Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We had a really lovely Christmas and hope that you did as well (whether celebrating Christmas like us or otherwise!). The boys conveniently woke up at the same time, so we were able to all head downstairs together to see if Santa had stopped by last night. He had! I have to say, though, that Santa's magic crystal ball might be slightly damaged, because he apparently thought Alexander and Jack were very good this year! ;) No, seriously, they were little sweethearts today and they do indeed deserve to be on Santa's good list!

We opened presents, played, played, played, and ate, ate, ate! PopPop and Uncle Tim both joined us for dinner and a visit and I do believe all my guys had a good Christmas!

Jack LOVES his new piggy bank and played with it for so long that I was starting to get concerned that there was some OCD issue underlying. Alexander loves his new Planet Hero figures but also spent quite a bit of time playing with one of Jack's presents: the Melissa and Doug stacking alphabet boxes. Who knew that toy would be so popular with BOTH kids? Thanks, Uncle Matt and Uncle Harry!

Here's hoping the new year brings my children the desire to pose better for pictures! ;)

Herding Cats (or "T-ball," whichever you prefer)

Today Alexander finished up a 5 week T-ball class. It was... uh... interesting. There were about ten 3-4 year-olds, two coaches, and chaos. I'm pretty sure that at least one kid cried at each lesson, today being Alexander's turn. Overall, though, I think he had a really good time. I am not sure how much of the lessons he retained, but he was taught "fielding position," "catch and cover," "bounce and turn," and "point and throw" for fielding/throwing, and then also coached on his hitting. One lesson that did not sink in for most of the kids in the class is that when you're fielding, everyone should refrain from tackling each other in order to get the ball. I guess they all still need some practice. For the next "season" I signed him up for a science class, so hopefully that won't result in any tackling!

This is the best shot I could get of him playing:

Visit with Santa

Today we took the kids for their first ever meeting with Santa!

We saw some of our Tot Lot friends there:

We played reindeer games:

We did some crafts:

We got painted faces:

And, of course, Alexander met Santa and Mrs. Claus:

Then we tortured Jack for a bit:

We arrived to the event pretty early and were able to walk right into Santa's room with absolutely no wait! We talked to him for a few minutes. Unfortunately, Alexander was feeling rather shy at the moment, so we decided to go do some of the other activities before trying for a photo op. When Alexander was ready to go actually talk to Santa, the line had grown and we had to wait almost an hour for our turn! Thankfully the boys were *fairly* good about waiting, and it paid off because Alexander was really excited to see Santa this time and goofed around with him and got tickled. I was so proud of him (and happy that we didn't wait an hour in vain)!

Know-it-all

Today while out walking, Alexander asked a question about house numbers and street names, so I talked a little about why we have addresses. His response?

"Oh, I know that, Mommy. I know all about everything."

Just a picture post

Two of the cutest kids in the universe:

Dressed up to go to a tea party. Alexander would not cooperate for a picture.

Just being cute:

(I don't know why blogger is insisting on rotating that one picture, but I'm including it anyway.)

Scary Children:

Uh... yeah.

Another Alexander quote: "Mommy, is it still today?"

Brotherly Love

This really needs no other explanation besides the quote. ;)

Alexander: If Jack keeps trying to knock over the lamp, we will have to send him away to live somewhere that there are no lamps and then the only people that will live with me will be my Mommy, my Daddy, and my Uncle Tim.

The rejects

Looking over the photos that I've taken over the past couple of weeks, I am reminded to be thankful that I have my children in the age of digital cameras, having purchased my first one some time before Alexander was born. For every good picture I get, there have got to be at least 10 rejects! I would go broke having to print all these photos in order to find the good ones! So, for a kick, I thought I'd share some of the rejects and some of the common reasons that photos I take are rejected.

Someone is being overly silly:

Someone has food on their face and/or looks scared of the camera:

Someone is scantily clad:

Someone has snot coming out of their nose:

Someone wildly changes position at the last second:

Someone is eating something and/or I have a double chin:

Someone suddenly puts something in front of their face while someone else makes a very odd expression indeed:

And, my personal favorite, someone looks drunk (who really should not be!):

"Gingerbread Xander" recipe

Alexander and I spend a lot of time pretend baking, and he has an excellent recipe for "Gingerbread Xanders" that I thought I would share.

Gingerbread Xanders
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 peppermint eggs (these are special eggs with edible shells- they can only be found at the grocery store in our coat closet)
2 cups pepper
3 cups ginger
an unspecified amount of bacon

Directions:
Mix first 5 ingredients in a big blue bowl while bacon fries. Then pour mixture over bacon. Put entire pan in "very hot" oven for 3 seconds. Take the cookies out and decorate with pink icing and candy.

Viola! Gingerbread Xanders.

Enjoy.

Gingerbread House

Ever since the beginning of the week when I told Alexander that we could get a gingerbread house kit and make it together, he has been very much looking forward to it. We bought the kit on Tuesday and I told him that we could make it on Friday when Daddy would be home. Every morning he would ask if it was Friday or if it was the day we could make the gingerbread house. He would check his calendar for the "art project" sticker and see how many days away it was. It was rather adorable that he was SO excited about it! Today was finally the day, and you can see that we all had a rather good time participating in the construction and decoration of our gingerbread house! Now... where to put it so that no sneaky three-year-olds eat it?

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving and hope you did as well!

(It's a turkey.)

Cookie Monster

Alexander: Mommy, may I please have another cookie?
Me: No, dear. Remember I told you that was the last one?
Alexander: Oh. Mommy?
Me: Yes, dear?
Alexander: I hope you were just kidding.

Who needs preschool anyways?

The calendar strikes again.

One of Alexander's new weekly projects are worksheets. We've always just thrown in learning about letters and numbers while we play and draw, and we will continue to do so, but I thought I'd try some worksheets out on him also. I won't push it because I know some kids abhor learning this way, but I loved this type of thing when I was a kid, so I thought I would at least try it. Alexander was very excited to do his worksheets today. He did some "T"s in honor of Thanksgiving turkeys, and he practiced his favorite number, "3." Actually, he decided to turn all the 3's into 8's and put 8 cookies in the jar, but I'm okay with that! :)

Just because it's cute

It's been pretty cold out here lately, but we still like to get outside when we can. The other day we bundled up and took a walk with our friend Piper and I just had to snap some shots of the cuties in the stroller together (and Xander by their side).

A good deed, indeed

Alexander's "project" for the day was to do a good deed, so first I had to explain what a good deed is. I told him that it was something nice that we do for someone else or for the Earth.

A: Oh, I want to do a good deed for the Earth.
Me: Okay, we could take a walk and look for any trash to pick up. Or, we could rake the leaves and put them in the compost bin.
A: Hmmm.... no. I know what we could do nice for the Earth!
Me: What?
A: We could take all the other earths [by which he means planets] and bring them all right next to the Earth so that when the sun goes down and it is nighttime the Earth won't be lonely.
Me: Oh, that would be nice, but the planets are so big I don't think we could move them!
A: We can drive a spaceship that has giant claws that grab the earths to move them.

Calendar

I've been wanting to get Alexander one of those cool preschool calendars that are out there, but couldn't find one that had exactly the features I was looking for, so I decided to make my own. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, but getting a little weepy over the fact that Justin just called me a loser for blogging about it. THANKS, Justin! ;) Anyway, here's what the finished product looks like. I still have a few more of the "stickers" to make for more holidays, with more friends and family member's faces, and for a few other events, but this is the general idea. And yes, Justin (and world), I AM a dork. I am hoping this will help Alexander learn to recognize more words and names, learn the days of the week, and provide a bit more structure to our days with the added projects like writing letters and doing good deeds. Hopefully some of our projects will even be "blog-worthy!"

I filled my tank for $22.02!

This is my "family blog" and I usually don't concern myself here with such outerwordly things, but I just couldn't help myself. I was literally driving around on "E" and today FILLED my tank for $22.02! Yep, our Sheetz has gas for $1.99 a gallon! I could have saved a few cents if I had driven over to the FreeState, which has gas for $1.95. Anyone up for a road trip?

Universal Kids

I took the boys to Universal Kids the other day and have been meaning to blog about it. It's a new place in Frederick that has about 20 different rooms with tons of different stuff for dressing up, pretending, playing, making art, blowing bubbles, and more. It's a great option for a rainy day and the boys had an awesome time. I was, however, especially amused by the Emergency Vomit Bins in almost every room. Do you think they have a big need for these? Those of you on Facebook may have noticed that I was so amused that I made it my profile picture. What can I say? I'm around small children all day- gotta find amusement where it comes!

Behind Bars

Yep, right where they belong- behind bars.

Sometimes I wonder...

It's going to be an interesting ride watching my oldest son grow up! ;)

I'd like to recount a long conversation from today, if for no other reason that because I want to remember it.

Alexander: I want a sister.
Me: Well, maybe someday we'll have another baby, but what if it's a boy?
A: Then we can have another one and it will be a girl.
Me: Well, I don't know if we want to have that many kids.
A: Well, I do want to have that many kids.
Me: When you are a grownup, you can decide how many kids you want to have.
A: I want to have 43.
Me: 43 kids?! That is a LOT!
A: Yes, I will need a really big belly to grow all those babies in.
Me: Oh, honey, you won't grow the babies in your belly. Mommies do that. You will be the Daddy of the babies.
A: Well, I want to be the Mommy.
Me: Well, only girls have the part in their bellies where the babies grow. But you will be a very good Daddy!
A: Well, then you should give me the part of your belly where the babies can grow.
Me: Hmmm... that won't really work.
A: Yes, I will go to the Belly Knife Store and get a belly knife and then I will cut out the part of your belly where the babies grow and I will put it in me so that I can grow 27 babies.
Me: Oh, it's 27 babies now, huh?
A: Yes. I want 27 babies.

Oh, and by the way, in addition to being a Mommy, Alexander is also claiming that *he* will be the next president of the United States.

Happy Halloween!

Because I like to compare and reminisce....

Halloween 2005 (Devil Baby):

Halloween 2006 (Lion):

Halloween 2007 (First Halloween Pumpkin Outfit and Dragon):

Halloween 2008 (Sheriff and Eeyore):

Alexander was so thrilled to be trick-or-treating this year that I was a little concerned that he would literally burst. He kept saying, "Let's get more!" "I have to fill it to the top!" and "Look what I got!" Jack got his first taste of a classic Hershey bar and rather enjoyed it. The whole night was awesome. At the past few places we have lived, trick-or-treating has been minimal or non-existent. Here in our new neighborhood, it was great!! Maybe only a third of the households were participating, but it seems like the guidelines in this community are easily followed. Trick-or-treating was allowed from 6:00-8:00 and people just turn on their porch light if they are participating. Most people were actually sitting right on their front steps! It was a nice way to at least see and say hi to many of our neighbors and to feel like we are part of the community. We're already excited for next year!