Gingerbread House

I've always had a dream of making a gingerbread house (pretty lofty dreams, I know) and I've never done it. Today when I was waiting for my prescription to get filled, I saw a "Candy Cane Cottage" gingerbreadish house kit for $1. Perfect!

So while Rudy napped, Baba and I created....

We created a large mess and ate a lot of frosting. Mmmm, frosting. Before I could stop him, Baba dived in.

Oddly enough, my house is sticky.

Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving from my little turkeys. When Baba a.k.a Harry Potter saw Rudy a.k.a. Ginny Weasley he said, "She looks so beautiful, I feel like dancing with her." So they danced.



Because NOTHING says, "Happy Thanksgiving!" like a dance party in the kitchen (when we are running late and now are running even later because they were so darn cute I had to take pictures and then blog about the morning's festivities).

Alas, poor blogrick, I knew him well....

I'm blaming my lack of blogging on the packing. Most definitely the packing's fault. And since we move in a week (Ahhhh!) I really should be packing instead of blogging, but I'm on break (union job, you know).

The children have been most, um, "helpful." Baba is old enough to really, really want to help but not old enough to actually be any help. He did, however, very proudly pack two boxes all by himself. I have no idea what is in the boxes (all he let me do was tape them up. Fingers crossed.), but I know Rudy didn't end up in a box, so how bad can it be? The boxes Baba packed we had to label "Baba packed all by himself" so at least I'll be prepared for the surprise. I guess.

I must admit that while packing, I am not as vigilant in the watching of the offspring as I usually am. The children are most pleased by this development.

A couple weeks ago, my sister-in-law posted something along the lines of watching a TV show on hoarding and if you couldn't walk across her apartment to stage an intervention because the hoarders logic made since. I am somewhat of a hoarder - mostly due to my grocery shopping rules. I may be moving 29 boxes of cereal, but if the cereal is under a dollar a box, I have to buy it. That's the rule.

After taping a box and labeling, I realized that the entire box was filled with cereal, salad dressing, ketchup, and BBQ sauce. Maybe I am a hoarder. Hopefully my sister-in-law is not around when we open that box, she may stage an intervention for me. But, in my defense, all of the salad dressing, ketchup, and BBQ was free and we will eat it.

Eventually.

Dollhouses

Baba has been begging for a dollhouse for about a year now. I said I wanted to build one for him and his sister (which I still do), but don't have the time or the space to do so.

When I was out running last weekend, I ran by a garage sale that had one of those plastic little tike's dollhouses for $10. Score! I asked how long they were going to be open for and she said they were closing. I said I could run home and be back in 10 minutes. She said I could take it with me now. I declined (Um, how am I supposed to run (or walk for that matter) home carrying a super bulky and somewhat heavy dollhouse with accessories?).

I ran home as fast as I could, panted to Baba that there was a garage sale and we needed to hurry. He ran outside sans shoes in his excitement. After locating shoes and some water for me, we were off. We get out of the car at the garage sale and Baba says, pointing to the dollhouse, "Let's buy that!"

The little girl who had been the previous owner of the dollhouse looked at Baba and said, "Why are you buying a dollhouse" in her snottiest voice.

I told her we like dolls at our house, failing to see the problem with a four year old boy playing with a dollhouse. I wish she could have seen Baba playing this morning. He ran downstairs, excited and out of breath, yelling, "Stormtroopers have stormed the dollhouse!"

Its just a number....

I told my hubby he was getting old because he's almost 30.

He said, "In guys years that only 20. In lady years you are 80."

It's all relative.

The Almost Great Minnesota Get Together

I had promised the children I would take them to the county fair yesterday. Rudy's vocabulary is pretty limited so her response involved lots of "bananas!" and "burps!", but Baba was pretty pumped. Then I broke my baby toe Wednesday night (if it swells any larger, its going to beat my big toe in the biggest toe on my foot contest).

I was on pins and needles all thursday morning, hoping that Baba had forgotten about the fair. I had asked him a couple times what he wanted to do today. If he wasn't going to bring it up, I certainly wasn't going to volunteer that it was supposed to be fair day. I was perfectly content to eat tylenol while sitting on the couch with my foot elevated (and my children are so patient and understanding when Mom is injured). I asked him a couple times what he wanted to do today. I got the usual: watch Star Wars, play Star Wars on the Wii, have lightsaber battles, eat, etc. I thought I was home free. Then, right after lunch, he remember. He promised to be good until Christmas, so I buddy-wrapped, slide my poor foot into my biggest tennis shoes and off we hubbled (or, I hobbled, Rudy ran, and Baba bounced with glee).

The kids loved the animal barns. They didn't care that it stink or was 9,001 degrees. They would have happily oohed and aahed at cows and horses and pigs and goats all day. We watched barrel races, cow judging (which, is the only time that my children have sat still for more than 2 minutes consecutively), sheep judging, and a karate demenstration, during which, Baba turns to me and says, "Mom, can I take gymnastics and dance and karate. Dance and gymnastics because I want to and karate in case someone makes fun of me for taking gymnastics and dance."

Baba also got to make a super cool bookmark at the library booth. He got to use different color stamps to make finger prints on a piece of card stock. He was making TIE fighters (of course). The librarian says in her voice reserved for dealing with dumb children, "Oh! That looks like a butterfly. Its so pretty." Baba says in his most condisending voice, "Its a TIE fighter. Pew! Pew! Pew! TIE fighter." I don't think he took my "you need to be respectful to adults even if they aren't respectful to you" lecture too seriously since I was giggling through it.

After a root beer, some salt water taffy, a hot dog, some french fries, and a juice box, it was time to go. We made it home relativly in one piece and neither of my children sampled any of the prize winning produce (not for lack of trying and me screaming "Babaua Harold put that zucchini down. NOW!"). They had a great time and I had a great drink when we got home. It was a succesful day.

Last Thursday, Ma and I took the children for a fun filled, action packed day at the Minnesota Zoo. Rudy loved watching the animals. Everything was a "ili!" her word for Wili, our cat. Baba loved the African biome and kept asking when we were are going to Africa to visit my uncle.

I got to feed a giraffe. Their tongues are very cool. Baba was supposed to feed the giraffe but chickened out when he found out he'd have to wash his hands after feeding the giraffe.

They have a dairy farm set up, complete with animals. Of course, we had to look at the cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. The farm was set up so you could go into the goat pen. I really like goats (I want a fainting goat), so I took Baba into the pen with me. Everytime a goat would get too close, he'd pretend to be a tree. Oddly enough, the goats weren't tricked.

The highlight of the day was the "roller coaster" aka the monorail. Baba wanted to know why it didn't go as fast as the roller coaster at the big mall. But he stilled loved it, despite its lack of speed.