Christmas is over? Now what?

Today was the day after Christmas and there was a definite feeling of uncertainty in our house. Ian seemed to have a sort of "uh, that's IT?" mentality. And at the tender age of 4 realized that Santa had not gotten him Everything that he had asked for. He had been a good boy, he assured me, but Santa had forgotten to bring him the Wall-E movie. "Well," I told him, "you have that gift card from Pop-Pop and you can buy Wall-E with that." He seemed satisfied. "Or you can get a new game for your new Leapster." He brightened. "Yeah!!!" And that was the end of that conversation. I'm sure we'll get something completely unrelated to both of those when we go to Wal-Mart, but at least he's thinking about it.
Erin is just really enjoying her new toys (and Ian's Legos) and has spent considerable time with all of them today. And she has joined in the rest of the family as we inhaled countless Hawaiian rolls. (Well, not countless, we only got a 24 pack, but if you ask anyone how many they've had, they'll just look sheepish and confused and say "I dunno. Why?"
So without further ado, here are our Christmas pictures. They would have been More and better detailed and better thought out, but the kids were lightning fast and ready to get down to business. Ian didn't think he needed to look at name tags and Erin was just trying to stand up on top of a couple big ones to see out the window. She put her foot through one box and it had to be doctored up a bit (Ian didn't care, but he was upset that she was allowed to stand on them and he wasn't).
So after our offspring's 8 minute frenzy under the Christmas tree, this was as good as I could get. :D
For our Christmas breakfast, the only picture I made it into, we made waffles.

















It was a bit chaotic, especially since everyone kept changing positions, but I'm positive that my HC was there, doing crowd control.
















The Leapster. (crowd roars) Thanks Gramma, Papaw, Mimi, Grampa, Great-Granna and Great-Papaw!
















What do you mean, I hafta wait until she's done?! We could be here for hours!
















Thanks, Auntie Jacque and Uncle Jeremy! This is a Berry Doll, sorta like a Popple.















Thanks to Auntie Jacque and Uncle Jeremy again, the Fridge Phonics WordBuilder is a huuuge hit with everyone.
















These are a few pics of Erin and Daddy playing with his boot inserts.


















Thanks to Great Granna and Great Papaw for the neat helicopter. There were some Hot Wheels in need of rescue....
















This is another one of Ian actually opening something slowly.
















Oooh, what's in here? It's a Leapster Game and a charger (thank you so much to Gramma, Papaw, Mimi, Grampa, Great Granna and Great Papaw...what a huge deal)!
















And every little girl needs a Raggedy Ann dolly. Thanks Mimi and Grampa!



And if anyone is curious about the cup and saucer above, Santa got egg nog and turtles for his snack. We also spread the glittery oats in the yard (a gift from someone at school...sheesh). It's a good thing that Santa likes egg nog, because I sure don't. But I do like the turtles.

Even a Mouse

The Christmas program at church went very very well. Ian decided that being a mouse was not so bad, especially when he got to put on the entire costume. These are the only pictures we got of the program, since we were in the church gym and the lighting wasn't conducive to picture taking and everything was so far away it would only have looked like black with white dots.

But everything went very well and the set was wonderful. There were plenty of mice on a rug, listening to the Gramma Mouse tell the story of Christmas. The dialogue was a recording, so the actors just went along with the recording and acted it out. To keep all the young mice ON the rug and relatively quiet, a brilliant mom decided to get yarn, big, blunt needles, and boxes upon boxes of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks. Then they set all the kids up and had them make Froot Loop strings "for their Christmas trees," though most of the kids treated it like a huge candy necklace and kept eating the cereal off of the yarn. Ian was so engrossed in this, I had to pry him off of the rug long after the play was over. The other kids were gone and he was still there, crowding Loops onto his yarn string. We brought it home for him to nibble off of the tree in the middle of the night when no one is looking. It does seem to be getting suspiciously shorter....
Thursday was "Wear your PJs to School Day" and the kids watched the Polar Express and had hot chocolate and popcorn. It was a hectic morning, I didn't get a picture, but boy was everyone excited. I picked Ian up and he still had the chocolate ring around his mouth. It took a while for that sugar high to crash and when it did, well, let's just say he fell asleep last night with the lights on.
But before he did that, he had another round of "Ian the Photographer." Pictures are worth 1,004 words, so here they are. We'll hear all about the class Christmas party when I pick Ian up this afternoon.








Just for clarity, the last one is Ian's drink...tea, ice and straw. :D

December Madness

If it's not one thing, it's 238 things. And they all happen in one week. First was the awards banquet/dinner thing for the town. My HC was on duty, but we went anyway. It's the first time I've been to a dinner that did not serve meat. They did put little chunks of turkey in the stuffing, but if you don't like stuffing, you were left with instant mashed potatoes, green beans, corn and rolls. But at least there was tea, even if you did have to add the pink stuff.

Then it was homework, housework and making cookies for the children's church dress rehearsal/Christmas party that lasted during church and stretched to about 2:15 today. My cookie total? 16 dozen sugar cookies, complete with frosting, sprinkles and green and red sugar crystals. I had to make my own frosting for the last 2 dozen, so it wasn't as good, but I got some satisfied eaters today and a couple that asked for some to take home. Huzzah! And I still got some to take home with Me, so everyone is happy.

Is that it? Um, just try making cookies and decorating them with certain niblets hanging on to your legs/ankles.

And I've been completely busy thinking of/talking about/praying for Rachel, who is on bed rest to ensure the safe planting of those 3 little miracle embryos. Everyone please pray!

And I was sort of busy trying to get Erin's hair into pigtails. And I succeeded, but they didn't last long.







We also found time to do a couple more things. Though not in that order.
My HC tried a self-portrait. He still looks grouchy, but isn't he cute??














The next is a picture of some exhausted person that has been up since the crack of dawn chasing grouchy children and making scores and scads of cookies. The whole time, she is thinking that when she delivers the cookies, the chairwoman will say, "Oh, I'm sorry, there was a mix up and so-and-so brought chocolate donuts."













The next picture is of a little imp that was caught in Ian's room. She didn't think that she really needed to leave. Ian will never miss the brown crayon. And it tasted so good. It also leaves no evidence: the perfect crime!















Ian and Buddy valiantly chased off a cat. A few times. Aren't they formidable?















And we finally hung the stockings next to our old gas exhaust pipe. We had to leave it up or we wouldn't have a 'chimney.' Get it? The two little ones are Buddy's and Berry's. If they are good dogs they will get a bone. So far Berry's will be a bone of coal. He chewed up our borrowed water hose and he is in biiiig trouble.

Getting My Husband Out of Jail

Today was finally Saturday, the day of the Christmas parade and the school Winter Carnival. We bundled the kids up and walked to the town's main street (which is not Main Street, ironically. Main Street is a residential street that ends at the train tracks. Don't get me started on street names how half of them change names anyway if they do go over the tracks...). We only got a couple pieces of candy this time. Clearly we need to stick to the other side of the street. But we did see some cute little floats and some frozen kids from the local Head Start who were strangely catatonic for a trailer full of 3 year olds. This year there were only 11 fire trucks, as opposed to last year's 15 minutes worth. They only blared a little bit, thankfully. The band ended up playing at the end of the street where no people were (??) and not many people smiled or waved, but Ian didn't care. He really liked those fancy cars that had pretty girls on the tops. What? Girls? No, he liked the cars. And the truck that had bows all over it, but that was more of a mocking type of 'like'. But Ian saw Santa on the back of his fire engine and waved like a loon. We decided to skip the line of crazy, mean, rioting parents (and the innocent kids who just wanted to see Santa) and just see Santa at the school carnival.
We walked home from the parade, attacked the kids with tissues (that wind was Cooold) and drove to school. At first we weren't sure where to go, but then we found The Line. The Ticket Line, to be exact. And it was a whole lot longer than it looked from outside, but it did happen to snake past the water fountain and the bathrooms, so that was good. We finally got to the table. The tickets were 25 cents a piece, most activities took 2 tickets. Santa and the concession stand took cash. Excuse me? Santa is HOW MUCH? $5 for a picture with Santa? No personal photos at all? They let Ian and Erin talk to Santa (a REAL looking Santa with the real hair and beard and little belly! He was such a nice guy.) and sit on his lap, but it was a let down that we didn't have the money to pay for pictures. Ian chattered away to him and had to give him 2 hugs. sniff sniff. Erin wasn't so sure and would only get close if Daddy held her. Maybe we'll go on over to the mall and get some pictures there. Because we sure missed the freebie after the parade. Sheesh.
We talked to Ian's teachers for a bit and I admired their camera (it was so beautiful; Rachel, go ahead and drool).
Then we hit the games. Most of the games were 2 tickets. We did the Alphabet pond (think Duck Pond, but with floating letters) and the bean bag toss, where Ian kicked booty (clearly he got his coordination from my better half). Then we did the Yum Yum tree, where you pick a sucker out of the tree. If the stick has a mark on it, you get a special prize, but none of ours did, so we got to keep the sucker and get a piece of candy for trying. There was a kissing booth, where you closed your eyes and chose a Hershey kiss from a bowl. If you chose a red or green one (most of them were silver) you got a prize. Ian picked a green one, but he was more interested in eating the kiss. He still picked out a prize. And he got a stamp on his hand (he looked horrified when they offered to put it on his cheek) of a red kiss (kissing booth, get it?). There was a Pop Walk (pop as in Coke), where you do musical numbers. When the music stops, you stand on a number. If they draw your number, you get a 2-liter bottle of soda. Ian won on his second try. There was another, harder bean bag toss that Ian kicked booty at and won a beanie baby. Erin stole it and wouldn't give it back. It was a cat. She hugged it and talked to it for the rest of the afternoon. Then Ian got a spare at the bowling booth and got another beanie baby, a hammerhead shark this time. He hit the fishing booth and the cake walk (no luck there) and we started hearing the loudspeaker announcing that there were "warrants" for certain people. We had noticed a little corner that had been made up into a jail. With bars and everything, and two little old guys dressed up like cowboy sheriff's with badges, red bandanas and cowboy hats. It was great. Evidently, for one ticket (1 Ticket!) you could 'issue a warrant' for anyone of your choice. Then a 'deputy' would go find this person and escort them to jail, where they would serve their 2 minutes. We were getting Ian's face painted (I sneaked over to the concession stand to get a drink) when my HC's name was called over the loudspeaker. There was a dead silence, then a lot of laughing and vengeful snickering. I wasn't too happy because he transferred all the candy, prizes and 2-liter bottle over to me to hold and I was already holding Erin. He went and did his two minutes. When he got back, he counted our remaining tickets and started figuring how many people he could get into jail for paybacks. Later, we were standing in line at the cookie decorating table (4 tickets got you a huge Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookie, a little tub of green icing with a popsicle stick spreader and another tub of sprinkles, stars and a small red licorice string). Of course it took an ice age or more for all the kids to get it done, but it was so cute. Ian was working hard on his when the deputy went and got my HC AGAIN. This time he was really contemplating revenge. That jail was only about 3x3 and it was pretty full almost the whole time. I think a lot of people went by a few times just so they could laugh at my poor HC. He was giving the evil eye a lot, too. hehehe.
Funny part: Ian was decorating his cookie and there were two little girls across from him. One of them was in his class and they were chatting. She was having a hard time finishing her tree because she kept tasting the contents of her little tub of 'decorations.' Her friend kept tasting the icing. We had helped Ian with his icing so he could place every tiny sprinkle (clearly we would have been there for hours otherwise!) and he found his little candy star and put it at the top of the tree. The little girl in his class looked at Ian's star, then looked at her friend's star on her tree and then started digging around in her little container looking for it. "Where's my star?" she asked. Her friend crowded in to help her look. Ian glanced over, then resumed sprinkle placement. "Where's my star?" she repeated a few more times, each time more shrilly. She dumped the entire contents onto her paper plate, but to no avail. Her star was not there. Big gasp from her friend. "I don't see a star," I said, willing to go ask the teacher for another one to avoid a disaster. She took a deep breath. I cringed. "I guess I ate it," she said in a normal voice, and went back to decorating her cookie. After a minute, I laughed my head off.


Finally my Cute Convict got out of jail and raided my pockets for remaining money. He bought more tickets and used them all to place his acquaintances (anyone who could have possibly done it to him) in jail. Then we left.
Ian was not pleased. He really wanted to stay and play everything again. I just wanted to put Erin down and go to the bathroom.
Ian wasted no time in eating his cookie (though he did share a small chunk with Erin). I'm just glad that everyone is out of jail.

Week in a Flash

Okay, fine, so it's been more than a week. But hey, it's been chock-full of all sorts of things. First it was the Thanksgiving holiday where Ian didn't have school for a week or so. Then it was picking up Gramma and Papaw from the airport and driving home to set them up on our not-so-comfortable sofa bed. They braved it (and the whole sharing-one-bathroom thing) like champs. And had a great time with the kids in the process.


Then it was that frantic, nerve-wracking "Oh-no-I'm-a-grownup" revelation you get when you realize that you are solely responsible for Thanksgiving and even if your helper and confidence-booster (I love my Mom) happens to make a boo-boo, it happened at your house and will be remembered for all time as YOUR boo-boo. But we didn't have any boo-boos at all, unless you count my really runny sweet potato bake (okay, fine, so I cheated and used canned sweet taters instead of fresh).
But it all turned out swimmingly.


And it happened to be my honey's birthday. We just loooove pumpkin pie.



I don't really remember what all happened after that, other than a visit to McDonald's so the kids could pig out on Happy Meals and play with their puzzlingly annoying Happy Meal Toys (Shrek the Halls was SO last year, and what is it with the Madagascar talking figures? Thank the LORD they come with an off switch!).

Sunday it snowed. And we went to Devil's Den to cuddle up to the fireplace in our gorgeous cabin.



When the snow finally melted a little, though the temperature never felt like it went up any, we went for a hike to see the caves.



Devil's Den itself was closed due to the hibernation of endangered Ozark bats, but

there were several other caves, crevices, etc for us to explore. Once we thought that Chris was stuck but he explored a cave that came out at a cave we had been in previously and had to hike back to where we were. He got to carry the baby backpack, so I think it was his way of demanding a break. The kids and I waited for he and JD to explore and sat out of the wind eating snacks with Gramma.

It took a while to recover after that hike, but at least we had a nice cozy cabin and some stew in the crock pot to go back to. Aaaah.
We left early Tuesday and then had to take Gramma and Papaw back to the airport. The house was bigger and a lot quieter after we got back, but that may have had something to do with the earplugs I had jammed into my ears after having endured that many hours in the car with the kids. Anyway, Wednesday was back to school and back to the routine. And back to doing laundry. It is still a mystery to me how we can be gone for 2 days and come back with 7 loads of laundry. No, really.




Tomorrow is the annual Christmas parade, which Ian would rather watch than be in (the church float) and then the school's Winter Wonderland Carnival, where we will see Santa. I am curious to see what Ian puts on his list.