Saturday morning

Explaining the finer points of the Normandy invasion

Tank, tank, tank, tank.

ATTACK!

He doesn't even play. He's just in it for the little tank pieces

A girl in the snow

Snow day

We got about 18 inches of snow this weekend. That meant three separate rounds of snow blowing and shoveling and two rounds of roof raking. Around 9:00 pm last night, we got the call. No school. Roads are still too hazardous.

I'd like to say I have a wealth of screen-free activities planned. But... it's 11:00 a.m. and I'm fairly sure we're going to be turning on PBS kids.

However, they've colored and attempted to play outside (it's hard to actually plan in this much snow they discovered) and I've cleaned my floors and toilets. I'm feeling surprisingly productive today.

So we'll go with the flow today and see what happens.

Scenes from Christmas

Christmas ornaments 2013

We made our annual trip down to the German Christkindl market at Daley Plaza in Chicago again last week and, per tradition, the kids got to pick out their Christmas ornaments. I have this dream that one day when I'm old and gray, they will bring their own kids to my house and my grandchildren will place all these little wooden ornaments on the tree. Is that weird? No, don't answer that.

Anna chose a little angel ornament

Shockingly, Abe selected a train ornament

As I gently unpacked the kids' ornaments I realized that nearly every ornament we have for Abe is a train. He's got an ornament style. Anna has a pretty wide range of ornaments, I can never predict what will tickle her fancy. This year she was adamant that her ornament have a girl on it.

We get them from the German Kathe Wolfhart shop that pops up at the Christkindl market each year, which is the same ornament shop we visited when we traveled to Rothenburg, Germany, during our honeymoon ten years ago. I dearly hope we can always accommodate this tradition. I took the kids out of school and we played hooky in order to make it happen this year!

And as we were standing in line to purchase the German candies and sweets, I thought perhaps one day the kids will walk down those cobblestone streets in Rothenburg themselves. Or maybe we can take them some day. Who knows...

Daydreaming prior to purchasing a giant box of chocolate covered marshmallows can be dangerous.

Okay, maybe I am a little weird.

And then I cried...

This came home in Anna's backpack.

Love is when my mom hugs
me when I am sad

Christmas cookies

With Christmas carols playing in the background, Abe and I embarked on our annual Christmas cookie endeavor this weekend. That kid is so wonderfully eager to cook and bake. Anything tactile, really.

Watching a little boy operate is so fascinating.

I have to watch him closely because he's so eager to mix and dump and stir that he will just start grabbing and throwing things in a bowl. Forget the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another. Oh no, if it's on the counter, he's gonna throw it in a bowl.

But, seriously, how cute is this?

This year I made a molasses gingerbread-type cookie. I doubled the recipe (mistake!) and it was really too much dough even for my stand mixer.  Allrecipes.com is my go to web site for baking, however, I think the cookies in their photo were giant because the recipe made 12. I doubled it, and that should have made 24 cookies.

We got a bit more than that...

I ended up just throwing out the last of the dough because it was getting out of control. Too much mess. Too many cookies. Too long in the kitchen.

Besides, Abe was desperate to start icing them.

The above cookie started life as a gingerbread boy. And, he met his sweet, sweet death by being buried alive in in icing and sprinkles.  I guess it's not the worst way to go out...

My primary goal for making cookies is to keep up our tradition of delivering cookies to our two next door neighbors. Our neighbors are a huge part of our life and one in particular (retired Dr. Miller) is one of Abe's special friends. He and Dr. Miller hang out in the backyard. Abe will talk his ear off, help him with little chores, and give him giant hugs. It's one of the biggest blessings we've received in living here.

And our neighbors on the other side are also dear friends. All of these neighbors are elderly and I cannot bear to think of a time without them. Rather than mailing our Christmas cards to them, we deliver a little package of goodies.

I've still got personal plans to make my favorite lemon cookies. Lately, I'm all about lemon things. We shall see if time allows.

Gingerbread Time

Today we attended an incredible Christmas event to benefit a local organization that helps women and children affected by domestic violence. My neighbor has been working with Family Shelter Services for years and this new fundraiser was so much fun that I'd love to add it to our annual tradition list.

A local banquet center hosted the event and the place was gorgeous. Christmas trees and beautiful trim, little jars of candy by each place setting, and Father Winter strolling around, handing out little stickers. Everything was adorable.

Brunch was served to everyone, your typical breakfast fare, which is good for the kids because breakfast is always a safe meal. And the coffee was amazing. Don't ask me why it was so good, but we all took note of it. We were seated with some neighbors from our block, which made it even nicer. 

But the real show was at the gingerbread house tables. A pre-assembled house was positioned at each chair and volunteers walked around placing plates with candies, gum drops, and licorices in front of the kids for decorating their house. Then additional volunteers offered to squeeze icing on the houses, which was great for the little ones who had trouble navigating the knives and plates of icing.

Abe went for sheer volume

Anna went for precision

After the gingerbread houses, Anna wanted to visit the table with the winter fairy. They gave out "fortunes" and Anna was told that she would travel to great places. This was perfect for her! Abe was told that he liked books. He replied, "my sister likes books, I like superheroes." And the winter fairy quickly changed directions accordingly.

There was a balloon animal table (only two options: fish and a dog), but the real excitement was the face painting. I'm not very keen on face painting, but the kids wanted it and I was in a particularly giving mood. Abe selected Santa Claus and Anna selected Hello Kitty (??). And, no, I don't mean just little pictures on their cheeks.

Santa, spectacles and all...

Santa Claus was available for pictures and we did that, too. But our Santa Claus tradition takes place at the Christkindl Market in downtown Chicago so I didn't emphasize this one too much. We did get one picture though...

And that concludes our Saturday morning. It was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone local. Hope your holiday season is proving as merry and bright as ours is!

He sounded so prophetic

But then I realized that Abe was actually just walking around, and slowly repeating the words to a Pink song.

You gotta get up and try, try.

Woodsman

Sir Abraham the knight

Abe was all geared up to be a knight for Halloween and, surprisingly, several people couldn't understand him and asked, "you're going to be a nut?"

Alas, he is a nut many days but not on Halloween.

He is far more susceptible to changing his costume based on what other boys his age are doing. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, I heard Abe say he was going to be batman and a ninja turtle so I wasn't quite sure where he would land.

Fortunately, we were graced with a knight. 

We are now throwing out the last of the Halloween candy, just in time for thanksgiving pies, and I am starting to feel the pull of Christmas. Halloween, meet us back here next year, okay?

Halloween 2013

Anna decided to go as one of her favorite movie and book characters this year.
Arrietty.

Arrietty is the main character from the book The Borrowers by Mary Norton. This book has been around since I was a kid, but a few years ago the movie The Secret World of Arrietty came out and that is what really sparked Anna's fascination. The Borrowers are little people (just a couple inches tall) who "borrow" from humans the things they need to live. They only take what they need and they only take what a human wouldn't miss. So... if you're missing a straight pin or can't find a match box, the borrowers may have taken them :-)

click here to learn who Arrietty is (and I do recommend it, she's a cool kid)

When Anna originally asked to be this, I couldn't imagine how I would create a costume. BUT THANKS to the internet, I stumbled across another mother's posting about how she created an Arrietty costume. Whew...

I give you Arrietty.

I will try to get some pics of Abe up this weekend.