SNOW ANGELS

It's been snowy and cold..........................5 oclock today we are sitting at the front window watching our neighbors shovel snow out of their driveway....I ask Dakotah if he wants to go outside.......YEAH!!!! he squeals with such delight and happiness........I LOVE BEING HIS MAMA!!!! We had so much fun! His little face was SO cold..I finally convinced him to put on the face mask..SUCH AN ADVENTUROUS LITTLE BOY!!!!

SANTA CLAUS is coming to town...

Writing a letter to Santa!!!!!


So, a couple of weeks ago, my auntie and D and I were downtown at pioneer place....we were upstairs at the L'occitaine store and D looks down and yells...SANTA..he starts waving and saying "Hi Santa.." then he says "I want to see him:"... so we go down there and he wants to get out of the backpack.....I take him out and his feet hit the ground...he promptly walks over Santa...(there was no line or anything roping him off from seeing him).....he then climbs up on his lap...and he looks him square in the eye and tells him he wants a black football helmet PLEASE...the photo girl asks me if I want a pic and all I could think that was this was not planned and Carrie wasn't with us...No, thank you no picture....., I was kicking myself ever since that I just should have taken the photo cuz it was so perfecxt (and Carrie told me I should have too)...cuz we know how our boy is and he probably won't want to see Santa again (and surely not just for a photo op).BUT , mama needs a picture of her boy on Santa's lap........so, Gramma picked us up yesterday..(one of our bad weather days but she can drive in it...we thought we should go try to see Santa b'c the weather is supposed to get worse)....

So, off to Lloyd Center we go.....D was super excited and was in his snow bibs and hat......he heads toward Santa with gramma telling us that he is "going to see if Santa is at work"....again, NO LINE and D walks right up, stands in front of Santa and says "I want a Black football helmet please"..then he informs me that he needs help getting on Santa's lap....Gramma was telling D to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas and Santa says:
"HE'S ALREADY TOLD ME SEVERAL TIMES"!!!!!

GRUMPY SANTA....SHEESH....but, then gramma says later how cool it was that he said that cuz then D would know that Santa heard him ALL the times he told him (even the first time he saw him)..YEAH, that was cool that he said that..................AND D WILL BE SO EXCITED TO GET HIS BLACK FOOTBALL HELMET.........

JUST A BLURB...

So, on Saturday's Dakotah usually hardly knows that I exist and I usually go to work......this is his day with Mima and he seems to know it!!! Today I was standing in the kitchen and I said, "I think Dakotah thinks it's Saturday" (as he was ALL ABOUT HIS MIMA all morning)....he was leaning over on the floor and he says "NO, IT'S SUNDAY"...to which we both looked at eachother and Carrie says "WTF, he's too young to know it's Sunday, there is no way he could know that".....and Dakotah says "No, I'm NOT"......WTF???? OOOOOOOKKKKKKKKAAAAAYYYYYYY!! So, Carrie says well how old ARE YOU and he says "THREE"..oh, well okay if you are 3 then I guess you would know that Mr. not even 2 1/2 yet..................BIG SMILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the zoo lights were FANTASTIC

WE bundled up and went to the zoo lights last night...the ground was covered in snow and it was perfect....Dakotah was lit up so bright and had a BLAST.....the lights were amazing....I can't imagine how long and how many people it takes to prepare the zoo!!! They had a big polar bear and Ruldolph at the front gate when you entered hugging everyone...big and little kiddos...Dakotah was delighted by Ruldolph and go SEVERAL hugs from him/her.....he did not want to go on the train AT ALL!!!!!! he actually was a little frightened by it so mama went by herself! Mima gave her and Dakotah's tix away! What a great tradition to start and well worth getting a zoo memebership for...we nearly paid for the night with our year long memebership! We'll make it an annual event!! Maybe D will want to go on the train next year!!!!

THE SPIRIT OF GIVING

Hope this is the beginning of teaching Dakotah about the spirit of Christmas...he has already made 5 special gifts. He has been so happy to be doing "arts and crafts" and I am so excited to see him wrap his handmade gifts and to hand them over on Christmas day!!!!!

I'M SO PROUD OF DAKOTAH!!!

I feel as tho' I spend SO much time gushing and bragging and bragging and gushing BUT I cannot let this day go by without sharing this story:

Today Dakotah and I stopped at the Dollar Tree to pick up some socks for our White Elephant Party...as we were walking thru the store, Dakotah tossed something in the cart..I asked him: Who's that for....."It's for Katie" he says as if I should have known..it was a little blue tin box with a flower on it....I was walking down the aisle and looked at him and he had a package of LARGE, GOLD Christmas tree bulbs tucked under his right arm and he was holding onto them as if they were his most prized posession. I said "Oh, baby, what are you doing with those...what are those for"..he informed me that they were for auntie bev...at this moment, I realized that my little boy just 28 months old WAS CHRISTMAS SHOPPING....what the heck?, no prompting, no encouragement just previous discussions about Christmas, making presents etc.....HE WAS DOING THIS ON HIS OWN.....he then proceeded to throw a cute little paper hole punch in the cart and said "that's for Katie".... and said "Oh, I need one for Big B too" as he stooped over to look for one.....I was looking at something behind him then he walked away..I looked in the cart and didn't see anything and asked D "What did you get for Big B...and he says: "the blue one" and keeps walking..I still didn't see anything so I just kept on heading toward the check out....When we got to the check out, Dakotah burst into tears and said "mama, I don;'t want her to take the Christmas Balls....(yes, the BIG, GOLD ones he had chosen for auntie bev)...he was SERIOUSLY upset at the prospect of having to hand over those balls..he had been holding them tightly under his arms since we came in the store......finally he let her ring them up and give them back.....THIS ENTIRE EXPERIENCE showed me that my son is LEARNING about what it means to think of others...... and that he has some innate personality traits that I so admire and love...he was showing so much sweetness in choosing these gifts and I was truly so proud of him that he chose to do this on his own!!!!! Oh, yes and let us not forget to mention when he chose 4 little baseball grow in water towels..he informed me that one was for Bryson and one was for Katie..when I asked him who the other 2 were for he looked down at his hand and looked and mine (holding the other two) and said "LET ME FIGURE THIS OUT".................................KIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSS, I am amazed DAIL Y....and so, so, so, so proud of who Dakotah is becoming..he is amazing me more EVERYDAY......

Oh, and BTW, when I was going thru my purse while eating dinner during my work break tonight what did I find??? The BLUE stamp that D picked out for Big B....OOOPPPPSSSSSIIEEEEE, it must have landed in my purse*which was open and in the cart)
I STOLE SOMETHING FROM THE DOLLAR TREE......AH, GADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We headed to Wheeler Tree Farm yesterday to get our Christmas tree. We were all very excited and I mentioned to Carrie that perhaps we should get a tree for my auntie Patty. We got to the farm, headed into the "forest" to pick our tree...Dakotah promptly starts marching and saying hut(not sure of the spelling on this) ...two....three....four and saying to us "lets go, lets go, lets get our tree"...I was so delighted to see how happy he was to be marching into the woods to pick out his Christmas tree....we stopped and looked at a cute maybe 5 foot tree and Dakotah says "Shall we get this for auntie"?..........AH!!!!!! well, of course we promply cut the tree down and Dakotah held it the entire time as Mima was sawing it.....it was so super duper CUTE.......and once again I was reminded of what a thoughtful, special little boy we have....he picked a tree for auntie before even getting ours...we took it to her when we were done and she was SO HAPPY and it is decorated and in her living room.....I showed Dakotah a pic of it this am and he wanted to know where she put it and if he could go over and see it......TIS THE SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!!11111