On the First Day of Christmas...

Timing is everything. Another obstacle in getting the perfect picture, in this family, is the State of Will's Face. The nomiker "bruiser" would fit him well. So, we made it to Christmas Eve with a clear, bruiseless, scratchless, chapped-cheek-free face...until about 6:30 a.m. This happened while taking a header off the bed and meeting the bed frame on the way down--ouch! Poor Will. He is forever donning the proof of the wonderful wild way he plows through life.

Taryn is here!!! We are so loving having Big Sister here to read and play with! She's also great for drawing, wrestling, and cuddling. Taryn crafted these awesome wall hangings of the Littles' names. I'll try to get a good picture of them and post later.
Santa brought us our long-awaited kitchen! Ben is still in shock that it's all his. He keeps asking if he can "open the microwave" or "put pizza in oven"! Yes yes yes, cook away! Will, so far, likes to cook his trains. He moves them in a bowl from one door to another--open, close, open, close, open, close....
While getting white tights for Ella Rose to wear on Christmas Eve, Taryn and I couldn't resist getting these feetie jammies for the Littles. If we could have squeezed Taryn into the red ones, we would have bought some for her, too. Just for the photo. :)

We're looking forward to the next 11 Days of Christmas...
Grandma and Papa will be here through the New Year!
Stay tuned...

Me? I Want a Hula Hoop!

And I thought getting 2 to smile and "look pretty" for a photo was a challenge... None of these fine offerings made the cut for the card this year. Keep your eye on your mailbox for the winner maybe sometime next week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are really enjoying the Advent season this year. The boys are totally into Christmas music, the nativity scene is getting lots of play action, and we are wearing out the bindings on our Christmas picture book collection. We've been crafting and baking and singing Jingle Bells since Thanksgiving with no signs of stopping any time soon. Our neighborhood is Big Into decorating with lots of lights and those enormous obnoxious blow-up characters. There is one house with an animatronic Santa in a sleigh (slightly creepy). We love it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We all went to the movies yesterday afternoon for the opening matinee of Alvin & the Chipmunks. OH, how I love going to the show! It's not that I don't love being able to hang out on the couch in my jammies and pause a film while I go pee, I do. You just can't replicate the sensory experience of the movie theatre at home adequately. The giant screen, the whole Dolby sound thing, the smell of popcorn (I'd say the taste, but it really doesn't taste as good as it used to when we were kids...), being part of an audience in a darkened room...eh, I can't describe it well tonight, but we've all been to the movies and know what I'm talking about. And, like anything, you don't really miss it until it's not around. Getting a babysitter to go to the movies isn't something we tend to do a lot (once!) as we really like to hang out as a family, especially with Mark gone so much of the time. But, we do like to get out of the house sometimes. So, thank God for Alvin & the Chipmunks, a movie we could see as a familiy. The computer-generated 'munks were adorable, the script was "eh", but whatever. Ben, in particular, loved it. Will loved the popcorn. Ella Rose slept soundly in the sling. And I got to go to the movies--yay!

Bluffton Christmas Parade

The Bluffton Christmas Parade was last weekend. We sat with our friend Katie and her son A.J. A.J. is one month younger than Will. It's fun to have two just the same size, but not for extended periods of time. The thought of twins makes me want to run run away.

The parade began as usual with the Parris Island Marine Band playing "Here Comes Santa Claus" and a few other tunes that work well for a marching band. We really enjoy them. Ben likes the tubas.
The parade is a typical small town affair with local churches, Boy Scout troops, politicians, and school marching bands. It also has a few entries that are strictly "Lowcountry". Like the giant roach that marches in front of the pest control truck. Or Yosti the puppeteer who marches alone, dressed in Christmas garb with a puppet on each hand, softly singing and moving the puppet mouths open and closed. And then there's the extraordinary amount of enormous shiny tow trucks, decorated to the hilt--a big hit with the boys-under-five set I know.

I, personally, get a big kick out of the Bluffton Ladies Drill Team. As far as I can tell, these ladies only perform in this particular parade with their battery-operated power tools, donned with shiny streamers that twirl. They march along together wearing hard hats, tool belts, and obligatory obnoxious Christmas attire then periodically stop and do these silly choreographed routines with their drills. Very entertaining.
There are also just random people marching along with their dogs, or driving their golf carts. The grand finale is the fire truck brigade, of course, with Santa and his bride waving from the back. So, it's offical, the Season has begun. Hooray!