Update

This is on it's way to our house. Yippee! Won't be here in time for this Christmas, but hopefully it will save me from spending all next season hunting down the baby Jesus. I swear, is there anything that there's not a Little People playset for?

Not a toy

Forget all the Christmas presents in the world. Just get Maggie a Navity scene and she'll be happy. She's obsessed with the baby Jesus...carries him around CONSTANTLY! I've dug him out of her Barbie car, unwrapped him from the Bonka Jane (poor kid) and last night I had to pry him from her fist after she was asleep. "He's cwyin' ", she says. I tried to explain that he was, supposedly, a very quiet baby so he's probably not crying....you know... the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. She's not buying it. Plus she wants to know why his diaper is not covering his butt. I'm not even going to try to get into the swaddling clothes conversation so I just let that one go. And Owen is quite confused because animals go in barns, not people. So everytime I turn around, the Holy Family, the wise men and the shepherd are out in the cold and the animals have free reign of the barn. But we only have a few animals, so they add in some hippos and tigers from their toys.

Check out this gummy grin. It's one of, if not the last one caught on film. Those are some seriously swollen gums, and I'm beginning to understand why the poor thing hasn't been sleeping worth crap. I'll miss the gummy grins :(

Cramming

Cramming. That's what happens when you haven't studied all quarter and suddenly find yourself faced with a final that's 60% of your grade. It's also what happens when you've been in denial for three weeks that Christmas is coming and suddenly realize that it will be here in a week.

Yesterday we crammed at least two weeks' worth of holiday spirit into one day. We started off with a train ride with the Big Guy himself. No, not God, silly....Santa. We had to drive an hour and a half to get there so on the way we popped Polar Express into the dvd player. I don't usually resort to that for driving entertainment, but anyone who's driven on Route 32 to Athens knows how boring it is even for adults, nevermind wired children on their way to see Santa. The train ride was a smashing success. We were early enough to get seats on the good car, no one melted down or got motion sickness, and none of my children screamed when faced with a rather rotund man in a bright red suit and a creepily fake beard. Yay!

P.S., the burrito buggy is not there during Christmas break. Bummer. Taco John's served as a satisfactory second choice, though.

Once home, we decided to break out the decorations, and Dave went to chop down the tree. Again, all went surprisingly well. After last year's episode of the tree tipping over just after the last ornament had been hung, we got smart and tied the thing off to the wall before we even started.

Still to do: wrapping, cookies, wrapping, shopping for Dave, wrapping...

Snowmen and Buckeyes

This blogging gig is hard to keep up with, eh? I caught this nice pic of my crew during the game with that school up north. My second O was less than thrilled, but his mouth *is* pretty round!

We had the first snow of the season this week. Molly was out of school and we decided to seize the moment and create the biggest snowman we've ever made. I think I may have herniated a disc trying to get the middle up onto the bottom. Molly and Owen were thrilled with the snow, begging to stay out longer. But Bodie was sleeping and Maggie had had enough, so we had to head back in. I let the two older kids go back out that afternoon and sled down the hill while we watched from the back door. They got some serious air hitting the little ditch at the bottom of the hill. It's definitely a change from last year when both Owen and Maggie just stood outside unable to really move, of course, due to the ridiculous bundling - and screamed.