Ho, Ho, Ho!

Last night, due to some unexpected vomit from her kindergartener, a friend of mine offered us a family ticket for the Festival of Lights at Wheeler Farm. So we quickly changed our FHE plans and bundled everyone up to see the lights and Santa! We started off the evening with a hay ride, viewing the lights all around the farm. Matthew doesn't remember his last hay ride (he was only four months old) and absolutely loved it. His running commentary of, "Whee! Lights!" was highly entertaining. When the ride was over he was not ready to be done, as evidenced by his exclamation of, "NO WAY!!! WHEE!!"

Next on the agenda was a visit with Santa. Before we left home, Daniel and Nathan had both written a letter for Santa. But neither of them asked him for anything. Nathan wished Santa a merry Christmas and Daniel wrote him a poem about how busy this time of year is for him. I am so pleased that my kids are starting to understand that Christmas isn't just about getting stuff. Anyway, when we walked in Daniel was calm and collected, Nathan was so excited he couldn't stand still, and Matthew was super friendly and hollered, "Hi, Santa!" The big boys talked to Santa, told him what they want for Christmas (only one surprise for us), and Matthew got shy once we walked right up to Santa. But when we were done he happily said, "Bye, Santa!" and proceeded to get his candy cane open on his own and eat the entire thing. ("NummEEE!!")



After we spoke with Santa, we headed back into the cold and had some hot chocolate at what Nathan refers to as the "cool food court."

Although it was dark and somewhat hard to see, the boys really wanted to see the animals, so we wandered around and saw the chickens, the pigs (Matthew was standing just a few inches away from the fence when one oinked and it scared him), and a cow (Matthew wouldn't go anywhere near the big old beast).

We enjoyed ourselves enough that we think we will probably go again next year!

Kaboom!

Matthew is in the midst of a language explosion. He learns new words every day and will attempt to say just about anything. Many of his new words are helpful. Things like up, done, snack, milk, book, waffle, apple (his hollerings of "Appo!" made everyone within three aisles of the produce section smile) and blankie (my-ie) have helped decrease the bouts of shrieking that occur when we can't figure out what he wants. In addition to Mama, Daddy, Daniel (Danno) and Nathan (Nannan), he also identifies poppa, grandma, Jacob (Dudub), Drew (Dew), big boys (bee boy), Elmo (Meemo) and Thomas (Momas). Other new words make him more adept at conversing with others. Things like hi, see ya, night night, bye and where are you (Are you?) make him pleasant to have a conversation with. And then there are the words that are just funny.

Matthew: "Butt paste . . . butt paste . . . . Butt paste, are you?"
Me: "Do you have butt paste on your bum?"
Matthew: "No way!"

Kev: "Daddy's a wuss."
Matthew: "Wuss!"

Seriously, we didn't teach him either of those on purpose. Although I am proud that he has picked up on the superior quality of the Boudreaux's.
In closing, I will do as Matthew does as wish you all a very merry "Missmas"!

Sing, Blow Out Candles, Repeat

The Sunday after his birthday was the day we celebrated Daniel's birthday with my family. He requested a solar system cake, so I found an idea online and attempted to recreate it. It turned out reasonably well, although I ran out of patience when tinting the marshmallow fondant and as a result, most of the colors turned out paler than in our model. But Daniel was pleased and that's pretty much all that matters.

One of the fun things about Sunday celebrations with my family is that one of Daniel's favorite cousins has his birthday the day before Daniel's. So Daniel and Devon always get to celebrate together!

The following Saturday was Daniel's party with his friends. Due to unfriendly weather conditions, we ended up with only five rugrats instead of nine, but we had fun anyway. Everyone got to make a toilet paper rocket, we played space games, and ate space shuttle cake. And when we were done, the kids were all wired up and I was ready for a nap. Isn't that one of the most ironic things about motherhood? The children are never tired at the same times as the mothers!

Eight Is Great!

Because his birthday is very early in the month, stake baptism day rolled around just three days after Daniel's birthday. He decided months ago that he would be baptized in December. We told him that he could wait until January, but he was determined to do it in December. He would be eight, after all, so why wait? Being baptized was his number one priority. He even postponed his birthday party for a week because his baptism day was on the Saturday just after his birthday.

We're so very proud of the choice he has made.

What The . . .?!

Kev and I looked at a bunch of houses this morning and we saw the best house ever. The main floor was nice, a fairly decent floor plan with a gas fireplace and a good place for the piano. There was a big bar in the kitchen (although it was carpeted in the dining area) and a nice open living space. The master bedroom had a big mural of a lighthouse on one wall and rustic boathouse stuff all over. The bathroom was rustic as well, which seems silly to me. I mean, if I want my bathroom to look like an outhouse, I'll just dig myself a pit in the backyard and put up a shed! But seriously, take down the stupid stuff and get a little paint and the room is fine. The other two bedrooms were adequate and unremarkable. But enough about the main floor. The basement is where all the fun is. Kev warned me before I came down the stairs, and yet I was still not prepared to see this:





There was laughter. Copious amounts of laughter. And Matthew got to swing . . . inside . . . in the middle of a snowstorm.

Has It Really Been Eight Years?

Yesterday was Daniel's birthday. As of 11:03 p.m., he is officially eight years old. He was very excited.


And what do you get for an eight-year-old who loves Legos and loves dinosaurs? A Lego dinosaur, of course!


Nathan gave him several other Lego sets and then proceeded to shower (or drown) Daniel with his version of brotherly love.


Daniel immediately set to work building his dino, and Matthew tried really hard not to touch.

Daniel was up before 6:00 this morning working on his dinosaur. When I got up at 6:30, he was in the kitchen building and singing Harry Connick Jr.'s "It Must Have Been Old Santa Claus." I was so proud. That kid has good taste in music! (Of course, he also sings Weird Al Yankovic's "Another One Rides the Bus" on the regular basis, so I should probably amend my previous statement and say that he has our taste in music: everything from the sublime to the silly has a place in our home.)

What Matthew Was Doing While I Was Typing The Last Post

Did you know that dry erase marker wipes right off of tile but not off of skin?

Apparently five minutes is a very long time for a one year old. And the marker part happened in the last one minute of that five minute period. And yes. When I sat down at the computer he was, in fact, wearing pants.

Gobble, gobble!

Gobble, Gobble Baby!

One of Matthew's favorite pastimes is kicking of his shoes. This is the way (to my perpetual irritation) that he passes the time while we are shopping. I usually notice, but have on occasion had to go back down a few aisles to find his missing footwear. Today I was not as alert as usual and missed the kicking off of one shoe. As I was leaving Office Depot (our fourth stop of the morning), I realized that his shoe was gone. So I went back into the store and walked all the aisles hoping to find it. I didn't, of course. So I headed back out to the car to see if he kicked it off in the car without me noticing. No dice. So it was back into the store to stand in line and leave my phone number with the manager in case a toddler sized Elmo shoe showed up somewhere. After that, knowing that I would need to revisit the three other stores I had already been to, I took a minute to change a very unsavory diaper so that I wouldn't have to wash the car seat cover when we got home. While I was up to my elbows in poop (not literally, but it kind of felt like it), the Office Depot manager came running out of the store holding the lost shoe. While losing your child's shoe is not necessarily something to be embarrassed about, it would have been nice to get it back in a situation that allowed us all a bit more dignity. Seriously, I'm sure it did not make the managers day to see that diaper business. He seemed a bit embarrassed and high tailed it back into the store before I could even say thank you. But I was very grateful that he came to catch me rather than just leaving a message for me to come back and get it.

So here's to my youngest child: Gobble, gobble baby! You are an enormous turkey!