The Replacement

Our first and only ornamental tragedy of the season so far:

My personalized snowman ornament jumped off the tree to its demise a few weeks ago. Some of our ornaments don't mean all that much and are easy to replace, but this guy is a good 10 years old, dating back to my college days and my first Christmas together with Rick. I bought them as a pair at the Chico State bookstore....one for Rick and one for me.

But now that I'd lost mine, I thought I'd have to go out and look for a new set with our names on them, but Tyler solved the problem for us.

He made a replacement ornament for me at school. He could have decorated it any way he chose, but he decided to make a new snowman ornament personalized with my name. Can I just say, I ♥ that boy! And now Rick's snowman has a companion again. ♥ ♥ ♥

And as if that wasn't enough, he brought home this one too. Yay! I love the new ornaments! Soooo cute!

Must See to Believe

Remember last year when Tyler was completely fixated with the idea of changing his name to Boomie? That's all he could talk about. That's what he named his Wii avatar, and what he wrote on his schoolwork, and he even had his best friend calling him that. He even went on to suggest it as a baby name for Kyle.

Well all that kind of faded a bit over the summer and now that he's in a new school, he's dropped Boomie from his homework and has been using his own name.

So last night Tyler and I were watching Jeopardy.....actually it was on in the background and we were working on puzzle books. Then we heard Alex say something like, "Make your selection, Boomie." Tyler looks up from his book and says, "Boomie?". I heard it too, but was sure I'd misheard him and was waiting to see what the name actually was.

And then we saw it.

His name was Boomie! Honest to God! Tyler and I died laughing. I didn't even realize that was a real name. I just thought it was some crazy thing Tyler made up (which it was), but still....I never imagined.

And as it turned out, Boomie is one smart cookie.

He was the only one to get final Jeopardy right and he won the game.

Ha! I guess Tyler and I will have to tune in again tonight to see how he does as the returning champion.

True Story

Tyler has a holiday journal that he's been working on as an assignment for school. We filled up several pages writing about our Thanksgiving, but haven't done much for Christmas. So yesterday I told Tyler that he needed to pick something to write about, and this is what he wrote:

He could have written about the new ornaments we got from Hallmark this year, or how Daddy put up Christmas lights on the house, or how we decorated the tree, or how we got brand new personalized stockings, but no....he had to write about how I burnt some cookies?!

So much for forgetting about that!

Free Meals

As a reward for reaching 400 minutes of reading each month, which is the goal of the 20/20 reading program at Tyler's school, he receives a coupon (sometimes two) for a free meal at a local restaurant.

These are the two he got for his October reading calendar....

One is for a free personal pizza at Pizza Hut and the other is for a free kids meal at Creekside West. We already cashed in the pizza coupon, but still have the other one to use. We've never been to the Creekside restaurant so I'm not sure if it's a baby friendly place.

Then today Tyler brought home his November reading calendar with two more coupons. This time he got another one for Pizza Hut and a pass for a free meal at Old Country Buffet.

With all these food coupons piling up, I think maybe we should go out to eat this weekend. Yep, sounds like a plan!

Back in the City

Here's what's been going on in Tyler's Lego City Advent Calendar.

If you remember, Day 1 brought us that scroungy looking criminal.

But the police caught up to him and he's behind bars now.

Handcuffs and everything. Never mind the lack of walls at the jail...it's a work in progress.

The criminal must have been deemed a non-violent offender or was cited for good behavior because today he was awarded his own cushy bed.

In other parts of the city, the Christmas tree is up, decorated and even has some presents underneath.

And the snowball catapult is standing by just in case....you know, if any more bad guys come around.

Gingerbread Night

Last night was the big holiday event for the 1st graders at Tyler's school. Instead of a musical program, they had Gingerbread Night and the families were invited to come and make gingerbread houses.

So we went and sat at a table with some others kids from his class and got to work on our creation. There was a one house per family limit so once I attached the graham cracker pieces to the mini milk carton and slathered them up with frosting, it was Tyler's turn to work his decorating magic.

Gumdrops, pretzels sticks, marshmallows, M&M's....

...and ta-da! His house is complete with a Werther's Original staircase, a pretzel stick walkway, a snowman out front and a fire pit made out of tootsie rolls, wheat chex and a yellow gumdrop in the middle for a flame. Looks good enough to eat - and believe me, Tyler's already yanked a few pieces off for himself.

Ahh, but then it was time to go get a picture with Santa. Tyler's never sat on Santa's lap before so this was a first for him. His teacher told him, "Tyler, tell Santa what you want for Christmas". So he turned to Santa and said, "What do you want for Christmas?"

And Santa said, "Oh well, I'd like a new motorcycle and.....". And that's when I quit listening because I was dying of laughter! I don't even know if Santa asked Tyler what he wanted.

But at least he smiled nicely for a picture.

The First Day of Christmas

For about a week now, ever since we showed Tyler the Lego advent calendar that Grandma sent in the mail, he's been anxious to open the first box. So now that it's December 1st, he finally had at it.

This year the calendar has a Lego City theme, which I guess means 'cops and robbers' because behind door #1 was a....

....robber (as Tyler put it). I didn't believe it at first, but then Rick pointed out the gold tooth and the striped shirt with a serial number on the chest. Hmm, it's kind of hard to argue with that logic.

Tyler wondered what was with that white thing...but we've since determined it's supposed to be a snowball, which probably indicates an impending snowball fight with the police.