Christmas Gingerbread House

I just finished cleaning up after making our Christmas Candy House (2011)! Our neighbor friends showed up at the door just as I was getting the roof on and Anna was arranging the candy. So they helped us decorate, it was a little nerve wracking for me as the first thing they did was push licorice ropes into the roof seams that were still a little tender, but I'm glad they were there.

 Our Mission Statement was "More is More"

 Actually the 4 year old had a very classy minimalist thing going. Totally put me to shame. I have gaudy taste in candy houses.

FAQs:
Q: Is that a kit?
A: No it is not. For the first time ever, I designed and built a fancier-type gingerbread house based on one I found in a book. I made the dough, cut it out, baked it and built it with my own two little sticky hands. It is about one foot tall and 14 inches long. None of the angles meet and there is a wall awkwardly sticking out in the front.

Q: How long did that take?
A: 3 days? One for making dough and designing, one for baking, one for assembly and decorating.

Q: What about the icing?
A: I made the icing, that is primarily what made my hands sticky. I do not like the recipe I used. I wish I could remember what recipe I used for our Halloween house, it worked much better. This house used all of 2 batches of icing.

Q: Did you make the candy too, smarty pants?
A: I did not make the candy, but I did take my 2 kids to the grocery store in the middle of the day to buy candy, which is never really a good idea. Eliza had a death grip on the M&M bag.

Q: Is that a mirror?
A: Yes, I put the whole thing on a mirror because I couldn't find a board strong enough but light-weight enough to hold it. I think it looks nice.

Q: What's with the windows?
A: If you crush up some hard candies (jolly ranchers) then put them in the window cut outs with 5 minutes left to bake, they will melt down and make some killer colored windows. I think this is the coolest part, and the part I was most worried about, but it was no problem.

 So, that's the deal. Fun times!

Thanksgiving Cinderella

For a special Thanksgiving treat Gramma and Aunt Rachel arranged for Cinderella to meet Anna before dinner. Here are the best pics, courtesy Aunt Rachel

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Screaming baby? love it. This is very similar to how her visit with Santa went.

As Seen On TV

 The following is an example of my hair dream and hair reality as depicted by bygone cartoon characters.

Hair Dream

Hair Reality

Secrets

So Friday night I took Anna to a Relief Society night, she played with some older girls while I oversaw the quilting project. At the end of the night I collected my children. Anna kept conscientiously pulling her skirt over her knee and saying "oh that's a secret". I pretty much figured that she fell down and ripped a hole in her tights but I was ok with it. So I told her she didn't need to keep it a secret because I wasn't mad. Well she was outrageously upset that I figured out her secret (she was an hour past her bedtime). She just desperately wanted me to not know her secret.

On Sunday, Eliza was sick so Ben took Anna to church. She was apparently very good in sacrament meeting, so Ben praised her for that and said "I want to tell Mommy how good you were" and she said "No! let's keep it a secret" Ben asked why, and she said, "Because I need to have secrets from Mommy."
Of course, Ben told me this, but it's ok. Anna still thinks it's a secret.

Halloween and Thad's visit

Halloween - October 31st.

Thad's visit - October 29th.
Largest, earliest snowstorm to hit Connecticut, like, ever - October 29th

We lost power at about 3:30 on Saturday the 29th, we stayed in through the night as the snow fell. We all slept together in the girl's room to keep it nice and toasty. In the morning we had 12-18" of snow and we heard that it would take probably a week to get the power back on. Basically the whole state, plus parts of surrounding states were without power. So we packed up and headed out the door. We didn't have great phone reception (more than a few cell towers had been damaged) and the roads were extremely treacherous with downed power lines and trees all over the place. We made it to the highway with less than 1/2 tank of gas. We tried to stop and get gas a few times but the cars were lined up or the stations were just plain out of gas. Once we made it out of CT and closer into Boston we found some gas and food.

I called my amazing and gracious Cousin Megan to see if we could take refuge at their house outside of Boston and she offered before I could even ask. She and her whole family were amazing and so much fun to hang out with. She also happened to have a 4 year old son - doesn't get better than that.

On Monday we hooked up with Thad, who was staying with our friend in Cambridge. We played at the house all day then Anna finally got to go Trick or Treating. This was her first time and she was great at it; not at all shy or timid, and also very polite. I took her for half the time, then Thad took her while I took a cold Eliza Unicorn inside.

So pretty much the whole week we had a little vacation. Ben worked from his computer at Megan's or took the day off to play. We went to the Museum of Science in Boston - It had some awesome exhibits. At one table you could make a bobsled out of the materials they provided, the goal was to either have the fastest or the slowest bobsled and Anna's was the slowest. It took 14 seconds to go down a 3 foot ramp. So we got to put her name up on the leader board. (she was competing against all the high school kids there on a field trip). Thad and I and the girls went to Plimouth  Plantation, which was pretty fun, except for the 2,000 field trippers chasing the chickens around. We just hung out until 2:00 when we knew they had to leave.

All the while we were checking the online map of Connecticut outages. It was bleak. Our town consistently had the highest percentage of customers without power. It was hard watch as it just didn't improve for the first 5-6 days. The original goal was to have power back on for 99% of the state by Sunday night, we were still above 50% that night. So they pushed the timeline back to Monday, then Wednesday.

We also spent a few days with Gramma Lynne who also lives near Boston. At the end of the week she went on vacation and let us take over her condo for a few nights, we were so grateful for that. We got to play with Aunt Rachel, playing Candyland and doing some paintings.

We planned to stay until Tuesday morning then head back. On our drive in we got the call from our neighbors that the power was restored at 3:30 that morning. Most of the trees in our complex were missing a few branches, it looks very different.

Recipes That Don't Work - Chicken Soup (For The Soul)

Chicken Soup (for the Soul)
1 Can chicken chunks
1 Can chicken broth
3-4 Carrots
3-4 Celery
Cumin
Salt
etc.

Directions: Get out the cans and your can opener. Open the first can, distractedly pour out the juice. Notice the can is now empty. Begin laughing hysterically because you just dumped out an entire can (your last) of chicken broth. Keep laughing 3-5 minutes. Call someone who will laugh with you even though they can't understand you because you are laughing so hard.
There, now doesn't your soul feel better?

Congratulations, you tried to make chicken soup and it didn't work!

First Birthday Party Pictures

For Eliza's 1st birthday we made some chocolate cupcakes with a dollop of frosting. I feel I should describe them because the sippy cup is in the way. 

 She loved it and ate the whole thing. Her sister just ate the frosting off of hers then asked for another one.

I found only 2 pictures of her opening presents, this blurry one and a non-smiling one. She was spoiled by her grandma's who gave her toys and books, I gave her a homemade dress that is too big for her and a crochet giraffe that I was promptly put into a toy chest and I have not seen it since. Her sister got her a bouquet of flowers and a squishy dinosaur.

So, that was Eliza on her birthday. They are both getting cuter everyday.

New Rule

When I rule the world it will be an enforceable rule that as long as mothers have to change diapers, the child/baby will have to take at least 2 naps per day.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Eliza 1 Year Old

Height: 27 3/4"

Weight: 16 lbs 4 oz

Enjoys crawling around, looking at pictures of herself on my phone/ipod, keeping her sister up late with screams and giggling, eating everything, riding in her toy car, sprouting teeth, smiling.  

New Bike!

So Anna is pretty well potty trained now, I know I had an alarmist blog about this recently, it finally came to a head and she learned how to use the head. I will spare you the details. But she got a sweet tricycle out of the deal. I let her pick from a bunch of cool helmets, she picked a shark. So cool.

She rides around our condo parking lot a lot with her friends, kind of a Heck's Angels group; all in pink with some princesses and tassles thrown in.

Chalk Paint

 Have you ever left your sidewalk chalk out in the rain and assumed it's ruined? Well, I tell you it is not. This activity did not exactly come from that kind of experience, but in my pre-mom years I observed that sidewalk chalk was more vibrant and clay-ey when it got wet.

 Step one, find a puddle or create one (with water). Then color it up with your chalk until it looks kind of paint-like. It usually takes us most or all of one piece of normal sidewalk chalk in a small puddle. We go through our chalk pretty fast.

Step Two: Do hand and foot prints everywhere! I haven't experimented with paintbrushes or other means yet.

 Butterfly!

 Anna and her little friend Lily.

So last week we found chalk on sale for 75% off because it's a summer toy; so we got these massive chalks, 7x larger than a normal piece, only $1.50, score! 

 This is kind of what our front walkway looks like right now. rainbowy.

Time Capsule

Anna is playing wedding this afternoon. I helped her put on her biggest white dress (probably a 6T), she put on her ballerina slippers and, while I was on the phone, found a red marker and did her 'makeup' coloring her lips, spots on her cheeks and on her nose.

Now she is gathering all the costume jewelry she can find, including a christmas lights necklace, and asking for a "wedding hood" which I think means a veil.

Somehow this was all brought about by a new Ariel magical cell phone toy that I finally relented to buy her. She promised to play with it all afternoon instead of watching any more shows or movies. I am supposed to be the Prince, but I have suggested a few times that she use a giant penguin instead.

The wedding cake is banana bread. It's a beautiful, peaceful and quiet event.

Guest Editor

These do not relate to any new stories or adventures, they are just nice pictures of these cute girls, so I let Anna do the captioning.

 umm, yeah, that one could be good.  I think it's so silly.

Eliza, I like that one. She's doing this "ptpey777ythhughythgjuj"

Me and Eliza.

ghthngnngjgngnthngnjghj

 

That's her bootie that you made with crochet.

quilt picture

Chevron and zigzag are all the rage these days, in case you didn't know. So I made this quilt out of leftovers from a larger quilt for a cousin who had a baby.

Cute Pictures

 Here is our first cute picture. This was at Eliza's Dr. appt before we moved. One of the best pictures I have of both of them.

 Here is a picture of Eliza with a Kitty face. Just for fun.

This was an ingenious device that I found in the bathroom of a Smith's Marketplace. So you can put your baby down while you are going to the bathroom/taking your 3 year old to the bathroom.

We Did Something FUN!

To begin, I should state that I got this idea off Pinterest and more specifically from this site. And it seemed just easy enough that I could remember all the ingredients and pull it off.

1-Rice   $10 for 20 lbs, more than enough

2- Large Bucket/Rubbermaid Thingy  $8 but you might have one if you check

3- Rubbing Alcohol $2

4- Food Coloring  $5

I was worried about the food coloring because the original blog poster said she used like 2 T of color. That seemed like a lot. I let Anna do the color and did not supervise super well, but we ended up with like half of each bottle, so not too bad.

Here was our set up, I measured the rubbing alcohol into the cup and the rice into the Ziploc (we only used one bag and just went through the colors in order, I didn't see it as a problem, more like a solution!) We also only used one color cup and didn't bother washing it either. This project was right up my alley.

 Anna was my colorist. She did a great job. After I poured in some rubbing alcohol (like 3T ish) she squeezed in the colors that I recommended.

 Here is red. We were doing Orange for our last color but it didn't turn out very orangy, more salmon. We do have more rice so I might try that one again. After we poured the liquid into the bag with the rice we mushed it around until it was all covered, then we poured it in the bucket! (The original blogger recommended spreading it out on a cookie sheet to dry. I did not do this. It is probably a good idea.)

 TA-DA! Isn't that some rainbow awesomeness?

 Eliza was ignored for an entire 20 minutes while we were doing this. She found a crayon and colored the fireplace tiles.

Eliza got to play for it for a minute, but she didn't understand the concept of keeping it in the box. That's like, the only rule. Well, that and not eating it. Two rules.

Anna loves her rainbow rice, she wants me to stop blogging and go play with her some more. that is all.

Painted Lady

I let Anna paint my nails yesterday. She did a pretty great job for a 3 1/2 year old. 

While I was painting hers she asked if it was a brush I was using. She loves painting. She asked if she could do mine, even though she knows I don't really like it. I told her I would like it if she did it.

Rhyming Words

I've been teaching Anna about rhyming words the past 2 days. We think of a word, then come up with words that rhyme with it.
A lot of the time she just adds a Y to the beginning, which usually does not make a word.

Noise - Yoise?

But sometimes she really gets it. She surprised me yesterday rhyming Spoon and Raccoon.

This happened this morning:

Dad - ...i..pad?
Perfect. She got a high five for that.

She really likes this game, so sometimes I have to say "No more rhyming now, I mean it!"

So...

I've been potty training Anna for over a year.

Just wanted to put that out there.

Not making a ton of progress the last...10 months.

I think I waited too long.


Learn from my mistake.

It sure would be great

I sure would like to make one of these, but I'm pretty sure I will not have the skills/time to do it while my kids are still little enough to enjoy it.

Maybe I should just back off the pressure and plan to make one for my grandkids. Yeah, they'll love that. I should just start a file of "Grandkid ideas"