Merry Christmas!

Tyler was up bright and early this morning at 6:45 and quickly discovered the goodies that Santa left behind for him and his brother.

 

He got a pogo stick and a skateboard....both of which, he's wanted for a long time. Kyle got a ride-on roller coaster and a rocking/bouncy horse. The roller coaster is more of an outdoor toy, but for the time being, it's taking up the entire living room. Kyle loves it though...and of course, so does Tyler. Turns out it takes a long time before you outgrow baby toys.

 

For breakfast I made the usual cinnamon rolls. I tried to talk myself out of it yesterday, but the boys wouldn't hear of it. In our house Christmas morning = cinnamon rolls.

Here's Kyle's rocking horse. He needs a little help getting on, but once he's on there, he has a great time.

Tyler made out like a bandit with all his gifts....board games, Skylander game/giants, new slippers and pajamas, and a slot car track.

The Monopoly Millionaire game was a huge hit.

Kyle was having fun playing with some new puzzles from Papa Bear. He also got some new pajamas and slippers, plenty of new books, and some Little People playsets.

Outside it was snowing, the most we've had all week...several inches at least.

For dinner I made a beef roast with mashed potatoes and a cranberry white chocolate cheesecake for dessert. We're still waiting on the meat to come out of the oven, so I'll have to get back to you on how it all turned out, but until then....

Merry Christmas!!

Lego Advent Calendar Day 21-24

Here's the grand finale of Tyler's Lego calendar:

 

Day 21: Okay this one's not so fantastic, but I guess it's a requisite for any fire station. Safety cones.

Day 22:  A trailer on skis that will presumably hitch onto Santa's train, snowmobile, or whatever vehicle he's coming on this year.

Day 23: Presents....really big ones.

Day 24: Santa and his snowmobile.

Ho, Ho, Ho....Merry Christmas, Lego City!

Stocking Stuffers

In Tyler's class this year, they're doing a small gift exchange similar to the one last year. Each of the kids made their own stockings and were "invited" to bring little stocking stuffers to share with the rest of the class for the holiday party which is happening today.

 

The first thought that always comes to mind is some sort of small candy, but with schools the way they are this day and age, food allergies and obesity problems...anything sweet and/or edible is highly discouraged. Still, I sent a bag of individually wrapped Life Savers last year, but this time I thought oh okay, I'll follow the rules.

The idea is to go with something small like pencils, erasers, stickers, balloons....that sort of thing.

So I got some festive bead necklaces at Joann's. I thought it was the perfect thing. Tyler always asks to wear my beads on St. Patrick's Day and Mardi Gras, so I thought it would work for boys or girls.

He even wore some to his holiday program the other day. They don't look girlie...do they?

I'm not going to worry about it. It's too late to change now. I'll be curious to see though, what the other parents thought of.

Lego Advent Calendar Day 11-20

Here's a peek at what came in the last 10 days of Tyler's advent calendar.

 

Day 11: An off-road vehicle, which came without tires, but thankfully the mechanic from day 9 had some to spare.

Day 12: A female firefighter with a set of walkie-talkies

Day 13: Fire station office equipment

Day 14: A container fire

Day 15: Another wall with fire fighting gear, although Tyler insists that it's scuba gear.

But does this guy look like he's about to jump into the ocean? NO.

Day 16: A girl with snowballs.

Day 17: A snowball catapult

Day 18: A dog with a fire hydrant

Day 19: A smirky looking firefighter

But he brought extra mugs of coffee and helmets for the rest of the class, so I guess he can't be all that bad.

 

Day 20: A wheelbarrow, snowballs and a shovel

One Hundred Reindeer

Last week when I was at the store, I came across this puzzle that was misplaced somewhere.

 

OMG! A Christmas one hundred and one puzzle...I love those puzzles!  I bought Tyler two 300 piece puzzles a few years back for his birthday. One was 100 penguins and a polar bear and the other was 100 frogs and a fly. They're such cute puzzles, but harder than they look since all of the pieces tend to look the same.

I couldn't believe it, so I snatched it right up. One hundred reindeer and Santa! I thought it'd be the perfect thing to keep Tyler busy during Christmas break. But then I thought about it more and realized that once he gets out of school, there will only 3 more days until Christmas. Probably not enough time to finish before Christmas.

So we started earlier, breaking open the box over the weekend and working on it when we have time and in the evenings after dinner.

Tyler insists that it's too hard and that I must be some kind of puzzle whiz, but I just tell him to keep looking for pieces...it's just extra tricky, that's all.

Gingerbread Cookies

Tyler has been wanting to make gingerbread cookies for weeks now, but since I prefer drop cookies over anything you have to roll out, I resisted. They are good though and it is that time of  year, so I caved in and helped  him make some yesterday.

 

It's really not that bad once you get started and now that Tyler's older, he's a much better at helping. I was in charge of rolling out the dough and he cut out the cookies and placed them on the baking sheet.

Tyler's favorite part is the decorating, so once the cookies were all out of the oven, we put them outside to cool on the porch.  It was only 30 something degrees and snowing outside, so the cookies were ready in no time flat.

As usual we used the icing in a sandwich baggie trick, but it doesn't work the best for Tyler. Still, he produced some good looking cookies.

At first we were using only mini chocolate chips and red hots, but then I pulled out the red sugar sprinkles, adding an extra punch to the final few.

 

 

Lego Advent Calendar Day 1-10

For the third year in a row, Tyler is counting down the days to Christmas with a Lego City Advent Calendar. It was a gift from Grandma and we let him have it on Thanksgiving so he could fawn over it for a whole week before finally tearing into it.

 

This year the calendar has a firefighter theme, which seems better than the cops and robbers theme from last year, but I'll hold my judgement until the end.

Tyler set up it up on his bedroom dresser, so each morning he hops out of bed and makes the build for that day before getting ready for school. Here's a look at the first ten days:

Day 1: A fireman with a bullhorn

Day 2: A chainsaw and some sawed logs

Day 3: A Christmas tree

Day 4: A staircase (huh?)

Day 5: A wall to the fire station (maybe) with a fire extinguisher and an ax

Day 6: A boy with snowballs

Day 7: An RC firetruck

Day 8: Another wall, this time with skis and poles

Day 9: A mechanic

Day 10: A dolly with four tires

As you can see, the calendar is really starting to fill in, especially since he rebuilt a few of the pieces from last year. Looking good, huh?

Tyler: Interior Designer

If Max could speak, I'm sure he'd say that he's perfectly happy with his living quarters. He has everything he needs....plenty of food, a variety of toys, and because his cage is centrally located in the house, he generally has company all day long.

 

But I guess that after a while, looking at the same old stuff everyday could get kind of boring. That's where Tyler comes in. He spruced up Max's abode with a one of a kind bird print. 

 

 

Look at that! The colorful artwork really livens the place up and Max agrees...he even whistled about it.

Tyler used a stencil kit that he got in a kid's meal from Wendy's over the weekend. We don't have a Wendy's here in town anymore, so we've got to get our Frosty's when we have the chance. Anyway, it's a cute little kit that makes four different pictures, but the bird one is my favorite. It's nice, huh? I kind of wish Tyler hung the picture up on the fridge instead, but this way Max can enjoy the picture too.

Meet Alexander

For the past several years I've bought a new Christmas book for Tyler in early December. This year the tradition continues, but now I'm buying two books...one for Tyler and one for Kyle. For Kyle I got Curious George Countdown to Christmas and for Tyler I got The Elf on the Shelf, which is a huge thing for kids his age.

 

The book comes with a magical elf direct from Santa, who, once adopted by your family will watch over your house during the day and report back to Santa at night. Then the next day he comes back and finds a new place in the house to sit. It's a game that way...finding out where the elf is hiding each day.

 

We got the elf last Friday and Tyler named him Alexander. We left him in the box that night, but by the morning we found him sitting on the entertainment center in the living room.

 

There are two rules with Alexander. One: Kids are not supposed to touch him or else he loses his magic. Two: Alexander can't talk to kids as per Santa's orders.

So for the next two weeks Tyler will have fun of looking for Alexander, but come Christmas Eve, the elf will fly back to the North Pole to stay until next year.