Cousins

xoxoxo

Best Christmas Ever

And we still have one to go!

We are truly blessed.

Snow on Christmas Eve

Well, I guess the world's steepest driveway is good for something.

Dear Santa,

We have been very good this year. See? Pefect angels.

Really, with kids (and a dog) this well-behaved Mom has no excuse for not folding the laundry.

Love,
Cate, Ben, Maggie and Sadie

Christmas Dilemma

Me: I wonder what we should get Uncle Devo for Christmas.

Cate: I know! A shirt! Or maybe...a hoodie.

Ben: I think we should get him a shark.

Little Miss Mess Finds a 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

Enough Said.

Hello. My Name is...

(Photo taken: 12/7/10)

Miss Maggie: Eleven Months

Likes: talking (mama, dada, all done, up, ball, uh-oh, apple, brrr, no-no dog, boo), dancing, looking at books, taking 4-5 steps and then dropping into a fast crawl, pretending to talk on the phone, playing at Tot Lot, being chased, hiding under her crib and saying "boo!", eating go-gurt

Dislikes: sleeping past 5:30am, having toys taken away by Cate and Ben

There is probably a lot of truth to this statement.

This afternoon I was very frustrated after listening to Cate yell at Ben for various infractions.

Me (as calmly as possible): Cate, you've got to stop yelling. You can use kind words to talk to Ben. When are you going to stop yelling?

Cate (carefully considers this for a minute and calmly replies): In thirteen years.

(sigh).

When All Else Fails.

The cold winter months produce a weird sort of paradox: If the days are so short, then why do they sometimes seem so long?

Although we are pretty successful at getting out and about in the mornings, Maggie's afternoon nap leaves us stranded at home most afternoons.

Cate would be content to do art projects all day long but Ben has a shorter attention span. However I've learned that the messier the project is the more he likes it.

Specifically, he prefers projects involving fingerpaint, glue or glitter. The more fingerpaint, glue or glitter, the better.

AND if the project involves all three (which I've learned the hard way to avoid) he is in heaven.

Lately Cate and Ben have spent a lot of time playing Santa Claus. Ben pretends to be Santa and delivers toys using Maggie's push toy as his sleigh. Cate rigged up the mini-Radio Flyer wagon to the back using tape and pipe cleaners, and added some homemade holiday decorations for flair.

The only thing missing was a beard. A beard, I thought, would be a good project for Ben. A beard that Ben could make (relatively quickly) using cotton balls and an obscene amount of glue. An obscene amount of glue.

The results are impressive, don't you think?

So I would say that if all else fails on those long winter days you could always grab a bag of cotton balls and manufacture a beard. Or a mustache. Or a goatee. The possibilities are endless.

However I would be remiss if I did not inform you that the focus on facial hair may lead to some unintended consequences.

The morning after he created this beard I came downstairs and found that Ben had surreptiously given himself a mustache.

A blue mustache.

He must have thought I wouldn't notice because when I asked what was on his face he said, "Not anything."

Guess Who?

Tonight at dinner the kids and I played our own simplified version of "Guess Who?"

We took turns giving clues about the identity of another person, usually a friend or family member, or "famous" figure (e.g., Bob the Builder, Barney, Santa, Amelia Bedelia).

My favorite set of clues was given by Cate, and I share them below even though I realize that no one outside of my immediate family might understand why these clues are so damn funny.

Cate gave Ben and I the following clues:

- He drives a silver truck.
- He wears glasses.
- He is very delicate.
- And he has a skinny head.

Ben immediately shouted, "UNCLE DEVO."

And he was right. That is exactly who Cate was describing.