May the Force Be...Your Breakfast!

SOB is an awesome dad, and loves to make the kids breakfast whenever he gets the chance. While I am quite good at pouring bowls of cereal or popping waffles in the toaster, as soon as Saturday rolls around the kids are clamoring for 'dad's best french toast' or pancakes or BACON! Lots of bacon, if you're Lucy. So when he opened his star wars pancake molds on Christmas day, I knew it was only a matter of time before we were feasting on some Yoda and Darth Vader heads smothered in butter and syrup!

"Eat you, I will!" says one Yoda to another.

A New Tradition

Growing up I always got an orange in my Christmas stocking. Silly putty and socks and oranges were constants at Christmastime. As my kids get older, I've been trying to establish some traditions of our own, borrowing a bit from my past. Oranges made their way into my kids' stocking the past two years, but with little fanfare. This year was different, though. Sam, with his lovely little mind, came up with the idea that Christmas oranges were magic, because they come from Santa! Once you finish eating them, you get to make a wish.

I don't know what they wished for, but I'm hoping that their wishes come true!

Family of Five...For Now!

Making Cookies With Pap

I'm thinking this is going to become a yearly tradition.

Sam & The Fat Man

We had a very magical, and wildly successful, trip to see Santa yesterday. We arrived just at the same time as Santa and avoided the lines, which was magical for the adults, and all three kids sat on his lap and no one cried, which was magical for them! But overall, Sam was the one that really got me right in the solar plexus. He was excited and terrified all at the same time. After his sisters jumped down, he stayed put to have a little chat with the man in charge, but he would not look him in the eye! It was hysterical.

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For more Best Shot Monday, visit Mother May I.

Team-Up Thursday: December

Rebecca and I got to shootin' some December this week, and here is our offering!

Visit Megan and Melody for more Team-Up Thursday, and don't forget to check out our Flickr pool!

Letter to Santa

Wordless Wednesday

Jesus, Buddha and the Elf on the Shelf

Yesterday Sam asked a friend from school what his Elf on the Shelf was named. When his pal didn't know what the Elf on the Shelf was, Sam was left with a lot of questions.

(For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Elf on the Shelf is a little creature that lives in your house from Thanksgiving to Christmas and reports to Santa nightly, thus his daily resting spot changes. When he first comes to your home you must give him (or her) a name, as directed by the accompanying book. We were first visited by the elf last year, and while the tradition has been around for a while it's not entirely wide-spread.)

Since they recently talked about Hanukkah at school, and he recently asked why my parents had had a "Jesus with wings" on their christmas tree, I thought maybe this would be a good time for a Discussion with a capital D. But in a way that a 4 3/4 year old could understand. I explained that christmas was a religious holiday, and then tried to explain to him what religion was without being too cynical. How some people think that Allah is the best, while other people believe that Jesus or Yahweh or Buddha is #1. And that some people don't believe in any of those guys. And that while not one of them is wrong, none of them are entirely right, either. I told him that the most important thing was to be respectful of what people believe, and that we would always love him no matter what he believed. Then I asked him if he had any questions.

His reply?

"So if someone doesn't have an Elf on their Shelf, then they must be Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or something, right?"

*facepalm*

The Only Thing That Separates Us From the Animals is Our Ability to Accessorize

Maggie's hair has finally gotten to the point where it is interfering with her face. She kind of reminds of me of Sam right before we decided to get his hair cut. Since she's a girl, instead of getting a haircut she got a hairdo!

She seems to dig the new look, and I'm digging the fact that all of those hair clips Lucy outgrew now have new use!

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For more Best Shot Monday, visit Mother May I.

Team-Up Thursday: Reentry

I've been out of the mix for a while with Team-Up Thursday, but I've got a new partner, Rebecca, and we're throwing our collective hats back into the ring. For our first diptych we went with the theme of 'Words' just like Megan and Melody.

I guess the holiday spirit is in the air all around!

For more Team-Up Thursday visit Megan, Melody and the Flickr pool.

Now With Bonus Video Footage!

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, and we made him this little video:

The Trials and Tribulations of Toddlerhood

HELP! I've lost my baby! You remember her, right? Sweet and loving, cuddly and quiet? She's no where to be found. Instead, I have this:

Demanding and cranky, loud and fearless. She runs around the house doing the sign for 'more' while yelling 'cracker' at the top of her lungs. She insists of climbing on the furniture, opening drawers, doors and cabinets, and pulling the cat's tail. She wails to be taken outside, despite the fact that it's twenty-two degrees and snowing. She whines to be held, until she doesn't want to be held anymore, at which point she attempts to leap head-first from my arms. She won't hold hands, she will climb up the staircase and do not even attempt to change her diaper anywhere but on her changing table, or you will be sorry.

On the plus side, she does give awfully good kisses, and her rendition of 'the itsy bitsy spider' can't be beat.

I knew this was bound to happen eventually, but I don't think I was ready for it. I want my baby back.

The Christmas Tree Experience

Ever since we moved to West Virginia we've been trying to do more "outdoorsy" things. There are plenty of said things to be found here, like hiking and biking and camping and so on. So far we've only managed to go to one state park and spend a lot of time in the yard. So when it was time to pick out a Christmas tree, we decided to go and cut down our own. There are several farms in our county where you can do such a thing, so on Saturday afternoon we hopped into the van and headed into the mountains to cut down a tree. I also armed the vehicle with several holiday DVDs just in case of emergency.

Once we arrived, we realized that the trees were a little odd. They were mostly scotch pines, which isn't the type of Christmas tree we usually get, and they were all rather bushy. But once we started "hiking" through the fields, we were in it to win it. We also didn't realize until we got there that Sam was wearing woefully inadequate shoes. He's pretty independent, and generally makes good decisions in regards to his wardrobe, but I guess he didn't anticipate the muddy, snowy hills we were going to be climbing in our quest for a tree. Within five minutes he was soaked to mid-calf, so we made a quick, you might even say hasty, choice and we SOB got to sawing.

A perfectly normal tree, which for some reason we totally did not choose.

Because the full grown trees were interspersed with yearling trees, it was kind of difficult to get a gauge the actual size of these tree-bushes. When we got home, we realized that we ended up with a rather large tree-bush. Our initial plan was to put the tree in our front hall, where it would greet people as soon as they walked through the front door. Unfortunately, because of it's height and circumference putting it in the hallway was impossible. It would have made our front door completely useless, as there would be no way to get around it. So after some trimming and creative furniture rearranging, we were able to put it in the front part of SOB's office in front of the window/door.

Fittingly, the fireplace is also in that room, so while it might be a little strange to sit at a desk when the kids are opening gifts, I think it works. Plus you can see it from outside through the window/door, so it adds to the overall holiday effect!

This light display is still a work in progress, and has already changed since I took the photo a few days ago.

How are you getting ready for the holidays?

The Grinch

Yesterday my darling little Lucy asked if she could give me a snuggle and a kiss. For months we had been butting heads, but after conceding that maybe she didn't need an afternoon nap anymore, we've been like peas and carrots. Naturally a snuggle and a kiss is always welcomed, and so she ran over and climbed up on my lap. Just as she was one millimeter away from my waiting lips, she coughed directly onto/into my face.

Kids: they're disgusting, but we love them anyway.

Being pregnant, it didn't take long for my compromised immune system to succumb to whatever germies she projected all over me. I woke up at 2:30 to pee, and I was hot and clammy. When I went to grab a drink it felt like I was swallowing a million teeny porcupines. I took two tylenol and headed back to bed.

When I got up this morning I was feeling ok, but my throat was swollen. Which caused me to gag. Which caused me to vomit. Which caused me to pee in my kitchen. Awesome, right? Fourth pregnancy incontinence? CHECK!

After I got cleaned up and changed I went upstairs to wake my darling little Lu. Her door was open a small amount, which is unusual. I walked in, and before I even turned on the light I knew how the door got opened because of the smell. I flipped the switch and saw the cat nonchalantly making a huge poop in the corner. I don't know how or why he started doing this, but it's getting realllllllllllllllllly out of hand.

And all of this happened before 7am.

Luckily, the rest of the day has been fairly uneventful. I've put on my yoga pants, and we're settling in for a snuggle and a viewing of the Grinch. The house is decorated for Christmas, there is soup on the menu for dinner, and it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow. If that's not enough to make my heart grow three sizes today, then what is?

Lucy, terrified that the Grinch's sled is going to topple off of the top of Mount Crumpet

And So Another Christmas Season Begins with My Husband Putting Himself in Grave Danger...

Stay tuned for the big unveiling of the whole scene, including animatronic elk and LEDs galore!