Emily Lectures Santa

One day in December Emily asked me why Santa was so fat. I explained that he was pleasantly plump and that it was because so many people around him fed him cookies on Christmas Eve.
A few days later she came back to me and told me she didn't think we should leave Santa cookies. When I asked her why, she poked out her tummy as big as she could and then used her hand to gesture that it was even bigger and whispered, "He doesn't need them. I think we should leave him apples. Sliced ones."
When we were at Lake Farm Parks, Santa made the mistake of asking what kind of cookies we were going to be leaving out for him. Emily turned to him and said matter of factly, "We're not. We are going to give you sliced apples." at which time Sam threw in "And water, because that is the healthiest for you."
Santa took it well.

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Just in case he didn't get the hint that night Emily felt like she should remind him right before bed Christmas Eve and we made this video.
I think Santa and Mrs. Claus caught the hint. I signed them both up for a new gym membership yesterday.

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Lake Farm Parks

I don't know why this title makes me laugh but that night we were the Lake Farm Parks at Lake Farm Parks. The Country Lights Event that the farm puts on during the holidays are awesome. There are lights in the forms of all kinds of winter creatures that line the long, winding drive that are magical. Once there your ticket designates a time for a ride across the countryside behind two massive, amazing horses, where there are more lights that come on and off to illustrate nursery rhymes. The air is filled with the smell of roasting cinnamon almonds, cashews and living cows :-)

See how much fun we had waiting in freezing rain for our turn to see the lights.
There are lots of other activities indoors to warm the soul. My kids favorites were talking to Santa (this one WAS the real one - lucky us!) and the elf workshop where every child gets to pick out and build a toy with the help of an elf. First they choose it, then they build it, then they paint, glitter and wrap. Sam built a tank and Emily built a gingerbread house. I was with Emily in the workshop so I got way more pictures of her.
We missed the Nutcracker horse show because the roads were awful that night and it took us twice as long to get there. We were actually lucky to get home safely considering the ice storm that was going on and freezing the roads as we happily painted blocks of wood.

This is Emily making a candy cane.
Recipe: Two pipe cleaners- 1 white, 1 red.
One cordless power drill to clamp down on the ends of the pipe cleaners.
One Elf to help you practice starting and stopping the above mentioned power drill and to hold the other end of the pipe cleaners.
One happy trigger finger that knows how to listen to the above mentioned elf.
One cute munchkin with a happy, trigger finger.

OH the HOLIDAYS!!!!

I don't know why I had such a hard time letting go of the holidays this year. But alas, it is time to wrap them up in a tidy bow, blog a little about them and move on to February. Yeah, it has taken me that long to move on (though my decorations have been packed away for weeks.)
Our church Christmas party this year was on the streets of Bethlehem. I didn't take any pictures of the event but I did get some pictures of my kids before we headed out the door.

I am sure that there was pocka dots in ancient Bethlehem:-)

Sam was silly in these pictures. I think he remembered the photoshoot that he goes through every Christmas season where I try to get the perfect picture. In particular he thinks he is reinacting the nativity we did when he was 3 and emi was 18 months.
When we got there we were all given a bag of gold to pay taxes and to purchase our dinner. It was great: Beef roast and Ham (he he), curry lentil salad, fresh pita from a middle eastern store, olives, hummus, grapes, oranges, cheese and potluck desserts. I made my first Baklava and it was awesome and unbelievably easy.

Home for the Holidays!!!

We invited some fun friends over Monday night to decorate gingerbread houses. I baked and cut and filled the house with the yummy sent of warm molasses and ginger.
Here are views of Molly's side of the Huang house:


This is Matthew's side:)Age 3.

Here are a few views of my creation.



Emily went a little crazy and decorated for a couple of hours.

Here is a view of her side...


... and Sam's side.

Spinning a Yarn

Danny is a curious guy. His brain never stops, he has a lot of interests and he is always learning something new. When he is researching a new interest he does it at full throttle. I like to refer to these periods as his phases.
We have seen the psychology and architecture phase when he was in grad school and we had a couple of friend studying those subjects. We have seen the gardening phase accompanied by the photography phase where we got some great scans and pictures of flowers and stunted veggies that didn't grow so well in our ultra hard, clay soil. We saw the drawing phase, the bluegrass phase, and the fishing phase. The biking phase lasted a couple of years and culminated in a 200+ mile trip across the state of Ohio. We are still going through the yo yo phase, which has probably moved beyond the phase category into that of an obsession. We are also deep into the Italian Polka phase, being that he belongs to a band that rehearses weekly and plays weddings as well as an occasional gig at the Italian Bocce Club with accordions and all. (Mediterranean version of the country club where a Bocce ball is the equivalent of the golf ball.)
The latest interest to surface is knitting and crocheting. You will be able to see from the parade of pictures that follow just how extensive this phase is. He has even made his own knitting needles.:) I love this guy!!!






Did I mention that this has only been going on for a couple of weeks.

Toothless Wonder

Sam has lost another tooth. He actually lost it weeks ago but I am just getting around to sharing. It is one of his top front teeth and he wiggled that little guy forever. He wiggled it so much, without committing to the actual pull, that it turned into a snaggle-tooth.

He is also at that age where he has lost his real smile. When someone is taking a picture of him you can see the inner struggle as he searches to remember what his smile is suppose to look like. Right now it is coming out more like a grimace.

It makes me feel better when I look at the pictures on our primary board at church and realize that every single child his age has also lost their real smile and there is a nice mixture of grimaces and lost looks.
That leads me to the real story of how Sam lost his first front tooth. We got his packet of school pictures back and when we opened them up. . . HUGE startled grimace. (My face probably looked a lot the same when I found out what they are charging for school pictures these days.)
Fast forward to November 25th. I was driving down the road on my way to deliver some Pampered Chef orders and when I wrote down the date in my mileage book I gasped. I was reminded that it was the day for picture retakes! I had not paid that exorbitant amount for a packet full of pictures I wouldn't use. I quickly called the school and informed them that Sam would be getting retakes and I would be there directly to get him ready. I raced home, got a nicer shirt and some hair gel and headed for the school. I got there just as they were rounding up the 1st graders and got him changed and spiked. He loathes gel so I got to hear him mutter about it the whole time. Then I turned him around to give him a once over and have him practice a "real" smile. I was greeted with his crookity, gray, snaggle tooth that was sticking out of his gums at a 45 degree angle. These pictures actually look good compared to what it had actually become.


I just said, "Wow Sam, let me see how loose that is," and I plucked that wiggly thing out of his head, told him to rinse at the drinking fountain and marched him in for pictures. All he said was "Ahhh, that kind of stings."
We got super cute, toothless pictures and he was excited to go to the nurses' office afterwards to get a tiny treasure chest to store that little guy in until he could collect his two bucks from the tooth fairy.
I love the way he looks with his toothy grin and how it has changed the way he talks a little bit. It is also cute to see how he has to bite everything on the side.

Parade of Ugly 2008

I had a couple minutes to check out some of my favorite blogs, one thing led to another and I ended up running into this post on a blog of someone that I absolutely have no idea who they are. However, I am glad I stalked because it is truly one of the funniest things I have ever read. I too am guilty of hoarding things that I can't even stand and I am sure I have given some of these same things to poor undeserving souls. So for a good laugh check this out. I especially enjoyed Andrea's (close friend that she is ;) If you read through this and discover creatures of the same nature looking around your lights, lurking in the branches of your tree or adorning your walls send them to me and we can have a parade of our own.
dnsparks@juno.com