Christmas hodge podge
Christmas is over. The parents are gone. I have to work for the next seven days starting tomorrow. Hello 2010.
B has the rest of this week off with Sophie. I think they'll have fun, although I have no idea what they'll do to keep themselves occupied. They might Wii a bit. Sophie's been doing much better with the Wii remote lately and we picked up a few new games (Super Mario Bros.Wii, Hasbro Family Game Night 2, and Sports Resort). Perhaps he'll take her to a Chuck E. store and let her run wild. Maybe he'll even bring her up to the office so she can see where I work.
I feel like I'm getting sick. My throat is all crappy now and I'm worried it will turn into something worse.
The weather here has been crazy. It snowed (blizzard like conditions at some points) Christmas Eve and then again for a little yesterday. We actually still have snow on the ground in places. This is pretty unusual. It's actually snowed three times this month!
B borrowed a 47" LCD TV for the vacation and I don't want it to go back. It makes my 32" tube set look like crap, and it used to be one of the better TVs on the market. What the crap? Of course, now we want something new. We're going to be good and wait for a bit, though. We have a list of large purchases we want to make for the house, and this year we're getting a new dishwasher and microwave. I'm not sure what next year will bring. Upgrading the TV won't be just a TV, but will have to include an upgrade on the Media Center PC and possibly the cable package. We also want to replace the washer/dryer, refrigerator, and stove/oven, but we're not sure if we want to convert to gas on anything or if we want to try and figure a way to separate the range and oven to have a double oven separate or if we just want a double oven/range combo. I think we're switching to all stainless steel. I want to get everything at one time so it's all matchy, and there are discounts we can get by doing that, but we don't really have the money to do that. Of course, there's still the shed we haven't purchased yet...
Sophie was pretty good for Christmas, even without her nap. She was a bit of a nut near the end of the day, but all in all, it was a good day for her. She was very excited to receive her chef dress up outfit from Santa and she loved the guitar from Nana and Papa. She was very grateful for all of her gifts, actually, but the last one of the day was the best. We were at B's parents doing gifts that night, and everything else had already been passed out. Sophie saw one gift left behind the tree and asked her grandmother if it was for her. Shirley asked her why she would think that and she said, "Because it's big!" I got a chuckle out of that, but cringed at the same time. She made up for it when she opened the gift. She had asked for this silly Black and Decker tool set from Target (lots of pieces and not expensive at all) and continuously asked for this thing until Christmas. She told B Christmas morning that Santa brought it for her, and he let her know that sometimes Santa doesn't always bring us what we ask for. She didn't say a word about it all day long, but when she opened the last gift at his parents' house, she was beyond excited. The first words out of her mouth were, "This is what I really wanted!" and the look on her face was just priceless. I just love that kid and how appreciative she is.
We both made it to Sophie's Christmas pageant this year (thankfully, since we both missed it last year). It was pretty cute, and she did a great job. I'm glad I got to see it. I'm so proud of her for so many reasons. :)
I've loved having these last few days to spend a little extra time with her. We took her to Barnes and Noble since my sister had gotten her a book and a gift card and she wanted to spend the card. We asked her on the way out what she wanted to get at the bookstore and she was pretty specific about wanting a pink book with a fairy and a pink cupcake on it. We looked at toys and other books and there were things she was interested in but nothing she wanted to use the card to get. I kept asking her if she wanted me to hold something for her when she said she liked something, but she would always return a pretty firm NO. We looked at the children's cookbooks for a bit and found a fairy cupcake book that I held onto just in case. She liked it okay but wasn't excited about it or anything. Then we walked over by the main area of picture books and I pointed out a few books. My mom pointed out the book Purplelicious and Sophie was mildly interested, but then she saw the Pinkalicious book and exclaimed that was the book she was looking for. We'd had a family night at B&N a few months back (not sure how many, but probably four or five months now) and she had read that book once with B that night, and apparently it was one of those books that just stuck with her. She bought that book with her card (and a tiny bit of help from us) and was so excited to be carrying out her own book that she had paid for. We also picked up L is for Lone Star (Anna sent her M is for Mitten, so it was the perfect compliment to the gift) and the fairy cupcake cookbook as well (she uses it to cook in her kitchen now, very cute), and another book similar to A Stranger in the Woods (can't recall the name, but it's all nature photography).
Sophie worked on a little scrapbook with my mom while they were here. She also had Nana read her lots of books and sleep in her room a few nights. She played Candyland and I Spy and showed Nana how to play Mario Party 8 a bit. She shared her Phineas and Ferb shows with Nana and Papa and was generally quite well behaved while they were here. It was a good visit for all of us.
I know this is all over the place. I'm not feeling very organized today. I need to start taking Christmas decorations down, but am entirely unmotivated to do so. I will probably do that next week when I'm off work. I'll take Sophie to the pottery glazing place then, too.
Work is nuts. I have a feeling it will be for some time now. Hopefully I'm wrong. I'm tired of working two weekends a month, though, and two weeks with seven straight days in a row. That's really rather stinky. Meh. I'm glad I still love my job. It makes things a little better, at least.
And now I'm off to find B... Even though we've both been off work the past week, I feel like I've barely seen him since we've been so busy. Nuts, I know...