8 years later he became a father.

And she instantly wrapped him around her little finger and showed him how to be a great Daddy.

Now, he’s a father twice over.  And he’s just as smitten with the little dude as he is with her.

Happy Father’s Day to my husband.  I knew you had it in you to be an incredible dad.

With the coffee mug M made for him at school

As an adult I can really appreciate this tradition where at least one day of the holiday season can be spent as a family.  When my older sister got married she established the same tradition for our generation – and thus one by one as we all got married we stopped going to my parents for Christmas Eve & Day.  At first my mom was crushed, but over the last 11 years my parents have embraced their holiday vacation freedom by traveling – last year they took a cruise, this year they are in the Florida Keys.

And best of all, I have no horror stories about dragging us, the kid, the dog and all the swag from house to house while her schedule goes to pot and she gets more and more overstimulated and cranky.  We did the extended family thing last weekend, therefore the last 2 days have been just the 3 of us relaxing.

Mark and I both worked until noon on Christmas Eve but that afternoon we took advantage of the fact that we still had some snow and went sledding.

That evening we had a relaxing dinner, drove around to check out Christmas lights and M opened gifts from her cousin & Uncle in FL my BFF from college.

Everyone got to bed at a good time.  M was up a couple of times during the night and seemed to be up for the day at 6:30 but we managed to hold her off until about 7:15.  She was awfully excited to see what Santa had brought.  After checking to see if he ate the cookies and orange juice (her choice) she left out, she dug into her stocking where she found the DVD of Snow White, a Santa doll (the only thing she asked Santa for) and a Care Bear’s card game.  Under the tree were more gifts including Candy Land, a trampoline, a tent/tunnel set and a tea set.  Just enough to open without getting bored with the process, not so much that she forgets about half of what she received.

The rest of the day brought several rousing games of Candy Land, tea parties, a long nap in her new tent, 2 viewings of Snow White, lots of time with the Lego Duplo farm and lots and lots of jumping:

A trampoline is my new recommended gift for anyone in a cold climate with a preschooler – she loves it and jumps all day long.

I finished off my shopping at local places and hit the Bazaar Bizarre where I scored a couple of things for me (90% of the shopping was done before Thanksgiving, given my general fear of shopping centers during the month of December). I got my “Hot Rod” Williams shirt from C.L.E. Clothing and will be sporting it at the game next Tuesday.  We hit a bunch of fun things and the girl is so enamored with all things Christmas that it’s been lots of fun.

There’s been lots of unbloggable things going on lately, nothing bad just not for public consumption yet so I don’t have much to say.  So, instead of rambling on anymore, here are some highlights of the last few festive weeks:

The Night of Lights @ Legacy Village
(tip for anyone going next year – go a little early and get a spot on the balcony near Melting Pot – best view, no crowds)

Helping me get the assigned side dishes together for Thanksgiving at my parents

The annual making of graham cracker houses at grandma’s house

Cousins M & A and M stringing popcorn and cranberries for the birds and deer at grandma’s house

At Kringle’s Inventionasium in Tower City. Very cool for me and Mark, M was a bit freaked out by it all

Meeting the Abominable Snowman & Rudolph at the Public Square Tree Lighting

Watching the fireworks at Public Square, with Terminal Tower dressed for Christmas in the background

Of course she helped decorate the tree.  This meant she put every single ornament on one branch. We did some rearranging.

Her favoriate ornament – Rudolph (purchased for her in 2008)

1800 lights and countless ornaments from my childhood (the oldest, still in tact ornament being a 1984 breaddough angel I made in Sunday School). We get a new family ornament and M gets a new ornament every year.

Last night we started a new tradition – lighting a menorah and playing dreidel. M is learning all about Hanukkah at her Jewish preschool and was asking where our menorah was at home.  We figured why not? So after a mad scramble on Friday night (after I realized that Hanukkah started this week and not next) to get a menorah failed, we made one together using Play-Doh.  It’s a fun new twist on our holiday and assures us at least 30 minutes a night of all 3 of us around the table playing a game.

All that’s left is an early Christmas celebration with my family (my parents travel during the actual holiday), a relaxing Christmas at home and then the Cleveland Children’s Museum New Year’s at Noon party.

I hope you all are having a great holiday season and are avoiding the stress that can come with it!

When we moved to Cleveland almost 2 years ago, it was a whirlwind.  We had about 5 weeks from my job offer for Mark to find a job (which he did quickly because he is brilliant at what he does), find a place to live and sell our Toledo house.  We were heartbroken over leaving our awesome 1912 bungalow in the best neighborhood ever, but it was on to bigger and better things.

Oh Stratford house, we miss you!

We looked to the inner-ring eastern suburbs because we like old houses and it was close to both our offices.  Plus we had friends here whom we had been close with when they lived in Toledo.  The prospect of carrying 2 mortgages was scary and we knew our budget that would allow us to do so would limit our buying options.  But we looked to purchase over rent just to see what we could find.  3 all-day visits later and we thought we found our house.  It was astonishingly like our old house and close to our friends, schools, grocery stores and the library.  The same day we decided to bid someone else also bid and, knowing our limited budget, we knew we would lose a bidding war.

So my thoughts kept circling back to a house our realtor showed me on a whim – it was just a few houses down from the dream house and way, way underpriced for the neighborhood.  The house was in severe need of cosmetic updating and Mark had only seen the dozens of photos I had snapped during my walk through.  Apparently the previous owners lived here for 35+ years and I think the last time they updated anything was during the Carter Administration. Inspections showed that although ancient, the mechanicals were in good shape so we took the plunge.  The thought was that we would hopefully sell the Toledo house within 6 months (hoping only to break even, given the market slide at the time) and then get an equity loan and update this house.  So before we moved in we removed all the nasty carpet and wallpaper with the hopes that within a few months we could afford to have professionals come refinish the unfinished but nice wood floors.  We also planned to have the plaster re-done on the first floor and have the whole interior professionally painted.

Looks pretty cute from the outside, right?

Then the market started to tank.  We sold our Toledo house after 5 months but took a 5-figure hit to do so.  Paying off that debt took about a year, which meant no updates to this house.  Now, another year later and really the only update we’ve made was to install a dishwasher in the kitchen (when we bought the house it had a portable dishwasher, the kind you have to roll over to the sink, hook up to the faucet and plug in.  After a few months it started to leak all over the place).

Anyway, I’m not someone who can’t/won’t do a bit of work in the name of updating a house.  We painted most of our old house and did several other small projects.  However the scope of what this house needs (new plaster, sand and re-finish floors, woodwork stripped and repainted, etc) is best left to professionals. Trying to tackle projects with a kid is drastically different then without one.  Plus, if I stay up to midnight or so painting one night, I’m wrecked for a week – I need my sleep.  So this house has sat basically untouched for almost 2 years.

The worst offender has always been the heinous kitchen.  It’s something we looked past because of it’s size (our Toledo kitchen was tiny).  It’s done in 1981-era country and it hurts your eyes just to look at it.  2 counters are faux woodgrain and the other has an atomic pattern on it.  Besides the aforementioned portable dishwasher it also has crappy (original?) cabinets painted country-blue with wallpaper in the insets.  Plus one wall is covered in faux brick wall paper.  It’s U.G.L.Y.  But it functions and there are other things on the list to be done before we sink tens of thousands of dollars into a complete remodel.

But, there was one thing I couldn’t take anymore.  The refrigerator wasn’t in the kitchen.  It was in the adjacent back entry/mudroom (but it’s really to small to call a mudroom, it’s more of a mud cubby).  This has always drove me crazy.  And it doesn’t make any sense.  Here – I’ll show you pictures so you can laugh at my ugly kitchen:

Behold the lovely blue cabinets and faux brick wall.  Note the portable dishwasher next to the stove.  We got rid of that about a year ago and since then M’s art easel has occupied that spot. The green box on the wall is an electric knife – klassy.

The assault of country-blue continues into the back mud cubby.  The back door is just to the left outside of the frame. This area is only about 3-feet wide and in addition to the refrigerator also houses the basement door and the smallest half-bath you’ve ever seen.  This area tends to get overrun with too many coats and shoes, not to mention that there are FOUR doors opening into this space. It’s an architectural wonder.

So, Friday night I mentioned to Mark that maybe we could fit the fridge in the space that the old dishwasher used to occupy thus opening up some real space in the mud cubby for coat and boot storage.  I wasn’t prepared for him to tackle the project Saturday morning but that’s what he did.  It involved removing one door, both fridge doors, an amazing amount of found dirt and grime behind the fridge and help from a neighbor to install a new outlet.  But by mid-afternoon it was in it’s new location.  It’s not ideal set up, and we had to really squeeze everything together so we could still open the dishwasher.  But it works and it’s so nice to actually have the refrigerator IN the kitchen.  What a novel idea.

Three appliances all in a tidy row.  Kitchen designers are falling off their chairs right now, but it works…and it will need to work for another few years (or until we win the lottery).  Maybe I should just take that damn knife down already.

The new mudroom area.  I need to find a bench with storage baskets that fits in this nook and will put coat hooks just under the cabinets.  This makes the entire entry feel so much bigger.  And believe it or not, Mark scrubbed that wall with bleach; that’s just how disgusting it was behind the fridge.

It’s small, but it’s one of the few things we can do to make things more livable until we have the money to really tackle the other projects (a new boiler has been added to that project list but we can’t do that until we have the entire electrical system updated – old houses = money pit).

Anyway, in lieu of a real post here are some week-old Halloween photos of a really cute bumble bee.