Andrew's Christmas Program

As I said in my last post Andrew was a cow in the Christmas program for his school.  Monday night was the big performance and I was so excited leading up to it.

On Monday I had to pack a lunch for him because they were bussing the kids to the church in the morning to have a little run through and then they were having a picnic lunch with the kids. Andrew was pretty pumped about getting to ride a bus like a big kid and according to J that was all he talked about on the way to school that morning.

I left work at 4:00 so I could go pick him up and get him home to eat dinner before we had to head to the church at 6:00. I put the pants of his costume on him and told him we'd wait til we got there to put the top on so he wouldn't get messed up.  We grabbed the cameras, some snacks for Elliot and the diaper bag and headed out the door.  We got there right at 6:00 and headed in to find out where he was supposed to meet everyone.

We found the room where they would be performing and I took Andrew back to the waiting area. His teachers were rounding everyone up to sit in a circle and I couldn't stop smiling at the cuteness:

I snapped a few pictures and headed out to find our seats.  We had about 20 minutes to entertain Elliot before the program started. Fortunately he was pretty happy to stand in front of us and eat some goldfish snacks while watching all of the action around us:

At 6:30 the director of the school said a few words letting us know that the kids were so excited, but that if anyone saw their child getting upset and freaking out they could go get them off the stage.  Right after that the kids started coming out:

Unfortunately Andrew ended up being to the far right so it was hard to see him. I didn't want to stand up and block the view of parents behind us, but I held up my phone to snap some pics:

He's the little head all the way to the right:

I could see him looking around for us and I finally made eye contact with him. Once he saw me he got a giant smile on his face.  They sang a whole medley of songs. We got some video with the flip camera, but I was trying to do it while juggling Elliot so it's kind of shaky. I got this one with my phone:

Elliot hung out with me and watched the singing:

After it was over they herded the kids back to the waiting area and I went back there to get him. He was so excited about the performance.  We snagged some snacks on the way out, and I tried to get a cute picture of him on stage:

At that point I think he was kind of overwhelmed with the crowd, so we made our way out to the hallway. As we were walking out another mom stopped me and asked if I was Andrew's mom.  When I said "Yes" she said she was so happy to meet me because her son, Leopold, talks about Andrew all of the time.  I was excited to meet her as well, because Andrew talks about Leopold all the time, too.  They are new to town and Leopold is only at school on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, but according to their teacher they are good buddies.  I love that he is making little friends.

Anyway, even though our seats weren't good and it was hard to see him (and he didn't sing much) it was such a cute performance.  I was so proud of him and can't wait for his next little performance.

The Christmas Cow

What? You've never heard of a Christmas Cow??

Yeah, me neither.

There will be one this year, though.  Andrew's school is putting on a Christmas program next week and all of the kids in his class had a choice of what barn animal they wanted to be for the manger scene.  They sent home a sheet last week showing what each child had chosen and my little dude picked "cow".

Once I saw that I went to work looking online to get some ideas. I knew I could take the easy way out and buy a cow costume, but I didn't want to do that.  I wanted to do the crafty mom thing and make one for him.  Normally I avoid pinterest like the plague because it makes me feel inadequate, but I figured it would have some good ideas.  I found some good ideas and wanted to get started, but first I had to find a hoodie and sweatpants for him.  Finding white ones was proving to be almost impossible. I tried to talk him into being a brown cow with brown spots, but he was adamant - white cow with black spots.

Eventually we found some on Amazon that qualified for prime shipping and ordered them.  They'd get here on Tuesday, so that seemed fine since the program isn't until next Monday.  Then I picked Andrew up at school and saw the note in his box telling us that they are having a dress rehearsal today - four days before the program - and they need the costumes for that.  So instead of having a whole weekend to work on it I would have a day.

Due to that I decided to work from home yesterday so I could get some sewing time in.  On Monday I ran out and got all of the supplies I would need: black, white and pink felt, googly eyes, a button, white embroidery thread and some embroidery needles and some fun fur yarn. I got all of that for less than $15, so I was pretty happy.

Tuesday night I tried the sweatsuit on Andrew to make sure everything fit and to mark where the ears and face should go.  That night after Andrew was in bed I got started on some of the sewing to get a head start:

I got the patch and the tail sewed on and the ears constructed before turning in for the night.

Yesterday I dropped the boys off before heading home, logging onto my computer and pulling out my supplies.  It was kind of slow going since I had to try to get the patches to lay flat on toddler sized clothing. Plus I had to back out some of the stitching when things went crooked and the embroidery thread tangled a few times.  After a day of sewing I had this:

I was pretty pleased with the results, even if the ears look a little odd.  The real test would be to see what Andrew thought of it.  When he got home I told him I had a surprise for him and showed him the outfit. He was excited and wanted to try it on right away:

Seriously. How cute is he?

He didn't want to take it off, but I told him he couldn't eat dinner in it since it would get dirty.

This morning when I was helping him get dressed he kept asking to put on his cow costume. He had a bit of a meltdown when I told him he couldn't wear it, but I assured him that he would get to wear it for a little while for his dress rehearsal at school.

So there you have it - a Christmas cow.  Kinda cute, huh?

I'm a Bad Blogger

I know I have been MIA, not that there is really anyone to notice.  I've just been missing the motivation to write about anything lately.  It's not that we don't have anything going on here. I mean come on, with these two crazy kids there is no shortage of stuff to talk about:

They keep us busy, that's for sure.    That and this:

This was last Wednesday's run when it was pretty warm outside

have kept my schedule pretty full.  I'm in week 9 of my training and the half marathon is right around the corner.  I'm starting to get nervous about how the weather might be on race day (January 17th), but yesterday's 39* temperature and windy rain have me a little better prepared.

What I'm not prepared for is Christmas. Or J's birthday, which is next Wednesday (I hate that his birthday is the week before Christmas).  I've done some of the Christmas shopping for the boys, but that's about it.  I couldn't even really get into it on Cyber Monday to do any shopping.  I'm not sure what is going on with me. I don't seem to have the attention span to do anything lately.  Hopefully I can get some motivation back, because there is too much to do over the next couple weeks to be this unfocused.

On that note, maybe I should try to get some work done so I don't lose my job.  I need it so I can finish Christmas shopping for these two: