overcompensating much?

when you have a child with a birthday close to christmas, you immediately begin to feel guilty that they won't feel special enough or get enough presents or feel like they truly got their day. at least that's how i feel. which is fantastic, because i'll soon have two children to make me feel guilty. to add to the original guilt, i felt terrible for finn, because i am exhausted. too exhausted to have an amazing party for him with all his little friends. so instead, we had many little mini parties and have sang happy birthday enough times that he just assumes it's his anthem. he also expects candles on everything. or just "FIRE" as he likes to refer to it, which is adorable in itself, because he expects the firetruck to come when the candles come out. oh sweet innocence!

first party was with nonny and hoppy, which included pizza and a cupcake covered in enough icing to, well, induce a major melt-down only 30 minutes later when the sugar hit his tired brain and overloaded all of his circuits. luckily, we were at the jumpy house place and most of the mono-saccharides were burned off quickly.

next up, on his actual birthday, he got cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which he now expects often. i crave them, so his expectations are met pretty often as well. that night, we had a mini pizza party with mim and papa, cousins, and aunts and uncles. he opened a few presents and relaxed a little. pretty low-key and fantastic!

the next day, we had the van vactor family christmas, highlighted with an intermission of finn's yo-gabba-gabbafied 2nd birthday party. this was probably the most birthday-party-like moment he got to experience. we had cake, a piñata, and a special visit from santa. okay, that was for the christmas party, but finn felt pretty special that santa came to his birthday party.

then, we were done. wait. remember that guilt? i bought more cupcakes with overwhelming amounts of icing, and finn and his friend joey exchanged gifts at chick-fil-a (joey is two weeks younger and has been a friend since birth).

needless to say, finn got his moments. i just can't believe he's already two. i just need to take a moment and soak it all in before all of our lives change drastically in a few days. my sweet little babe is going to be a big brother. ridiculous...

merry

i'm definitely in the christmas spirit. wrapping is one of my absolute favorite things to do. i wish i could make a profession out of it and get paid lots of money for wrapping other people's presents.

genetic curse

me: check out that butt crack
josh: that's the van vactor in him
me: well, at least my genes carried on

here's hoping the next one doesn't inherit this amazing trait of a ridiculously high butt crack. or have no earlobes like my dad and brother jeff. we're a strange people.

there's a few things you've missed

the last few weeks have been crazy and i feel like any free moment that i have is spent with me lying in bed sleeping or trying to sleep through contractions. that's right folks. contractions. all the time. it doesn't help when the doctor says, "you could go any day," because then any day feels like it could be the day. the one that i've been waiting for over 38 weeks for. but so far, the day has not arrived, so we keep filling the days with lots and lots of other things.

thanksgiving dinner

girls shopping weekend in schaumburg
(tenley was very excited!)

a purdue game with the allens
(with amazing free seats in the pit behind the team)

lots of fun moments and dinners out with finn

breakfast with santa
and both sets of grandparents

christmas show (we made it about 15 minutes
then went outside and played in the snow)

smartest kid i know

i told finn a couple minutes ago that he wasn't allowed to sit or stand on his lego table to play with his cars on the window sill and that he had to sit on his chair. ingenious little man that he is - he came up with a solution that he thought would appease us both. i have to give him credit.