Christmas Build-up

Jenn has been busy this early December with shuffling the kids around to school, to Grandma's, getting the shopping done, keeping the house, and designing and baking cakes.  A next step toward going pro, Jenn made a cake for a party thrown by one of my Zoetis reps.  A birthday cake for a good friend's daughter is next on the agenda.


Lincoln can't get enough of playing in the snow.  Yesterday's snowfall was good for making snowballs, so we made his first snowman.  The kids were quite excited.


Later in the evening, Lincoln decided he didn't want to leave the hat on the snowman all night long... you know, the wind might blow it off... so I challenged him to run outside in his bare feet to get it.


Oodles is back at our house this December, reporting on the kids to Santa.  I can't say it's made any improvement in their behavior, but they get excited to look for Oodles each day, to see what he's up to.  It's hard to one-up myself each time, so I don't even try.  Some days Oodles is doing something outrageous and funny, and other days he's just sitting somewhere checking stuff out.


The other night, the kids wanted to sing to Oodles.  (He'd been wrapped up in toilet paper by some snowmen!)


We've been getting a steady dose of The Grinch, as well as some Scholastic Christmas books Jenn got at the end of last season.  I don't recall Lincoln anticipating Christmas as much when he was three, but since he's really into it, the little ones are also getting excited a bit.  I'm not sure that they remember about getting a bunch of presents, but they'll soon be refreshed.

One thing I'm excited about this Christmas season is that I got Jenn's presents wrapped before she found them hidden somewhere.

One more week until the Christmas Extravaganza really begins!

Poopin' In Beverly Hills

TIme to play a little catch-up. I received the Hopwood's OBX'13 photos.
On another note… Since we got the Sonata outfitted to handle the iPod more easily, we've been having fun listening to all sorts of songs in the car. The kids' affinity for Superchick and TobyMac has been well-documented, but the other day I was playing from my playlist, and this Weezer song played.
I scan through the "crap" and "screwed" lines to get to the chorus, and the kids love the chorus, mostly because it's short and easy to remember. What makes this particularly funny is that Lydia will sometimes start singing at home, "Beverly Hills! That's where I want to be!" And what is even funnier is last week she was sitting on her potty and she sang, "Beverly Hills! That's where I want to poop! Poopin' in Beverly Hills!"

Benchmarks

Brandon brought a cake to our most recent Edge small group get-together and it made all of us laugh.

Now it's time for listing some benchmarks for the purposes of future reflection.

Lincoln has been very interested in his songs in the car. These include hits from Superchick's Karaoke Superstars album such as "Big Star Machine," "Karaoke Superstars," "Super Trouper," "TV Land," "One Girl Revolution," & "Alright." Also, Superchik's "Rock What You Got," and "Hey Hey." Also, Fee's "Glory To God." Also, tobyMac's "Gone," "Made To Love," "Lose My Soul," & "Get Back Up." Also, Newboys' "Born Again." And a few other songs that aren't coming to me at the moment. What makes this all so fun and neat, is that he knows the words to these songs, and he sings along with all of them in the car.

Lincoln has been showing interest in a book about the planets that Auntie Em & Uncle Jeremy got for him a while back. He talks about the big storm on Jupiter, the rings on Saturn, and how small Mercury is.

Last evening we were reading the story of Noah, and when I got to the part about the rainbow, Lincoln said, "Dad, you probably don't remember this because I was a little boy, but once I saw a rainbow in the sky."

One of Lydia's new interests is climbing the step stool and playing with the light switches.

Lydia's also been brushing her teeth lately, and I do mean that she's brushing her teeth. She pitches a fit if we start the process without giving her a turn. This photo is from this morning. I was getting Lincoln ready, and Jenn was finishing getting dressed, and she turned around to find that Lydia had climbed up on the step stool herself.

Lydia has started feeding herself with a spoon. In fact, there are some things that she won't eat unless they're on a fork or a spoon and she gets to hold the spoon.

Lincoln has had the Dizzy Bat Bug in his mind since the Edge Games.

Lydia has also been adding some words to her vocabulary. "Betty" is pretty reliable. And she'll say, "Please," although it sounds more like, "Meeeese." We know what she's saying, though!

Flashback: 2/9/2010 & 2/24/12

Singing

Lincoln's songs have been part of our lives for some time now. "This Old Man," "I've Been Working On the Railroad," "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt," etc. Two of his favorites lately have been "Meet Me In St. Louis" and "Carrot Stew." Go figure. There's a line in the chorus of "Carrot Stew" that says, "We'll get a pot and a carrot or twooooooo, and cook up a carrot stew." When it gets to the part of "carrot or twoooooo" the song crescendos, and when we were driving home from Mengyu's apartment, Lincoln actually sang the line. Jenn and I looked at each other and howled with laughter. Later than night he sang a few notes from "Meet Me In St. Louis." It's not something he' do on command so I can't record it, but oh my goodness, it's hilarious.