Last Picture Wednesday

Today Finn baby is 52 weeks old.  His first birthday is on Friday.  Unbelievable.  He's so big.  So, so big.  I love it and really don't love it at the same time.  I have a big birthday letter to write to my little boy, but I think I'm gonna leave that for a couple more days.  So, for now, here's our very last picture Wednesday.  Little Finn at 52 weeks old today.

This morning we took Tate to his preschool Christmas program.  It was so fun.  Glenn even went in to work late so he could come and watch.  A few weeks ago Tate's preschool sang at Barnes and Noble for a little fund raiser and he was parked next to a darling little girl who sang very loudly.  Tate spent the entire "program" that night with his hands over his ears.  He didn't sing a single word, just stood there covering his ears.  So this time we talked about how we were excited to hear him sing the songs he's practiced and I hope he will not cover his ears this time.  He looked at me all concerned and said, "But mom, what if someone is singing really loudly?"  I told him, that would be just fine and he can sing loudly too.

This morning he was standing next to the same darling girl and he did great.  He was so excited to see Glenn and I.  He kept smiling at us, talking to us.  In between songs he played jingle bells on his imaginary trumpet until his teachers told him to be quiet.  It was awesome.  I didn't realize how fun these simple little things are for parents!  I loved every second.

We're busy getting ready for Christmas around here.  Lots of last minute cleaning, shopping and wrapping along with Christmas parties, treat delivering, and of course there's still Young Men's, piano lessons, and Lacrosse practice too.  But it's been a wonderful Christmas time so far.  A few days ago we decorated a gingerbread house and a gingerbread train.  Tate had fun sticking candy all over them and singing to himself.

 Our Christmas party season started with a trip to see the zoo lights at our zoo here.  All the special events at the zoo here are not included in our membership which is a total bummer, but lucky for us, our amazing realtor and his company threw a Christmas party at the zoo one night.  They had a ton of food and we got to roam around and see the zoo lights for free.  It was really pretty and really cold, but  Tate still had fun finding all of the zoo animals made of Christmas lights.

We had two Christmas parties with Newfield this year.  One for families at the aquarium where we had breakfast, met with Santa, and then toured the aquarium, always a favorite.  Tate had a nice chat with Santa and told him all about the "hot mobile" (hot wheels) track that he wants for Christmas.  

Finn wasn't sure how he felt about this guy with all the white fur but it wasn't traumatic, so we'll take it.

They do such a good job putting on these events for their employees.  They had a big treat bag filled with fish-themed goods for Tate, and breakfast was a yummy buffet complete with a pasta bar with candy, syrup, chocolate syrup and other goodies a la Elf.  It was hilarious.

Then last weekend we attended Newfield's big couple's Christmas party.  It was at a very nice hotel down town.  We dressed up all fancy and had a delicious dinner.  Every year they have a different theme for the party.  This year they did a murder mystery party.  It was interesting.  Glenn, of course, really got into it.   At one point a cop pulled him up out of the crowd (he'd been 'volunteered' by a lady in his office without him knowing), and made him sing Part of your World, in front of the whole party.  Then he re-enacted the murder that happened at the beginning of the party.  Basically, a lady came in screaming that she'd been stabbed, ran around the room screaming, then fell down in the middle of the dance floor...so Glenn enacted that for them.  Hilarious and very brave.  I sat there the whole night just praying that the detectives who were pulling people from the party, wouldn't pick me to make a fool of myself.  But Glenn didn't mind one bit.

Glenn spent the evening writing down all of the clues, explaining his reasoning to everyone at the table, and then at the end he turned in our idea of "who did it".  Unfortunately, we did not win, but it was a fun evening.  After the dinner was over there was dancing and a few songs in Glenn and a bunch of people from the office pulled this out.

Glenn was asked to participate a few days before and they'd been practicing at work every day.  Hilarious.

This time of year always goes so fast.  And with being away for a week for our Disneyland trip that I still need to write about, it seemed even faster this year.  We plan to squeeze every bit of Christmas-ing out of these last few days that we can!