Reddiker Woodes

2009 Christmas Letter

365 Project

Yahoo.  Only about a week or so late, but our 2009 Christmas letters/cards are actually stamped, addressed, written and mailed as of Tuesday. I'm still trying to figure out how we know so many people.  Now Christmas preparations are finally OVER.

 

A Christmas Story Box

365 Project

We've loved A Christmas Story since it came out, oh so many years ago.  We already own the DVD, but even when it comes on we still watch it at least a couple of times while it's on television.  We were at Best Buy over the weekend and checking out the videos and found this great collector tin with all kinds of goodies packed inside.  I can't wait for the time for Little Man to sit down and watch it and appreciate it the way millions of others have.  It would've been great for a miniature lamp inside also, but the apron and cookbook alone are worth the price.

    

 
 
  

Future CU Buff

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Hell yeah he's going to C.U.  But at least right now he'll know what team to cheer for and their colors.  My little quarterback.

Hallmark Ornaments Make Me Happy

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I'm in the Hallmark Ornament club and have been for jeeze, at least a decade if not longer. At first it started out with just fairies for the Christmas tree, but now since they have upgraded their inventory and imagination, I've been able to get a ton of props for the dollies and this year is no exception.  My main goal for this year was to get the little Chatter Telephone that we all had growing up.  But then found an old TV console with the Twilight Zone music on it, and a little fish tank with kissing fish.  I think the TV will go to Ash's boat house, and the fish tank will go to Constance.  Not sure where the phone is going, but it's cute and the dial ringer works.  I've got several different ornaments that have been used for the dolls in the last few years and they are the perfect size.  The only one I didn't get was the Robbie the Robot and I think he might come in next week.  He'll look good just sitting around, and will be perfect for my 9 character figures.

 

Chatter Telephone

 

Cool console television, and it works with the Twilight Theme song.

Christmas Kissing Fish.

 

All on the Mini Wheat Stage.

Swimming and Parkas

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I swear we are the only state in the union and it's been documented that to go Trick-or-Treating you have to confirm your outfit/costume to fit over a parka.  And the same goes for swimming class even in the dead of winter.  Little Man getting ready for swimming this past Sunday.  Winter hat, check, winter jacket, check, swim goggles, check, swim shorts, check. I think we are all ready to go.  The goggles on before swimming makes it much less traumatic when he actually goes in and this way he's getting use to them, FINALLY.

Music For the Soul

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So we've had our million plus songs from my iTunes list for almost a year, and it's been slowly dwindling down to a manageable amount.  I'm pretty proud of myself because it's gone from over 15 hours (the entire pre-wedding, wedding, post) is only about 10 hours or so and that's with setup time of about four hours also. We want something to listen to while we are there.  So the list has been getting shorter and shorter and I think right now it's down to about nine hours.  Mine and FireHoth's music ranges from 1940's Billie Holiday to Rob Zombies Dragula and literally everything in between: hip hop, dance, old school rap/hip hop, the classics: Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Andy Gibb and the Bee Gees, Garth Brooks, Keith Urban, lots of Folk, New Age, Gothic, Lolita, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and current playlist and top 40.  It's sick the amount of song that I just have alone, let alone what FireHoth has on his iPod.  I love it though and wouldn't give it up.  Little Man is going to grow up with a varied amount of music and that's great.  We want to make sure he knows standards from the 40's to present and pretty much every genre.  Here is one draft of all of them.  I still have to put them in Pre-Wedding, Ceremony, Dance, and Post-Ceremony playlist, but that's actually turing out to be pretty easy. 

A Ghost or a Dress?

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... and it's a dress, but in the middle of the night when I have to go to the rest room, it's already scared the hell out of me several times.  The dress is huge, and very heavy but very beautiful.  Got to wear it a few days ago and I didn't want to get out of it.  It's been pressed and even prettier than I remember.  Not sure how they could've made it better, but it is.  I'm going to have to figure out where it's going to hang out after the wedding till each Halloween, because I'm done with being spooked in the middle of the night.

Little trinkets for the trip also. I love Skelanimals and we found these last week.  Little key chains for our carry on luggage.  Three of them and we each get  one.  They will probably all go to Little Man, but that's okay, more for him to play with on the plane.

Treat Bags All Around

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So pretty much almost every space of the house has been taken over in some way, shape, or form for the upcoming nuptials.  Even the master bedroom has not been spared.  We found cute little Halloween bags and a ton of little treats for the little ones, and they have all been prepared and almost ready on our dresser.  I have a few last minute things to put in before I seal them up and they will be ready.  Six our going out of state even.  I hope I can get them out before the wedding, but we'll see what the time frame is going to be.  I had such a bang doing these, and will make them again for next Halloween for the neighborhood kids like I did when I was pregnant with Little Man and he'll be able to help make them.

Drum Roll Please...

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Today, so much going on, OMG.  Food getting, hair appointment, photo shoot with our wonderful photographer and the three of us dressed to the nines. And I've already started thinking of what I want to do with the blog after the wedding.  Hint it may contain FOOD PICTURES AND A YEAR LONG COOKING ADVENTURE :)  

But to keep the blog going more of my photo a day pictures.  Little Man has been watching a lot of his shows in the morning, (Cailiou, Sesame Street, and so on)Lately they've been doing a lot of band segments, why I have no idea, but the morning routines have gotten louder to say the least.  Little Man was using his dry erase markers as drum sticks, so I decided to give him a treat, but only for a few moments.  These sticks are older than me and I don't plan on them getting broken by a three year old, even if I did spawn him.  He was so excited when I showed them to him.  I've had these 747 sticks since just starting high school, way back in the early 80's.  I can't read music and don't try, but I can still do our high school cadence that use to get our band in step for marches, and that makes me feel good.  I conned one of our drummers out of them during band camp and that's my only story I have from my "band camp" days.  I've treasured them ever since.  I think we'll have to buy him at least a small set and maybe a drum.  I figure, drummers in the band always got the ladies and are the most un-stoned, so we got that going for us. LOL  He even almost knows how to hold them right.

Like I Don't Have Enough To Do

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Exactly. With the wedding, honeymoon packing, phone calls, picture taking a day, making gift bags and the holidays I decided to take it upon myself to give Little Man a better work/play area.  Eventually we are going to remodel the living room and push it out an extra two feet, but until then I'm stuck with the configuration that it's in and it's not a good one. I love the couches and furniture that we have, but the way the built in entertainment center is, the lack of wall space, the much too huge picture windows (that take up an entire wall) and the useless fireplace, I can only move furniture to one or two places.  

Little Man stays down in the living room for most of the time.  He's only in his room for movie time and basically to sleep, at least until he gets a little older and really starts school. So that means he needs some work space for playing, schooling and writing.  Since he's not in pre-school yet, every day for the most part for at least an hour or more, we go over lesson plans.  I think I've talked about this before: ABC's, numbers, states, planets, phonics, and even starting on the periodic table. (I didn't learn it in school, but learning it now) and why not have him be the smartest kindergarten kid I know.  We've had his original table for a little over a year or more, and it holds his dry erase board, chalk board combination, and we can put his computer on the table, but it was getting small for doing his legos, coloring and cutting. And it needed more space and for us to utilize the other couch.

 

So his own little corner with everything he needs.  Moved the couch back to the picture window and put him by the fireplace.  This was all good till I kept looking at it, and it just seemed way too small.  So off to Target to look for either another table to add to this or a bigger one all together.  After much searching FireHoth came up with two black tables that took maybe about 10 minutes to put together, I found three small blue bowls (everything in the living room has to match other wise it wont be conducive to grownups) to put his crayons, dry erase markers, and magnet letters in.  Brought back out his four 24x24 square Lego pad, three baskets for animal toys, puzzles, Legos, and paired down his crazy car collection.

Now it not only looks like a piece of furniture that belongs in the living room, it's got ample room for him to play and do everything he needs to do during the day. We even bought a stool for us to use to sit on that has storage in it, so us old folks don't have to sit on the floor.  He has a designated place for coloring, legos and all of his toys.  The dry erase board will go in a few months.  The space where the fireplace is, will hold a piece of plywood with chalkboard magnetic paint so that way he'll have a bigger drawing space and can use the chalk indoors, and a dry erase board will be put along side of it.  Might as well use the space for something useful. I'm just overjoyed with how this has turned out.  Now no more moving one game, or activity off the table to do something else and a permanent place for his MacBook.  Everything has baskets and he has his own little place all for him, and we can still do school work where I can actually sit with him.