Movie Night, Christmas Edition.

For the last 9 months or so we've had family movie night every few weeks. I'd estimate about once a month, but once every two months is probably more accurate. It's a fun to way to spend a weekend evening, all piled together on the air mattress or couch with pillows, blankets, and a special snack or dessert. My dessert of choice is a little kahlua with a splash of milk, but that never seems appropriate for the kids, so this particular holiday edition of family movie night I figured sugar cookies are the thing to do. I'm all for easy, so I used those cookie pouches, which we all love-the chocolate chip oatmeal version is the best!-and I let the boys roll small balls and smush them down onto the pan. After a deliberate instruction session that included these two rows are for G to decorate [gestures to left of pan] and these two rows [gestures over to right] are for C, the boys dug in. I've learned it important to set boundaries for them way up front to avoid alleged accidental "stealing" of cookies. See how neat I keep the kitchen?

The two blue plates you see are the sprinkles. The boys kept fighting over who got which sprinkle shaker that I started pouring 2-3 types of sprinkles in little piles on a plate so they could each have their own palette of cookie decor. Irresistible cookie decor, I should say. It's hard to resist when you get some on your hand.

Happy to report that some sprinkles did make it onto the couch. In a very meticulous manner.

Truth be told I don't think my pics are in order here. Typically we eat dinner, get settled for the movie, and about 30 minutes in when we sense a little bit of restlessness we break and make the cookies/popcorn/snack.  So below is the start of movie night, above is the intermission. G is a goofball.

What movie did we watch? This one, one of my favorite holiday movies. And that glow from the Christmas lights....that's good stuff.

Past movies nights were always fun, but we've yet to make it all the way through the movie in one sitting. This time, we did! Either our boys are growing up, or the subject matter of this movie was just that compelling. Or both. Regardless of the reason the boys were hooked. Big boy included.

I wonder what we'll do for next movie night. Suggestions?

We went to see Santa that same morning that Baby K had her birthday party. Like most parents, I was not sure how the boys would react to seeing Santa. K and I guessed that G would be fine with sitting on the stranger's lap, while C would be apprehensive. We were totally correct.

G loved it. Look at him giving Santa his approving look here. 

And now he's leaning in closer to tell Santa what he wants, which was tools like Dada. I'm pleased to report that Santa delivered.

Big smiles all around for Santa. 

C, as we expected needed a little convincing. He wasn't scared, he's just shy. So we sat back at the table while G went to sit on Santa's lap. And after 15 minutes of watching G and other kids brave the bearded stranger, C said that he would go talk to Santa IF Momma took him. I obliged. I would like to think it was because he's safe and secure with me around, but I think the small toy that Santa gave G was the main motivator here.

Yes, I may have given him a little shove, that's me in the white sweater. Nice job capturing that, K.

C mostly avoided eye contact with everyone, including Santa, but he did whisper what he wanted, which was a helicopter with a remote. Santa also delivered on that highly not-age appropriate toy. That toy might be hidden in the closet for now, but at least Santa didn't disappoint, ya know?

And Santa gave an airplane as a price for sitting and talking to him. Bonus!

Loved the airplane. Wook how it fwies!

So enough of Santa, guess who is turning one today? It's our littlest bandito, cousin Logan! Mark my words, this little charmer is going to be a wild handful when he's older, but with that grin he'll have no problem getting out of the trouble he causes. He's a grinner and a cuddler and we were so happy to see him over the holidays! Happy birthday, Wee Bandito!

More of around here

It's a new year, and that to most men means college football games. Yesterday we sat down and enjoyed this game. Well....maybe we didnt enjoy it past the first half, it did not end the way we wanted. 

 The smile you see here was not present past halftime.

 Our whole day wasn't spent watching college bowl games, though, we finally got the Christmas stuff piled into the basement. I'm organized this year, things are labeled.

 And stacked and ready for next year's decorating. K said he felt like our pile was smaller than he anticipated, and I actually thought it looked really big. Perspective can be a funny thing.

 And to round this blog entry out, I'm backing up to early December to throw that month at you. In December we ate a lot of cake. Hmmm. Cake. I'm surprised G bothered to make eye contact here, he was so into the cake.

They were not eating this cake, which was also present at this event. I'll you about this cake soon, but first, the birthday girl.

Our goddaughter, K! She is a big one year old now and just absolutely precious. Look at her tearing into her smash cake.

 Precious. No?

So anyway, the pretty layer cake above is this cake, and K's mom (Hancock,of Hancock and Private School) enlisted her mom and sister to make it. It looked stunning, and tasted even better. I would be so tempted to make it, but they spoke of the hours and hours of labor for the cake...so....hmm....I think I'll wait until K's next birthday to enjoy another masterpiece cake.

I feel like I need to go for a run just thinking about that cake.

The last few days

Post-holidays we like to turn the house into an infirmary and nurse pneumonia and sinus infections, which makes a parent try to think of as many things we can do to entertain sick kids that does not require running or being too active. We all know those are the precursors to a coughing fit. So lazy we need to be.

On Friday I convinced the boys we were going to have so much fun doing a bazillion loads of laundry. They were skeptical at first, but a bribe of a cookie after did the trick. They even offered to have Beah and Blanket washed. I agreed, those things needed to be washed. And I agreed, they could press the buttons on the washing machine. That is usually forbidden territory, but only after I've had to rewash several loads because some little people find the power button irresistible, especially mid-cycle.  

If you're imagining that these two are sweet angels quietly gathering dirty items to be washed and then sitting and watching the spin cycle, you are wrong. We are saying bad boy words, being generally fidgety and quick to be distracted. See? Sorry for the blurry focus, the camera only focuses on one field of depth. 

Despite G's response, they did indeed enjoy playing with the new reading device. And they enjoyed the trip to Target that followed for a new humidifier for C's room. I tried to talk him into the elephant, but he said but I WUV that penguin! So a penguin he got. And then back to the doctors, and then to the pharmacy, and then chicken nuggets place, and so on and so on for the next 3 days.

And also, I'm a little sad that G now says "BEAR" and not "BEAH" anymore. He's getting so big.

So after 3 days of this shuffling back and forth and whiny sick kids, K and I decided to celebrate a little with this set-up.

Why yes, that is a delicious Italian Barbero and my favorite cheese with some crackers. And a side of Ibuprofin, because some of us are a little sore after climbing all over the exterior of the house to take down his lights....and a pile of items from the pantry that I was about to unpack and re-organize....and a big boy in his jammies eating his meatballs and sweet potatoes, and a handful of other random things that need to find a home. 

That wine was delicious.

I'm baaaaack

Due to high demand (2 people, one of which lives in this house), I'm kicking back up the blogging as one of my 2012 resolutions. The other is to cook new recipes, if you're wondering. I'll try to share those here, too. I was a little busy, a little over blogging, and could not get my act together to organize pictures, but I'm feeling a new sense of calm and a need for routine in 2012, so we're back at the blog, folks. I'm also hoping to give it a new look, but baby steps, don't expect that anytime soon.

We have lots of ground to cover, but here is a favorite activity of mine lately. Or I should say, a favorite activity of ours, since it involves the boys. They call it "doing art". I call it messy, but fun. We "do" this art in the afternoons, after I pick them up and before Dada gets home/the sprint for dinner starts. The alternative is watching TV and fighting with each other, so art we will "do."

The first day we did art, I put some old paper down. That afternoon Dada came home and quickly disappeared into the garage to find us a painting tarp to use as our base. That Dada is particular about his carpet.

I'm noticing a few trends in the art process. G likes to use a few colors at a time and uses a heavy hand that renders saturated colors and a saturated piece of paper.

 C likes to mix in a lot of water into the paint, giving his art a watercolor-ish effect. We don't use watercolor paint, this is the cheap little pots of acrylic found at any craft store/walmart, and clearance cardstock I got after last year's Christmas. Its embarrassing how much random craft supplies I have that I never use, honestly. But back to the art, C's lines are typically less swirly and more linear. After this art dried we used it to make tags for holiday presents for work people at Momma's work. They're artsy peoples.

 A special thanks to the farmers we buy our eggs from for using cardboard egg containers, those are awesome for paint.

 We do our art in my office/the second guest bedroom, and I picked a color called Patient White as the wall color. Little did I know how much patience I would need in the room when art time started. We have a good time with the art, but it really can be a uhhm....pain in the....process to get both boys to cooperate. Some of us just like to do our own thing, if you know what I mean.

So there, other than constant holiday prep, baking, cleaning, gift buying and wrapping, entertaining and being busy, that's what we are up to nowadays.