Okay, okay, I’m not leaving. I’m getting kicked off. Chris thinks it’s dumb that I blog under his personalized domain name of chrisbrems.com and has asked forced me off.
Come see us at
what are you waiting for? Go!
Oh, and this is the rss2 feed, if you want it. :)
www.DaniDingDong.com/?feed=rss2
Seriously. Are you still here? It’s old news.
That’s what my true love gave to me. That’s right, I’m taking all the work out of the last two posts. :)
It wasn’t THAT funny, Mrs. Claus- just ask Trae.
COUSINS! (singing and oh-so-cute!)
OTHER COUSINS! with me dressed up as Santa yelling “PEE PEE, POO POO!” because my niece thinks it’s hilarious. Too bad it scares the boys.
Monkey’s first bath.
Chris was Santa’s helper and even Trae knew something funny was going on.
Our nativity with three driving, fighting “angels” and a shepherd Trae who refused to dress up.
A very spiritual moment.
A very fun scavenger hunt!
So very embarrassed about reindeer feet.
Even Tennis balls!
Trae knew it was a ball, he just didn’t know it was covered in wrapping paper.
How we love Pooh!
And a sagger in a Christmas tree!
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
10 times told.
One Christmas when I was in elementary school, my mom took me shopping to ZCMI where I found the most adorable sweater. It was black and white striped with a neon dog face on the front, and a dog butt on the back, complete with a yarn tail. I looooved it. My mom, not wanting to have to come back to the store, asked me to go look in another department for a few minutes, and upon returning (bag in hand, mind you) she told me that when she tried to purchase the sweater, the cashier noticed it had a hole in the arm so she had to leave it behind. I was heartbroken. Imagine my surprise a few weeks later when on Christmas morning I found that neon dog smiling up at me.
My mom is sooo tricky.
It’s awesome getting to surprise my little 13 month old. First of all, because it’s easy. He gets excited every single time we go downstairs together and he sees his ball pit, his car ramp, and all his other toys- and he’s seen those before! Secondly because he will be no less surprised on Christmas morning if he has seen his new toys prior to that day, or not. So we take him shopping to pick out his own toys, we let him examine new gifts when they arrive in the mail, and we even discuss with others what he is getting for Christmas while he rests in our arms- and he doesn’t even have to wait in another department.
hole in the arm… I feel so stupid.
We came across some of Santa’s nine flying reindeer one night but were quickly set straight by our little 13 month old who insisted that they were dogs.
You don’t argue with a toddler so dogs they are!
And a sagger in a Christmas tree.
Chris, Trae, and I headed downtown to Temple Square for one of my most favorite (and completely original har har) traditions of seeing the Christmas lights. A few weeks ago we had gone to the St George Temple’s lighting ceremony, well we completely missed the actual ceremony but didn’t realize that was the only thing to go for, and all they had were a couple strands of lights haphazardly strewn around a few palm trees. It was sad. Like a slap in the face to Christmas. So it felt good to be back in our element where there were ginormous trees meticulously wrapped with lights of all colors. Chris was beside himself getting to show his son all the lights even if there wasn’t any snow (that is very important to my little Chris!).
Trae and I had on mittens. Me, because I prefer mittens, Trae, because I wasn’t about to try to get each of his chubby fingers into a finger hole with gloves. In fact, I didn’t even pretend like I was going to attempt to get his thumb into the separate little compartment his mittens provide, and was pretty pleased with Chris and me as parents, when we actually got them over his hands and got him to keep them on. Seriously, though, we are awesome.
But there was a place for Trae’s thumb in those mittens, and he soon realized there was a silly little flap of useless fabric on them and began to, what else, taste it. Pretty soon he was teething it, and before we knew it, a full on chomp was happening. So we’re walking around with a little boy in a monster hat who is chewing off his thumb and we are all fine with it. It looked so gross, like he had to gnaw off his thumb to save his life, and he was determined to do it before we were done seeing the lights. But as long as he kept them on, what did we care?
Then we had hot chocolate
and a cinnamon roll that Trae just couldn’t wait to taste- and then eat most of.
…and a sagger in a Christmas tree!
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
I try to avoid telling Trae ‘no.’ Don’t get me wrong, I find myself saying “no, no, no!, no!, no!!, NO!!!!” as I try to stop a lot of things that really, really need to be stopped with Mr. Rambunctious, but I would much rather tell him what he can do rather than what he can’t. So to avoid getting mad at chubby little hands reaching up to play with my delicate nativity, we bought Trae his very own nativity to redirect him to, and it has been so much fun!
In Luke Chapter 2 we read there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. We have observed, though, that Trae seems to have his own interpretation of the multitude of heavenly host’s. That multitude is apparently a donkey, a camel, a wise man (or woman as Chris keeps insisting he/she looks like), and even the little baby because each gets a turn on top of the manger when he plays with it. But his adorable little babbles are probably just as beautiful, if not more, than the praising from the bible. Seriously, what beats a toddlers voice? And when he shows us the baby Jesus sincerely telling us “baybee.” Precious. AH! His cuteness just kills me!
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
6 e-mails-for-stockings
The year was 2002. Chris and I were poor college students and newly weds. We had a Christmas tree in our apartment, yes, it was made out of one or two strands of lights that Chris stapled to the ceiling and floor, but it was our first, thereby glorious, Christmas tree. My mom must’ve felt bad for our little apartment because she added to our decorations with two adorable stockings.
Nine years later, we are finally in need another stocking (yay!). After searching the internet for a match to no avail, I wound up on the manufacturer of our stocking’s home page. They don’t even sell merchandise on their website but I filled out the ‘contact us’ page anyways, asking if they had any stockings left over from 2002. Haha, who does that! Six short e-mails later (mostly to describe the stocking) they actually found “the very, very last one” and sent it to a store for me to purchase! I seriously can’t believe that worked!
But this may mean no more additions to our family! :)
Nope, still haven’t bought the plastic ones. :)
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
4 tired arms
Traeson weighed 23 pounds a month ago, so if we factor in the monstrous meals he eats three-plus times a day, he now weighs, well, more than 23 pounds. While I’m not sure if he doesn’t like riding in his stroller or if Chris and I just really enjoy holding him, we seem to never pull the stroller out of the trunk and this time was no different. Wandering around the festival of trees last weekend, though, definitely left us with four tired arms, and a hurt shoulder that Chris is trying to blame on Trae.
We loved lugging baby Trae through all the rows of pretty trees. We excitedly showed him the one covered in basketballs, we pointed out the the one made out of tires and tinsel, but the only tree that Trae showed any real interest in was this very traditional tree. Silly boy. Apparently he liked the big red ball on it (of course) and lunged toward it upon spotting it.
Towards the end, though, Trae started his oh-so-awesome game of headbutting my face while yelling “bump” then giggling manically, and when I stopped that, he decided it would be fun to see the trees upside down! I honestly carried him like this for minutes at a time. I love this kiddo!
3 french boos,
2 parents scrambling,
and a sagger in a Christmas Tree.
