Is it wrong to laugh so hard I pee my pants?

While watching this video?

I mean, c'mon. You totally laughed, right?

So we went sledding this morning, up here in the Arctic Circle. Dex kind of enjoyed the snow. I think he liked the IDEA of snow more than the actual snow itself.

He enjoyed walking along the fence line in the snow.

He enjoyed playing with the neighbor's slide in the snow

He enjoyed watching everyone slide down the hill on the toboggan

But try as we might, we could not convince him that actual SLEDDING was a fun idea. We thought about just tossing his ass on the sled and letting him cry a bit before he realized it was cool. But we thought better of it.

He also was decidedly displeased when Daddy went sledding. Apparently Mama can risk her life on a curled up piece of wood all she wants. But if Daddy tries to sled? Child breaks in to all kind of hysterics, shaking his head NONONONO

All in all, though, we had a good time.

And what about Buddy, you ask? Did the little short-legged dog from Virginia enjoy the snow? Well, truthfully, I think the answer is no. No, Buddy did not like the snow.

No, Buddy didn't like the snow at all.

He LOVED it.

Decisions, Decisions

Life is always so full of difficult choices. Option A, or Option 2? Eat a cookie now, or eat a cookie later? (The answer is, always, NOW). Take a child to NY for a 24 hour trip for a funeral, or make an overworked John miss a day of work to stay home with him? (Thanks, honey, for staying home). Pay a billion dollars for an invisible fence for the rotten dog, or just let him wander in the far outer reaches of the across the street neighbor's yard? Go yell at the child who has been happily standing in the corner of his crib yammering away and blowing raspberries while he's supposed to be sleeping, or just let him be and hope he eventually goes to sleep? (The surprising answer to that one is that going in and yelling at him actually works).

But the biggest decision of the day - WHAT PHOTOS SHOULD I POST HERE? Because they are all SO DAMN AWESOME and you really need to see them all but I know some of you tend to fall asleep if I post 28 billion photos, so I like to give you the option to only look at, say, 8 billion in a post. And then leave a LINK to see the rest elsewhere. So I don't bore you to tears. So here, for your viewing pleasure, are my favorite eight billion pictures from Dexter and my trip to Longwood Gardens on Tuesday morning. We went so we could actually SEE the inside of the conservatory, which we really could not do on Saturday night when we went with 300 million other people there. But if you get there at 9:30 in the morning, there tends to be more helpful employees there than actual visitors, and you can wander at will, and let a small child push a stroller all by himself with many fewer negative consequences. I highly recommend it.

The red Christmas tree in the new conservatory. Millions of people stood in this spot on Saturday night to try to get this shot. Tuesday morning? Just me and Dex.

Ornament jealousy

Cute little fountain and poinsettia in the main conservatory, around the gold Christmas tree

Dex climbed on some chairs to check out the tree, the water, and the fans on the ceiling.

The aforementioned gold Christmas tree. This one? Looks better at night. I'm not a big fan of the pastel decorations and the random gold crap draped all over the tree.

I like the red tree much better

Every room had a little festive cheer. Poinsettia squirreled away in the jungle room, which I thought looked pretty cool.

And some festive little red branches on a tree near the rose room.

Cute child checking out the leaping water

Now he's on the ledge right below the leaping water, as it leaps over his head. I really love the mural behind him. It "pops."

Stick your finger over the fountain too hard, and water squirts you right in the face...

Ahhh, our favorite spot. Checking out the traveling water.

So, so happy. I would be DELIGHTED with this picture if the dude in the black coat hadn't stepped behind Dex right as I was taking the shot. As it is, still pretty cute.

Perhaps my favorite shot of the day. The boy is just like his father, checking things out to see how they work. Where's that water coming from? Where'd it go? When's it coming back?

Priceless smile.

I have photos from our visit to the train museum yesterday, but they might not get posted til after Christmas. Hope everyone has a lovely holiday. We made cookies for Santa this morning (ok, we ate a lot of cookie dough this morning, and just barely managed to bake enough cookies to put on a plate). It seems that the yammering child has awoken from his nap, so we're going to grab a quick snack, and then head outside to light our Christmas Eve luminaries (ie, candles in paper bags).

Merry Christmas!!

Belated Snow Day

I'm a little bit late on this post, as our first snow of the year happened on THURSDAY. But, hey - better late than never.

Thursday afternoon brought our first snowfall of about half an inch. Enough so that Dexter was thrilled when looking out the window during snack time. Enough so that John's car went sideways off the driveway when he was trying to drive up after work. Grand...

I love a good snow fall. It's quiet. The snow muffles the sound of the cars on the nearby road. The wind finally dies down, and even though it's chilly you can actually stand to be outside for a minute or two. So we put on our "hot" pants and our snow boots and our coats and our hats and our mittens (whew!) and out we went to play in some snow.

Totally ready to go outside RIGHTTHISVERYINSTANT

What's this... white stuff?

He was thrilled. I promise.

Walking with your nose to the fence is way cooler when there's snow.

BRRRRRRR...

Pretty spruce tree

My favorite part of snow days? Removing the snow-covered "hot" pants and giggling at the cute little legs running around the kitchen.

A little video for ya:

We didn't even teach him how to sign "snow." He picked that one up on his own, from Baby Signing Time. Which, by the way, he REALLY is done with. I tried to play it on the TV last week and he ran, screaming, in to the other room. Clifford the Big Red Dog, though? Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Gookee Monster

Sunday was cold and gross and rainy, but Grandma and Grandpa brought stuff with them to make ginger boys. It was a most excellent rainy day activity for Dexter. As seen in below video, set to John's favorite Christmas carol of all time:

Christmas Cookies from Alissa Norman on Vimeo.

A little photo and video montage of Dex making Christmas cookies, December 2010. Watch all the way to the bitter end for a special treat from Dexter!

Did you watch all the way to the very end? John has taught Dexter all three words he knows. I don't know what kind of magic happens up in his bedroom before bed time, but keep it up, honey.

You can't tell from the pictures, but Dexter was ADAMANT that he DID NOT want frosting on his cookies. NO FROSTING. No amount of persuasion could change his mind. I even gave him a cookie with frosting for a snack the other day, and he wouldn't touch it. Weird kid.

Here's a link to all the photos, in case you want to see them more slowly.

We, amazingly, have a few ginger boys left. Only a few...

O Christmas Tree...

Last Wednesday we bundled up the boy, took the truck to the corner by the candy store, and picked out a Christmas tree. Dex enjoyed romping all over the 50 foot square tree yard, and really liked it when Daddy held him so he could see all the cars stop at the stop sign. And also the moon was out, so that brought great excitement as well. He really cared not at all about a tree, though. So I suppose it was for the best that we didn't all trek out to the tree farm and cut our own tree. It would have been cold. Colder. Maybe next year.

Anyway, I think I mentioned before that we put the tree in the front window of the living room, which is where Dexter's bouncy horse was. So for a few days he kept pointing to the tree and snorting "horse." But then I finally put lights on the tree Friday night, and Grandma helped me decorate the top half of it, and Dex came down the stairs on Saturday morning like this:

He was most excited by the star on the top of the tree, which I picked up for ten bucks at Wal-Mart because I thought he would enjoy it. John did say, though, that I have to be careful about picking up crap like that for the tree. Because now we're likely going to be stuck with this damn Wal-Mart star on our tree for the next 30 years. He has a point, I suppose. But, really, this is so damn cute that it's probably worth it.

I tried to get him to help me decorate the tree, but he only lasted about three ornaments. He thought it was far more fun to just play with the ornaments while they were on the table. And he continues to ask me to take the little blue star off the tree, so he can carry it around the house. The boy does love his stars.

Longwood Lights

Have you missed Longwood? It's been like, a month. Or more! We missed it, too, so we were happy to have Grandma and Grandpa come down for the express purpose of going to Longwood to see the lights. It's my favorite time of year there. Minus the crowds of people...

While it was still light out, we stopped by the trains. Which now have lights on them. Fun!

Dex, Daddy, and Grandpa check out Thomas the Train, til Dex got bored and decided he'd rather go see six trains running on the other set of tracks.

Inside the nice warm main conservatory, with the big gold Christmas tree

The big gold tree

Poinsettia galore in the conservatory

Dex with Grandma and Grandpa in front of the tree in the new conservatory

Hmmmm. Dex and I will have to come back some morning to get some better shots. New conservatory.

We ended our time inside at the Children's Garden

Running wildly after the traveling water, cackling with glee. We kept giggling as parents walked by with their kids, warning them not to touch the water and get wet, because they would be cold when they went outside. We know better. We come prepared.

He was so focused on the water that he ran head-on in to another kid his size, banging heads.

I made the boys sit still for a second for a cute shot

After a change of clothes (wet child, too much splashing) we headed outside to see some lights. John always likes the pretty blue trees.

The main fountain garden is all lit up

Pretty white lights. Longwood went green this year - 100% LED lights. That's got to be quite the up-front investment.

Some cute multi-colored tree trunks by the Tree House

The red trees are always striking

We went to a fountain show, which Dexter LOVED. He wanted MORE MORE MORE when it was done. Here's a few billion shots from there. I kind of watched the show through the lens of my camera. It was still good that way.

Very cool, right boys?

PS - If you want to see all 200 photos from Longwood, and a quick video of Dex chasing the traveling water around, see this link.