Santa Visit

Two weeks ago, my mom had asked me if Iszak had seen Santa Claus yet.. my response, "ummm no." I hesitated on making anymore comments about the subject. I'm not really keen on the idea of taking a 6 month old to the mall, standing in line for who knows how long for a 3 minute snapshot and paying for it! 

I finally gave in and said, "hey mom, if you go with us.. then we'll go." So of course my mom jumped for joy, okay there was no jumping.. but it seemed like it from the tone of her voice. Off we tread to Fashion Place Mall to go see Santa. What a daughter does to keep a mother happy at times.

We arrive at the mall and get into line.. standing around, my mom gets another wild hair idea that Iszak needs to have a Santa hat for his picture. Okay, granted it would be so adorable... come on, he's 6 months old. Off my mom goes into Macy's to find a hat.. while the line is starting to creep up inch by inch. Finally a little worker, not dressed as one of Santa's elves or anything.. gives me a price list of the portrait packages. Yikes, $29.99 for the BASIC deal of 1 5x7, 2 3x5 and a some wallets. Santa isn't Cheap! 

I was getting frantic that my mom was still not back after 30 minutes of waiting in this horrid line. Finally, my mom  comes back empty handed. No Santa hats for little kids apparently, of course.. it's Macy's. Phew, we get to the entrance. By this time, my  mom has Iszak laughing hysterically, so I bring him over to Santa.  

Warning: Be prepared for disappointment.

Santa was not the jolly St. Nick that we hear about in stories.. rather he was quite lame.. not one Ho Ho Ho came out of his mouth or actually a sound come to think of it. Maybe this Santa is hearing impaired or something, so I brushed it off. Iszak had no interest in Santa, but everything around him.. the lights, Santa's boots, his own toes and whoever knows what else catches the attention of a 6 month old. 

The staff was very polite and allowed us to take our time, realizing that we have a youngster on our hands. The photographer was working so hard to get Iszak to look at the camera, my mom was blowing a whistle from her key chain.. who would have a whistle on their keychain, unless they were a teacher. Yep, that's my mom.

Finally I decided to take some pictures with my mom's camera, while she decided on which picture(s) to order. Santa was being the challenge at this point.. looking away at who know's what. How old is Santa again? Not 6 months I hope, because he was acting more like Iszak without the happiness part. So the personal snapshots basically were a waste.

Finally I pick up Iszak and go to the cashier to meet my mom. My mom started to bring up conversation with the young gal.. she told us that Santa doesn't have a replacement, so 14 hour days makes it a very long day for him. So what,  it's Santa right?  He could have at least smiled in the picture vs making it look like he was about to have a root canal.

An hour and a half later, $42 less in my mom's pocket.. we got this one and only picture from the experience:

Merry Christmas to your families! Have a wonderful 2009!!

Holiday Tag

I was tagged by Andrea.

Top  3 Vacations

 Of course Alaska, but not sure which time.. probably honeymoon trip.

 Capital Reef with Christopher 

 Yellowstone 

Top 3 Favorite Flowers

 Peach Rose

 Gerber Daisy

 Sunflower

Top 3 Comfort Foods

 Mac & Cheese *yum

 Spaghetti

 Cookies n Cream Ice Cream

Top 3 Places To Shop

 Smith's Marketplace

 Scrapbook Store, not sure of a favorite. I travel to about 5

 Carter's Outlet

Top 3 Opinions About Halloween

 Love it!

 Thrilled to dress Iszak up

 Decorating with my villages(s) & all other stuff

Top 3 Opinions About Thanksgiving

 Not big on the whole turkey eating idea

 Relaxing with my family

 Always room for homemade pies

Tops 3 Opinions About Christmas

 New holiday traditions

 Opening presents Christmas morning with long distant family

 True Reason for the Season

Top 3 Things I Look Forward To During the Week

 My time with Iszak to play and read books with

 Christopher coming home from work 

 Friday night trainings at our office with the team

Top 3 Things Happening This Week

 Time off from my JOB

 Partner's Breakout at the office on Friday

 Finishing up Christmas shopping

I tag Alyssa, Kami, Kateka, and Natalie

6 Months have come and gone

Wow, it's been 6 months with having Iszak apart of our lives. I couldn't imagine life without Iszak. He's brought so much joy and laughter to the family. His little facial smirks or just simply laughing at all of the funny noises that Chris and I make at him. Babies are so forgiving too, because they don't hold onto any grudges like adults do. Maybe it's a good thing that they can't talk yet at 6 months of age, because we may not be able to handle what babies would tell us.

I look back at my pregnancy and here I thought it was rough, being sick the entire time, marking plenty of parking lots in Salt Lake after just finishing a meal that I thought was delicious. I think Chris has decided that the next pregnancy, there will be less eating out, if all I'm going to do is puke the meals. All in all, we've been blessed with a very charismatic and dang cute little guy! He smiles at everybody and just loves to be around people. I hope that doesn't change one bit!

Today, Iszak was just making those silly sounds of a velociraptor and laughing at his quirky parents. Except for the occassional spit ups, which we may have to thank grandma for passing a cold onto Iszak. He seemed to enjoy his 6 month birthday! He's starting to sit up for a wobbly minute or so and figuring out how to brace himself from falling over. 

Here's a picture of Iszak enjoying a different place to play.  

Happy Birthday Iszak! Mommy & Daddy love you!

 

Random Thoughts

Tonight, I got home from work to do my usual routine of checking on Iszak to make sure he's tucked in. I always stroke his cheek, so he knows his mommy's home. Then I go in to check on Chris and say goodnight, if he's not asleep at the time. It just comforts me to know that my boys are taken care of.

I get on the internet and check my Facebook account to find out that someone from H.S. is STILL trying to be my friend. Okay, it's a nice gesture and all. I haven't talk to that person since before H.S. graduation. Plus she worked at my place of employment for a little while and just bashed the company after she quit. I realize people have their free speech, but come one.. there's something called a little respect. I've already denied the friendship request once, because I don't have any reason to develop that friendship or much rather acquaintance.  I'm weird that if you can't even include a personal message during the request, then you're obviously just wanting to add more status to yourself with having the most friends vs wanting to actually BE my friend. *honestly, just a pet peeve of mine*

Lately, Chris and Iszak haven't been feeling well, so I've had to play double duty all weekend. On Monday(today), I decided to take Iszak to the doctor. He's been pulling on his left ear for a week now. I spoke to the nurse last Tuesday about it, but there wasn't a lot of concern at the time. Because Iszak wasn't showing any sign of a fever or restless sleep, which are big clues for ear infections.  Behold, Iszak has an ear infection in his right ear. It's not a major infection, since the ear canal is partially clear. Iszak has been prescribed an antibiotic for 10 days, which should help him. This just shows that we're getting into the cold season and need to watch who gets into contact with Iszak for the time being.  I must say that I'm thankful for medical research to be on the lookout for new advancements all the time.

Speaking of other things:  Yes, I'm working on doing more environment friendly things, such as using reusable bags when shopping. I just wish the condo complex had recycling pick up, because it gets hard trying to store things until they can be dropped off. 

Another thing that I've also been doing is using more organic products, because they don't have all of the extra additives and chemicals. It is one area that I wish I had more knowledge about in the area of Organics. I love to go shopping at the whole food stores or wander down those aisles at the grocery store to find different things to try. Any thoughts or ideas about organics, let me know.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We sure did and enjoyed the longer weekend together as a family, even though there was a cold bug in our home. Iszak had his second solid food that day, which he LOVES sweet peas. He got so mad at me for stopping so soon, but I didn't want to overdo the first day on something new.  Thanks Megan for being my photographer that day! 

"Yummy Peas,  but why does Aunt Megan have to interrupt me while I'm eating."

 Iszak's 1st Thanksgiving!