One Kid Wonder (or My Slave Child)

So after our trip to Vermont to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family, we left Caleb and Camille for a few extra days to visit. Rob worked most of the time and I did my best to get the rest of our boxes unpacked and our house put in order.

Some may think that it should have been easy to do, especially only having one kid with me. Chloe, however, is the one child we have who needs to be underfoot about 99% of the time. While Caleb and Camille will happily play alone in their rooms for hours (when I'm lucky!) Chloe has to be Mom's shadow. So I put her to work.

I made her shovel what was left of the snow.



Then I made her vacuum Caleb's room with this teeny tiny dustbuster.

(Actually, she wanted to shovel the snow and having her use the dustbuster was a genius idea for keeping her occupied while I used the real vacuum cleaner.)

She was such a good sport that I rewarded her with stickers. She was very proud of herself because she put these stickers on her shirt herself. As you can see by the following snapshots, she has now mastered the art of the fake smile. Congratulations to me for having three kids who smile dopey for pictures (just like their mother)!

Merry Christmas!

Santa came and filled our stockings last night.

We had presents under our tree.


Everyone was excited for Christmas! Chloe was the first person up, waking Mom up at 6:00ish. We came downstairs and breakfasted on Froot Loops found in Chloe's stocking. This kept her quiet until the big kids woke up. It's funny how excited they were about what they found in their stockings - small boxes of breakfast cereal, juice boxes and fruit snacks (all things we don't have routinely around the house).

Here the kids are in front of the tree.


Chloe enjoyed opening her own presents this year.

Camille loved this new tutu from Grandma! (It looks remarkably like Mommy's first ballet costume.)

Caleb was our gift tag reader, making sure the right people got the right presents. Here he takes a break to open one of his own.


We enjoyed a quiet day at home, complete with lots of playtime (the big kids spent lots of time playing with their new Leapsters) and a big meal. Rob was forced to admit that I make a better turkey than he does. He made a killer stuffing, filled with sausage, apples and cranberries. I fixed a cranberry cheesecake and a cherry berry pie. There's nothing like a big, nice meal to celebrate a holiday!

Merry Christmas!

The Boys

All the kids are thrilled to have Daddy home for good, but I think Caleb is particularly enjoying no longer being the only boy at the house!

I love Caleb's rosy cheeks and the fact that he's wearing summer clothes despite the obvious winter weather!

Caleb catching a ride on a wild gorilla.

A happy dad.

Brr!

-1°F

Snow What Fun!

Between the snow on Friday and the snow on Sunday, we have more snow than the kids have ever seen (at least at our own house)! We spent a long time this weekend out playing in the snow.

With the exception of the hassle of putting on snow clothes (at some point my kids have got to learn the right order to put on clothes...it's really hard to put on snow pants if you're already wearing snow boots), we had a blast!

Even Daddy has fun in the snow.

Chloe tries to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

Camille skips and runs through the snow.

And Caleb plays the good Samaritan and shovels our neighbors' driveway.


After we all came in from the snow, I snapped these pictures of my rosy-cheeked little kids! Aren't they cute!

The Big F-O-U-R and S-A-N-T-A

Camille turned four on Saturday. When she requested pancakes for her birthday breakfast I borrowed this tradition from my friend Maren and made pancakes in the shape of fours for her. Here she is in all her early morning birthday glory...I think she's saying, "Mom, I wanted five pancakes!"

Her other breakfast choice was a yummy white chocolate covered pretzel!


Here she is in awe of her new Barbie styling head. Who wouldn't be excited at a Barbie head in a box?


We didn't have a party for her (mostly due to the giant heaps of snow we got both on Friday and on Sunday) so we're going to do that next Saturday at Nana and Papa's. Auntie Karen is making a My Little Pony cake and Camille can't wait!

We did make a trip out to our church's Christmas party and had a visit with Santa Claus.
Caleb's not sure what to make of Santa...

He's not sure what he wants for Christmas

But he knew he had to (try to) smile to get Santa's treat bag...


Camille did a little better. She told Santa she wanted a Barbie.

Then hugged him when he said he could maybe manage that.


Chloe did not want to go see Santa, although she kept pointing in that direction and looking interested in something by him. We had the following conversation:

Mom: Chloe, do you want to go see Santa?
Chloe: No! (shaking head)
Mom: Are you looking at the Christmas tree?
Chloe: Yeah! (nodding)
Mom: Do you want one of those candy canes on the tree?
Chloe: Yeah! Yeah! (nodding enthusiastically with her eyes open wide)
Mom: You have to go see Santa if you want a candy cane.
Chloe: (squirms out of my arms and heads to the cookie table where she helps herself to a M&M cookie, eats the M&Ms off it and hands me the sticky, gross cookie remains.)

Maybe next time I'll let her go get a candy cane!

Surprise!

Sure wish I had checked to see if the bus would be on time before I brought all three kids out in this!


Sunny
13°F

Feels Like
-3°F

Nothing like a 90 minute delay when you're not expecting it.