We've been working on trying to teach Mikey to count and to say his ABC's.
We haven't had much luck.
We were invited to a "Santa Open House" at our friends place.
Katie and Mikey had a good time "reminding" Santa what they had previously told him they wanted for Christmas. I mean, they had just seen him at the mall.
Katie: Legos and Barbies
"Its okay, Mikey. It's just Santa. You can tell him what you want for Christmas!
AND, he'll give you a goody bag!"
Mikey: Ninjago and Star Wars.
The Legos.
We were able to get most of the kids together for a nice group pic.
Santa kinda creeps some people out. Understandable.
A little like clowns.....
And one more Santa pic for good measure.
Too bad we had already sent out xmas cards this year.
Maybe next year......
Wait.
You don't need to see this picture.
This isn't the family you're looking for.
You can go about your business.
Move along.
There was a Science Night at Katie's school.
They had the ReptileMan visit.
He brought all his pals.
After the event I asked Mikey what his favorite animal was. He told me it was the turtle.
I was surprised.
I asked him, "What about the snake?" He told me, matter of factly, "There was no snake there, Mom."
Here he is grabbing its tail.
It was so big that he didn't know there was a snake attached to it.
"Hi, Mr. Iguana.
You're SO cute!"
The kid loves animals.
Scratch that.
The kidS love animals.
After visiting with our reptilian friends, we hit the main exhibits.
Rocks.
Exploring the insides of a dead salmon.
And circuits.
Hey. Who's that?
DADDY!
His first (of many - don't tell him) volunteer stint at a PTA event.
Sigh.
This is very sad.
This is Katie and Mikey's crib on the curb for garbage pick up.
Gulp.
Moving on.
Meet Lloyd, The Green Ninja.
He's one of Mikey's favorite guys.
Which makes it hard for me to comprehend why he decided to put him into one of these holes in Huzbend's work-out equipment.
Mikey was really upset when I told him that it would be nearly impossible to get him out of there.
I guess we just needed a new perspective.
Huzbend came home from work and quickly formed a plan.
Water.
We would float him out of the hole.
Here are the tools.
Here's the water inside the equipment.
Lloyd was extracted with chopsticks.
Here's one proud Daddy.
Welcome back to the world of the living, Lloyd.
(Current Lloyd Status: Missing. Again. Hopefully not in a hole.)
Preschool holiday party.
I was too busy helping out (or carrying crowd-shy Mikey around) to snap many decent pictures.
There was lots of food and kid craziness. An auction. A book-walk (instead of a cake walk).
Music and dancing. And a showing of Frosty the Snowman on a big screen.
It was crazy, but fun.
Here's Katie with the school mascot, T.T. Turtle.
And here's Mikey saying hi to Frosty.
Tree time!
It was super muddy.
Like, uber muddy.
This is just a funny picture.
He's just anticipating the joy of having to get down on his knees in the cold, wet mud.
See?
More mud.
Someone kinda fell down.
A lot.
So much so that we had to do an outfit change when we got back to the car.
Katie got her candy cane and all was right with the world.
Except that Mikey doesn't like candy canes and the only other thing
I had was a "fruit leather". Oh well.
The next day was my 39th birthday.
On a Monday. Boo.
We did manage to have a date on Saturday.
Lunch and The Hobbit in IMAX 3D.
Spectacular.
Both the lunch (P.F. Changs) and the movie.
On my actual birthday, we had yummy Mexican food at a restaurant.
Then we came back for dessert.
I volunteered to make cookies for the teachers at Katie's school and had
some leftover.
Everyone got to pick their favorite.
I had to take a picture of this, because this is the most
awesome wrapping job that Huzbend has ever done.
Its awesomeness is beyond mere words......
Katie had another loose tooth. This time a big front one.
It was my first (human) tooth extraction. It was kinda gross.
With the promise of a cookie to ensure cooperation.....
Pop! Out it came.
Speaking of cookies.
We made a bunch of gingerbread cookies along with the now
traditional gingerbread house.
We took some time yesterday to decorate them all.
Katie took all the knowledge gleaned from hours of
"Cupcake Wars" and the "Sugar Dome" to
crank out some crazy cookies.
It became a team effort.
Except that Mikey only ended up decorating two cookies out of the dozen.
And he ate one of those two.
Along with a half bowl of icing.
Behold! The finished product.
As if there weren't enough sugar flowing through the veins,
it was time to decorate the gingerbread house.
I would say that the amount of candy that you see on this house is
equal to the amount that ended up in Katie's stomach.
It's no surprise she loves gingerbread houses.
