Gingerbread Houses, 2012

We bought a kit containing 4 miniature gingerbread houses from Michael's. It always takes me a while to figure out how to put the houses together without making a huge mess. This year, we had a new saving grace. Nolan's 60 cc feeding tube syringes make excellent icing delivery tools.

Matt was very excited to decorate his house. He lined up all of the candy and got straight to work.

Nolan was really excited about decorating his house, too. He was primarily interested in sneaking pieces of candy into his mouth. He has a penchant for gumdrops!

I decorated two of the houses, because the boys were really only "up" for decorating one house each. I have decided that my talents lie in the realm of science and not in baked goods. At least my house remained standing - I consider that a success!

Matt was a good big brother and helped Nolan apply more icing as it was needed.

Matt's house when it was nearly finished. He did everything by himself, including the "Christmas Tree" in the front of the house.

Nolan's house, also nearly completed. He was applying icing for a path to the front door.

The first three houses, done and ready to display. Matt is in the background, working on the fourth house.

I love Christmas traditions. Especially the sticky, gooey, sweet traditions. We're in the final countdown to Christmas now - tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the kids are beyond excited!

Matt's "Real" Birthday

Since Matt's birthday is on December 22, we always hold his birthday party on the first weekend of December. After his party, he told everyone, "Today is my fake birthday."

His real birthday arrived this weekend. We let him open his first presents on the night before his birthday, because we knew he would be excited to see his new Star Wars bedding set from Grandma and Grandpa L.  He was really excited to hop into his "new bed."

He also got a blizzard for his birthday, and nothing makes Matthew happier than a yard filled with deep snow. He didn't come inside at all on Saturday.

He came inside and had hot cocoa, we made gingerbread houses, then went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner (his choice). When we got home, he opened his presents.

He got geodes from his Aunt Kristy. We plan on whacking them with a hammer tomorrow - he is really excited about this one.

Dennis and I bought him a gem discovery kit - Smithsonian makes this kit. We woke to a hammer banging on our kitchen table at 6:30 am the following morning. At least he didn't get a drum set for his birthday...

Uncle David and Aunt Mary Ellen gave him a Lego police truck. He built it within 5 minutes of taking this picture. He and Nolan have been placing "bad guys" in jail all weekend.

My parents bought Matthew a Snap Circuit kit. This is the best toy ever. So far, they have made a simple light circuit, a warbling "space noise" circuit, a music circuit that turns on when you clap your hands, a helicopter, and a spin art station. I finally made him put the toy away at 9:00 pm, because the child needed to sleep. We may have a future engineer on our hands!

Science Project with the Kids

I decided to make a volcano with the boys the other day. A little salt dough, baking soda, and vinegar was the "hit of the party," so to speak. I made a video of the project for my Hubpages account, and the boys had a great time playing with the erupting foam for several hours.

Want a how-to, if you're not familiar with salt dough or baking soda/vinegar reactions? A video is here:


I'm pretty sure the boys have no concept of double replacement reactions and decomposition reactions, but they did enjoy watching the foam form, and we talked about chemical reactions - they could see the solid baking soda and the liquid vinegar were reacting and creating a gas (carbon dioxide).

Both boys are extremely "into" science these days - though I'm pretty sure all kids are fascinated by science. Volcanoes, space, and aerodynamics have been major topics of discussion of late!

Christmas Cookies

'Tis the season to bake. And bake. And bake some more. I have been knee deep in flour, sugar, and cookie dough!

First, the chocolate crinkles. Oh, the chocolatey goodness of these cookies. I love them.

Sugar cookies were up next. These are a must in our Christmas baking schedule - we often make more than one batch.

I made these candy cane kiss cookies today. So fun, and the kids love them. I also made some thumbprint cookies, but they didn't turn out. So we'll just pretend I never made them and just stick with the pretty picture of the kiss cookies.

I plan on making some snickerdoodles and a few other cookies tomorrow. I plan on making cookie trays for some of the neighbors and also for Matt's piano teacher. All I know is that these cannot stay in the house, because I must stop eating cookies.

Matt's Seventh Birthday Party

Matthew's birthday is three days before Christmas. We decided to hold a birthday party with his friends and classmates on the first weekend in December, since most families are traveling or simply too busy to do birthday parties as Christmas approaches. I chose the local Audubon Society for his party location, because I figured the great outdoors would be a great place to let a lot of six and seven year old children run off energy.

The weather was terrible on the day of Matt's party, but the Audubon has a great indoor exhibit area. We made stamped salt-dough Christmas ornaments for a craft in the party room - the girls really liked this activity, but only a few of the boys participated.

The kids liked "fishing" in the pretend pond (the fish are caught by magnets on the fishing poles).

Everyone loved playing with the realistic puppets and looking at the educational exhibits on the second floor. I did feel a little sorry for the volunteers at the Audubon, because a class of six and seven year old children gets very loud.

I told Matt to hold up his fingers to indicate how old he was, and this is what I got. He's starting to get a little self conscious.

We had a pinata, and the children gleefully took turns to knock it down. I think there were 2 or 3 kids that didn't manage to get a whack at it, because it was simply done for by that point.

Despite the rain, we took the kids out to see Liberty the eagle. She has an injured wing and cannot be returned to the wild, so she lives at the Jamestown Audubon.

We went back inside and had cake. We bought a pull-apart cupcake cake, and it was a great idea. This is much easier to serve, and kids seem to like cupcakes better than a slice of sheet cake.

Matthew opened his presents from his friends. He was so excited and grateful for all of his gifts.

We stayed to clean up after the party, then gathered up our two munchkins to head home. With the high level of excitement and the sugar rush, we were ready for a quiet evening!

Hunting for Christmas Trees

It's that time of year again - we took our annual trip to Pleasant Pine Plantation in Warren, Pennsylvania. Nolan brought along his binoculars so he could spot the perfect tree.

Pleasant Pine used to have a tractor-drawn hay wagon, which was wonderful for hauling the Christmas trees up the long hill. Unfortunately, their tractor has broken and now they give patrons a hand cart. We headed down the hill to the Christmas tree farm - the boys were really excited and loved running ahead to find our tree.

Dennis manned the tree cart. It worked really well, considering the ground was very muddy in some places. It was about 50 degrees, warm for our area at this time of year.

Nolan has recently decided he is a ninja, and we cannot go anywhere without him hiding behind objects and darting from one thing to the next. We have to pretend we don't see him.

No, you do not see Nolan behind that tree. You also don't see him running in the picture below.

Matt was a real help on this trip and wanted to push the tree cart. We let him do this, though it was a bit nerve wracking when we were close to other families.

Last year, we bought a tree that looked so small on the lot. We got it home, and had to cut off 2 feet from the top of the tree so it would fit in our house. This year, we aimed for a smaller tree. The boys found our tree and posed happily in front of it.

Dennis cut it down and we hauled it up the hill, where it was shaken, netted, and paid for.

The Christmas tree farm handed out coloring books to the kids, which read like live tree propaganda.  For some reason, this cracked me up.

We put our tree into the truck, alongside our neighbor's tree. It was fun going with them on our tree hunt, and we went out to dinner at the local Chinese food buffet on the way home.

We set the tree up once we got home - no need for it to thaw out this year! It was much smaller than we anticipated, so next year we'll try to find a slightly bigger tree. The kids loved decorating it and putting on the lights.

Of course, letting the kids decorate the tree results in all of the ornaments on 2 or 3 of the tree's branches. I was going to fix the tree after they went to bed, but then decided to leave it. There won't be very many more Christmases with "little" kids - so I'm just embracing the imperfectness of our tree this year.

The good thing about a little tree is that the kids could reach most of it by themselves!

 I had to get a picture of the boys in front of the tree - difficult to do in low light, but I did get a few shots that weren't too blurry.

Now, we just have to wait for Santa Claus to come - the kids are so excited!

All Tucked in for the Night

Nolan has been extremely nurturing lately - taking care of his stuffed animals. He has to tuck them in every night at the end of his bed. He makes sure their faces aren't covered and that they're nice and "warm."

It is the cutest thing - I wish I could freeze him at this age forever.