Off-Label Toy Uses

Yesterday Gavin was playing with his Hexbugs and got a little bored. Or creative.

He decided his Hexbug tracks would make a perfect saxophone.

He spent a good part of the next hour happily jamming away.

This isn't the first time Gavin has used his toys in some interesting and innovative ways. Remember Ghostbusters?

We watched it with the kids a few weeks ago, and now Gavin loves to play Ghostbusters.


All he needs is his duffel bag -- worn like a backpack -- and the launcher for his Stomp Rockets. Who ya gonna call? Gavinbusters! He ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

The Stomp Rockets are also useful as microphones for Lucy's performances. Gavin is accompanying her on a "bongo drum" that is actually his new bungee jumper.

By the way, while we were searching for a Ghostbusters picture on GoogleImages, I found somebody's Lego version. So the kids decided to make their own. This is Egon, Venkman, Spangler and the other guy fighting the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Lucy made the marshmallow guy while Gavin assembled the Ghostbusters from various other Lego people. You might recognize Indiana Jones' and Harry Potter's hair on bodies mostly taken from Star Wars sets. As usual, I'm amazed by their inventiveness! I hope it's a long time before they feel constrained by convention -- at least as far as toys are concerned.

Christmas Week 2010

I know I've been posting a lot about Christmas and Holiday events this year. I can't help it -- I really love Christmas, and I love Christmas traditions, old and new. But I did try and hold off so I could put all the fun stuff we've done this week into one big blog post.

On the last day of school, Gavin's class put on a performance of the Kindergarten classic "Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts." Gavin was the baker -- it was his job to introduce all the different cookies. The whole thing lasted all of ten minutes. Nothing is sweeter than singing Kindergarteners dressed up as cookies.

With the kids out of school (and some snow on the ground, finally!) Austin was able to get out his new (to us) snowmobile and pull the kids around the field.

The ski helmets, goggles, and balaclavas were perfect for a snowy ride on a beautiful but frigid December day.

I found these fun Gingerbread houses at Costco and we spent an afternoon decorating them. Lucy frosted the front of her "toy shop" house to look like the picture on the box but made the back look like a big red barn. Love it. These kids are such Vermonters -- of course Santa would need a barn to go with his house!

We fed the gingerbread house and barn to the chickens for their special treat on Christmas Day.

We continued our tradition of the Bethlehem Dinner, inviting friends over for a multi-course Middle Eastern dinner (hummus, cheese, grapes and olives, followed by lentil soup, then chicken, tilapia and couscous with olive tapenade, and baklava and fruit for dessert.) Luckily, people in the Middle East eat sitting on the floor, because we don't have a table that could accommodate so many people! After dinner the kids (and a couple of good-sport teenagers) put on the nativity play.

Christmas Day was wonderful. Lucy got a My American Girl doll and a camera from Santa, but her favorite gift seems to have been a sewing kit. She spent most of the day working on sewing projects.

Gavin got the Lego Hogwarts Castle. I was figuring my Christmas day would mostly involve me and Lucy building it for him, but it turns out he wanted to do it all by himself. And he did. I was impressed -- those were some long and complicated instructions. He spent hours totally absorbed in building Legos.

By nighttime he'd got the first two towers completed. He's so proud of himself.

And Lucy finished her first ever sewing project, a little felt cat.

The only lame thing that happened on Christmas was that our oven finally gave out for good. No hot rolls, no turkey dinner. But in the grand tradition of A Christmas Story, we made Chinese food instead. Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra, ra Ra Ra Ra! Guess I'll be getting a new range for my birthday.

How To Identify a Real Santa

We've long explained the proliferation of Santas (and varying qualities of their Santa gear) by telling the kids that Santa Claus is very busy and sometimes needs to employ "helper" Santas. The Helper Santas report back to the big guy at the North Pole. So when the kids see Santa at the store, or at the ward party, or at the Northfield VFW, I ask them whether they think this is the Real Santa or one of the Helpers. They've determined that the Wal-Mart Santa is definitely a Helper. The others can be hard to tell.

Lucy has decided that if she's ever seen the Real Santa, it has to be the Santa from the Polar Express ride. I have to say, he's one cool Santa. Scraggly white (and obviously real) beard, brocade Santa gown, and big gold hoop earrings. Kind of a cross between Captain Jack Sparrow and St. Nick. The Polar Express Santa has Santa's larger-than-life presence and deep Ho-Ho-Ho, but other than that, this Santa is like no other Santa we've seen.

Yesterday the kids and I were at the Berlin Mall getting some "angel tree" gifts. (Santa needs help meeting with good girls and boys, and he also needs help making sure that every single child gets a toy for Christmas.) Lucy and Gavin saw Santa and wanted to tell him about the toys they found.

So was this Real Santa or a Helper Santa? Definitely a Helper, Lucy stated. "How can you tell?" I asked her.

"I checked, Mom. He didn't have pierced ears!"

So there you go. It's not the quality of the beard or the kind of fuzzy red suit he's wearing. You'll know it's Real Santa by his earrings.

Santa Lucia 2010

This is the day when Lucy gets to be a Saint

and Gavin gets to be a Star.

My oven died halfway through the cookie baking so we had to do with store-bought this year, but we still had a wonderful night.

Christmas Carols

Saturday we took our two little elves on the Polar Express. The train ride is the best part of the night, and singing Christmas songs from the little songbooks they give us is the best part of the train ride.

Lucy got to choose the very first song! The conductor had her stand right up on the train seat and help him lead our train car in a rousing rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Sunday morning we woke up to the sounds of Lucy and Gavin singing Jingle Bells together on their way downstairs for breakfast.




Then Sunday night we had some of our LDS Norwich students and their roommates over for dinner and caroling. They're all musicians and game to sing Christmas hymns for hours.

Lucy and Gavin had had quite enough Christmas music and gave up on us after a while but we all had a great time.

Accidentally fashionable

This summer while I was exploring the Roots store in Quebec City with Christina I found these fun armwarmers. I had to buy them because I hate it when my wrists get cold between my coat sleeve and my gloves. And I loved that they were colorful when most of my winter gear is black and boring.

I wore them the other night to see Deathly Hallows with Austin. Guess what Hermione Granger was wearing in the movie!

I had no idea my fashion tastes were so hip! I feel so awesome!