A wonderful Christmas time

It's a long story but...

...on Christmas Eve we ended up in the McDonald's drive-through ordering off the dollar menu. As I was laughing at the situation, I thought of my family in Utah eating prime rib and a few tears started to flow. I felt really sorry for myself until the woman at the window handed us my McChicken and small fries.
"Merry Christmas," I yelled from the passenger seat.
She winced, then shut the window.
Ryan said it was because she probably didn't understand English, but I think she knew what I said. I realized that I would much rather be eating at McDonald's on Christmas Eve than working there on Christmas Eve.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself, which was good because the next event of the night was very humbling.
Ryan, Ethan and I went to the visitor's center at the D.C. Mormon temple. Ryan's parents are on a Mormon mission there and his mother, Judi, is in charge of a live nativity held every night. You know where this is going. Judi asked us to be Mary and Joseph on a night when it's pretty hard to find others (though we were the second couple that night) who want to go sit in the cold and show off their dramatic prowess.
Ryan and I have zero experience in drama, but Judi and a sister missionary gave us a great 15-minute training and we got out there and acted our little hearts out. The first few times were shaky. I would stand up at the wrong time or Ryan would turn spotlights on the wise men when the narrator was talking about shepherds. But we got the hang of it after a while and it turned out to be a lot of fun.
There were so many people there watching. We even got a few hecklers.
After doing the nativity scene 11 times we went back to Ken and Judi's, played games, visited and ate junk food, which we continued when we woke up in the morning.
Ethan got lots of presents and a haircut on Christmas. He still doesn't look like my baby. But he's even cuter if you can imagine that.
It was such a memorable Christmas!

Merry Christmas

We didn't get a Christmas card out this year, so we hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas!

The human disposal

Things I have found in or approaching Ethan's mouth:

- Paper, paper and more paper. I usually find that when I hear him choking on something and stick my finger in to find out what it is.

- Tags. He always searches out the tags on toys and sticks them in his mouth.

- Books. Who doesn't love the taste of books? He only gets to read under parental supervision now.

- Cords. Mmmm, electricity.

- My earrings. He is always trying to pull them off of me. Today I noticed him putting one in his mouth (don't ask me how he got it) and when I grabbed it I found the other one inside.

- The child safety plug. A little ironic? It is supposed to stick in the outlet so we can avoid electric shock, but he somehow (yes, again somehow) found a lose one and stuck the entire thing in his mouth.

- A nail. Yes, I might be getting a visit from DCPS after this one. I turned around the other day to see him sticking something in his mouth. I yelled, "No, no Ethan," and he pulled it away from his mouth for a moment, but then pushed it back toward the slobbery abyss. I ran and took it away. It was a nail that had been holding a cable to the baseboard. I think he pulled it out of the wall.

I am a stuffy American

Ethan and the Washington Monument made completely out of leaves.

My favorite monument, the Jefferson. I love how the dome is the top of a gourd. I wish I had taken a better photo of him inside.

The Capital building.

The real one.

Watching trains go by with Elliot and Ava.

Today Ethan and I met Julie and Elliot and Adelle and Ava at the Botanical Gardens. Right now there are these neat to-scale models of the important buildings and monuments in Washington made completely out of plant materials (see photos) on display and some pretty amazing trains - not to mention the thousands of poinsettas.

As we walked through, I stopped to take a photo of Ethan and a Washington Monument made of leaves. A group of people from Asia approached me and one of the men asked if he could take photos of Ethan. I said yes with a laugh.

Then, one of the women in the group came up and picked Ethan up right out of his stroller. I stood there in shock for a moment, wondering how anyone would even think it was right to pluck someone else's baby out of a stroller without asking them. The lady then began to kiss Ethan and pose for the camera. I finally got the guts to say something and with a weak smile I mustered, "Um, I probably need to catch up with the people I'm here with."

The lady just smiled at me and then back to the cameras that were wildly shooting her photo with my son. After what seemed like several minutes, she put him back in his stroller. But the cameras kept clicking. I sat for a second, wondering if I should just walk off while they were taking photos (I don't think they understood that I needed to leave). Then out of the blue, another woman came up and picked him up.

It was at that moment that I felt like laughing out loud. I began to imagine the culture from which these people came. And then I thought of that security bubble that we keep around ourselves here in America. And I realized that I am a stuffy American who probably needs to relax a little bit.

But really, who wants a picture of themselves and someone else's baby?

Hallelujah

Ethan is finally eating vegetables - plain - not secretly mixed into peaches to disguise the taste! He loves peas and carrots and even eats green beans without protesting. Ryan said he had a talk with him.

And yes, Ethan has been crawling for the last few weeks, I just keep forgetting to blog about it. He now slowly creeps around the couch, then he starts giggling and makes a crawling sprint toward the Christmas tree. It's all a game to him to see if he can sink his teeth into my ornaments before I get there to stop the carnage.

Can you tell I have nothing to blog about?

I have a hard time picking a favorite of anything, but I always had a favorite ornament growing up. It would change from year to year, but each Christmas, I would unconsciously pick the shiniest or most beautiful and hang it front and center on the tree - where everyone could see it. Below is this year's favorite. One day I want to have a very whimsical tree with lots of colorful ornaments like this reindeer.

Ethan found a favorite this year too. The fact that it was near the ground might have given him a slight bias toward it, but who cares? He even tasted it to make sure it was the best.

It feels like Christmas

I seriously loathe scrapbooking, but I love paper. So I always buy cool paper and it just sits in my cabinet, gathering dust. Yesterday, however, in what might be my craftiest moment to date, I made good use of that paper. I needed more Christmas decorations and I found this idea on Design Sponge. I am so proud of myself (for ripping off an idea) that I felt prompted to post about. ;-)

Attack of the killer baby