Faithy's early, muddy, Christmas

For my mudlover, the perfect gift from Jenny... A mudpie maker!! Noah even got dirty and exclaimed it was the first time he ever got muddy and loved it! (If you don't know, Noah doesn't want to be sticky, muddy, or wet. EVER. If he is any of those 3, it has to be on his terms) Faithy on the other hand welcomes all kinds of messiness with reckless abandon :)

Santa's Bag

We had a present delivered to Jenny at our house for Christmas. Because Darren selected gift option, it came in this big, blue "velvet" bag with yellow ribbon. Needless to say, Noah was BESIDE HIMSELF to discover that we actually had, in our possession, SANTA'S BAG!!!

He played Santa with it and slept with it under his bed. But then I told him I googled it and found that he would have to leave it under the tree so it could be picked up and used again on Christmas Eve. So Noah willingly complied and we placed the bag and his letter to Santa under the tree.

The next morning the bag and letter were gone, and replaced by an ornately written letter from Reuben, the Elf of bag retrieval. He assured Noah that his letter to Santa would be put on his desk, and that Noah was on the nice list! He also said the he celebrates Jesus :)

We look forward to seeing what Santa has in that bag next time he brings it back!

I'm THAT mom...

The one that let's her son eat his corn dog on the dashboard during
his first visit to sonic :) (those are his sonic bionic sunglasses).
I'm not wanting to know what the folks in the car next to us are
thinking!

Date Night

After a 15 minute FaceTime call with Noah where he wanted a thorough
tour of our accommodations :)

Surprise Getaway

Surprised Dar with a weekend in Tiburon. Thanks to Jenny we don't
have to be home until Monday afternoon! We are enjoying some wine on
the hotel deck and looking at all the sailboat lights on the bay (and
I'm eating cookie dough) :)

Life is good!

Transforming Transformers on the iPad

Noah has started teaching Faith about Transformers.... She is somewhat interested, though not as much as he would like her to be. However, if he makes his convincing "transform" sound and bellows "Autobots, transform and roll-out!" and drops to his hands and knees and drives off - she is likely to join him on her hands and knees with "vroom vroom" sounds for effect. Of course it helps if mommy plays along too... which she does. I've taken out a few Starscreams in my day. Even though I'm not really sure who I am, Noah just says I'm a corvette, and I'm cool with that.

Blustery Day Activities

It's cold outside. The kind of cold where I don't WANT to stand around while the kids waddle around all bundled up and red cheeked. Sprinkling? No problem. Windy? I'm fine. But cold air? It's uncomfortable and not helpful when the kiddos are just getting over colds... So the alternate is, coming up with something entertaining to do indoors. I've got Noah asking me to please not turn the TV on and keep it off. Then there's Faithy squealing "Umizoomi! George! Dora!" And many days, the squeaky/screechy wheel of Faith wins out (depending on mommy's day).

The last couple of days I've improvised. Today, I even impressed Noah... "Mom, I'm so surprised and happy that you thought of this game using a lever! That's so smart of you!" Yes, he's my encourager. Today we took the round soft snowman-head ornaments off of the tree and used a pasta strainer (lever) and an alton brown measuring cylinder (fulcrum) and catapulted them across the room into a box. Noah got extra points for hitting our cat.

Yesterday I thought it might be fun to put a cookie sheet on the cutting board and pour baking soda into it. Faith spent a long time playing in it with her hands, paint brushes, and basting brushes. Noah loved it too. It wasn't too messy and I didn't have to worry about the kids eating it :)

In case you're wondering...

This is Megatron, transformed into a gun. It's a shame you can't hear the sound effect.