Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

I did intend for this post to be up a little sooner. Like, before the New Year. As I sit here typing on the evening of the 30th I'm thinking it may actually get there. But it may not.

We are on hour forty-three of Holding Silas. Who has been throwing up for as long. So, we'll see.

But, on to Christmas!

First, of course, we needed a tree. So we cut one down at a nice farm nearby. Much to our delight the trip to the trees included a hay ride. A hay ride in December!

Our tree had to fit certain criteria: small, narrow and cute. We found one that did, and cut it down.

Here's the trophy picture. It almost escaped, but the kids caught it before it got away.

And then there was a little bonfire, around which we enjoyed some hot cocoa.

And here she is, all dolled up. Christmas Tree 2011.

Then we waited impatiently for Christmas. Even the chocolate advent countdown calendar couldn't quell the incessant Mama, how many more days until Christmas? Okay, how many more days if we don't count today? How about if we don't count Christmas? And so on and so forth.

Finally, Christmas Eve arrived. And we pulled out our Santa plate and some of the chocolate -covered pretzels we made. And, of course, oats and carrots for the reindeer.
And do you know what Sadie told me?
Mama, Rudolph isn't REAL! Not like the other reindeer, and Santa. 
Oh, of course.

Christmas morning before sunrise. So excuse the terrible pictures. Plus, it's not like the sun ever rises around here between the months of December and May.
The garbage truck!

Legos!
Walkie-Talkies!
Books!

Trampoline! Roller skates!

And more and more.
All this loot will keep them busy for weeks.
And we had the inaugural fire in our wood stove. Which makes the house about 6,000 degrees, but I'm not complaining.

Does anyone else's house look like this late Christmas morning?

For dinner, roast beast, mashed potatoes and string beans. These kids love my string beans.
The requested dessert was Make Your Own Sundaes. Yes, we're very into make-your-own stuff around here. Being the master of one's own destiny (or dessert) is very exciting.

Especially when you dump half the bottle of star sprinkles on your own sundae.
And here's Sadie as she's looked almost every day since Christmas.

It was a peaceful, quiet, present-filled, treat-filled, exciting Christmas Day. The best kind.

A Long Post is Coming

After a trip to Ikea, among other things. I haven't forgotten to get Christmas pictures on here.

I should be grateful that it is even possible to be putting pictures on the blog and that I didn't wipe my old computer clean after getting a new one 4 weeks ago (right, like I'm that on top of things. I should say that Will didn't wipe the laptop). Why?
Oh, because Silas pulled it to the floor and it's now at the repair place with a broken hard drive. The Laptop Accident Program, a friend to mothers of toddlers everywhere.

And speaking of toddler boys, we have had the wood stove on for the last few days and it is absolutely wonderful. And hot as heck. We even have a big, ugly gate that goes around said stove so that no kids can fall into it. But that didn't stop Silas from reaching through the gate while I putting a log in and pushing the open door. That didn't end well. But cold water, motrin, burn cream and an episode of Sesame Street later, all is well.
Although he did feel the need to tell me 'Tove hot! about six times before he finally fell asleep last night. Let's hope the lesson has been learned.

And, Sadie, who has become permanently attached to her new set of roller skates, watched that Folger's coffee commercial from the 80's this morning on Youtube. You know, the one where the kid comes home from college and wakes everyone up with coffee? Don't ask, there was random link somewhere.
And she couldn't watch it because made her too sad. Such a sensitive little kid. I guess I shouldn't show her the Cat Chow one where the girl comes home from college and sees her cat again. I remember crying for fifteen minutes at that one.

But we are all well. Holiday Market is over, hurrah! And now the season of blog posts begins. Promise.

Five!

She's five, folks. I'm not quite sure how it happened. Next year she'll be thirty and move out.


But for this year, she's five, and was up at the crack of dawn. And she was remarkably patient about opening her presents.
.

Her birthday cereal was Lucky Charms, same as last year. You just can't beat florescent marshmallows.


Silas enjoyed his first taste of sugary cereal too.


Finally, she got to work playing with some presents.



And then, for the fourth year in a row we headed to "Dancing Mouse." I think that none of you will be surprised by this.
She actually wanted to go somewhere else and we were all set to go and then she changed her mind.


And for the fourth year in a row she still hates this ride and insists on being taken off midway.


Sadie, when asked what kind of cake she wanted, said she wanted to decorate her cake by herself. I want to squeeze those tubes of icing, mama!
Then, she wanted a fairy cake. While looking at fairy cakes online, she spotted one of those barbie cakes with the giant skirts, and she said she wanted a fairy skirt cake.
So I asked her if she'd like a fairy skirt cake that she got to decorate.


And, yeah, she did. Here it is after she went to town on it.


And here it is after the fifteenth time Sadie and Silas ran in to "eat a star sprinkle."
Silas, not known for his delicacy in such manners, grabbed a  handful of cake.


Then the requested dinner of the day, Make Your Own Pizzas, commenced.



They were really good, and made us wonder why we ever buy other pizzas around here. They were tons better than was passes for pizza out of New York City.
Then I remembered why: sheer laziness.

Sadie made her wish.


And then pulled out the doll.


And she said, I love my birthday! I'm having such a good day!
What more could we ask for?
Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Things

Things have been pretty hectic around here. Holiday Market has been taking up a lot of time.

I take out my camera to take some pictures of the kids and then 5 hours later I'm putting it away, unused.

But the nerds are great. A few funny things they have said recently:

Sadie touched my nose the other day and I guess it was a little oily. So she yells, Yuck! I have your nose butter on my finger!

I told her it served her right, that's what happens when you grab a person's nose.

Silas calls birds peep peeps and the word big is Wow.

So what does he call Big Bird of Sesame Street fame?

Yep, Wow Peep Peep!

Sadie asked if Santa knows what people are thinking. This conjured up images of some futuristic, creepy, thought-crime fighting Santa. I assured her that, no, he could not.

We went to IHOP. Silas calls it HiHop. He was even dreaming about it, saying HiHop, HiHop in his sleep. So I made him pancakes for breakfast.

Sadie keeps calling it iPod. Which shows you how much she likes the iPod.

In fact, I have taken to hiding the iPods because my children are completely obsessed with them.

Silas gives Sadie a hug and says, My Deedee.

She loves it.

Sadie picks up Silas and carries him around. They both love that.

And seeing how Thanksgiving was the other day, I want to say that I am thankful for:

My two gorgeous, smart children.

My lovely, supportive hubby.

My mangy, old flea-bitten animals.

Enough to eat and a roof over our heads that we love, even though it ain't fancy.

And all of you!

Pumpkin Patch

No October would be complete without a visit to the pumpkin patch.

Even if we did grow three gigantic ones of our own.

Who doesn't like sitting in a field of pumpkins?

Or having your mama tell you to look at her every 3 minutes so she can take a picture?

Or sitting on a real Eee? All machines with wheels are called E. I don't really know how to spell it. You'd have to ask him.

Plus, it's a built-in excuse to drink apple cider and eat apple cider donuts.

Not that you really need one.

Cat and Mouse

Here they are on Halloween.

Sadie said, upon seeing her fancy eyelashes, Mama, I'm the queen of the mousies!

They've just spotted some cheese.

Being the loudest kids in the neighborhood. As usual.

And check out the skirt. You didn't think that Sadie could be an un-fancy mouse, did you?

Here's what happens a couple of days before Halloween when you buy candy corn and decide to give your two year-old, who thinks fruit leather is dessert, a piece. And say,

Only one, YiYi. No more.

Yeah, he follows you around crying, Mo! Mo, Mama!

So you take a picture, because he's cute.

Trick or treating was lots of fun.

Silas learned to say trick or treat, which actually came out as, Keekeekeet!

And then after he got the goodies he'd say, Ankooo! (Thank you!)

It was very cute.

And, yeah, I think we got enough goodies. Don't you?

Au Naturale

I am aware that I am tend to err on the side of not putting clothes on my children in the house. Unless it's outside in the winter, in which case I force them to dress like we're going to the arctic.

But, for painting, I'd just as soon they not wear anything. And they would too. So it works out.

Halfway between taking off the clothes I didn't want to get stained and putting on old t-shirts I thought Why am I making more laundry?

Sadie loves mixing colors.

Silas was really diligent about cleaning his brush. See all his colorful marks? He cleaned the brush between colors.


And here's Sadie's lady:

They love painting, and it's great rainy day thing to do. We have been known to have a couple of rainy days in the winter here in the Pacific Northwest.

I guess I'm going to have to crank up the heat.

Countdown

As we were finishing up dinner tonight Sadie asked to be excused. So she brought her plate to the counter and then came back to the table and hung out next to me while we all talked.

Suddenly she holds up a hand and says:

Wait! Ready?

Then she begins counting, raising her fingers one by one:

1...2...3...

Of course, now she has our attention. Dada, Silas and I are all eagerly awaiting her announcement. What interesting thing could she be counting towards? Is this something new she learned in preschool?

And then, with a huge grin, she farts.

Yep, you read right. Passes some gas. And I have to ask:

When did my child turn into a nine year-old boy?

Suhcrocka

Forgive me, but I had to spell that word phonetically. And it's not actually a word, but what Sadie informed me she is going to name her child when she has one.

And it's a girl's name, obviously.

No Two

Silas has discovered the world of numbers. Or maybe I should say number.

He has one, which is Two.

The other is No Two.

So none or 1 is No Two.

Followed by Two.

Keeps it simple.

I Believe

Sadie and I have been talking a lot about what people believe.

She wants to know why some people believe in God and others don't, why some people believe in fairies but not others, why do some people only believe in what they can see.

I told her that sometimes we hold a belief in our hearts and bodies that we can't prove, that we will never be able to prove is true. It's called faith, that feeling.

Faith is often co-opted by religions. But they don't have a monopoly on faith.

We can believe that there is more to life than just our time on earth, that there is something bigger than us. And we can believe it with every cell of our bodies. We can have absolute faith in it.

And it's not a weaker faith just because we can't name the deity or state with absolute authority what happens when we leave the world.

She loves to think about this stuff. I remember thinking about it all too.

And she has theories.

One is that our spirits go on and love each other forever. I believe that too.

Another is that fairies are 100% real, which I would like to be true, but I'm not so sure.

And here's the latest. She came in from the yard very excited and said:

Mama, want to know what I believe? Let me tell you.

I believe that there are girl giants up in the sky. Only girls, no boys. And they have gardens and when it rains down here is when they are watering their flowers.

But they're nice giants. But they have no idea that we're here because we're just a tiny little ball on their flower. That's how big they are!

So they don't know they're making it rain here, because they can't see us.

And there are no boy giants, just girls.

That's what I believe, mama. And no one else has to believe in it. That's okay.

God (or Goddess, or maybe even Girl Giants), I love this kid.

Wow

Silas is a man of few words. But he does has a way of getting his point across.

Sometimes it's like living in a game of charades, a non-stop party in the '70s.

I will ask him a question, say: Do you want grapes or strawberries?

He will say, Ummm. Huh. Like he's thinking really hard.

So I'll pantomime and do something silly like make a little ball with my hands for grapes and pretend to pick a strawberry for strawberries.

And then he'll pretend to pick a strawberry and say yeah!

And now he says things like Mo! (more) and Ank Ooo (thank you). And he can say Wawa (I'm sure you can guess that one) but still uses the hand sign for water anyway.

But my favorite is the way he differentiates sizes.

He likes big things. Big things are Wow!

Things that aren't so big in comparison are No wow.

No wow is said in a little voice, which makes it seem like he feels bad for the thing, like he's sorry it's not Wow!

And, judging by Sy's growth chart at the doctor last week (follow the line to see the growth):

Um, yeah, I think he's pretty Wow!

Pumpkin Picking

Did I say pumpkin picking?

We do have 3 giant pumpkins in our garden, just waiting for Halloween. But we're not picking them yet.

I really meant nose picking. Is there any child who doesn't find it amusing?

Just try to get some nice pictures of your kids in the pumpkin patch and they do this:

And then the little one thinks: How have I not been doing this for every picture?!

So he joins in the fun.

Then, after taking 15 shots in various stages of nose picking and hysterics, you beg them for a nice pose for the love of all that's holy.

And every once in a while they throw you a bone.