Adventures in Gingerbread

Whenever Erin comes to town, we love to get our girls together. Erin and I can visit and catch up, and the girls love playing together. They are bummed that they live so far apart from each other, and always miss each other when it's time to go home!

Last week Erin brought her girls over and the kids all decorated a gingerbread house together. It was actually more like 15 minutes of decorating and then eating themselves sick with all the candy, but they had a great time!

Christmas Fun!

We had such a fun time over Christmas! Here are some pictures of the week leading up to Christmas! :)

Visiting with my friend Stacey and her family


Snuggling


"Helping" me make some yummy peppermint brownies


Posing proudly with their gingerbread men (see, I told you Parker loved googly eyes)

Christmas in Southern California

I am behind in posting, but I'll catch up later. Maybe.

We had a nice day today. In the morning we had a Christmas party for our playgroup. My sweet husband was nice enough to whip up a batch of homemade peppermint marshmallows when I decided at 8:30am that I wanted to participate in the goodie exchange which started at 9:30am, despite the fact that we had no eggs and no butter. :) At the party, we had a visit from Santa. My kids were shy, of course, but eventually managed to stand in a picture and smile. Kenley told me she's embarrassed for me to post this picture because it looks like she's going to skip out of the picture. I'm glad she can't read.


Then when we got home, I let the kids play outside for a while since it was so nice out today. Kenley planned a "Christmas party" with jello (actually leaves) and rolls (actually rocks). She was dressed in such a random assortment of things from her dress-up box, and Parker looked so funny in his pirate patch, of course I had to take some pictures.

Love. This. Kid.

Lately I've been wanting to blog about my little guy Parker. In our family, Parker is sort of the eye of the hurricane. He is such a happy, mellow kid. Most of the time. Well, you know, comparatively. I treasure him right now because he rarely needs anything from me. My girls are both pretty demanding of my attention, and Parker just has love to give. If he gets attention, that's great, but if not, he's cool. He tells me he loves me "so, so much" several times a day, and comes over and wraps his arms around me for a hug. He just has the sweetest personality that I could ever imagine. This morning it was after 9 and he still hadn't moseyed out of bed, so I peeked in to check on him. There he was, sitting on his bed, just reading a book. I think with most two-year-old boys, long periods of silence generally indicate troublemaking, but with Parker, he's usually reading in his room.

An odd Parker quirk? He loves eyeballs and googly eyes. We occasionally stop by Lakeshore on Saturdays to do their weekly craft. We've done door hangers, pumpkins, flags, etc. For Kenley it is a glorious crafty, artistic experience. For Parker, it is merely an experiment to see how many vessels he can glue googly eyes onto. I currently have a construction-paper Christmas card on my fridge with a Christmas tree on it. Decorated only with googly eyes.

I LOVE that he honestly believes that my kisses heal his owies. He honestly believes that those skinny stick arms of his can pull me up off the ground. And I'm pretty sure he honestly believes that Claire's actual name is Claire-bear.

Look at that face. This picture makes me laugh out loud whenever I see it. How could anyone not adore this kid? He is the best. Oh, and even better? He's potty-trained! Good job, little buddy!