santa, gingerbread houses, and a whole lot of other stuff!

The other day I dressed Alexis up in a black turtleneck, black tights, and a brown corduroy skirt...she looked "babe-a-lish", as we say in our house. Anyway, later in the evening she announced that she had a surprise for me. She had taken off Tyler's pants all by herself, which he seemed okay with. Then a few minutes later she announced another surprise, she had taken off her skirt too! So I had to take a picture of her all in black. We posed her and told her to make a scary face and this is what happened:I think it's genetic. Here's the evidence.
Moving on. Lock up your daughters (any ages 2 and younger) because here's a picture of the studliest guy you'll ever see.Who can resist a fat man in a choo choo train vest? Not me! But don't let that smile fool you, this poor guy's been sick for going on a month. He seems to catch everything that comes our way and it lingers. He's coughing his way through a nap right now. I think everyone in this house is ready for him to get better so we can all get a little more sleep. Here's a cute one of him with breakfast the other day. He likes to have the option of eating from both hands, so put half a banana in each hand and you have a happy boy!

As you can see from the earlier pictures we made gingerbread houses this weekend with our good friends Kole and Dorothy. Jeremy and Dorothy both like to make pretty gingerbread houses that take all night, whereas Kole and I seem to have the "just get it done" mentality. So of course ours were the ones the kids got to decorate. Kolbe, Jane, and Kole. Jane had a good tactic for decorating, she just dumped candy on the exact same spot until it was about 3 feet tall.Me and Alexis. Ours had a snow hill there in the front for the little candy Santa's to sled down. My philosophy in gingerbread house building is that the yard is more important than the house structure. Jeremy does not agree with me.

See? Pretty house, no yard. Amazing roof though.
This is the best picture I have of Dorothy's which is too bad because hers was pretty cool. The roof is covered in necco's. MMMMMM.

Question: Why does Santa give kids candy canes?
Answer: To bribe the kids that would otherwise have nothing do with him. Like Alexis.
Santa came to preschool yesterday. Alexis does not like to be very near Santa so I had to psyche her up for it before school. We made a deal that she did not have to sit on his lap but she did have to go up and talk to him. Here she is talking to him, notice the distance.
But I am proud of her, she's had a busy few months full of scary guys between Barney and Santa Claus. Are you wondering what she's asked for? Yesterday she asked for a barbie skateboard. She told me she was going to ask for a barbie but then the first boy to talk to Santa wanted a spider-man skateboard, so of course then everyone in class wanted a skateboard! And she's also asked for roller skates. I keep telling her she should ask for the movie "Cinderella" cause at least then she won't be completely disappointed. Also, she and I talked yesterday. We are going to leave our back door unlocked (except not really) so Santa can get in, and we'll leave him cookies and carrots for his reindeer. And they are NOT going to park on our roof, Alexis won't allow it.

Anyone else getting excited for Christmas?