a little get away

dan and i got a little getaway, and donovan got a weekend with the gram and grandaddy. dan and i indulged in long meals at some of our favorite and new favorite asheville restaurants, long nights with good friends, and sleeping in. donovan indulged in constant attention and entertainment, popcorn, new toys and firetrucks. yes, you heard that right donovan got the v.i.p. treatment at the burnsville fire department.

we were excited to get back to our little guy, but he had a hard time getting back to reality with us. i am not sure if he just does not like us as much as gram or grandaddy or was just that exhausted from the weekend. either way we will not hold it against him. he is just to darn cute to hold a grudge for long.

here are a few pictures from our weekend from both perspectives ......some of them were grainy because they were cell pics from my parents keeping us up to date with the weekend.

and ps. thank you nicole bloom from two sweet sparrows for a lovely evening!

doing big boy things

donovan is doing things more and more everyday that little boys do. below are some pics of what he is up to.

trying out underwear.....not really into it but looks cute :)

loves to play ball and hockey

sit and spin!

researching preschools

old friends

i had the opportunity to catch up with a childhood friend. michael and i grew up together and due to our lives running in different directions we have only been able to catch up over emails and infrequent phone conversations.

michael and i traveled across the u.s. together after we both finished undergrad. i then went on to grad school and michael began the peace corp in panama which turned into him living out of the country more than in the country in the past 10 years. we have spoken several times in the past 10 years but i have always found it difficult to catch up on life with someone that you are use to knowing so well, but now lives such a different life than me. i find myself not being able to ask enough questions to get a grasp on what day to day life looks like for michael.

micheal is now living in boulder, co ...and is even about to buy a house. he sent me a facebook message to say he would be in charlotte for work and wanted to get together. when preparing him for what my house is like i told him donovan's name and age and what he is into now.

it is so strange to grasp that michael and i use to know so much about each other and live such similar lives, but my son said hello and gave him a high five on the first time meeting! wow how time flies. after a few days and a gazillion questions i think we were able to talk it all out and bring each other up to date.

after getting use to his lion like mane and handle bar mustache it was as if it had not been 10 years since our last meeting! ahhhhh old friends :)

we were not able to get donovan to get a picture with michael....probably due to the mustache, but we did get a pic of donovan in his syracuse gear!

holidays 2011...and into 2012

as for many of you as well, the holidays tend to be crazy for us. we do lots of pre-planning to try and be proactive in not making it crazy and then we blink our eyes and it is over and we have yet again run ourselves crazy. so here we are almost through january and i am just getting my blog up to date.

out travel season started the weekend before christmas with a trip to burnsville for the weekend. we were able to visit with my parents, aunt and uncle, cousin seth in from oregon, and granny. the trip was short but productive.

we were home for a couple of days before we left for ny for to spend christmas with dan's family. if i have said it once i have said it a hundred times.....his family is huge......which left us on the go to make sure we got to see everyone. donovan had a blast with all the goings' on. he yet again amazed us with his up beat personality despite his sleep deprivation and sensory overload....he is more and more like his father everyday :) we hit a record on our last day of driving home when we were in the car for 9 hours after an exhausting trip and we clocked donovan at sleeping for 35 minutes. the bright side of that is that he was not screaming. he did great just had to be distracted from the fact that he was strapped in one position.

we got home and unloaded, did some laundry and had a late christmas morning with donovan before our house guests arrived for a few days. dan's parents, pops and bammie, have made it a tradition to spend new year's with us while on their way to florida for the winter. this year we also hosted my brother matthew and his boyfriend seth. we had a great time cooking and eating and cooking and eating. donovan loved spending time with everyone, but demanded that matthew be a part of whatever he was doing. we had a great entrance to 2012.

hope the new year is treating everyone well!

beaters

ahhh yes holiday cooking and licking beaters. and no gram there are no raw eggs involved.

haircut

we pulled the trigger and gave donovan a haircut. i was not looking forward to cutting his baby curls, but even i was beginning to feel like he was looking a bit shaggy. it just so happens that donovan's nanny angela pulled her strings to get us vip treatment. her daughter cuts hair and offered to come to our house to give his first haircut.

i was braced for donovan to not enjoy the experience, but i was not prepared for it to be traumatic for me. i just hated to see him upset over something that was based on pure vanity....and my own vanity at that. he sat in dan's lap until he got frantic enough to yell for "ma-ma". then he sat in my lap until he realized that he was also going to have to have his haircut in my lap in which case he began yelling for buck to rescue him. heartbreak.

betsy, donovan's hairdresser, was kind enough to bring him a special cape and a special comb. she was able to keep her cool and continue cutting despite donovan's breakdown. her confidence certainly helped me keep my cool.

now that it is over i cannot keep my eyes off my little boy and his precious new cut. he is going to have to get pretty shaggy for me to be able to put him through it again, but he looks precious :)

the murphysteins visit santa

dan and i are lazy when it comes to visit santa. we neglected to let donovan even get a peek at santa last year. our philosophy last year was when he asks to see santa we will dress him up and stand in line....until then we assume he does not want to go.

this year donovan has become interested in santa. he loves the phenomenon of which santa always seems to be on a fire truck, and he loves to say "ho ho ho" whenever he sees beards or santa hats. feeling in the christmas spirit dan and i trucked down to one of the local santa spots to snap a picture with donovan for a christmas card. we were the 5th people in line so it was awesome....until we got up to the price sheet that was placed outside of the room that you go into to see santa. needless to say we opted out. donovan forgot his money and in our goal of teaching financial responsibility we left. we headed over to the sports bar next door and spent our money on lunch. maybe next year?

we did get to see singing bears...for free....a big christmas tree....for free......and a deer made of sticks....for free :)