Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Bright and Early

On Saturday we were invited to join Stephen's brother Karl and company to go see a mini Santa parade at the mall, and get free breakfast that they were dishing out. Free Breakfast?! So, naturally we went. Although whoever heard of eating "Chick Fillet" for breakfast? Whatever, it was free food.

James loved the parade, he is big on parades. Despite the fact that the parade only had some guys in kilts playing bagpipes, and Santa coming in on a firetruck with all the local sports mascots greeting the kids. The minute they came in sight James started clapping and waving frantically. He wasn't a huge fan of Santa as you can see here in this pic he's trying to escape from his grasp. (How do you like the reindeer hat I got him from Micheals for the occasion?)

James was however a huge fun of the mascots. Especially the Bumble Bee the Baseball mascot. Here he is with the football mascot, and as you might be able to see he is trying to get the lion's attention.

I think he wanted the mascot to hold him. We actually know this guy he"s in our ward/church. He and Stephen serve in the Elders Quarum together and so we were able to get him to come over and take a picture with James. When we passed the Bumble Bee he said "HUG" with his arms out, but the guy was busy taking a picture with someone else and I didn't want to interupt.
On Friday night we went to Chuck E. Cheeses which James loved. Stephen got almost 300 tickets playing the games. When we left James threw this huge fit, screaming etc. I got so sick of it I turned around and shouted "shut up!" Yes, I know, I'm a terrible mother. Well, guess who shouted it back to me 2 minutes later? Yep, and then Stephen started humming the hymn "Let us all speak kind words to each other." Grrrrr...
Well, I'm officially done getting James his Christmas presents, and I'm glad I did it early, a couple of the DVD's didn't work and I had to send them back. Beware cheap DVD's on Amazon. Also, beware getting cheap toys from China on Ebay. I got James some toys that ended up being about half the size I expected them to. Oh well... I'm still surprised at how far I made his Christmas money stretch getting everything on Ebay and Amazon. Although I had intended to get him some board books for Christmas (used of course, board books can be pricey) but before I knew I'd spent his money on other presents. There's always the library I guess, right?
(By the way the pictures were taken by Megan, my sister-in-law, to see more from Saturday go here )

3 comments:

Megan said...

You are SO not the first mom to shout "SHUT UP!!!" to your kids. Not that I, uh, know any other moms or anything. I'm just guessing. And I, too, really love being reprimanded via hymn. Related story: I cannot tell you HOW GLAD I was when Karl went home after last Sunday's sacrament to rest and I attended Sunday School with Tamsin. The topic was on criticism and ill-speaking, and the teacher talked for a long time about not criticizing our spouse or speaking ill of one another. I would NOT have made it through that lesson with the same feeling of chastened humility if Karl had been there boring holes through my head with his eyes.

linda said...

Why is it that you can say the same nice words a hundred times and never hear your child repeat them, but one slip of the tongue guarantees that your offspring will say that "no-no" word forever!

Sarah B Heath said...

Oh Melly, I have to say I laughed when I read that! No parent is perfect, our public faces are often different than what goes on at home. You were just keeping it real! It's so funny, there's been many a time I've complimented or heard other mothers compliment a parent on keeping their calm, using a soft voice, and "positively" redirecting a child's tantrum or what have you, and the mother will say, "You should see me at home". I rolled my eyes today at Scarlett, after art class, when she stomped her foot and declared "I NOT going!" when I informed her we needed to go to Target. Lovely. Ian says that I'm stressful around her, and yes I am, because she is very difficult to deal with! (confirmed by many people BTW)I do my best!