Peanut Gallery

When my brother and I were growing up, my parents would tell us "No comments from the peanut gallery," especially when one of us was in trouble. I agree and our kids are told the same thing or at least something to the same effect. Sometimes the reasoning is not for the typical but the atypical. I sit here writing this with two kids in the corner since no will admit to opening the door and are blaming it on each other. I have asked them repetedly "who did it" to no avail. I try again, "Does anyone want to cop to who opened the door yet?"

Before anyone can answer the peanut gallery aka Seth my one-year old answers, "No."

I burst out laughing before I can stop myself and everyone joins in. While the teachable moment was not quite lost, it was drastically delayed.

Gifts

This is the first year we have split up gift giving into a few days as opposed to planning all of our festivities on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This was sibling gift day.

This is Nana day.

I forgot the camera the other days but the kids liked having 5 days of Christmas instead of the normal 2. I liked it because I was able to remind them numerous times about the etiquette of gift giving and receiving. It also made for a much more relaxed Christmas for Brad and I. This is a tradition we will be continuing!

Our New (to us) Table

This is it. Do you know how many more people can fit on benches than chairs especially our little guys. Trust me when I say a lot! It even has a little storage under the benches on the sides.

I am so excited! I have wanted a table like this for a very long time.

Yes that is our old table with way too much stuff on it in the corner!

See the plant. I give it 24 hours before it gets knocked over.

Anybody want to take me on?

Gingerbread Houses

Last night was Gingerbread House night at Awanas. We were invited to bring friends and family to help build and decorate gingerbread houses. This is the second time we have done this and it might have to become an annual tradition. Last year, Erik was the Sparkie. This year, Erik "graduated" into TNT so now Jeremiah is the Sparkie and absolutely loving it. All this to say we brought in our crew plus the kid's Nana to make some gingerbread houses.

Jeremiah's pitched roof fell so he resigned himslef to a flat roof quite well. (It was easier to decorate a flat roof.)

Matthew and Nana's gingerbread house. (Their roof did not fall.) Seth trying to get in on the action.

Matthew telling Seth not to touch his creation.

If you can see, Daddy helped build a second house to be an in-law's quarters. Then it turned into a outhouse,(Daddy's influence), then an office. Oh, that extra frosting on Matthew was Daddy's help too.

This was Seth's contribution to the night.

Daddy keeping Seth occupied or at least trying to. Seth was not going to buy it for long because...

this is what Seth really wanted. He found out he is tall enough to pull this off the table. I could not get a picture of him trying to reach everything on the decoration's table because I was constantly grabbing the bowls of candy from him!!

During all this Erik was in his class at TNT.

Erik's class at TNT (The girls were told the boys had their rabies shots but even with that encouragement you can tell they are not convinced of that fact.)

All in all, a fun night but I am glad it is an annual tradition instead of a monthly tradition. I am worried about next year when Seth will be able to reach all of the candy decorations!

Messes

I wish I could say this is the first time I walked in on this...

or even the last...

but somehow even I cannot delude myself into thinking that. Hopefully, it will be one of the last times.

Pictures

I finally up loaded the pictures my photographer and friend Randi gave me.

As you can see this is why she is such a great friend.

Just wait these are from the beginning before they started acting up.

Trust me it did not get better

Matthew saying, "I'm done."

Then this is Seth saying, "I'm done. Let's go."

But as you can see from all the updated pictures on the kids somehow in all of this she managed to get some great shots. You go girl!!

Acting like a Fool!

Can you guess what Seth is doing here?

He is blowing dust (or some sort of small particles) on the ground. This is right after he turned around in circles until he fell down!

And to make this even better he is very proud of himself!! Needless to say this was after bedtime and Brad and I were laughing hysterically as we watched. We grabbed our phones, and the cameras to take many pictures as we tried not to fall down laughing. I love my babies and how they can lighten the entire day at any given moment!

Do Not Leave Your Laptop Unattended

The previous blog was posted by Seth. I had to leave it so sometime in the future I can show Seth his first successful even if unintentional blog post. I went upstairs to quickly (or so I thought) talk to Brad and then checked on dinner. I guess during this time I left my laptop in the reach of Seth. While stirring dinner, I heard Erik say "Seth! Seth! Mom!"

My response is typical mother response of "Hold on, and unless it is an emergency please do not yell."

"Mom, Seth has you laptop."

"Be right there, hey wait I didn't post anything!"

So the moral of this long winded story DO NOT LEAVE YOUR LAPTOP IN REACH OF A 1-YEAR-OLD!!! (My husband tells me this constantly. I must be a slow learner.)

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