Not So Lazy Days

Exciting news: this little beauty came in the mail for me last week. Even though I had a fabulous time at my swim meet last month I was pretty sure I had come in at the bottom of my age group in my races. However, according to this fancy schmancy red ribbon, my 1:32.8 time in the 100 back earned me 2nd place among the women age 25-29 who competed in the race. Impressive, right? OK, maybe not, but I was pretty excited.














In other fun happenings at the Bowles household . . . we went and visited with Santa last week. Weston was very excited. We went nice and early to the mall and it was totally worth it. There was no one waiting, so we went right up and Weston got to stare at and sort of chat with Santa. The Santa was kind of creepy, to be honest. His beard was real, which was cool, but he had a badly made fake eye, so one eye was staring off in the opposite direction. Not his fault, of course, but still a little odd for Santa. Luckily I am married to a design genius who photoshopped the pictures for me. They look much more charming now.
Davin was not a huge fan of Santa. I apologize that I didn't get one of just him with Santa. He started crying as soon as I put him on Santa's lap with this look that said "Mom, who the heck is this crazy man with all the white hair and why do I have to sit with him?" He, of course, turned to check out all that white hair right when I took the picture. Oh well. Perhaps next year he will be more cooperative. Weston loved sitting with Santa and told him that he wanted the monster movie (Monsters Inc., check) and a Spiderman camera (real camera, check).
Santa gave Weston a little coloring book about "How I Can Give." It was semi cute and semi lame. He did color the whole thing though while we ate lunch at Carl's Jr. later that day. See's Candy was RIGHT behind Santa, so we detoured there. I got a half pound of chocolates for Ian and I to share while we decorated the Christmas tree and for Christmas Eve.

Here is Weston posing in front of the ginormous fireplace with his new book. Doesn't he look so excited? Christmas should be fun this year.
After playing at the mall for awhile longer and Weston getting kind of sad that he didn't get to see Santa again on our way out (there was a line by then) we headed out to lunch. Sometimes I totally regret going out to lunch with the kids. Carl's Jr. doesn't even have a playplace, but I really wanted a western bacon cheeseburger, so I prepped Weston for the fact that it didn't have a playplace and made him pinkie promise to eat his food. We had such a nice time. Davin was happy and babbling, Weston ate his food and colored his book and I got my fix too. It was a nice day. Check out all this almost 9 month old cuteness!
On Friday night the plan was to go pick out our Christmas tree. We decided to forgo the actual lot since it has gotten so expensive (about $10/foot) and went to Smith's Marketplace instead. We had to drive separately since Ian was bringing our neighbor's truck to transport our tree home. I left earlier with the boys to pick up milk and a birthday present for Weston's friend, Makenzie. It was kind of a madhouse. Finally we went and met up with Ian and picked the first tree we looked at, so I think we were all together for about 5 minutes.

Ian stayed and paid for the tree (and my copy of White Christmas) while I took the EXTREMELY tired boys home to get them to bed. I let Weston stay up until we got the tree up in the stand. It was kind of an ordeal because our tree had a really thick stem and didn't fit in our basic tree stand. Ian ended up running to Walmart at 10pm to get a new stand. The new one is lots better and the tree isn't going to fall over if Weston pushes it.

We ended up staying up until almost midnight to get it up and get lights on it. Ian is my hero and made a box for our tree to sit on. Yay. Saturday morning (after I slept in until 9, thanks hon!) we decorated the tree. Weston LOVED putting ornaments on it. He kept wanting to put them all in the same spot. It was funny. We had a nice time getting it put together. Here is the final product.
Apparently I was incapable of taking a clear picture earlier today, so here is a blurry one of the boys in front of the tree this morning, and yes, that is snow outside. It started snowing around 9:30am and is still going. We haven't had much snow this winter, so it's not depressing . . . yet.