Gingerbread Houses

We're back from our whirlwind trip to California for Christmas -- phew! We had a lovely time seeing family and friends, and now we have a week at home to relax and hang out. All four of us are sick with colds, so we are planning on taking it easy and trying to recover. We'll see....

A couple weeks ago, Rand and I built our first gingerbread house together. It got off to a rough start with Rand promptly dropped and breaking the roof in two, and the icing was too thick even though I added about 18 gallons of milk, and my loyal assistant was too busy gobbling up gumdrops to stop and help me hold pieces in place while I tried to glue/hold/keep the baby happy. But we had a lot of fun, and even though the construction gene completely passed me by, it turned out sturdy and...um....whimsical.

Hmmmm. How to begin.

First, eat some icing.

Ella supervises.

Who could resist this smile?!

The finished product!

Presenting the 2nd place winner of Peoria High School's Teacher Beard Contest.....

Heaven only knows why he didn't win first place.

Christmas comes early here....

This year, a couple of people in our house got their presents early, for various reasons. Miss Ella got a bumbo seat for Christmas -- this is something that I never used with Rand, but she loves it! Basically, if a baby can hold herself up, but not sit unassisted, this chair supports her and holds her in place. Ella really enjoys sitting in it and watching me fold laundry and Rand play. Much more fun than laying on the floor! I didn't want to save it until Christmas because a) Ella doesn't know about Chistmas and b) she can totally use it now.

Other present: Werner got his iPhone! My choices were to get him a gift card -- which, since Werner hates delayed gratification would have meant trekking to set it up the day after Christmas -- or to wait until just before Christmas to set it up. Again, not convenient, especially with my two little helpers. Part of the present was me dealing with the hassle of AT&T (a trip to the store, a loooong phone call to customer service, and an even longer visit to the Apple store). But I got the discounted price, and it is working, and he loves it, and I adore Apple. Their employees rock. Werner has been having tons of fun with his new toy and is definitely getting his money's worth out of the unlimited data plan.

Spiderman and a Chili Pepper

We interrupt December to bring you....Halloween!

Rand and I had a great time carving our pumpkin. He wasn't sure about what to expect when he pulled off the top....

Cheesy grins x2

Daddy, our Chili Pepper, and Spiderman

It's been a long weekend.

Burst pipe underneath the foundation of the house....still no continuous hot water, but we got the okay to turn on the water heater for short bursts of time.

We have insurance (yay!) but also a deductible (boo!).

Werner's car does not start unless it is jumped. We will deal with this tomorrow.

Werner's school was offering free babysitting for teachers from 4pm-8pm today....we have really been looking forward to going out to a nice dinner alone. Alas, EVERYBODY EXCEPT US cancelled because their kids were sick. And we felt really bad making the supervising teacher show up to watch our kids. So we ordered Pizza Hut.

We have had between 8 and 9 dogs all weekend. Werner just left to take four home, and it feels amazingly quiet with only four remaining.

We put up Christmas lights outside the house this afternoon and have two happy children. Christmas shopping was finished before car and water pipes broke. We had a fun Christmas party with our church group last night. I got to take a nap and Werner and Rand built an elaborate train track. We'll see what adventures are in store for us tomorrow.

Big trains

My dad was oh-so-kind while we were in California and got out his big old Lionel train set from when he was a kid for Rand to play with. Rand was in heaven! He preferred pushing it by himself instead of using the controls to run it. The first few days were exasperating because the wheels constantly fell off of the tracks -- all would be quiet, then you would hear a scream of frustration, followed by Rand coming in and saying, "Can you come fix my train?" You'd fix it, then have a few minutes of quiet before it happened all over again.


But by the end of our visit, Rand had the whole thing figured out and could successfully push a huuuuge train all around the track. If a wheel fell off, he could fix it by himself. He had so much fun and was sad to leave it behind.

Nativity Set

This is the first year that we have had our very own nativity set -- I got this set last Christmas from my fabulous Uncle Thom. I love it! And as you can see from the photos, Rand does too. Every day the figures are arranged differently. Rand says that the angel has "butterfly wings." It brings back great memories of playing with my parents' nativity set.

Mary briefly had her hand broken off....but now Rand knows to be more gentle and a little super glue fixed her up nicely. Yay for wood! And doesn't it look pretty on our little sofa table?

Awesomest baby hat ever.

Goofy

The expressiveness of both faces made me laugh.

Safety First

Please note that the baby and the grass trimmer are being held in DIFFERENT hands. As you can tell, my dad is a very protective grandfather.

VeggieTales needs to enunciate.

Overheard:

Rand singing, loudly, "My DOG is so big! So strong and so mighty, there's nothing that my DOG can't do."

Oh yes, our dog has super powers.

Rand's thoughts

Last night I had the lovely surprise of finding our living room carpet soaked with water. After an emergency call to the property management company, we concluded that we have a burst pipe underneath the house. So there was lots of moving furniture around -- since it was 11pm on Friday night (when else would a pipe break?), Rand slept through the whole thing.

This morning we were still in bed when we heard Rand come out of his room and into the living room. He said, "Mom, did you do all this?" I said yep. He said, "Wow, it looks wonderful." Such a positive kid.

This afternoon I took the kids with me to deliver cookies with my Special Olympics team. They were giving cookies to all of the neighbors. Rand had a great time and ate a million cookies and got tons of attention. He called the whole group of kids "my friends," as in, "Mom, let's go catch up with my friends!" or "I need to go check on my friends."

Other things he has recently said:

"Mom, you look good enough to eat." (Not sure where that one came from.)


He asked Werner what time it was, and Werner said it was eight o'clock. "Ate the clock? Why did you eat the clock, Daddy?"

I told him that he looked good in stripes, and he replied, "Mom, you don't wear stripes. You wear shirts!"

Yesterday Rand started running in circles around the living room. We asked what he was doing and he said, "I'm a penny!" When we were at the mall a few days ago, we gave him pennies to drop down into those black hole things....where the penny goes around forever and then falls in the hole in the middle of the circle. He then proceeded to run in smaller and smaller circles until he was spinning in one spot. Then he plopped onto the ground and laughed hysterically.

And when I came upon this sight and asked what was going on, he informed me that the truck was driving through a lot of mud.

This is Rand playing on the wii fit. He loves the soccer ball game and cracks himself up when he gets hit in the head by the shoes or panda heads. He aims for them on purpose.

His favorite book is "Caps for Sale" and he loves to act out the book while you're reading it to him. He still is very snuggly and we love our 3-year-old. Even if he sometimes does this when you're trying to take his picture.

10 Days in California

Pictures to follow!

Thursday: Drove out. It was a very long drive.
Friday: Recuperated. Went to the park and did not set foot in the car.
Saturday: Braved Costco in the morning, visited the Card family and their new dog in the afternoon, and went to church in the evening.
Sunday: The beach! Then I went to lunch with my VU library crew.
Monday: Visited Vanguard in the morning to show off Ella, then took Rand and John to the Santa Ana zoo. Went to Yogurtland and am now considering opening a franchise in Phoenix.
Tuesday: Hung out with Ashley, Ethan, and Caryn in the morning, and had dinner with Rosalinda and CJ.
Wednesday: Massage for me (sooo fabulous), followed by a decadent lunch at Rutabagorz with the Fabulous Foursome. Visited with Candida and Jerry in the afternoon, and Grandma McVittie arrived to meet Ella for the first time. Rand helped Grandpa make pumpkin pies.
Thursday: Turkey Day! Played at the park in the morning to burn off some energy.
Friday: Visited with Katie and Dustin.
Saturday: Drove home. Much better than the way out!