Lex found a cup of “goldfish and bunnies” in the
backpack and managed to dump it all over the floor. Then he and
Eve sat right down to eat them. I figured, “Snack time on the
floor? What the heck, it’s Christmas!” Stay tuned for a video
of her drinking her water during this snack time.

The two of them are so sweet these days, and
extra sweet today. Right now they are upstairs, not napping,
but doing something that they both find very funny. I’m not
sure what (probably should find out) but they are up there
laughing and laughing together. I suspect he’s playing
peek-a-boo or something like that with her. It doesn’t bode
well for a nap, but it’s cute anyway… heheh… he just said
“1… 2… 3…” and then she cracked up.

Turns out they were
laughing because Eve started pulling herself up in the crib. I
walked in and she was standing up and he was peeking at her
through the bars. Both were hysterical. Then she fell over and
hit her face right into the bars. It’s been a tough week for
her.

Isn’t she cute!

Eve is pretty cute too
:)

Lex has hit this fun stage where you can’t call
him anything or use any adjectives with him. If you do, he’ll
correct you by saying “No, I just a boy.” Alan called him a
crazy monkey, “I just a boy,” he replied. Tell him he’s sweet
and lovable, he’ll reply, “I just a boy.” :)

Today he is SO HIGH ON THE SUGAR!! Amanda and Andrea came
over for the first of our many holiday celebrations and we
decorated gingerbread cookies and ate too much. After breakfast
this morning Lex decorated a gingerbread bear that he made the
other day and once it was done he promptly said, “now we eat
it!” I made him wait until after his nap :) Needless to say,
one decorated gingerbread bear and Hershey kiss/brownie
concoction (sooo good!) later he is revved!

Congratulations to Joyce!
She graduated from Clemson University today with a degree in
Travel & Tourism. Welcome to the real world now! We love
you!

Send your love and well wishes to Molly
Elizabeth Kirkwood, born last night. Julie says all went well.
I can’t wait to meet her! I was tempted to throw the kids in
the car and cruise on down today, but these days I have more
kids than car seats, so that was a no-go. Oh well. We’ll see
her soon enough and Jim & Julie will probably be posting
pictures soon on their blog.

As many of you know, we use “so sad” as a
Love & Logic term with the kids. In the past few days Lex
has decided to be helpful and “so sad” Eve :) I’m not sure if
we should encourage this behavior (who wants their big brother
disciplining them?), but the funny part is he has been correct
in each case. He even says it with empathy and gives her a big
hug afterwards. For example, tonight she got Alan’s slipper and
started to chew on it, so Lex walked over, said “So sad Eve”
and took the slipper away. He put it back with the other one
and then went over and gave Eve a big hug. So cute!!

And speaking of Eve, she seems to have
discovered just yesterday that she can get farther by crawling
instead of pulling herself along with her hands. She’s been
doing a little crawling and a lot of GI Joe moves, but that’s
just a lot of work! Suddenly she realized that crawling can be
faster. Go Eve!

Lots of other stuff
going on these days, but it’s 10:30 and I’m tired. I did sign
up another kid today, a two year old girl. Lex will be
surrounded by girls :) She’s coming for a few hours next week,
then starting full-time in January. Should be fun!

We had a bake-a-rific weekend! Saturday was our
annual cookie party. We had two other families join us to bake
lots and lots of cookies. My little house had 5 adults and 5
kids running around. We made gingerbread men (and women and
children) and the toddlers painted them (with some help from
the grown-ups). We made fudge and Rudolph cookies and
cranberry-white-chocolate-chip-oatmeal cookies and all sort of
yummy things :) Sadly Jim & Julie were unable to attend
this year, but with little Tinkerbell almost done baking,
everyone was pretty understanding.

Eve and I went to visit my friend Jen today to
make a gingerbread house! My first! She is a professional baker
and offered to teach me. So we had a fun, relaxed day of
baking, cutting, framing, and decorating with breaks here and
there for lunch and tending to little ones. It was cool. Lex
and Alan got a boys day together and both were duly impressed
when I brought home my creation.

It’s day three of our at-home morning nap
attempts and he fell asleep!! Quietly, all by himself, and in
just 15 minutes! Yay! Very convenient too because I have A LOT
to do before our cookie party tomorrow. Now if Eve will also
fall asleep…