Sankt Nikolaus Tag

Today is Sankt Nikolaus Tag, and luckily, Mack has been a very good boy this year. Last night, after Mack had carefully placed his shoes by the front door, Sankt Nikolaus came and left him some goodies. A banana, kinder chocolate and a dinosaur mask. As you can see he was very excited about the chocolate and insisted on eating the banana right away. Unfortunately, he's not feeling 100% this morning and due to a little cold and hasn't really noticed the mask yet. I can't blame him, I don't like things strapped to my face when I have a stuffy nose either. If your wondering why he's all dressed instead of in his PJ's, it's because last night his diaper just wasn't up to job, as I discovered this morning.

The countdown to Christmas has officially begun! Here is Mack starting our homemade advent calender. I made your basic paper ring chain and then stapled some peppermint nougat candy to each link. The links are for Mack, and the candy is for Tyler. For us, Saturday was basically the perfect way to start December. Let me paint you a picture, or at least show you some pictures.
1st: I made blueberry muffins to start of our morning.

2nd: Mack sneaked into our closet, to reemerge wearing a pair of sneakers, a baseball cap and holding two packs of bias tape (for sewing). He was very proud of himself.
3rd: We picked up our Christmas Tree from a nursery about two blocks away.
4th: Mack took a nap while Tyler put the lights on the tree and I made Mexican Hot Chocolate. Yum. Then, Ty and I decorated the tree. This is our first Christmas we'll be spending at our own apartment, so we're VERY excited to have a tree and do all the decorating and preparation for Christmas.

5th: Mack woke up just in time to put a few finishing touches on the tree. He LOVED it! So far he's been very good at not touching the tree or breaking/playing with any of the ornaments. The only things he really goes for are the candy canes, two of which he broke in half this morning. I think the needles on the tree feel a little weird to him so he doesn't like to touch them, but he does seem to enjoy walking around the tree, gently touching each ornament with one little out stretched finger while I say "don't touch." I don't really mind him gently nudging the ornaments, but where do you draw the line with a 19 month old? I can't really explain to him "What you're doing there is fine, but please don't pick up any of them and throw them across the room just because they look like balls. And please don't grab onto the tree and knock the whole thing over." So we stick with "don't touch" and that seems to be working just fine.

6th: While we were finishing up the tree, we noticed it'd started snowing. So we bundled Mack up in his coat, hat, gloves and snow bibs and went out to play. As far as Mack's attitude towards snow, I think the pictures speak for themselves. Let's just say, it makes him a little uncomfortable...In case you haven't heard, we had a good 24hrs of snow and then it rained for the next 24hrs. Washington has had some serious flooding problems, there are a few roads closed around us and some people from the apartment complex came by and lined our patio with sandbags, but that's pretty much been it for us. People around here always assume that since we lived in San Diego, we must hate the rain and snow. Not true! We love the diverse weather here! I mean, I don't love it when people's home are flooded, but it is so nice to live in a place with all FOUR seasons.