How romantic-Henry.

With this new Twilight movie coming out, we're being inundated with dreamy pictures of vampires looming over a cute teenage girl and probably contemplating whether he's going to bite her or kiss her. Phew.

Anyhoo, in a effort to counteract the glamorization of vampires (and to discourage any cute girls from every wanting to kiss me in the future), we recreated a few steamy shot of our own. Mama says she has to get all the kisses she can now, before I get embarrassed (why would I ever be embarrassed of those two?). Papa says she's overdoing it, because today when we set up my train track, i told him the road signs read "I love you" and "Give me a kiss". This is on top of the guard rails that already mean "Pay the toll- give mama a kiss."

Here's our first shot. I'm a little off on my aim.

But it certainly did the trick for mama. (It looks like a shower might also do the trick.)
Now here's a little magic for papa.

After that last picture, I was worried my parents might make me kiss my sister next, so I took off down the stairs to get away. Unfortunately, I missed the last three steps and fell on my head.Love hurts.Luckily, Bob the Builder (with help from my Boo Bear) was there soothed my pain. Oh, and cookies helped too. Thanks Aunt Jenni for the awesome pumpkin chocolate chip recipe.

Sweet Baby Juner.

We stayed up late last night with Miss Susan and June woke up extra early this morning, so she couldn't help but fall asleep this morning. And mama couldn't help but set her up to take some pictures. We could go on and on about how much we like baby Juner and how sweet she is, but we'll let the pictures do the talking.

Another attempt at a Christmas card picture-June.

Mama keep trying to get a good shot of us in front of the Christmas tree.

Henry had to hold my hand so I wouldn't eat any ornaments. My glitter intake is at maximum levels these days. So much that our special kids tree got moved to a table and Henry has to stand on a chair to decorate it now.

Do you know why Henry is sitting so still? He got to pick out a piece of candy from the Halloween bowl for cooperating. We're still going strong with circus peanut bribery.

Yesterday afternoon, we had a parent free afternoon! Miss Susan came over and stayed with us while Mama, Papa, and Mister Paul went to go watch the Wake Forest-Boston College football game. While they were sitting outside in the cold, we got Miss Susan all to ourselves and had a great time! Mama and Papa said they had fun too. It was faculty appreciation day and they got to sit in a special section in the end zone and eat a big buffet of barbeque, fried chicken and that vinegary cole slaw she loves. Thanks for watching us Miss Susan! Same time next week?

Our second Christmas miracle-Henry.

Friday morning we woke up to a Christmas miracle! There was snow on the ground! It wasn't so much snow as frozen sleet, but we'll take it anyway.

Mama had been feeling sad that everyone had snow except us, so mother nature sent this little treat our way. Papa spent the morning grumbling about how he moved to the south so he would never have to see snow again. The locals all freaked out because they didn't know how to function with a heavy dusting of frost on the grass. If you can believe it, this weather emergency actually got the high schoolers across the street a two hour delay. For a school that doesn't even start until 9am on a normal day. We went out at 7:30 and the roads were dry.

I was so excited to see snow again that I ran outside in my boots and short-sleeved t-shirt. All the neighbors thought I was crazy.

I crunched on the snow for a while then ate all the ice off the bottom of the recycling bin. Then mama made me come back inside.

These are the days...-Mama.

These are the days that I contemplate taking the kids to Nebraska (or at least abandoning them at Aunt Jenni's house). Both kids were very high energy, while I was exceedingly low energy. This morning I decorated the last Christmas tree while Henry was at school. The last tree is on a table because it holds all of the special, breakable ornaments. As I was hanging them up, I contemplated which would get broken before the kids grew up (I hope it's not the Brat Fest ball I got last year.) But my sentimental mood grew melancholy when I unwrapped the Bengals collection (yes, collection). I opened up the ornament of Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson, and Rudy Johnson exchanging high fives and couldn't help but be sad that Rudy Johnson doesn't even play for the Bungles anymore. And now Ocho Cinco was suspended. And on top the fact that the Bengals are now 1-10-1, Chad is one of the receivers on my fantasy football team. And none of my receivers are that good, and how am I going to stay in first place into the post-season if one of my receivers isn't even playing? These are truly trying times.

Henry was fairly good today, despite a few time outs for screaming and loving his sister a little too agressively. To pass the time, we made "cookies" this afternoon.

Okay, it's really a refrigerated pie crust that I needed to use, but we still had fun cutting out the train shapes.

The real culprit of my strife today can be attributed to my one- my own- my Precious. We had to wake this one up at 9 to take Henry to school, which ruined any chance of getting a morning nap, which threw a wrench in my plans of getting much done. We tried to spend some time in the office, but June managed to pull down every sheet of paper in the room and try to eat it.

Later, during a diaper change, Miss Wiggle herself managed to shock, amaze and disgust me all at once when she actually managed to get poop in her mouth. No joke. I didn't realize it at first (it's pretty commonplace to have to put your fingers in June's mouth to fish out whatever she shoved in), but immediately freaked out when I figured out what was in her mouth and now on my fingers. We did our best to wipe out her mouth, called Aunt Jenni (who just laughed at us), then consulted the interwebs for help. Of course, Google "baby eats poop" and the first hit is a blog with the phrase "What kind of mother lets her baby eat poop?!?!?" We're monitoring June for any sign of illness, but she seems fine so far. The worst part is that she didn't even flinch when she got it in there.

And if that wasn't enough, tonight she managed to get into the trashcan (a good 24 inches high) without tipping it over. Her hard work was rewarded with the remnants of lunch and probably tons of germs and filth. I'm not even sure how this happened, but now we need to get a trash can with a lid and anchor it to a wall.

Today confirmed what we've suspected all along- June will literally eat anything. She's like the ostrich that ate the trumpet in the Curious George book. I won't be surprised when she starts catching small game and eating it whole.

The Christmas tree is still here!- June.

It's pretty good to be Henry these days. When he wakes up in the morning, he is thrilled to see that mama and papa didn't take down the Christmas tree while he was sleeping. And when we arrive home from being out, he exclaims "Do you know what's inside? A Christmas tree!"

Yesterday he found more lights and carried them around until mama agreed to put up the last tree (we've got the 7 footer, a 5 footer and a little 3 footer for Henry to decorate over and over). Henry even picked up all of his toys, so mama would agree to put up the last tree.

We tried to capture the mood with these pictures, but the shutter speed was a little slw with the dim light and we were too excited to sit still.

Today, mama and Henry unpacked the nativity scene. They talked about the wisemen, the shepherds, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Henry turned over baby Jesus and was shocked to see he wasn't wearing a diaper. But he must have just gotten out of the bathtub, so it was okay. Then mama told Henry that Christmas was baby Jesus' birthday (hoping to launch into a rousing rendition of Reba's "Happy Birthday Jesus- I'll open this one just for you!"), but Henry instead insisted that he and baby Jesus go to each other's birthday parties. In the end, babay Jesus got tired, so Henry put his bed in the loft of the manger and put him down for his nap.

We couldn't wait- Henry.

Well, the Christmas spirit got the best of us and we got our tree out and started decorating. We feel justified in decorating early, since we'll be gone at Thanksgiving and will leave again around Christmas. We need to enjoy it while we can. Plus, mama loves hearing me say "That tree is so beautiful."

She and Papa set up the tree last night, but we waited for papa to get home from work to decorate. I cold hardly stand the wait. I hung a few ornaments that I painted before supper. But then mama made me eat (like that's ever going to happen) before we could hang the rest.

Mama has saved every ornament tat she's ever made or been given since she was born. She's also started saving other various mementos- wrist bands from the Dells, bell favors from weddings, and even weird elves inside green mushrooms that she and Miss Leah bought with a box of Christmas decorations at a garage sale when they were in college (your guess is as good as mine). But we had a great time going through all the ornaments and talking about them. Mama only got upset once when she pulled out a styrofoam lollipop and I took a bite of it. I guess it really wasn't candy.

Even Junerks (new nickname) had a good time and didn't cry like she's been doing most of the time lately (it's a combination of "I'm hungry", "Why aren't we touching?" and "Can't you get this kid to stop pushing me over?"). She tried to hang up her M&M ornament, but then gave up and just chewed on it for the rest of the night.

Side note- you'll see that the T-Rex helped set up the tree tonight. I've been spending a lot of time talking about birthday parties lately (for some reason, tree lights remind me of my birthday). When mama asked who was coming to my party, I told her that Lightning McQueen couldn't come, becuase he was already at his own birthday party. And T-Rex can't come because he just a toy (does this show how much I like my cars?). In the end, I decided that Oliver could come to my party, even though he lives far, far away.

Here's the finished product. I have a feeling that mama is holding out on us and saved a few boxes of ornaments to put up without us. She said that if they come packaged individually, I'm not allowed to touch them.

Decorating the tree left me with a serious case of "hyper." Mama had to lay down some serious threats to get us to bed tonight. This was after I pleaded with her not to turn off the tree lights and please, please don't take off the ornaments.

We had a great time decorating and while listening to Kenny and Dolly for the first time this season (it feels good), we had our first Christmas miracle. We found mama's hand mixer and hand chopper packed away in the Christmas decorations along with Papa's stir fry pan. She sure was glad to see them again!

But we do have one sad thing to report. This week, we had to throw away the last of mama's pumped milk. It was very painful for her, but we suspected it was going bad and making Juner's tummy hurt when we fed it to her in her oatmeal. It was especially painful, because we out significant effort into hauling it down from Wisconsin when we moved. We those that those of you who have ahd to throw away this much hard work can feel our pain tonight.

And to cap off the evening, here's a video of June's new trick. June is increasingly always in my stuff. Tonight, she kept getting in the way while I sat in my rocking chair gazing at the splender of 600 red and white tree lights. So I requested that she be put in her jumper. Mama readily agreed because June has also lately become quite fond of trying to stand up and open drawers or doors. Unfortuanately for June, this also involves a lot of falling on her head and face. Mama was glad to get her somewhere where she couldn't hurt herself for a few minutes. And June was pleased to show off her new fancy footwork.

Here's the right video.

As it turns out, mama was on her second Old Fashioned when she was uploading videos on Saturday night and she uploaded the wrong video. We've gotten a couple calls questioning the significance of a one second video.

So here's the real video that showcases two goofballs unwilling to quiet down and go to bed already. And you wonder why mama is driven to drinking? (Listen carefully and you can hear Elmo talking to baby David about sitting on the potty. Henry loves those books, but still refuses any part of potty training.)