This turkey waited ALL YEAR to be our Christmas dinner...see how happy she is about it?!

She can't even stop smiling, eh?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

The playdough worked well last year--as in, we got an extra hour of sleep while they played. So stupid me FORGOT the playdough this year, and then Colin's note to Santa specifically mentioned the playdough...so then I had to go under the tree & open the UP movie and VOILA! Problem solved---and if all goes well...that'll be TWO extra hours of sleep tomorrow morning. HA!



...and the stockings were hung on the railing with care, in hopes that the Whoopee cushions would soon appear.

Really? You don't need to hope, my dear children. Your mommy may have forgotten the playdough, but she will NEVER forget the Whoopee cushions.

So bummed I didn't think of this first!
Hysterical.

Mitt Romney's official stance on the question of whether or not the world is overpopulated...

....HUH?....

These are just the grandkids, folks!

We've been doing lots of snuggling with hot chocolate (we snuggle with BLANKETS---snuggling with hot chocolate would be...tricky) and movies around here. It's a Christmas "tradition" that we all love...Mommy especially...not so much because of the movies themselves, but the 2 hours of calm that they represent.

So, we've been on a pretty steady diet of Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Eloise at Christmas, and the like. Sydney has seen so much of Julie Andrews in the past 2 weeks, and Julie Andrews is her fave fave favorite. If Taylor Swift had a British accent, it couldn't hurt her standing with Miss Sydney!

She's started waking me up in the morning with a "good morning, Moth-ah", and asking "would you care for a spot o' tea?" more than once during the day. It's too cute, but Christmas can't come soon enough. Cause I can't wait to get to March---Syd can do a MEAN leprechaun!

Today was the first big snowstorm of the year. Oh yeah, baby--8 inches of heavy snow with a nice layer of wet, even heavier CRAP on top. And oh yeah, baby...two weeks before they let the kids loose for 12 days! Apparently, the powers that be thought all of the parents in New Hampshire would like a BONUS day with their munchkins. Good thinkin'! Cause it wasn't like I had a list of errands or anything. Or plans. Or selfish hopes and dreams for this Wednesday. I did. Dashed.





Instead--we spent the day at home in our jammies. The kids' enthusiasm was contagious, though. We ended up making a big, fat, fun day of the whole mess. Sledding, snowball fights, angels & butt-prints in the snow (you must know we did the butt-prints first, yes?), and lots of other snowy fun.




Then we made gingerbread cookies with the recipe from Eric's Grandma Nadyne. Man, that woman must have had some serious biceps. The recipe makes a delicious cookie, but the thickness of that dough is a wooden spoon breaker. It's pretty much like using a rolling pin to get a brick smoothed to an even quarter-inch thickness.




Because the cookie thing was spur-of-the-moment, we had to improvise. Luckily you can't tell in the picture that the white "snowflake" sprinkles on the light blue cookie are actually white GHOSTS left over from the Halloween cookies. Sneaky. Throw in some food coloring & the ice cream sprinkles, and it's a PARTY!




Made homemade pizza for lunch, made an amazing Hoisin steak with rice noodles dinner, shoveled for an hour, washed the sheets from everyone's beds, got caught up on email, and came up with some good ideas on world peace. I'm thisclose to curing cancer---but it was a full day. I think I did enough. Maybe I can finish that up during the next snow day?

Einstein

WAY TO GO, BUDDY! So proud of you!

Not for nothin', but you may wanna take a walk down the hall & see if those 4th graders could use a hand??!

Merry Christmas!

The first installment of...

...Christmas Tradition Thursday!!

Yes, I know that Christmas Tradition TUESDAY would've had a much nicer ring to it, but I was busy Tuesday night. And didn't feel like it. And hadn't yet bought the stuff for the gingerbread house, and so anyway...it's Christmas Tradition THURSDAY! Yay!

Kids are now hopped up on sugar, and I'll be up yelling at them to go to bed for the next hour. But--it's CHRISTMAS TRADITION THURSDAY!! It's not really about the fallout after the performing of the traditions around here---it's the fun had during.

And we had fun. So I'm gonna call this one a success. And I'm also going to note for you that we will only be displaying the FRONT of this cute little house.

Let's just say the back was our "practice side".

Sorry for the delay---it's taking me a while to sift through all of the MOST humiliating pictures I have of Eric at Disney. This should hold you over....

HA!