Merry Christmas!

All ready for Santa! Merry Christmas blog readers!

Getting ready...

Enjoying the Charlie Brown Christmas app on the iPad during breakfast this morning.

A Hanukkah miracle!

A case of whoopie pies from Dana and Marlon! (we also received pears from Grandma and Grandpa and citrus fruit from Aunt Ilene, but the whoopie pies stole the show). Henry just stood and stared at the box when he got home from school.

Our ferocious guard dog Rex...

Wishes you all happy holidays. He went to the groomer yesterday and came home sporting this green bow in his hair, which coordinates nicely with his Christmas sweater. The other men in this house are not amused and feel sorry for Rex but the bow is staying in because this is really my only opportunity to use hair accessories in this house. Plus, is he not the cutest thing ever with that bow? Cut me some slack people, I am the only female here.




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Early Christmas presents

Both boys brought home ornaments they made at school- I love getting these!

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Happy Hanukkah!

Last night we celebrated the first night of Hanukkah. We twisted the candles on our snazzy new electric menorah from Grandpa, Mike sang a prayer, and the kids opened their first gifts. we had a chat about what it means to be Jewish and the members of our family that are Jewish. Henry all of the sudden got a strange look on his face and said, "But the Jewish people killed Jesus!" Thus began a complicated religious history lesson, a rite of passage shared by all dual-religion families.
Then we gave them both gold coins made of chocolate and all was forgotten. Ahh, the peace-building qualities of chocolate.



This picture is from tonight- the second candle is lit.

More George Quotes (a.k.a. Tall Tales)

Here's a couple of recent gems from our pal George:

He told me that his school was on a commercial (actually, the local news had just run a story on the UWEC Children's Center). I said, "Oh really? What was the commercial like?" George replied, "Well, they showed the classrooms, and then they showed me on there. And underneath it had writing that said, 'George is a special kid.' "

We were talking about what happens at his preschool when someone is naughty. George started to explain, "Well, if you're naughty then you get a 'sit card.' " I asked, "What's a sit card? What do you do when you get one?" George went on to explain, "Well, you have to go sit in a chair for awhile, like time-out. Then Ms Michelle will go over to the chair and talk to you about what you did that was wrong. Then she punches you."

This is just a sliver of the stuff that comes out of his mouth on a daily basis. It is so scary because he says these things with a straight face. Henry's a terrible liar - he has about a million signs that he's lying. It's one of his best qualities. But George is just so good at making up the stories. I am not sure whether to be proud of his brilliance or horrified.

Go Pack Go

Mike headed to the Packer game today - here he is in front of Lambeau.


And a pic he sent us from the game:



Apparently it's a bit chilly there today - he was all braggy before he left about how it was going to be a "balmy 37 degrees" and that he didn't need long johns on under his jeans. Haaa.

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My super cool cousin...

Kristin Turk (former Drake University standout) signed a contract to play professional basketball in Sweden about a month ago - she just played her first game for her new team today and did awesome! We are all having fun reading about her in the Swedish newspapers - I think a little gets lost in translation but you can get the main idea!
http://www.bt.se/sport/succestart-for-turk(3068994).gm
Hit the little British flag at the bottom of the article to translate the article into English.

The awesome thing is that our family is actually from Sweden, and my aunt found out that the region they are from is the same area where Kris plays. How cool is that?
Also, why didn't I get these athletic genes? Seriously, I can't even walk around the house without tripping over myself.


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St Nick?

I usually have a decent working knowledge of most holiday traditions, but I have to say that I had never heard of St. Nicholas Day until I moved to Wisconsin. Apparently a lot of Wisconsinites celebrate this day (Dec. 6) due to their German heritage. Kids put out their shoes at night and St. Nick leaves a little treat (or coal) in their shoes the next morning. Henry came home from school the past 2 years asking why St. Nicholas didn't come to our house, so this year I caved and ahem, arranged for St. Nick to visit. They both laid out their shoes on the fireplace before they went to bed - see the finished product below. I feel like the boys get so many gifts this time of year anyway between Christmas and Hanukkah, so St. Nick just left them little buckets with mini-marshmallows. They were thrilled.



Also, The Elf on the Shelf has been out in full force this year. Our elf's name is Peanut and he has been hanging out on on various perches around the house. This morning when we woke up he was on the cuckoo clock.



He's kind of creepy. But I like it, because he's just creepy enough to keep Henry and George in line.



See? I told you he was creepy.

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Does Hazelden have a program for this?

Mimi and Grampy gave us all the coolest presents this year - 2 iPads for our family. One is for the boys, the other for Mike and I. With the way my boys handle electronics I made the decision that the smart cover from Apple wasn't going to cut it, so I bought this "iGuy" for the boys' iPad - it's super cute and sturdy.

George is hopelessly addicted to the iPad. And frighteningly good at it. He knows all the lingo now (apps, iTunes, download, etc.). For instance, this came out of his mouth yesterday. "Hey Mom, can you launch AirPlay? I want to see this app on Apple TV. Or did it already sync to your iTunes?"

I wish I were making that up, but sadly, I am not.

The iPads are amazingly cool and very addicting. So now I have to set a timer for George to monitor iPad usage. I never have had to do this before in our house (for some reason, my kids have never really been into watching a ton of TV or movies) but I think George would literally play on the iPad every waking hour if we let him.



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First big snow!

I like the snow. I don't LOVE it, but I don't mind it either. Especially in December. (Snow in March-April - not so much). We had our first big (about 4 inches) snowfall over the weekend and little flurries the last couple of days. This is probably the prettiest snow I've ever seen - the trees are flocked, it's sparkly, it's not bone-numbingly cold yet. I am hoping it stays like this for awhile!



Henry in the driveway this afternoon.


The view out our back door...


The view from our front porch.



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This is why you don't discuss politics in front of your kids

Henry's obsession with all things Titanic continues. We recorded the movie "Titanic" when it aired on the ABC Family channel last weekend (they take out all the naughty bits), so he has watched it and cross-checked the new information with information he had in his library books. Yesterday he asked, "If we were on the Titanic, what class would we have been in? First, second, or third?"
Mike replied, "Probably 3rd. Maybe 2nd. Definitely not 1st."
Henry thought about this for a moment, then said, "Daddy, if Governor Walker hadn't taken our money, would we have been in first class?"




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Snow!

It's our first snow storm of the season! We are snuggled up inside.



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Good babysitters

Henry had a day off of school today and I had to work, so I got a sitter for both boys. When I got home they had tons of crafts laid out for me that she had helped them do. I feel so lucky to live in a town where we have found so many awesome college girls who are awesome babysitters! (way better than I ever was!)



She took their pictures with her phone and printed them for these reindeer crafts. Cute cute cute!

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