farm in the morning to do our Annual Tree Chopping adventure with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was “freezing” even though we bundled up, and my clear favorite part of the trip, was the hayride that brought us all back from the distant fields of evergreens. 
We didn’t stay long as Grandma and Grandpas house, because it started to snow and we wanted to get home before there was much accumulation. 

I was NOT happy when we got home.  First, we stopped at the gas station.  I told Daddy that I was hungry and that I wanted some chips.  So Daddy came back with some Cheetos…. Cheetos?  Really Daddy?  I asked for CHIPS!  And I wanted YELLOW CHIPS!  Cheetos are NOT what I wanted.  So I threw a huge tantrum until we got home.  Then Mom said that we could have some Little Noodle Soup for lunch.  I calmed down for about 30 seconds with the calming thought of Little Noodle Soup on my mind.  And then Mom dumped a package of soup mix into some water on the stove.  Really Mom?  What do you think you are doing!?!?  We make Little Noodle Soup in the MICROWAVE!!  You take it out of the friderator, put it in a little bowl and let me push the buttons on the microwave. 
Oh?  We don’t have any little noodle soup in the fridge?  You have to make a new pot? 
That is NOT acceptable.

Needless to say, I was having a rough time.  Eventually, after about 10 minutes of screaming, negotiating, fruit snack brides, wanting ice cubes in my soup, and then NOT wanting ice cubes in my soup, and getting to push the buttons on the microwave, I sat down and begrudgingly ate my Little Noodle Soup.

Then it was instantly nap time.  Mom was clear about that.

When I woke up, the Christmas Tree was standing in the family room with lights on it.  It still needed ornaments and a star on the top (Mom made a homemade star this year!).  So I got to help decorate it.

The first two ornaments we put on the tree were a pickle and a pear.  From there on out I decided that the tree was HUNGRY and that we needed to keep feeding it more ornaments!

From Mommy:

Pip the Mouse

At the beginning of December Preston took a school bus field trip to see Pip the Mouse.  Pip lives right around the corner from where I work, so I met all the kids at Pips house, and stayed to see the show.
When I got there, the school bus had just arrived, so all of the kids were still waiting.  I looked through the window and saw Preston.  I smiled and waved.  It took him a few moments to realize it was me, but when he did, he got a HUGE smile on his face. 
It was fun to see the Pip the Mouse puppet show, and all the kids loved it.  They were quiet and focused on the story.  They also had some model train sets and a replica of the Liberty Bell: The only bell – out of 52 replicas and the real deal – that you can actually RING!  It was SO loud!
Preston was definitely clingier than he would have been had I not been there.  He wouldn’t even stand with the other kids to have his picture taken with Pip.  But I’m glad that I am able to do some special things with him, even while he is at daycare.

Red Hat

I made Preston a red hat for this year.

One night last week I was SO close to finishing it, so I told Preston he could go read some stories with Daddy while I finished making his new red hat.  And he said “Your finishing my red hat?  You’re going to paint it yellow?”

Luckily he likes it as a red hat.  Do you know how hard it is to find yellow  yarn?  I’m picky about colors I guess.

Curly Hair - Like Destinee

We have some really silly conversations, and I should write them down more often. 
 
On Sunday I took a shower in the morning and let my hair air dry.  It gets kind of curly when I do that.  Out of nowhere, Preston said to me “Hey Mommy!  You’re like Destinee!”
Destinee is my friend from work (Rory’s mom) who has really curly hair.  Preston only sees her occasionally and has never demonstrated to me before that he even knew her name, let alone that he noticed her curly hair.  I was so surprised!  But it was very cute.

November has a flown by!  And now it’s December already!?  We had a wonderful, and busy, Thanksgiving season full of family, travel, friends, and yummy food.  
It began the week before Thanksgiving with a visit to Mema and Poppop Locker’s house to see the extended family!  It was a CHILLY day, but I still wanted to take a walk to visit the playground (cut short by a potty-time false alarm).  Mema and Poppop were also bird-sitting a yellow bird, and he was fun to watch.  Tia Debbie came down for the occasion, and stayed for a whole week!  We got to see quite a bit of her.  
That Sunday the yellow bedroom fairies (Mom and Dad) painted and put together my big boy bedroom, while I went to hang out with Debbie and Grandma and Grandpa.  My bedroom is… you guessed it… YELLOW, with a train quilt, special blue shelves for my toys and stuffed animals, and room for my toy box!  We are still adding some finishing touches to it, so we will post some photos when it is ALL finished!  My favorite part is that it is YELLOW! Here’s a teaser photo:

That was  a busy weekend for Mom and Dad (especially Mom who is starting to lose her 2nd trimester energy).  Dad keeps her in shape though, moving furniture at 6 months pregnan! 
That night I slept in my big boy bed for the first time.  I didn’t even need any rails!  

Then we get to Thanksgiving.  
At daycare I made this Indian Hat with 3 feathers that I decorated (sorry Emily, no hand turkey pictures this year, although I did make a hand turkey with Aunt LuAnn on Thanksgiving – we just didn’t get a picture of it)

We went to Gigi and Granpa’s house on Wednesday, and then to Aunt Luann and Uncle Charlie’s house for Turkey, then back to Gigi and Grandpa’s house for the night, and then finally home on Friday morning (only to turn around a leave again, but I’ll get to that in a minute)
Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving adventure.

One of my favorite parts of the day was going outside after dark to look at some of the Christmas lights that were in the neighborhood.  They were so pretty!  When we got home to our house I was disappointed that they hadn’t put up our lights yet!  I asked Mommy and Daddy “Where are OUR lights?  They didn’t put them out yet” (Then on Saturday, the magic Christmas light fairies, aka Daddy, put up our Christmas lights so that I wouldn’t feel left out)

So I mentioned that we got home on Friday only to turn around again.  Well, we went to meet baby Cole who is the one month old baby of Mommy’s friends Emily and Kevin.  He was REALLY cute, and he has all the same parts as me: eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth, hair, etc.  They are just really tiny parts.

THEN we went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for dinner, and finally home for bed.  I was pretty exhausted.

Saturday was just as busy!  It started with a train ride with Grandpa, where we also saw Santa!! He gave me a candy cane.   Grandpa had a pretty good write up about the train ride, including the part where he and I were featured (with our picture and everything) in a local paper!  Perhaps Mommy will post those details in a subsequent blog post, this one is getting long!

And after the train ride we went to Baby Rory’s first birthday party; she not so much of a baby anymore!  

So Sunday was our lazy day to reset and get back to our schedule.  Mom and I made cut-out cookies in the morning , I took my normal nap in the afternoon while Mom and Dad got out the rest of our Christmas decorations, and then we relaxed.


From Mommy:
My last cute story, because there are so many – On Sunday night, after 4 days of craziness, we tried to get back to normal.  At bedtime, Preston wanted a snack,  but couldn’t make up his mind about what exactly he wanted.  He was reading stories with Daddy, so I told him to just chill and that I would pick out a yummy snack for him and bring it to him.  He was ok with that.  So I got him a cup of milk and one of our homemade cut out cookies and took it to him.  He took one look at it and said “A cookie!  Mommy, this is awesome!”  And then he took a bite and had a drink of milk and said “GOOD choice, Mommy.”  I was so glad that he approved.