Finished with the Tree

Two days later, I finally finished putting the ornaments on the tree. Daddy had the honor of bracing himself against the ceiling to try and get the angel in the right spot.

Parker was so thrilled. He loves the lights, the ornaments, the tree. He just runs around the front room in giddy circles.

Here's what happens when we try to interrupt the running in circles for a picture.

Merry Christmas!

Putting Up the Tree

Kenzie putting up the first ornament. She was so excited. This year, she actually helped a bit! The bottom of the tree is clustered with all the ornaments she put up.

Parker mainly pushed around this "train" and then pulled a few ornaments off the tree. Then he tried to crawl under the tree with the cat. It's going to be a busy Christmas.

An in-action shot of both kids marching back and forth from the ornament box to the tree. "Mom, is it Christmas now? Can we make cookies?" One thing at a time, Kenzie!

Hooray for Turkey Day

Two little kids, bundled up with their special bears and blankies, ready to go to Aunt Caroline's for Thanksgiving dinner

The buffet line (well, one of three! We Arnolds -and Lamberts - know how to feast properly)

Table One, in all its glory

Parker, saying, "Oh, no!" because Clifford the Big Red Sippy Cup had mashed potatoes all over him. (Parker polished off two bowls of mashed potatoes this year! I was quite impressed)

My sweet girl, camped out at Table Two with us. I turned around to help Parker and said, "Where'd she go?" There was Kenzie, at the front of one buffet line, spooning corn onto her own plate and headed for the turkey next!

I took a picture of the desserts just because I was so excited: everything from pumpkin rolls to blackberry cheesecake, pumpkin pie, cherry pie... I sampled as much as I could! All in all, a very successful Thanksgiving!

"I Don't Like Parades. Look, Mom!"

Thank goodness for the DVR, otherwise the Thanksgiving parade would have taken way too long to watch (even Kenzie said, "No more blabbing!" each time we'd fast-forward). She started off telling me she doesn't like parades, but then planted herself on the couch, tapped her foot to the music, and yelled with excitement about each balloon. My favorite comment, though, came when watching the Radio City Rockettes do their kick line. "Whoa. That's a lotta legs!"

Parker did a lot of pointing! He also meowed at the Hello Kitty balloon and ran around with excitement for the SpongeBob balloon.

He loves french fries, so it's fitting that he's getting excited about the Ronald McDonald balloon in this picture. Happy Thanksgiving!

Quite the Expedition

Poor Daddy-horsie now has two riders. I loved that Parker spent most of the time looking through the magnifying glass. It made it seem like he really was on an expedition with Kenzie.

Monster Bash

Thursday I went to preschool with McKenzie for a "Monster Bash." Kenzie was very excited about it, and her favorite thing was making a monster mask.I left my camera at home that day, thinking it would be too goofy for me to be taking pictures. Another parent did bring a camera, though, and other parents used their cell phones to take pictures, so I guess I know that for next time!

Kenzie is a smart little kid. They played some matching games, sang some songs, and did some counting activities, and she did really well. I'm obviously proud of her.

Mommy got a turn so Kenzie could take a picture. Very nice, no?

Primary Program = Success. Nursery = Not

Here's Kenzie, our sweet girl, before heading to church to her first Primary program. The little Sunbeams were all so sweet (except when we noticed Kenzie was picking her nose! Lovely).

Here's Kenzie saying her line. The Sunbeams all mentioned people in their family, and Kenzie's line was, "Grandparents: mine are coming home from their mission soon." She proudly recited it many times, and today when her turn came, she started off with gusto: "Grandparents!" -- Then she heard the echo of her voice with the microphone and it scared her. She got very shy, and her teacher tried to prompt her several times but we could all hear her whisper, "I can't do it!" Still very sweet to watch, though. Here's our little turkey, Parker. Today was supposed to be his first day in nursery. I led him in, and he started screaming his head off. I sat down with him, and he cried. Finally we got him to play for a minute, but then it was time to put the toys away for a lesson, so he screamed again. And again. Finally Daddy took him home for a nap. I guess we'll try again next week with the little goober!

Robot Parade

There are boxes everywhere lately. We're trying to pack up everything we possibly can, but it's sure hard when Kenzie claims a good percentage of the boxes!

Urgent Snack Time

While trying to clean up upstairs, Kenzie and Parker both started whining to me. I figured a snack was in order, but didn't want to stay downstairs for a long time. I ran down, grabbed some pretzels and orange juice, and was greeted at the top of the stairs by two outstretched pairs of arms. They immediately both plunked themselves down right by the gate and ate every single pretzel. (It had been an entire hour since lunch, so I shouldn't have been surprised). This is just one of those cute things I enjoyed watching. They laughed and jabbered at each other and it was rather sweet.

100 Random Things to Be Thankful For

It's one week until Thanksgiving, so allow me to welcome you to a list much longer than anyone's attention span - 100 Random Things to Be Thankful For. (Try it yourself - list 100 things you'd rather not live without. You'll realize how many neat things we have.)

1. Macaroni & Cheese
2. Hand Lotion
3. DVRs
4. Baby Seals
5. Disneyland
6. Microwaves
7. Pizza
8. Caller ID
9. "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (which saved us from having to use "Blues Clues" as our "song")
10. Kleenex
11. Lint Rollers
12. Breath Mints
13. Red Pandas
14. Candy Land
15. Ibuprofen
16. Digital Cameras (not that I use mine...)
17. Literacy
18. Buffets
19. Christmas Lights
20. Remote Controls
21. Fresh Basil
22. Magic Erasers
23. Hot Showers
24. Frequent Hot Showers
25. Online Product Reviews
26. Refrigerators
27. Curly Fries
28. Jeans
29. Mapquest!
30. Label Makers
31. Wedding Rings
32. Tupperware
33. Car Seats
34. Tape
35. Stuffed Animals
36. Gummy Bears
37. Scissors
38. Hair Dryers
39. Happy Meals
40. Tortilla Makers
41. Headphones
42. Microfibers
43. Almond Extract
44. Amazon.com
45. Crock-pots
46. Shopping Carts
47. Standardized Recipes
48. Cake Pans
49. Slippers
50. Electric Pencil Sharpeners
51. Scanners
52. Jarred Baby Food
53. guguguuuuuufddddddddd (Parker added one)
54. Heaters
55. Sparkling Cider
56. Toilet Paper (and toilets, for that matter)
57. Closets
58. Sales
59. Glue Sticks
60. Churros
61. Sand
62. Puffins
63. Forensic Science
64. Wrinkle-free Shirts (I do not iron!)
65. Corn Mazes
66. Epidurals
67. Post-it Notes
68. Tear-free Shampoo
69. Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs
70. Hand Sanitizer
71. The Muppets Christmas Carol
72. Roller Coasters
73. Nail Polish
74. White Cherry Icees
75. Great Catch Phrases from Infomercials
76. Apples to Apples (how else was Chris supposed to propose?)
77. Memory Foam Pads
78. Cinnamon Rolls
79. Batteries
80. Swimming Pools
81. Cinderella
82. Plungers
83. Jack-in-the-Box Tacos
84. White-out
85. Sippy Cups
86. Debit Cards
87. 6-Foot Sandwiches (I suppose I could live without them, but they're so neat!)
88. Baby Pajamas
89. Google
90. Fire Pits
91. Yo-yos
92. Sugar Cookies
93. Penguins
94. Libraries
95. Vitamin C
96. Thrift Stores
97. Drinking Fountains
98. Swings
99. Mailboxes

#100 on my list is......disposable diapers! This is very stereotypical - what mother of small children wouldn't be thankful for those? Still, I couldn't ignore my gratitude for a barrier between me and their, uh, output.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Letters to Santa

Things I Don't Want to Forget:It's too sweet. Kenzie happily sat down for a long time trying to write a letter to Santa. I showed her on my own paper how to make each letter, and for the most part she did really well. Here's what the first part says:

• "Dear Santa,"
• "Please"
• "Kitty" (she wants a Littlest Pet Shop kitty)
• "Shopping Cart"
  • 

• "Lantern" (there's a cute nite-lite lantern she'd like to help her not have to keep the lights on at night)
• "Cheeky Teddy" -- she wrote Teddy, then decided that the teddy Santa brings will be named Cheeky, so that needed to be added!

Later she showed me she'd drawn a picture for Santa of what to bring Parker, too. Initially she told me she drew him a race car, but later she described this as pig, elephant and dinosaur race cars (and the other figure is her). Santa can sort it out.

Here's my picture for Santa. "You get a kitty, too, but not in a purse." (The kitty she wants comes in a little carrying purse. Apparently mine won't!) My favorite is Daddy's. "Santa will bring you a monster truck with a cave on it." We enjoyed that. Now that I've scanned everything in, I've been instructed to mail it right away. "The North Pole is very far away. I don't know how to get to it!" Christmas is coming, and McKenzie is ready!

My Little Cheese Buckets

This picture makes me laugh. What a couple of nuts. We finally are at the end of the colds we all caught (immediately after having the flu!), so I think it's safe to say I'm resuming my usual steady flow of picture-taking. Hooray!

I think they both have grown up since the last picture I took. Next week Parker starts going to nursery at church, and Kenzie's in her first Primary Program. She already has her line memorized, too. It's a relief to have such a smart little girl - less work for me.

Here's a cute picture. I told Chris this morning in a hinting-voice: "Parker is wearing his blue shirt and khaki pants." What a good sport - Daddy was willing to match him.

Here is the most accurate depiction of our family. Parker's clapping because he just hucked his Care Bear ball across the room. Kenzie's got her tongue sticking out for no apparent reason. Chris is just smiling through it all, and I'm trying to capture it on camera. Sounds about right.

Why There Aren't Many Pictures Lately

Let's let tonight's dinner stand for how the past week has been: I get the homemade pizza dished out and am just brushing the breadsticks with butter. Kenzie barfs all over the table. I try to usher her to the toilet but she barfs two more times en route instead. I clean that up, while Chris helps her change clothes. Chris says, "No offense, but I don't think I want a breadstick." Well, inexplicably I'm still hungry. I finish washing my hands for the seventeenth time and sit down with my pizza. Parker has an explosion in his pants so loud even he comments, "Uh-oh. Poo." I have to wash his clothes, his high-chair's cover, my sweater, and my pants (when I notice there's barf on them). SO DISGUSTING! It's a good thing I'm willing to be Mommy for free, because they couldn't pay me enough to do this job!

McKenzie

Isn't this cute? If Kenzie messes up, she just tries again, that's why sometimes she has a few extra letters, but otherwise she's doing pretty well. Considering she did nothing but scribble a few months ago, I'm rather impressed.

Are You Prepared (to Eat Gross Food)??

Over the years, I have slowly accumulated a variety of MREs, and tonight we decided to taste-test a few. There are some sales going on right now, so any flavors that were decent I wanted to go stock up on for emergencies. Chris and I thought we'd turn off the lights and have a fun evening pretending the power was off. Parker would not touch any of the MREs, so I wound up making the kid some chicken nuggets. Kenzie tried three different flavors very bravely, and finally she did settle on cheese tortellini. I was relieved there was one she'd eat! Chris and I tried a couple and remarked, "I guess we'd eat that if we were dying!" which isn't really the highest culinary category. Oh, and Kenzie didn't like having the lights off, that worried her. So we sat around in full-lighting, used the microwave, and basically cheated our way through our MRE trial-run.

Here is the list of MREs we've tried (not all were tried tonight, lest you think we're pigs):

• Almond Pound Cake - good

• Beef in Teriyaki Sauce - okay (probably better with some rice to help the texture)

• Brownie with Chocolate Chips - good

• Cheddar Cheese spread - okay

• Cheddar Pretzels - good (Kenzie wouldn't eat them, but Parker loved them)

• Cheese Tortellini - good with some salt added

• Chicken, Noodles, & Vegetables in Sauce - NO

• Chocolate Peanut Butter - good

• Filled French Toast - NO

• Fried Rice - NO

• Ham & Shrimp Jambalaya - NO

• Hash Browns with Bacon - okay

• Ice Cream Sandwich - okay (a little weird to eat a dry ice cream sandwich, though)

• Marble Pound Cake - good

• Meatloaf - good

• Mexican Corn - NO

• Mexican Macaroni & Cheese - good (I'm starting to wonder if I was pregnant the last time I tried this, because I remembered it as being really tasty, but tonight it was only okay)

• MRE Crackers - good

• Pasta with Vegetables in Alfredo-style Sauce - okay (added lots of salt)

• Strawberry Jam - good

• Strawberry Shake - okay

• Vegetable Crackers - good

• Wheat Snack Bread - good

There you have it. I still have a box with more varieties to try, but I think we're going to need some time to recuperate first. The whole house smells just a little funky with all the things we heated up tonight!

Loot

Only at the first house was Kenzie a bit shy, then she started running from house to house and quickly saying, "Trick or treat!" with a big grin. She was also quick to point out, "I'm just Sleeping Booty," to anyone who mentioned she looked beautiful.

I loved this face. Hurry up, Mom, so I can get into my candy!

Parker wanted his M&Ms first. That kid loves M&Ms. As we went around, I held Parker, and he held his pumpkin bucket. He never once loosened his grip, even when it was full! "Tree!" he would say at each house. One guy showed Parker his bowl of candy, and Parker didn't hesitate for a second to reach in and grab a Kit-Kat. It was his first time trick-or-treating, but he caught on extremely well!

Kenzie picked a full-sized Kit-Kat as her first treat. (Plus a doughnut from the Johnsons!)

After Parker downed his M&Ms, both kids had a "special drink" they'd gotten and then Parker had a waffle and went to bed. He was exhausted! Kenzie, on the other hand, went to bed plotting ways to eat candy at breakfast. "Mom, if I eat all my toast, then can I have just one candy?"