Gingerbread House and Polar Express

We've had a lot of fun celebrating the holidays the last couple weeks. Last Saturday I took N to a gingerbread decorating "workshop" at our local library. This activity is very popular in our town, so it books up really quickly. I am glad my friend, J caught me at the library back in October and told me I better sign up for it. It was so much fun and it was only $5!! The kids arrive at the library and the gingerbread houses are already assembled. Each house is "glued" (with icing) to a piece of foil covered cardboard. Each child receives a baggie of icing and is told to go ahead and decorate. There were several tables set up with four seats at each table. Every table had several bowls and plates of candies, cookies, pretzels and cereals for the kids to decorate with. Towards the middle of the workshop the head librarian gave each child one Peep brand marshmallow in the shape of a Christmas tree to put on his/her house. N was very interested in creating his house. We found two Nilla wafers that were stuck together and attached them to the house because they looked like a snow man. He was very meticulous about putting gum drops around the house in a pattern to serve as a fence. He was also interested in tasting nearly every candy, cookie, cereal. He'd say, " I will just try ONE of these, Mom. Just one." Christmas music was playing in the back ground and a nice blanket of snow had fallen on the ground outside earlier that day. It was such a great day! I loved it and N did too.

Tonight D took N to a nearby park for their "Polar Express" night while L and I stayed home. N and D had to leave before dinner to get to the event on time, so the two of them drove through McD's to get supper on the way there. N was super excited about that. The Polar Express event had lots of activities. I wasn't there, but I hear a conductor read part of the "Polar Express" book to everyone while they waited their turn to board the train. Then they got on the train and the rest of the story was read to everyone over the speaker system during the ride. The train ride was an open air train, so everyone had to bundle up for the ride. D and N were prepared with their hats and gloves, but D said N wouldn't wear his gloves because he didn't want to drop his ticket. If you've seen the Polar Express movie you know there's a part in the movie when one of the passengers drops her ticket and gets in big trouble. N remembered that from the movie and took that very seriously on his ride! The train ride ended at the train depot that was decorated as the North Pole. From there everyone got a ride to the main lodge where they got to talk to Santa.

As N and D approached Santa N told D, "That's not the real Santa. That's just a guy dressed up like Santa." N wore his "Santa Rocks" shirt and Santa noticed it. He said, "That's right. Santa rocks!" N thought that was cool. Santa asked N if he's a good boy. He asked if N puts away his toys, his clothes and helps with the cooking at home. N said "I do" to all of them. D said N warmed up to Santa and started to believe he might be the real deal. The thing that Santa said that won Nick over was when Santa said, "Wow! You've grown a lot since last year!" Then Santa asked N what he wants for Christmas and N said, "A John Deere tractor and a red hay bailer that makes circle hay." After talking to Santa and getting a picture with him, N and D had hot cocoa and cookies while they watched Rudolf on a big screen TV and sat in bean bags. Then N made his way through an inflatable maze before heading outside for pony rides. When D and N got to the pony rides, they realized there was a line and N said he was tired and would rather go home. He came home with a picture of he and Santa, a jingle bell and a Polar Express ticket. Apparently there were also ten crafts and a couple animal shows, but D and N did not participate in those because they didn't have time. They had a fun, busy night!

Peppermint Popcorn

I actually made this recipe several weeks ago, but because I gave it to a friend as her Secret Santa, I haven't been able to post it. Here it is. It's yummy. I think if I did it over again I'd use the seedless popcorn that comes already popped in the bag. I say that because, for some reason, my popcorn had lots of seeds in it which made it a little hard to enjoy this yummy treat.

Peppermint Popcorn

2 Bags popcorn (or about 16 cups already popped popcorn)

1 box candy canes

2 cups white chocolate chips

Smash candy canes. I put the candy canes in a small bag and put that small bag into a larger bag to reduce the candy cane mess. Pop the popcorn. Melt chocolate chips. Mix crushed candy canes into melted chocolate. Pour over popcorn. Stir popcorn and chocolate to evenly coat. Lay out on wax paper to cool.

Merry Medical Moment: Gross!

Now that it's December and Christmas is approaching I shall place my tongue firmly in my cheek and call these "Merry Medical Moments" instead of Medical Moments. 'Cause why have a medical moment when you can have a merry medical moment?

So, the most recent of our medical moments is absolutely gross. Totally, completely gross. So if you're eating or if you have a weak stomach, then this is your warning. Stop eating. Stop reading.

With that said... Sunday night. Yes, another Sunday night. When sickness strikes at our house, it strikes on Sunday nights. Not sure why, but it does. Sunday evening D and I returned from a wonderful date afternoon. (We saw the movie Morning Glory. It's cute and entertaining.) We thanked D's parents for rescuing relieving us of our parental duties for a few hours and we stepped, no leaped back into reality. Shortly after D's parents left L made a stinky diaper. When D asked me to come over and look at it I knew something was wrong. It was half "normal," half red. "Did he eat play-doh? Geesh, that's red!" A quick call to D's parent's and they confirmed L did not eat play-doh nor did he eat any red food. Then what is it? I called peds after-hours and they said several things, but the main thing was to give it some time and three red diaps before taking him in to the ER. Time went on, another diaper came. It was all red. We worried, we contemplated our options and decided to take L to the ER. D's Mom returned to our house to stay with N while we took L to the hospital. We took the two diapers to the hospital with us. Sounds gross, I know, but we are soooo glad we did! If your child ever has an odd looking diaper, I strongly encourage you to wrap it up in a plastic bag and bring it with you to be examined because this is what saved us from having to endure a myriad of blood tests and sonograms. We talked to the doctors about several things, but one of them was the medicine L is currently taking for an ear infection, Cefdinir (or Omnisef as they call it at the hospital). Apparently this medicine has strange effects on a child's pee and poo. It can turn pee orange and poo red. Luckily the resident assigned to us talked this over with the on shift doctor and the doctor informed her of this fact before tests and sonograms were performed. The doctor had the resident do a litmus test of sorts using a small smudge of L's poo and it confirmed that there was no blood in the stool. The litmus test showed all the red stuff was the Omnisef! Thank goodness! I was sure we had internal bleeding on or hands, but we didn't. One thing the doctor noted was that the poo was "brick red" instead of bright red. He said the color of red is a big sign in what could be going on. SO, if you have kids remember Omnisef/Cefdinir can make your child's poo turn brick red. (But, if you have any concerns I'd certainly advise you to make a trip to the ER to rule out anything more serious!)

Christmas Decorating

We put our tree up last weekend. We usually go to a local Christmas parade on Thanksgiving weekend, but decided to skip it this year since the boys have been sick. We figured standing outside in 30 degree weather might just set us two steps back in our efforts to get them over their bronchitis and ear infections... Little did we know "The flu of 2010" would strike anyway... So we put our tree up rather than going to the parade. N was a really good helper this year. He likes to find things that match and our tree is color coded, so he had fun matching the color on the core of the tree to the colors on each branch. Does this photo remind you of the Griswold Family Christmas too?

I've enjoyed decorating for Christmas since I was a little girl. I remember pulling out whatever odds and ends Mom had on hand and arranging them all over the house. I certainly do not claim to be a pro by any means, but I still enjoy it. Over the last few days I've been putting out decorations when I get a few minutes. I am challenging myself to use the decorations we have without buying too many new things. One thing I have lots of are plain white candles. I wanted to incorporate them some how but I wanted to jazz them up a bit, so I decided to try to find some ribbon to wrap around them. I didn't find any ribbon, but I did find some pretty leftover wrapping paper from last year. The light bulb went on. I decided to partially wrap the candles with wrapping paper. I obviously know this would pose a fire hazard if you placed the paper too close to the wick, so I placed the paper in the middle of the candle. I wrapped the paper around each candle and put tape over the paper so it didn't hurt the candles.

Here's the tree and the mantel together. I might try to find something to hang over the tv if I can figure out how to hang it without damaging the wall.

I'm brainstorming ideas for what to put in our half bath (now painted blue), our "shelf" above the closet in the entry way and in the stairwall going to our upstairs. I'm kinda in the mood to make something, we'll see. And if I don't get around to it, so be it. Maybe I'll do it next year.