Wine and Handbags!

We went to our friend's engagement party this evening and Tiernan discovered two new passions:

Wine (In bottle almost the size of him)
Handbags

He played with them ALL night with short interludes where he twirled around and around like a dog chasing his tail!

He had ALL the ladies swooning over him!

I love this little man

I don't know why, but he looks so grown up to me in this pic:

Decorating the Christmas Tree - Part 2

So we eventually managed to get some shatterproof ornaments and were able to complete decorating the tree, T helped us out again:

Santa's not so bad after all.

After the last visit to see Santa where Tiernan looked as frightened as a deer caught in headlights, we decided to introduce Operation Befriend Santa.

For the last three weeks every time we have been near a mall, we have popped in and asked if we could visit with Santa. Most of the time there was no-one about, so we got to go in and spend some time talking to Santa, he even cave T a toy a few of the times. I could tell that he was starting to get a little warmer towards the old fella as he started to get closer each time.

Today was "The Day", armed with a group of friends we hit the mall, played a little and then headed over to Santa. Tiernan was a champ, he walked right up to Santa and stood beside him, letting me get a few photos on my own camera and then was pretty content while sitting on his lap, he even cracked a smile once or twice. After we were done, he kept making a bee-line back to Santa and nearly interrupted a few kids pictures. Him and Old Saint Nick were fast friends by the end of it, giving high fives and even kisses!

The proof is in the pudding:

Putting up the Christmas Tree - Part 1

We decided to go against our original "Bah Humbug" plan of NOT getting a tree. I did manage to convince Tony that fake would be a better option, as I could only imagine the places I would be picking pine needles out of, thanks to Tiernan, if we got a real one. We started decorating, only to realise that we had no hooks to hang our bauble, so we have to put them on at later date.

It was fun, trying to wrestle T from stealing the tree skirt every two seconds, hanging Candy Canes out of grubby little paws reach etc! Fun Fun Fun!!

The Murphy Family Elf Style

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1121106494

Santa Baby

Christmas in November

Tiernan's best bud, Sam is going home on Friday for 6 weeks. We decided that since they are inseparable at the moment, we wanted them to experience their first "Real Christmas" (last year they were merely little blobs of puke).

We took them to see Santa together. Lets just say that Tiernan was a little perturbed by the whole experience, which amused me as he is generally do fearless, but I have seen this phenomena time and time again with kids, Santa is one scary dude when you are 1 and a bit! Sam was a lot more composed and actually sat on the old fella's lap for a while after we removed an almost hysterical T man. He was waving and blowing kisses bye, it obviously is something that you grow in to!

We brought them home and let them both nap at my house. When they got up we decided to try and get a few festive photos of them together where T wasn't looking so scared.

We then let them open their presents from each other! I was eagerly awaiting a flurry of wrapping paper and ribbon, but they seemed more content playing with the boxes. I think I need to lower my expectations for Christmas Morning already! Once we had helped them unwrap their presents they had great fun playing with their new toys, although they both seemed more interested in the other ones toy - go figure!

They had dinner together and watched a show and we put them down to bed and then us adults sat and had a nice dinner, a few drinks and a load of laughter!

Tiernan is going to miss Sam terribly while he is gone.

What I'm Thankfull for this year ........

So picture this scenario.

T has had a really bad diaper rash the past couple of days, so we have been giving him as much"diaper free" time as possible. Yesterday afternoon after the second of his twice daily poops, we took off his diaper and let him at it!

I was juggling getting ready, hair, makeup, ironing clothes etc. The sweet potatoes were in the oven and were frustrating me by not cooking in the designated 30-40mins that the recipe stated they would.

I had my schedule all worked out, it went something like this:

4.30pm - Potatoes Finish Cooking, take out oven and leave to cool.

4.35pm - Apply Makeup Step 1

4.45pm - Pack diaper bag with jammies etc etc

4.50pm - Mash Potatoes and add pecan topping and broil

5.00pm - Tony dress Tiernan while I fix hair

5.15pm - Take Potatoes out oven

5.25pm - Apply Makeup Step 2

5.30pm - Load car and leave

All was going failry well, the potatoes were taking a little longer to cook than specified, but it was no biggie.

Until at around 4.33pm, all SHIT hit the fan, literally. I looked into the playroom where Tiernan had been playing quietly, in hindsight, a little too quietly.

There he is amidst a carpet load of shit, poop on the toys, poop on his clothes, poop on everything that I could see. I about had a coronary on the spot. This could not be happening, not only had he already expended his quota of poopage for the day, I had potatoes to fluff and makeup to apply!

So the rest of the time went something like this:

4.33pm - Shit hits the fan

4.34pm - Tony hauls T upstairs arms outstretched and hoses him off.

4.35pm - I am scrubbing carpets with Resolve.

4.42pm - Scrub hands 32 times

4.45pm - Still scrubbing carpets and disinfecting toys etc

4.50pm - Potatoes ready, take out oven.

4.51pm - Apply scant amount of makeup possible in the 3minutes and 30seconds I can spare.
4.54pm - Tony dressing Tiernan and packing diaper bag.

4.56pm - Find more shit and start scrubbing again.

4.59pm - Scrub hands again and clip nails, just in case.

5.00pm - Mash potatoes

5.05pm - Put Pecan topping on potatoes and put in oven

5.10pm - Wipe sweat off face and get dressed.

5.15pm - Disinfect toys once more coz I'm paranoid.

5.20pm - Retouch very shiny face and frazzled hair

5.25pm - Take Potatoes out oven and transfer to car.

5.30pm - Load car and leave!!

I was amazed that despite the chaos, I managed to keep my cool and not dissolve into a big ball of snot and go all crazy woman on it!!

And through it all, T had this huge smile on his face. And who could be mad when faced with this??

T loves Fall..........and sticks!!