Self discipline

"No Lauren"

"Stop Lauren"

"Get down Lauren"

These are all phrases Lauren says to herself lately. It kinda gives me some insight to what she hears at daycare all day. The funny thing is, she says these phrases as she commits the crime. So as she climbs on the coffee table she says "get down yaren." Silly girl.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Since we're spending Christmas in Birmingham and won't have any visitors here in Georgia, I decided to upload some pictures of our decorations so you can see how festive we are:

First, I give you the Gordon family Christmas Tree...

The mantle, no stockings hung with care though because we forgot them in Birmingham last year.

The half-painted nativity scene (don't ask)...

Decapitated Santa and other holiday pillows.

The column of Christmas cards...

Advent house and other assorted decor

Finally we have Bebe enjoying the present aspect of Advent...

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Last week Lauren was sick with a stomach virus, which she then shared with me and Patrick. So last weekend we didn't do anything, which meant this weekend we had to be super productive since Christmas is almost here. One of our main tasks was to spend $100 at Sears on Christmas decorations. They gave us a $100 credit for being in the military and the only catches were the money had to be spent by Christmas Eve and the items had to be purchased in the Holiday section. So we ended up with Wrapping paper, lights, ornament hooks and three animated reindeer.

Lauren helped Patrick set them up.

Oooooo, pretty....

Mamma what's that?!

Needless to say, Lil' Jon was not too thrilled with the herd of reindeer that invaded his yard.

Today I also had to put together six small gifts for Lauren's daycare teachers -- three in the a.m. and three in the p.m.

Today ended with Patrick heading out to go camping with his ROTC friends at their annual winter camp out and me starting the Bisquoties. I say "start" because it usually takes me 2 to 3 days to make them (when I'm not chasing a toddler). So tonight I made 265 cookies and that's maybe a third of the dough.

Every time I make these cookies I recall how everyone says Grandma Annie was a good cook, she just didn't like to cook. Well hell, you make and icing 600 cookies and tell me how much YOU like to cook. That being said, it's only once a year so I'll suck it up and quit complaining.

Wow...more than a month...my bad

How can it have been more than a month ago that I updated this thing? How is next week Christmas?? Geez, where to begin...

I'll start by listing all of Lauren's new words. She is talking like crazy now and she's putting sentences together that actually make sense. So here is a list of new laurenisms:

Yellow bus

White bus (these are all over Fort Benning because they transport Soldiers)

Bracelet

Aunt Anne

Pretty

I do it

Mamma do it

Helicopter

Airplane

Blue car

Chicken

Horsey

Pretzels

Peas

Green beans

Meat

More please

Bless you Mamma

Thank you Dadda (seriously, Patrick gets thanked for everything, not poor Mamma)

I Rock

Nose

I Open (when referring to presents)

Sassy Bear

I wet (usually said while changing her diaper)

Michael

Lacey

Hat

Purse

Jacket

Zip it

Black shoes (read more about these below)

Maw Maw

Paw Paw

Bone

Move puppy! (poor Lil' Jon)

Lotion

Chair

Bib on

Ho Ho

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A few months ago I bought Lauren a cheap pair of black Mary Jane shoes to wear with her Christmas dress. This child loves those shoes. Literally the second she hits the door in the afternoon she takes off her tennis shoes, puts them away, puts her socks in her dirty clothes basket and puts on her "black shoes." She wears them with jammies, with jeans, with just a diaper...she doesn't care what she has on as long as she can wear her shoes.

She does branch out occasionally though. She also enjoys her beach shoes

As well as Dadda's shoes

In other Lauren news, she has added steps to her bed time routine. The child that has never cared for being rocked, despite the awesome glider we got before she was born, now demands to be rocked before bed each night.

It's really cute. She says "I rock? I rock?" Sometimes she also asks "I night-night on Mamma?" Night-night on Mamma means, 'can I put my head on your shoulder while we rock?' However, she only wants to rock a few minutes, not until she falls asleep. In fact, she'll usually tell me when she's done by saying "bed."

Speaking of bed, it's approaching bed time and I'm tired. I'll update again tomorrow night and I'll post some pictures of our Christmas decorations.