Christmas Morning

We got lots of fun toys this morning, but here's the one Kevin and I are most excited about. It's a Flip Mino HD video camera. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! This little video camera is slightly larger than my cell phone and it's AMAZING. It can fit up to an hour of HD video on it, has USB and auxiliary outputs, and it includes its own software for editing and sharing. It's pretty, too (in an iPod sort of way). Here's a sample of the video I took. Now we just need to get a good camerawoman. . .




We'll post more later. Merry Christmas!

December Happenings

Here's an update of some of the things that we have been doing this month. First, we got our Christmas tree up. Kevin also got a new tripod for his camera, so he played around with it while the kids did silly poses in front of the tree.


One day we were at Wal-Mart and I saw a gingerbread house kit. I always wanted a gingerbread house when I was kid. So I indulged my inner child and bought this one. It was a real effort to keep the kids from ripping open the box until after dinner time.


We made a big mess and spent a lot of time licking fingers. The icing got pretty warm in my hands and after the first 5 minutes I just slopped it on as fast as I could, but the kids had fun decorating.


Here's the finished product:


Later in the month we went to the Christmas Party that Kevin's company throws every year for their employees. They always have lots of fun activities for the kids. We thought about skipping it this year, because there have been so many other activities going on, but the kids started asking about the Christmas party right after Halloween and we figured they would never forgive us if we didn't take them.

There was rock climbing. Maggie and Matthew took turns bragging about how they would get to the top of the 40-foot wall. Maggie made it as high as Kevin could push her up before deciding that she really doesn't care for extreme sports.


Matthew was slightly braver than Maggie, but he didn't get more than 8 feet off the ground before he needed to come down.


There were pony rides.


And face painting.

And of course the required visit to Santa.


I asked Maggie on the way out the door if that was really Santa and she said, "No, his beard was falling off." Upon further questioning she told me, " Santa can't be everywhere so he has lots of helpers to dress up like him."

Matthew's preschool held it's Christmas pageant last week. He was a townsperson. We were in the very back, so we didn't get any good pictures. Here's the least blurry of the bunch:


The kids have been enjoying their time off this week. We are trying to wean them off TV. So we've spent a lot of time pushing them out the back door shouting, "Go PLAY! (before you drive me crazy)." With all the time outside they adopted a pet. It's called "Our Pet Stick Bug." Maggie grew quite attached to it before she lost it.

They also brought me our bountiful harvest:

Hmm. There were also a few tangerines, but the kids ate those. I still haven't figured out how to get more than one tomato per plant. Maybe I'll make that a New Year's resolution

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I read this on a forum somewhere. I thought it was too funny not to share. Despite my initial impression, this is not all political humor.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me...

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...

ANDERSON COOPER - CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra... #R&^*^(!.... Reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

We're Still Here!

Has really been almost a month since my last post? Oops, sorry! I keep thinking about things that I should post, but then I never have pictures and I'd really rather read other people's writing than create my own. But, I will try to do better. Have I ever mentioned that writing is not my strong suit? I managed to get through 2 years of high school English without writing a single essay. I would just read really long novels from our outside reading list, accrue lots of extra credit, then skip all the essays. I got A's both years. There seems to be a problem with that system. . . .

Well, for a summary of our Thanksgiving:
Kevin came down with the stomach flu that Maggie had brought home. He came home on Tuesday night and collapsed in bed with a fever. He slept all day Wednesday and encouraged me to do holiday baking. :) On Thanksgiving day, I cleaned the kitchen, started making dinner, cleaned the kitchen again, finished making dinner, and then Kevin managed to drag himself to the table to eat a bite of everything before he crawled back into bed while I cleaned the kitchen yet again. I know I'm complaining, but it wasn't really so bad. I just got tired of washing dishes. Under normal circumstances, I avoid washing dishes as much as I avoid writing essays.

On Black Friday, I ventured out to Toys R Us at 5:30am. It was kind of fun. You feel a certain camaraderie with people when you stand in line with them for an hour to buy Christmas presents for your kids. I did not, however, venture out to Wal-Mart. I get the impression that Wal-Mart customers do not feel the same warm, fuzzy feelings that Toys R Us customers have in the early morning hours.

At Maggie's urging, we also put up our Christmas tree that afternoon. Kevin was feeling well enough that he could sit on the couch and help out a little. We have a pre-lit tree that we bought 4 or 5 years ago. When we got it plugged in, we noticed that about half of the lights were burned out. Instead of going out and spending $100 on a new Christmas tree, we decided to cannibalize a string of our outdoor icicle lights and replace the burned out bulbs on the tree. Unfortunately, the little light bulb casings for our outdoor lights are just slightly larger than the ones on the tree. So we got to work totally dismantling the things. All the kids helped, too. Kevin would pull the light in its casing out of the string, the kids pulled the light bulbs out of their white casings, then I put the bulbs into a green casing and popped it back into the tree. We got about halfway through, when I found a bulb that looked particularly burned out. Not all the bulbs that were unlit were burned out. We tested each one before we replaced it. But this one was blacker than all the others and I figured that it had caused problems for the other bulbs. Sure enough, I replaced it, the whole tree flashed on, and then everything went black again, even the ones we had just replaced. The moral of the story? Don't buy pre-lit trees! I went to Home Depot and got several strings of lights for $2.50 each and we strung them onto our tree to camouflage the burned-out bulbs.

Well, that's enough writing for me today. We have some pictures on the camera and I will try to get those posted before we get into Christmas celebrations. Is it really only a week until Christmas?? We're still plodding through all the Halloween candy. And I suspect that there may still be Thanksgiving leftovers lurking in the back of the fridge.