A Very Lego Christmas

Thanks to gifts from Aunt Michelle and family, we had a fun Christmas day putting together our first ever official Lego kits.

Eliza Grace and I put together her horse barn that had all kinds of intricate details. Will helped "supervise" Scott's assembly of the fire house and trucks, which were even more intricate. It was a wonderful way to spend time together in our jammies in our warm, cozy den on Christmas day. Couple that with our traditional Christmas morning sausage and egg casserole and it was a good as it gets!

On the 26th, a big chunk of my extended family came over to share a meal and watch the children open gifts. I took some nice pictures before everyone arrived, however, in the midst of the hustle and bustle and eating and chatting, I forgot to take pictures of the actual people, save one! The tables did look nice, but I would rather have had more pictures of my loved ones! I vow to do better next time.

The kids table

The grown-ups' tables

The one picture with all the ladies we did get!
L to R: me, Martha (Mom), Christina (niece), Kelly (sister), Ashley (niece), Heidi (sister), Dawn (sister). Eliza Grace, my baby, in the front.

Christmas Season Fun!

Well, I know I have not posted about our Disney trip yet but that will have to come next week. In the meantime, I have been capturing some of our favorite Christmas season activities, which mostly revolve around food - no surprise there!

First we made a ginger bread house. We gathered all the ingredients and spent the better part of a day making the cookie batter, cutting out the shapes, baking....and puleeeese. We built it out of a pre-made kit, of course!

Will had been begging me for a couple of weeks to make the house so my little helpers were thrilled when I finally agreed to put it together.

Will mushing the pre-made icing bag really, really hard

"I love this ginger bread house"

Hmm..slide side A into slot B and repeat!

Ok, guys...hold it just like that...I will be back in about 10 minutes :)

And then we skip to the end, which is the best part!

The next project after we finished the Ginger Bread house -which by the way I think tastes gross- we moved on to what I believe to be man's greatest achievement in the perfect combination of salty and sweet. That's right, I am talking about Pretzel Kisses + M-n-Ms. A simple culinary masterpiece that helps make life worth living.

Step 1 - Engage your unpaid child labor chocolate Kiss un-wrappers with bribes related to said chocolate Kisses.

Step 2 - Artfully arrange (read: randomly throw) square pretzels onto a cookie sheet and place one Kiss on top of each pretzel. Place in a 170 degree oven for 4-6 minutes or until the chocolate is soft to the touch. Don't heat them too long or instead of the chocolate being soft, the kisses will dry out and crumble.  Ask me how I know this.  Anyhoo.

Step 3 - Remove the pretzel kisses from the oven and quickly press a single M-n-M into each soft, mushy kiss. Place into the refrigerator to cool. Voila, you are done!

I dare you, nay, I triple DOG DARE you to eat just one. It. Can. Not. Be. Done.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Hughes girls' annual outing to the Nutcracker Ballet. Eliza Grace is becoming such a little lady!

Well, all of the above (plus recuperating from our trip to Walt Disney World) has made up our last 2 weeks. In between there has been work, house work, playing and lots of Christmas music.
Now if you excuse me, I must ensure there are still a couple of pretzel kisses left for me!
Merry Christmas!

Floofing - A Christmas Tradition

Gather round and hear the story of old...

Well, ok, not that old. It actually started about seven years ago when I learned that live Christmas trees contain allergens like pollen. I know, right, who knew?

Because of these nasty allergens, we had to do the unthinkable - get a fake Christmas tree!

It was painful for me as I am very much the traditionalist. Since returning to North Carolina, Scott and I had always gone to the NC mountains to cut our own tree. But, given that each fall both Eliza Grace and Scott would battle the elements with copious amounts of Claritin and Musinex, we decided buying a fake tree was the prudent and healthier thing to do.

Traditions always have a way of evolving. We used to drive to the mountains, don hats, coats, gloves and boots and traipse through the...well, not snow but some tall grass perhaps - cut down our own tree and haul it back home. These days, typically donned in our pjs, Scott hauls himself to the storage room and carries down the tree in a box, at which time the kids shout, "let the floofing begin!"

Floofing, for those of you unaware, is the process one must go through when preparing the fake branches to be placed on the fake tree trunk. After spending 11 months of the year in plastic bags shoved into a box, each branch needs to be properly adjusted or floofed. This process is key to successful tree trimming, as a poorly floofed tree looks even more fake and the ornaments do not hang well.

The funniest thing about all this is that I am pretty sure my kids believe that this is a normal occurrence in every household. Eliza Grace was telling a neighbor the other day that we had finished floofing our tree. She did not even notice the questioning look on the neighbor's face.

Well, let 'em wonder I say. Because we are floofers...and we are proud of our floofing family tradition!

Will helping with the initial tree-limb-in-a-bag extraction

Assembly begins

Eliza Grace demonstrates her floofing technique

Will performs a floofage inspection

The final product.
And no, it is not listing....apparently my camera was tilted!

Creativity

Eliza Grace is a nut. And it is not just me that thinks so. I have heard those exact same words from many people who have met her. She completely cracks us up without really trying to. I think it is her commentary and ingenuity that is sometimes surprising and so is funny.

She has this combination of adult-like linguistics and 7-year old silliness, with a heaping helping of creativity thrown in.

She has a particular penchant for creating things out of paper. Lots of paper. I have to limit her or she could go through a ream in a week. She writes books - lately they are Scooby Doo mysteries - complete with illustrations, title pages, indexes and binding (usually tape, ribbon, staples or a combination of all three). She makes costumes, games, and stuffed animals that she calls e-Factory Friends. And paper is not her only medium.

Yesterday, while waiting for her aunt and cousin to arrive for the Thanksgiving meal, she occupied herself by creating napkins rings, a table center piece and a game called "Pin the Waddle on the Turkey." Lastly, she decorated herself as a Thanksgiving turkey.

The kid is a nut. A creative, smart, silly and amazing nut. And man how we love her so!

Homemade napkin rings made from a paper towel tube, aluminum foil and a sticker

Turkey center piece, obviously made from a toilet paper tube.

Pin the waddle on the turkey!

Our nutty turkey, complete with waddle,

tail feathers and colored feet!

Sling Boy Birthday - Part 2

Tonight we celebrated Will's birthday as a family. I did a bit of decorating in the continuing pirate theme - it is amazing what one can do with crepe paper and pirate themed napkins!

We had the usual fare - sliced cucumbers, mini penne pasta, and bread dipped in olive oil with spices. We have to watch our fingers with the bread because the kids mop up the oil and spices with the bread so fast we could draw back a nub if we are not careful!

We finished it all up with cupcakes and a treasure hunt to find Will's presents. It was a fun family evening to be sure. Which begs the question as to why Will melted down around 8:30 into inconsolable tears and frustration. Perhaps it was too much attention, too many new things to play with, the down side of a butter cream icing high? I am fairly certain it was a combination of all three.

But now my baby - my FOUR YEAR OLD baby - is lying in his bed, hopefully having wonderful Veggie Tale pirate ship dreams.

Wow, my own treasure map!

1st mate, Eliza Grace, helping to find the X that marks the spot.

No, its just your imagination. I mean what kind of mother would use 3 day old cupcakes from her child's school party for his family party? (hee,hee - just call me the frugal gourmet!)"I wish for a Veggie Tales pirate ship!"

I got my wish!

Four Years Old Today!

Dear Will,

Today you are four!

It is utterly amazing how time can whiz right by. And here we are - we have had you in our lives for four whole years!

We've weathered those first ten months of constant spit-up, several bouts of croup, too many visits to the ER, anaphylaxis (darn those tree nuts), several bouts of hives (darn those tree nuts and penicillin), too many x-rays for various injuries, plenty of scraped knees and more than enough stomach bugs. Whew!

But all of the above absolutely pales in comparison to the untold number of hours of running and playing and laughing and giggling and tickling and questioning and understanding and learning and loving and pure joy, love and happiness that you have brought into our family.

From the day you were born we could not imagine our lives without you in it.

Happy birthday, our sweet, big boy Willby. We cannot wait to see what the next year brings!

Love, Mommy, Daddy and Eliza Grace

Sling Boy Birthday - Part 1

Arg, help! We are stuck in quick sand!

Despite the whole broken collar bone/arm in a sling thing, we proceeded with our plans to bring cupcakes to preschool to celebrate Will's birthday. Just about every 5 minutes today he asked if it was time to have his pirate party at school. 
As soon as we walked in the door, he immediately asked me, "when will my friends sing to me?" And then was his typical shy when they did. All the kiddos asked how Will was feeling, especially since most of them saw him fall and witnessed the painful cries afterward. They were so sweet and told him that they missed him.

Part 2 of the celebration will come on Monday, his actual birthday, when we will celebrate at home with cake and ice cream and presents!

The shy smile during the happy birthday song Look Ms. Amanda, I got a real pirate spy glass

Now how does this thing work?

2nd Time Is The Charm?

Well, Will has done it again.

He broke his collar bone for the first time during his delivery. Suggestion: never deliver your child's head, shoulder, arm and hand at the exact same moment -I still hear that "pop" sound in my head every now and again.

So now, thanks to a fall from the playground monkey bars, we have another collar bone break, on the same side, but this time nearer to his shoulder.

The good news? It was just his collar bone, praise the Lord, which will heal quickly and he is in little pain unless he moves his left arm/shoulder. If he does move it, he shrieks in pain. The bad news? My baby fell and is in pain!

Will's penchant for getting hurt enough to visit the ER is starting to become a little too routine for my comfort. In his nearly four years, (birthday next Monday!), we have gotten x-rays of his hand (someone stepped on it and his fingers swelled), his leg (he fell and was limping for a couple of days), his foot (another monkey bar spill), his chest (twice - once during allergic reaction to tree nuts and now for the broken collar bone) and his shoulder (collar bone).

It seems each time the injury is a little bit more severe and I for one am ready for this trend to stop! The truth of the matter is that he is actually very coordinated but I think because he is, he tends to take a few more risks than a more cautious child.

And on the bright side, we get to eat up more of our health care flexible spending dollars that we would otherwise lose at the end of the year...whoopie!

Waiting to go to radiology. Note how his left shoulder droops a bit.

Brave boy Popsicle time

"Sling boy" ready to head home

Um, Will, That Is Not Quite Correct...

We put some of our interior Christmas decorations up this weekend. This morning, I overheard the following:

Will: "Eliza Grace, come over here and look at these Nutscratchers."

While I am sure somewhere in the world there is such a product, I quickly corrected Will and showed him how a Nutcracker worked. And then I shut myself in my bathroom and laughed until I cried.

Thrift Store Finds!

I wandered into Goodwill this week hoping to find some jeans for both Eliza Grace and Will because, for goodness sake, these kids tear holes in the knees of nearly every pair they have WAY before they outgrow them!

Anyhoo, having no luck finding jeans in their sizes, I wandered over to the tchatchke wall just to browse. And I saw these two lovely little craftsman-style lanterns:

Fabulous, aren't they? They even came with the candles - $4 each! I am pretty sure I have seen something similar at Pottery Barn or Pier One for $30+ each. Score for me!

I then continued to wander and stumbled upon these absolutely adorable Christmas plates. A series of 12, each plate depicts each day from the "On the First Day of Christmas" song. They are so cute and I really love the detail. Here, let me show them to you - in order of course:

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me....

"A partridge in a pear tree"

(Closer view so you can see the detail)

"Two turtle doves"

"Three French hens"

"Four colly birds"

That's right, "colly birds" not "calling birds." Never knew that I was singing it incorrectly! The word 'colly' literally means 'black as coal,' and thus 'colly birds' would be blackbirds. And now, perhaps you have learned your "something new" for today!

Altogether now: "Fiiiiiiiive gold rings"

"Six geese a-laying"

"Seven swans a-swimming"

"Eight maids a-milking"

"Nine ladies dancing"

(A close up because it's my favorite)

"Ten lords a-leaping"

"Eleven pipers piping"

"Twelve drummers drumming"

Did I mention that they were .79 cents each?! Score for me again! My friend Kris Stoner will be so proud of me :)