Away From The Manger

There seems to be a criminal theft phenomenon that is purely seasonal in its occurrence......theft of Baby Jesus. You hear it on the news every year. Someone has stolen the Baby Jesus from St. Whatever's nativity display for the 9th straight year. They have made the decision to lo jack their Christ child to prevent further theft and catch the kidnappers.

My house is not immune to this petty thievery. I have an old nativity set that I played with throughout my childhood that is embedded with a child magnet. It calls to the under 10 set, begging them to play with it's paint-chipped magi, faded trees, and one-legged sheep. I bought my kids their own Little People nativity set last year to distract them, but was an effort in futility. Baby Jesus always goes missing. I have found him hanging out with Barbie, riding in a tractor and chilling in a block castle with Spiderman. Apparently the manger scene is just not that hip and the wise men and sheep are just not his kind of crowd. I am considering hot glue to curb his running away from home.

This year is different. He left a stand in. I really don't know why the King of Kings asked a lackey from an evil empire to keep his seat warm, but I guess I will have to ask him when I see him. Time to check with the Lego guys or look in the Bat Cave. WWJG? (Where Would Jesus Go?)

Ornament Exchange III

What makes a good party? Some creative cocktails, entertaining conversation, great food and a bunch of awesome chics. No foot of snow this time, but the tassel came back. Thanks again for a fun night, Trish!

Merry Christmas Martinis

(courtesy of Nancy our mixmaster)

2 oz Citrus vodka
3/4 oz Midori
splash of white cranberry juice
Shake over ice and strain!

Fancy Nancy

Arecelis, Dori, Mary and Me

Michelle modeling the "Tassel"

Dee, Dori, dragonflies and Jennifer

Amy and her Frog

Erika, Joanna, and Caroline

Donita and Kylla

Donita, Nancy, Trish and Sally

Freezing Brownies

Tonight we braved the weather and 'teen temperatures to watch the local Christmas parade. We have never attended since it seemed to me that sitting out in freezing weather to watch floats, high school bands and get candy thrown from participants was kind of a dumb idea. Last year it was even cancelled because of an ice storm. Maybe the fine people of Illinois would snicker at the thought of us Texans doing the same in the third week of August. I guess it is all in your perception of dumb. At least there was free hot chocolate!

Anyway, the area Scouts, including Georgia's Brownie Troop were walking partipants this year. So we were obligated to bundle up and watch our girl in the festivities. Thankfully, she was in one of the first groups, so after Brody had his fill of floats and candy, we headed inside for pizza and beer to thaw out and wait for the call that they had sucussfully navigated the parade route.

First Snowman Winter 2008

We had our first snow of 2008 overnight

and that means a new snowman. Look! Finally a picture of

two smiling kids playing in the snow.

Uncle Matt was wishing for snow while family visited from Texas for Thanksgiving.

But as luck would have it, it started

snowing after everyone flew out on Saturday.

Sorry guys!

Daddy Daughter Dance

A Little Girl's Night Out

Yummy Cookies from Amy

Daddy's Little Girl with Big Girl Hair

Diva Darlings: Olivia & Georgia

Princesses Posing

daddies & daughters

a little like prom isn't it?


Girls and dads are gone,

so mommies are sharing wine

and a laugh.



All gone!

Thanks to Trish for the pizza and hospitality.

Thanks to Amy for her wonderful cookies and help with pictures.

Fun night!

Leaving on a Jet Plane.....

Brody and I visited the local airfield with some friends for a tour of their jets, hangars, and fire station. He was in heaven. Planes and fire trucks are two of his most favorite things.

Maybe Santa will bring me this if I am very, very good!

We watched the mechanics taking an engine off an Embraer jet (which is the plane we take flying out of our airport) and saw a Beechnut Turbo Propeller plane, a Lear jet and a Falcon 10. They even allowed all of us to climb aboard the that holds 7-8 passengers. Brody thought the cockpit was especially cool. The other thing to hold the kid's interest was the selsom used hidden potty in a drawer.

Brody admiring the cockpit of the Falcon 10

We learned that one of the jets goes 548 mph and you could get to Florida and have lunch with Mickey Mouse in about an hour and a half. I think all of the kids were willing and ready to take our guide up on the trip! The tour was very educational and interesting. We learned that the field was a Fixed Base Operator or FBO and handled all the maintenance for the airport planes, provided pilots for private planes, and ran all the charters for the sports teams for university in town. The highlight for Brody was watching the little Cessnas take off and land with students who have class at the local flight school. Apparently we have novice fliers over our heads everyday from 8am until midnight.....didn't want to know that living so close to the airport!

Brody and Kacee with a Beechnut Turbo Prop

The firehouse was small, but had a one-man firetruck equipped with a "water-gun" hose that the driver can operate to douse a fuel fire with foam. We learned that airport firetrucks are a yellow-green color because it is more easily seen from a distance than the color red. They also still have their original truck which was essentially an ancient red military jeep with two extinguisher canisters strapped to the hood. I didn't catch the year, but it looked pretty antique.

Brody "driving" the one-man fire truck

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from our favorite

pop star and evil galactic lord.

Toddler's Halloween Manifesto

I am such a fan of offbeat humor. I found this post from Kim Foster, who blogs at Yummy Mummy and laughed so hard I cried....I had to share. It is about her kids preplanning for Halloween so that parents will be prepared for what will happen....an All Hallows Eve Bill of Rights, if you will.

"The Halloween Manifesto was not just their doing. Oh no, they polled their friends, at playgroups, playgrounds, pre-school and countless gymnastics classes, carefully scribbling down in pink crayon the thoughtful responses of every toddler willing to give them an earful about their Halloween wishes. They have asked me to disseminate the results of their intricate polling so you’d know what your kids really want for Halloween. Yes, that's right - your kids were involved in this as well. Read it and weep:

The Toddler’s Halloween Manifesto

1. The right to completely ignore the great dinner you made to make more room in our bellies for candy. Halloween is the high holy day of candy eating, parents. We’re not idiots.
2. The right to hide a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup in our shirt until it gets all warm and melty and liquidy and then to suck the chocolate and peanut butter out of the paper wrapper as if we were insects.
3. The right to cover the entire surface area of the living room floor with candy and treats and spend the remainder of our awake-time sorting through the debris, fondling the cartoon-covered wrappers until they are mutilated beyond recognition and begging you for just “one more piece of candy” until we keel over in a sugar-induced coma.
4. The right to make you feel like crap because you couldn’t find a blue princess dress and make the “pitiful orphan face” until you go on line at the Disney store and buy the most expensive princess dresses they have and give our family’s hard-earned, recession-riddled money over to the blood-sucking commercial machine.
5. The right to remove our underpants while Trick or Treating because we like the feeling of being “fresh” while going door to door.
6. The right to not have our candy orgy interrupted by parents who “just want that little Snickers bar” or who steal our Pixie sticks “because they remind us of when we were kids”. We are uninterested in your trips through nostalgia-land, parents. Re-read your yearbook, tell the neighbors that story about how you almost made prom queen and focus on your beer. Let us worry about our insulin levels.
7. Apples, pretzels and oranges are not treats, parents. We want the sugar, high fructose corn syrup, additives, preservatives, red dye number 4 and blue dye number 6. The whole enchee-lada. If it causes cancer in mice, bring it on. Do not mock us with your attempts at nutrition on this holiest of days.
8. The right to notice that Hershey bars are the same color as poop and to state that revelation in front of people who don’t have children and who are eating a Hershey bar, in hopes we might see them gag, make the vomit face or spit up a little bit in their mouths.
9. The right to not have the contents of our treat bag disappear or dwindle down significantly by parents who think they are helping us by “removing” the candy from the house while we sleep. We are onto you. We have taken inventory on our Barbie calculators. Step away from the treat bag.
10. The right to be covered in chocolate from head to toe and refuse a bath, to spend all evening with sticky hands until finally we decide to clean up and then wipe them on your new pants, and to not get yelled at when we grind red Swedish fish into your new off-white Berber carpet because in our hallucinogenic reverie, we think the red swirly pattern looks cool. It’s Halloween after all and all bets are off. "

Halloween #1

Darth and Hannah

Cookie Masterpieces

Tonight we had a date with Darth Vader and Hannah Montana. They make an interesting pair since we are on our second year of non-matching costumes. Georgia was very excited to try out the life of a platinum blonde. She was insistant that no dark hair show through, so we spent a little time pin-curling that mass of hair that she has to her head so that the wig would be perfect.
We went to the country club's annual Halloween party where they ate pizza and pasta, carved pumpkins, iced cookies, and heckled the performers on stilts. Georgia was the only pop-star that we saw and Brody was one of two Vaders. He was quite at home with the large number of Star Wars cast members in attendance. Lots of Yodas and Clone Troopers to play with.
They looked in on "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", but it did not seem to hold their interest (probably because there were no light sabers or singing teenagers), so we moved on to souvenier pictures that go home in a clear plastic coaster. Brody was later bothered by the fact that I was using said coaster for its intended purpose. "Mom, your drink is on my face. It doesn't go there!"
Mom's favorite was the club's pumpkin pie and chocolate mousse. They always have the best desserts. We made it an early night and skipped the scary hayride since it was a school night. Bummer. Thank goodness the real deal is on a Friday night!

Nature Walk

Georgia's class went on a field trip to a local wildlife center for a nature walk and lesson on seed distribution. Since today is my volunteer day, I got to go along.

It was fun helping first graders look for different types of seeds but it was cold and windy today and most of our walking was in the shade of the woods Brrrr! Georgia thought the milkweed races at the end off of the walk were cool.