Happy Ginger-Ben Day

Well the Old Papa turned 32 yesterday. Ben had to work of course and so the day wasn't much different - except for increase backaches, stiffer joints, etc., I'm sure. But when he got home we did what will be an annual tradition on Ben's birthday - decorating gingerbread houses. We let the kids do theirs and then we did ours when they were in bed. Brilliant.

So Jonas basically stuck maybe 10 things on his house - after much prodding. He probably ate about 10 times that amount, though. Hmmmm, perhaps that's why he couldn't fall asleep until 9pm?

Miles decorated his entire house all on his own - putting the icing and candy on. The only thing I did was the sled and the boy "Miles" on it. The rest was all his beautiful creation. In this picture he is pointing to a "car" he made - right by the sled. Good work lad!

Here is Ben's lovely cottage. So sweet; I would live there. I'd probably get real fat and then real cold, but it'd be fun.
Here's my cabin in the forest. It looks so cozy; I wish we were there now.

Just for my journaling sake I want to record what Ben got for his birthday. "The Great Scandinavian Baking Book." Along with 2 important spices for scandinavian food: cardamom and saffron. It was all his request. Oh, yes, he also got the Tie. And some delicious homemade sweets from Grandma Dee. YUM.

A fun and yummy day.

I finally found a use for the Self-Rising Flour I accidently bought

The Roller Derby

Emmy had her first real back-to-tummy roll-over on Sunday. She did it twice to prove it wasn't a fluke. And she's done it every day since. Although sometimes (a lot of times) she has some problems and gets stuck on her side. Too cute. Here are the pics of her after rollling over - she still needs help getting her hands out from under her. :)

Business in the front, Party in the back

So it has happened again. It always does. I always swear I will never do it again, but, alas, I do. I then I regret it - always.

Yes, I am once again suffering from Post-Miles'-Haircut Depression. It's real, trust me. I thought it would be better this time (I always do). I can't totally blame the hairdresser - she was actually a very, very good cutter. There was just some, ahem, misdirection given by my, ahem, DH (dear husband, for those of you not familiar with DH).

So, Erin, can Miles borrow/share the name of Mr. Mullet for the next couple of months??

FYI
"Mullet (haircut)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A mullet is a hairstyle that is short in the front, top, and sides, but long in the back (also referred to by a number of other names, some regional, including hockey hair, helmet hair, etc.).It's also described as "business in the front, party in the back". The hairstyle was popular during the late 20th Century, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. Mullets have been worn by males and females of all ages. The mullet is distinct from the rattail, which consists of a long, narrow "tail" of hair growing from the back of the head."

So it could be worse, instead of Mr. Mullet Miles could have been Mr. Rattail (Hopefully the only one in my family that will EVER have that nickname is my brother Derek - in the 80s, of course.)

Deere Jonas, Happy Birthday. . .

Well our baby boy turned 2 on Friday. Here are pictures highlighting the special day:

Waking up with a decorated door and lots of balloons - and, yes, wet PJs. Why not?

We spent the morning playing. What else? When Ben came home Jonas was finally able to open some birthday presents! Yea!

He got a fun computer. I love this picture because all the kids have different expressions on their faces. Emmy is happy. Jonas is interested. And Miles is trying to figure out how this new thing operates.
Jonas loves his new computer and walks around holding it and playing with it and saying, "my 'puter."

Here he is mowing with his John Deere mower. How fun!

And here he is playing with some of the John Deere farm tractors he got.
The birthday boy and his birthday loot. Pretty fun and lucky!

And how did Miles do with all this? Pretty much as expected: wanting to play with all the toys and hoarding them all and declaring them all as "my toys." But, for the most part, Jonas was okay with this. He would just play with another new toy. I don't quite think he understood that it was his birthday and these were actually his toys. But perhaps Jonas doesn't think any toy is actually his - it's either " Miles' " or "not yours." That what I would think if I was Miles' little bro.

After dinner we of course had cake and ice cream. When I asked earlier in the week what kind of cake Jonas wanted, he replied, "Pie." So when he saw this he exclaimed, "My tractor! My PIE." Funny, and weird, boy.

Then we watched some short Christmas videos and then began the "sleeping under the tree" event. It's a much more fun IDEA then actual EVENT. Here are the boys all cute and innocent at 8pm:

8pm. They didn't fall asleep until 10pm - when Jonas was finally corralled inside his pack-n-play.

So although it wasn't quite as I had wanted it to be, i.e., Jonas getting free reign of his toys, the boys drifting quietly and peacefully (hahahahaha) off to sleep, etc., it was still a very special day honoring and very, very, very, very special boy.

Santa Baby, Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight

So we went to see Santa Claus tonight. Our friend Jake manages a mortgage business in town and invites friends/customers to come and see Santa (i.e., Jake). So we get there and immediately we have a Cry Baby. Guess who. . .

Emmy?

Nope, it wasn't Emmy. She was clueless and chilled - and cute, of course.

Jonas?

Surprisingly, not at all! He loved Santa and went right up to him and even kissed and hugged him! Too funny. He did tell Santa that he wants oatmeal for Christmas (which my friend Brooke informed me her boy wants, too!). But I think Jonas' favorite part of seeing Santa was all the treats they had! My gosh, if we left our eyes off that boy for 2 seconds he would grab about 4 cookies - and appearantly stuff them in his mouth all at once! He was in Heaven.

Miles?

Yes, Miles was our Cry Baby. He peeked in the window when we were unloading everbody and then ran away. He DID NOT want to see Santa. When he finally came in he would not look at Santa. Notice his hat pulled over his eyes! He wouldn't take a cookie from Santa or anybody else for the first 15 minutes. Finally I was able to get him to eat a cookie - he ate it by the window and would only face the window and watch the cars - with his back towards Santa. "I don't like Santa." Finally Santa's Helper/coworker was able to get Miles close to Santa - and then on Santa's lap. Then Miles decided that Santa was fun - and he did tell him that he wants a "track excavator."

We'll see if Santa pulls through for them.

Gloots

Miles in the snow, year 2004.

Miles in the snow, year 2007.

Sorry, Miles, but some things never change. Like, for instance, your parents actually getting you boots for the snow.

But never fear my sweet little boy, the search on Ebay has begun for size 7 snow boots. So while some things may never change, others just might take some years - 3 years to be exact.

Our Annual Hunt for Charlie

Another Christmas season and thus another hunt for our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. Mother Nature has been very bad in this part of the country (remember I mentioned rain in December?), but luckily the day before there was a big storm in the mountains (again, rain down in the valley) that dumped somewhere around 2 feet of fresh powder. Lovely.


Since we have Emmy with us now we couldn't all go out together in one happy bunch (although I remember from last year that we weren't really one happy bunch). So when we got there we let the boys play around in the snow for a little bit, while I hung out with Emmy watching the boys all play:








After the boys were done frolicking in the snow I got my boots and skis on and then loaded Jonas on my back to hunt for The Tree. We actually didn't go too far until I found one that would work. So I marked it with an orange rope, and then skied around a little bit more. I was having an absolute blast skiing with Jonas - he was adorable and having fun himself. I LOVE the snow and being out in it, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.







After we came back Ben got ready and took Miles out to find our marked tree and chop it down. They found the tree, chopped it down, and had a great time. Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad! Miles unfortunately didn't have a great time. And it's all his parent's fault - really. We don't have adequate snow-clothing for the kiddo and so he got cold. Poor kiddo. But I think overall he had fun - and hopefully that's what he'll remember.

Really, it was a good trip. Even juggling with three kids, it turned out really well. And I think Miles would even say it was a lot of fun - mingled with a lot of cold.

p.s. So we have no picture of The Tree inside our home yet since we didn't get it up until 11pm last nite (we had a church program we attended an hour after getting home from the hunt, then Ben had to work on his church talk, etc., etc.). So it is still sitting in our house naked. We'll work on that soon.

Something About Miles and Something About Jonas and Something About Mary (not really)

I had never asked Miles to draw people, so yesterday I thought I would. And this was the result. It's Dad and Mom. Pretty cute. (I also wanted to show this picture to try out my new printer/copier/scanner.)



The next pictures show one of the differences in being a 2nd child, as opposed to the 1st child:

Miles didn't touch a pair of scissors - especially "adult" scissors - until like, ummmm, a few months ago! But seeing Miles use scissors, Jonas just couldn't understand why he couldn't too. And Jonas was so into cutting, so serious about it (which is so unlike him) that I couldn't stop him.

Perhaps being a middle-child won't be so bad after all - right, Jonas?

december ramblings

Yes, let the countdown begin. You might not be able to tell what the picture is - it's an advent calendar I made. (Perhaps I'll try taking a better picture and posting it later) My sister sent me this link and so I thought it would be fun to make for our family.

I read in a couple of different sources about adding "events" to an advent calendar - so on a few particular days you not only get a treat, but also an "event." So this year we'll be adding these 6 events into our advent calendar:

1. Sleeping under the Christmas tree (a Ben's family tradition; we plan on making it a yearly tradition - on Jonas' b-day)

2. Making gingerbread houses (a tradition that we like to do on Ben's birthday)

3. Making cookies and delivering them to Church teachers

4. Having hot chocolate before bedtime

5. Having the kids pick out and deliver 3 gifts each to Salvation Army - then going out for ice cream afterwards

6. Driving around looking at the Christmas lights.

How fun! I love December. But this silly RAIN better become loads of SNOW soon or I will be real mad!

The kids are getting pretty excited about Christmas; Miles asked if it was Christmas tonite. Not yet kiddo.

When Miles is asked what he wants for Christmas from Santa, he always replies, "A track excavator." When Jonas is asked what he wants from Santa, he always replies, "Oatmeal."

huh?