oh gator tree, oh gator tree...

Several weeks ago the boys and I made a traditional construction paper garland for the first time in their lives.  Ours, of course, was orange and blue, so I guess that's not all that traditional, but still...  I forgot how much fun it is to put one of these together!

 

 Elliott, you'll notice, is sporting her Belle Christmas dress.  Just like pretty much every day before Christmas.  No one said being a princess is easy...

 It got a little out of control - even after I wrapped it around each of them there was a huge pile of garland on the floor.

But that's ok - because it fit perfectly on the boys' Gator tree!

This is the first year in, well, forever, that the boys no longer share a room.  So the tree is in Wyatt's room.  Kellen has his own decorations, though, including a small little tree, and his nutcracker collection. 

 I didn't photograph all the nutcrackers.  These are about half of them...

And of course, Elliott has her own tree, which - shocker - is pink, and - another shocker - covered in princesses.  She redecorates it (which mostly consists of her undecorating it) 2 or 3 times a day.  I'm forever going in there and rehanging the ornaments, so it never really looks all that great.  But you get the idea.

random randomness

I mentioned this before, but I'm cameraless at the moment.  And I really, REALLY don't like that.  Maybe I'll use this time to go through photos I've already taken and edit and post them (beach, Disney).  Until then, I wanted to write down a couple random things that I don't want to forget, even if they have no accompanying pictures.  

First has to do with Elliott at nap time.  Tuesday when I laid her down for a nap, she cried for 20 minutes.  The fact that she cried is unusual enough, but what really got us was what she cried.  For 20 minutes, through broken sobs and reassuring visits from mommy, she cried, "Kellen... Kellen..."  I had a zillion things to do and was determined to make her nap, but Kellen couldn't handle it.  He begged to get her out of bed and promised to occupy her for the 90 minutes or so she would've been asleep.  I let him, and he did.  I didn't hear a peep from either one of them for almost 2 hours while he played with her in her room.

Seeing how well this worked, she tried it again on Saturday.  Apparently she didn't want to miss any of the football the rest of the family was watching/playing in the living room.  So at nap time she cried, "I wanna play football with Wyatt," again through broken sobs, for about a half an hour.  And again it worked.  I know, she's good.  And I'm a sucker.  It gets worse.

Yesterday (Sunday), she tried another approach.  It was nap time, and about 5 minutes after I laid her down, I heard her pitter patter.  She wasn't crying, and getting out of bed is unusual for her.  From the top of the steps she hollared, "Mommy!  I lud [love] you!"  She waited for my, "I love you, too, Elliott," and then she ran back to her bed.  A couple minutes later:  more pitter patter, "Mommy!  I lud you, too!" and back to her bed.  This continued, while Wyatt and I giggled downstairs, for a good 20 minutes.  So what did I do?  I went and got her out of bed.  It may be time to give up on naps.  On the (really really really) positive side, she slept through the night Saturday AND Sunday!  Considering that makes, oh, the 12th and 13th times she's done that in 2-1/2 years, I may be on to something with the no-nap thing.

Next random thing - my laundry is caught up.  Maybe not a big deal to you, but one day I'll read that here and marvel that it actually has been done.  Even if only once.

Random thing number next - Elliott is a football fanatic.  More specifically, a Gator football fanatic.  You already know that, since she was 18 months old, she would stop and yell "Go Gators" (which at the time sounded like "Doh Dators") and do a Gator chomp toward any TV on which there was football.  Well, having been to a few live games now, she's on a whole new level.  While we watched football on TV, she spent a good portion of Saturday begging me to GO to a game.  At least 100 times throughout the day, she said/cried, "I need my Gator dress.  I wanna go to football game!!!"  By the time Sean got home from work, it had elevated into full blown waterworks, with her begging us to "please, PLEASE get my Gator dress.  I NEED to go to the football game!!!"  Makes a mommy proud.

ONE MORE MONTH!!!

This is the time of year that drives me nuts:  the SEC coaches meetings and media days are in the past, and there's nothing to do but wait for the football season to start.  Normally, I would at least have the first couple days of fall practice to look forward to, but since the Gators are closing all practices this fall (which start tomorrow), I've got no choice but to wait for the season opener on September 4th to see the 2010 Gators.

So, since we have nothing to do but wait - let's talk football fashion!  We're people of tradition, and we tend to wear the same thing on football game days all season long (unless we lose a game - in which case we set those clothes on fire).  I've got some of the family ready for the year, but not all of us.  Elliott's covered, thanks to this adorable dress her Aunt Sara made for her:

The embroidery says "Gator Girl Elliott" in case you couldn't make it out.  When it gets colder, we'll add a long sleeve shirt and tights underneath, but she's basically good to go for the season.  For me, I'm trying to decide between this:

and this:

(looks JUST like me, doesn't she?)

Wyatt has worn a new #15 Tebow jersey each year for 3 years, and I guess old habits are hard to break.  We know, we know, "He's gone.  Let it go."  But we couldn't help ourselves, and we bought Wyatt this:

I figure he can wear it to the Swamp, because it's still orange and blue after all.

Sean has a lucky Nike golf shirt - which is the same style Urban wears - and I'm sure he'll wear that again this year (now that his "hey Kiffin" smack talk shirts are useless), but I don't know what to do about Kellen.  He's had several styles of Gator golf shirts:  solid blue, blue/white striped.  Maybe this year he can go with orange.  Or who knows, maybe we'll get REALLY crazy and he won't even wear a golf shirt!  All I know is the countdown is on, and we can't WAIT to be in the Swamp a month from today!!!