A story in picture of a boy and his cool whip (hover over to see Flickr captions):
JL and I are trying to be good and do our unofficial WW again. Since counting points is difficult to do we have been trying to come up with more snacks that are decent. JL decided he wanted to get some celery for the crunch factor. One day he decided to make ants on a log with peanut butter. I suggested to him to try cream cheese since it was lower in points and would be something good from my childhood.
NHL was lurking at snack time that day. He decided to try the red ants on a log (cream cheese log with dried cranberries). Soon after he decided that as much as he liked that, he preferred the celery all alone. So here is my strange 4 year old eating his dessert of celery the other night.
Not the best photo, but shows the huge hunk of celery that he selected over other desert choices.
He kept telling me that this was tasty. Plain? I do not think so, but whatever floats your boat kiddo!
Trying to hide his mouth behind the celery so I could not see him laughing and smiling.
Mind you I should not be surprised that my child is strange, after all I am the weirdo that does not really like chocolate. Go figure, right? No need to worry though, he received the dominant chocolate eating gene from his daddy!
Storm #2 of the not even officially winter season is heading out (I think). As of this morning we had 5-6 inches of snow and the ice kept on coming all day. Our plan was to stay home, watch movies, dig out, and bake cookies. Some of those were accomplished. We are partially out from under the snow and ice, we never had a chance to watch a movie (thanks to a certain little monkey), and we ate cookies that were delicious.
By mid-morning JL finally decided that it was time to head out into the snowy cold "fun" and took NHL with him to get out some energy. The poor kid was experiencing some serious cabin fever from being in the house since early Thursday afternoon. Here is Darth Daddy with his camera of course!
Now please note the dorky Abominable Cameraman taking a photo here while measuring the snow fall:
Finally it was time for NHL and JL to dig out at least the front area of the house:
After some time they finally made it further down the sidewalk to clean up more of the snow. Look at the little guy following his daddy – AWWWWW!
Digging, digging. . . . and yes more digging!
I went back inside to check on the little guy who was keeping warm. As you can see he was having a blast playing, but you can also see his poor little nose was very sore looking. He now cries when he sees a tissue coming toward him.
A little while later JL came in to get me for some photos. The boys had decided to take a break from cleaning up snow to play in it. Here is a mosaic of their sledding fun.
The smiles one both of their faces were just SO big!
Soon after this the boys came inside to get warm and eat lunch. We had lunch that NHL picked out – tomato soup with alphabet noodles in it. Mommy thought he might get a kick out of them and bought them. After this we noticed that NHL was getting tired. We knew he would not go to his bed. Instead we got him to snuggle up on the couch under a blanket. After fighting the nap we finally noticed that he was quiet and calm. Here is how I found the little guy. It still amazes me how kids can fall asleep in the most odd ways.
Meanwhile another little boy in the family was miserable. He refused to eat solid food, wanted to be held and could not sleep. He would settle, get into his crib and wake up crying within 20 minutes or so thanks to his poor nose. Here is how he greeted me after one of the mini-naps. The shine on his nose is vasoline to help the sore areas from constantly wiping all of the dripping.
While NHL was napping JL was ambitious and made some chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from Deceptively Delicious. The secret ingredient in these cookies are whole chickpeas. NHL woke up just in time for the first batch to come out of the oven. JL made one recipe which yielded 40 cookies (Seinfeld’s recipe says it will make 2 dozen – what size cookies does she make?). As you can see NHL approved and wanted more than the two that he was allowed. They truly were YUMMY and you never would know there was something like chickpeas inside.
Now both of the boys are in bed and the house is quiet. The 7 month old was a struggle since he was beyond overtired, congested (did the milk thing to help), and two teeth are really coming in. He also learned a lesson – you do NOT bite mommy when nursing and laugh. If you do that mommy will pass you to Daddy and say "No BOOB for you!"
Night-night for now since the morning will be here soon to finish digging out.
Thursday evening my brother (Uncle I), sister-in-law (Aunt M) and niece (SG) came into town. Due to NHL being really sick Friday we were not able to have dinner with them that evening. Saturday morning all seemed to be well. The high fever disappeared almost as mysteriously as it had appeared. Thanks to this we felt it was fine to make plans and see our family.
Aunt M and Uncle I requested lunch out at the newly opened PF Chang’s. We all said that was fine, so I made a reservation for 12:30 for the nine of us (that included the two babies). We had a very nice lunch, looked around the crazy mall quickly and then stopped at Target. We needed to go there for more Aveeno diaper rash cream as well as frosting and sprinkles for Aunt M’s Chanukah cookies.
After that it was time to head back to my parent’s house. At Nana and Papa’s we all decided to let the kids have some of their Chanukah gifts. Nana and Papa gave NHL the new Fisher Price Smart Cycle. It seems like a great "toy" for in the house during the winter. It will provide him with muscle movement (PT), and nice hand/eye coordination with the joystick (OT) using educational games. Here is a mosaic of NHL opening the gift. Note when he finally sees what is inside. Also included are some photos of him riding on it.
Meanwhile JSL was enjoying his first Chanukah (check out the cool shirt that Nana and Papa got him). It was so fun watching him get into his new toys. He sat on the floor for quite some time playing, talking, watching and enjoying the farm toy that Nana and Papa gave him. He loved finding the places that would make music and kept experimenting with everything. Here are some photos of him including when he got there in his snowsuit, playing with Papa, modeling his "My First Hanukkah" shirt. Unfortunately we never had SG and JSL in a photo together with their matching shirts on. In addition to the farm toy he LOVED the Glow Worm from Uncle I, Aunt M and SG. When we got home Saturday night he kept singing with it. When it would stop glowing he would kiss it on the face and talk to it trying to make it go again.
Of course the Smart Cycle did not come assembled since Santa does not do that for Chanukah – *wink* Thanks to this JL had the opportunity to put it together for NHL. Here’s a shot of that fun.
NHL was quite bored waiting for his Smart Cycle to be ready. Part of the time he watched Papa’s new "baby" play Noggin.
By this point he was starting to really need something to do. Aunt M had him help SG open her Chanukah gifts.
Then he was quite sick of waiting. Note the sour puss.
Since I was getting slightly bored I took the following photo of my shoes and dreidel socks:
SG was quite content when mommy read her a book and Papa came over to chat with her:
Once NHL’s bike was set, everyone just stayed together in the living room waiting for the other family members to come to the Chanukah party.
Even the Chanukah Puppy was just hanging out:
Finally everyone arrived and it was time to eat. Here is a mosaic of all of the family gathering around the lit menorah enjoying our meal together. Oh and of course the goodies!
Poor JSL just had too much fun and excitement and fell asleep while the rest of us ate our meal.
We had a very nice time with my family celebrating Chanukah together. More photos and weekend/Birthday updates coming later.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays (actually I think it is my favorite). There is just something extra special about spending time catching up with family, playing games with the kids, and eating amazing food!
This year we were lucky enough not to have to brave the roads with the boys. We stayed home and went to my Aunt S and Uncle M’s house. Their two kids (Cousin J and Cousin A) came home for the holiday. Cousin AC was also here to add to the fun, along with my parents and grandmother. In addition to this Uncle J, Aunt A, and Cousin Y all came into town. We were all surprised when we got there to see that Cousin Han was also in from Israel. I am not too sure when the last time I saw him, but it was wonderful seeing him (he is absolutely amazing with the kids – as is Cousin Y).
One realization hit hard – my little cousins have all grown up. It is so hard for me to believe how my younger cousins are almost all adults. I know this should not seem as such a shock since I am now a mother with two children of her own. Ah, the memories are wonderful and hopefully there will be many more in the years ahead.
Rather than bore everyone with what happened I am going to do it with lots of photos. Here are photos of Thanksgiving.
Here are pictures of JSL’s first Thanksgiving. As you will see being cuddly and playing with everyone made the poor little guy tired:
Both of the boys were spoiled with lots of amazing gifts from everyone. Cousin AC gave them fun books that we will read to them often. Uncle J and Aunt A picked out FUN toys and some Chanukah books. Here are photos of JSL playing with his gift (which NHL also loves) followed by NHL playing with his neat soccer game.
While the turkey was cooking a little bit more, and everyone was snacking on goodies before the main meal, Papa took NHL down to the basement. NHL was in heaven. He never knew that Aunt S and Uncle M have a pinball machine. It was just fixed and working again and they were having a blast. Here are some photos of NHL and Papa enjoying the pinball machine:
Soon it was time to sit down for our amazing Thanksgiving feast. Here are photos of almost everything that was prepared by Aunt S (JL brought the pomegranate seeds and the zucchini with dried cranberry bread).
After dinner while cleaning up there were a few funny moments. Check out this photo and tell me what is wrong.
Then all of the sugary goodness was set out for everyone to drool over. Here are the items we had before us:
As previously seen JSL was exhausted from all of the excitement and even NHL fell asleep on the way home. Here is one last shot of JSL’s 1st Thanksgiving as he was peaceful in his portable highchair at the table.
Thanks to my entire family that was there for making it such a special day. Aunt S, you are the best and I only hope that some day I will be able to pull off a holiday feast like you do.
More photos of the weekend with everyone coming soon!