Wishes come true if you just wait long enough

Ben really had no idea what he wanted for Christmas, but he has consistently said he wanted a magic kit. He got a magic kit last year from Molly & Tim, but he hasn't really used it that much, it comes out every now & again. However, even when we saw Santa at Eckert's, he told him he wanted a magic kit. The final straw was when I took them to Border's on Christmas Eve and Ben saw a whole bunch of magic kits there. There was no way I was going to be able to get him one without him knowing, so there was no magic kit on Christmas morning. When Jan & Julie came over for dinner, they brought presents for Ben & Maggie and unbelievably they had bought him a magic kit. His day was completeWe had to sit and watch the magic show after dinner. He found a hat and a cape in the basement to complete his outfit
Here he is demonstrating the disappearing quarter trick!!!!

snow!!!!

Well, if you get a sled for Christmas, you really have to try it out, even if there is very little snow around. It was snowing on Christmas morning and so Ben took his sled and went outside to go down the hill on the front of our house. He did get a couple of good runs in, but there was nowhere near enough snow to truly get the full effect of the new sledsHe didn't last long because it was really cold outside and he is still wearing only his pyjamas on the bottom
This was the sum total of snow that we had on Christmas day

What did Santa bring you?

Ben woke us up at 7 am on Christmas morning. OK, it could have been worse, but we didn't go to bed until 1 am the night before. During the night, Santa had arrived and the milk & cookies were gone. It looked like the reindeer had eaten the spinach too. Ben had left Santa a note & Santa wrote back and said thank you for the refreshmentsBen had a pile of presents. He had a sled, a pair of snow gloves, a game for his DS, new markers, a science kit, a DVD and a Bakugan ballMaggie also had a sled and snow gloves, a Leapster with a new game for it, new sheets for her bed, new shoes and a DVDBen decided he was going to raid his stocking firstThen he opened all his presents from Santa
The noise and excitement finally roused Maggie out of bed. I suspect that what she really wants from Santa is more sleep....
It took Maggie ages before she wanted to move off my lap and open her presents. She does not have any inkling of the excitement of Christmas morning. She must be the only child in the Universe that doesn't come rushing downstairs and start opening things!!!!
Even in this picture, she still looks half asleep!!!! As usual, Ben had enough excitement for the pair of them and overwhelmed Maggie no matter how hard we tried to tone him down.
Luckily, they survived present opening and Ben declared it the best Christmas ever. I was pleasantly surprised because they didn't get anything like the mountain of presents that they usually get. It gets harder every year to find things they would like

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we always have dinner with our friends the Bosch's. We have been cutting our Christmas tree & having dinner on Christmas Eve with them every year since we moved to St Louis. Our tradition has turned into a superstition, Molly & I nearly had a malfunction when we went to Eckert's and they had no trees to cut!!! We started doing this when their girls were young and we had no children of our own. Now, their girls are grown and we have the little ones.

This year, we went to Molly & Tim's for dinner. They bought Ben & Sam Nerf guns for Christmas. They were an instant hit and were more popular with the adults than the children.
Yes, Sam & Megan are shooting at each other in the dining room amidst all the china
Megan & Maggie sitting at the table
At the end of the evening, the kids were just hanging out watching TV and lying all over each other
Poor Anne had her tonsils out on 12/21 and was feeling very under the weather when we saw her. Luckily, Ben was not his usual rambunctious self with her and he was happy just to lay with her. Our kids have a wonderful bond with each other, which is amazing because they see each other so rarely. We have many people in our lives that we really do need to see much more often

Guess where they are

The prime directive from Dad is that the mattresses can stay up in the basement for the holidays as long as they are treated well, so Ben & Maggie will be camped out down there for the foreseeable future!!!!

Ben's schedule

I found Ben's schedule for the camp out:

6:00 put up beds

6:55 games and reading

7:00 singing carols

7:30 Half Blood Prince

8:30 talk and have fun

8:50 tell what we want for Christmas

9:01 family picture

9:10 pass gifts (he filled his pots with candy & we passed them around)

9:30 say goodnight to the tree

9:32 make a scene

9:40 pet talk (with the stuffed animals)

10:00 draw Christmas

10:21 make a snowman

10:30 play ghost in the graveyard

10:50 say goodnight

11:00 sleep

Partners: Bed 1-Jane-Ben; Bed 2-Sam-Maggie

Basement camp out

I had the great idea of having a basement camp out one night when we were off for the holidays. as soon as I mentioned it to Ben, he was all excited about it & he decided we would do it last night. We got the inflatable mattresses out, moved the futon back and put them on the playroom floorBen was very organized and wrote a detailed schedule for what we were going to do all evening. He made a sign to hang at the top of the stairs

We made up the beds and Ben put his $1 store blue bear to bed.
Amongst the activities that Ben had planned, we ate dinner downstairs, sang songs, watched a movie, drank hot chocolate
took a family photo
made snowmen, told everyone what we wanted for Christmas and played with stuffed animals. Mum also made them put on pyjamas, clean teeth & do Ben's GH shot!!!! Of course, the cats claimed a bed each....

We went to bed around 10 and I lasted until 2.30 before I went to my regular bed. I woke up and I was freezing-must have been lying on the concrete floor. Even though Ben is a great heat makes, it wasn't enough. Luckily, Sam was there before me & I was able to leech off his heat and had a great night's sleep after that.....

Desperate times....

We had a very light dusting of snow last night that really didn't stay in many places. It was enough to make Ben excited though and so he got all dressed up and went outside.
He managed to drag Maggie outside for a short while too

Ben's pottery class

Ben did a kids potter's wheel class at one of the local potteries. It was a 6 week class, but we missed a week because of Thanksgiving. We picked up his final pieces yesterday, mainly because he wanted to give on to his teacher for Christmas. Unfortunately, one of them must have broken during firing-it had broken in class & he had repaired it, but obviously not well enough. I can tell that he went for quantity, not quality, this time. He needs to work on making the sides and bottoms thinner. He loved this class and is going back to do another in January. It is a great thing for him to do & something he's willing to stick at. I'm surprised because they have to do a lot of cleaning up at the end!!!! He insists that Santa is bringing him a potter's wheel for Christmas, hopefully he won't be too disappointed next week....

3 stories about Maggie

Maggie is a great little girl. She is full of personality, knows what she likes/wants and is a joy to everyone that meets her. However, she spent the first 2 years of her life in an orphanage and has many challenges, so she still catches us on the hop on a regular basis.
Life with Maggie is always interesting
Nintendo Wars
Maggie is obsessed with Ben's Nintendo DS and will do whatever she can to get her hands on it. I have told her many times that she's not allowed to play with it & told Ben countless times to put it up when he's not using it. The last time she was playing with it, she was sitting on it in the toy box in the basement when she was talking to me and flatly denying that she knew where it was. At that point, I told Ben that I was taking it away from him if she got it again. Last Friday night, Ben had a sleepover & left his Nintendo in his room. On Saturday morning, the boys were downstairs & Maggie was nowhere to be seen. I asked Sam where she was & he said she was asleep at the bottom of Ben's bed under the covers. I looked in Ben's room, but she was not there (the mound that Sam thought was Maggie was Ben's bedclothes scrunched up). She wasn't in her room either. I walked around the other side of Ben's bed & I could see that his Nintendo was plugged into the wall & the cord was moving ever so slightly. I looked under the bed & there was Maggie playing with his Nintendo. When she saw me, she hid it under herself and acted like she didn't know what I was talking about. So, now Ben does not get it back until Christmas. Even though I am pretty sure that Maggie knew I'd taken it away from Ben, I still found her searching for it under Ben's bed on Sunday morning!!!! In the battle of wills, Mummy is going to lose....

Where have all the clothes gone?
Even though Sam's mother buys Maggie loads of clothes & I can hardly get them in her drawers as there are so many, I was surprised that I seemed to be running out of clothes for Maggie when I sorted them out for the coming school week. As I was making Maggie's bed on Sunday morning, I had to move the mattress and found this behind the headboard

Yes, a large pile of clothes that we had been missing. She has never done this before & I have no idea why on earth she has started now. We are always saying that when Maggie learns something, she completely forgets another. I only hope that whatever has replaced her putting her clothes in the laundry room was worth it!!!!

Barbie

Maggie decided to throw all her toys all over her room & I found her one & only Barbie lying out in the hallway.

Me: Maggie, why is this Barbie here? I can't believe you were actually playing with Barbie. What has come over you?

Maggie: No way, it was Ben......

Cutting the tree

We went to Eckerts to cut our Christmas tree yesterday. Unfortunately, when we got there, they had run out of trees to cut!! We had to go to their other farm to get one. It wasn't a completely wasted trip because at least the kids got to have their picture taken with Santa. Ben went and talked to him but Maggie was having nothing to do with him and wouldn't go anywhere near. We did manage to get her to sidle up to Ben for one photo though. Ben told me that he was so fat that he has to be the real Santa!!!! The farm we ended up at had very few trees to choose from. I have no idea why pickings were so slim this year. We finally decided on this one

Ben insisted that he wanted to cut the netting off the tree once we got it home. He took for ever to do it because he had to cut one piece at a time. I presume he was savouring the moment

When we got the tree decorated, I think it turned out to be one of the better ones that we have chosen. It is taller than last years (which I still think turned out to be too small) and it's not too wide, it's exactly what I am always looking for. We put tons of lights on it and most of the ornaments but I left the garlands off this year as I wanted to simplify it

I think I'm going to use this photo for our Christmas cards this year, it's the best one I could get!!!!

Just a jumble of things

I have a huge number of plants in my office, they are taking over. I wonder if I should ask for a bigger office or ask for an extra one to use as a greenhouse. My Christmas cactus bloomed spectacularly again this year. Unfortunately, I think it was probably at its best during the Thanksgiving breakMy poinsettia was looking pretty bleak & was obviously not going to turn red in time for Christmas, so I gave it a bit of a trim. I have had this plant for at least 5 or 6 years & every time I cut it back, it immediately starts leafing out again. I have cut it back so often that I think it's more like a bonsai than anything else now. For some reason, I love it when it's at this stage
Ben & Maggie helped me get the Christmas stuff out last weekend. They were very excited about it all.
Here they are, helping me with everything-yes, they are actually in this picture. Can you guess where they are?
Ben helped Maggie make snowmen out of marshmallows and Halloween candy after school one evening. He really does come up with some interesting art projects.
Both Ben & Maggie had good weeks at school. Ben got his H1N1 shot on Friday. I don't think it was too traumatic for him. He said that he & Lily walked down to the cafeteria hand in hand, I'm sure that made his day!!!!

My clever girl

Maggie got her reading homework out of her backpack and said "I have to read this to you". I thought "that'll be the day..." She promptly read the book to me. I know it was the same on every page (I can see the.....), but she followed every word correctly with her finger and looked at the picture to know the last word. I can't wait for Sam to get home so she can read it to him.

Welcome back.....

I don't think that my joy can be truly appreciated by any other than my fellow commuters that have been finding alternative routes to work for the past 2 years. Highway 40 opened yesterday and the traffic returned immediately. I don't know why anyone would be surprised. If the other commuters were anything like me, they have been counting down the days until the highway opened again. My journey to work in the morning now takes me 12 minutes instead of 15-20 and is 9 miles instead of 12. What's not to like? I did drive home at rush hour yesterday and it got a little slow in places, but it still only took me 20 minutes to get home & that was with the traffic lights malfunctioning and an accident right in front of me at the exit ramp!!! I'm going to make the most of it for the next 3 months, at which point they are taking down the bridge on Grand which will effectively cut off my access route to H40 from work. You've just got to love St Louis roads and the men who work on them!!!

Fun on the Freeway December 6, 2009

Even though it was very cold yesterday, we could not pass up the opportunity to walk on highway 40 before it was open for business on Monday morning. Sam thinks they should close the highway once a year to let us walk/bicycle on it, but I doubt that will ever happen & it would remove the novelty factor. There were many more people out yesterday than there were last year, despite the weather. I guess everyone has realized that the possibility of cars driving on the 10 mile stretch again is finally a reality!!!
Maggie managed a smile, even though she was feeling the cold Sam rode his bike on the new 10 mile stretch several times. He met us later to walk with us, but he got cold as soon as he stopped and soon went on his way
Maggie had to get a feel of what riding a big bike would be like
Ben let Maggie ride his bike for a while and even helped her stay upright. He was convinced that she was ready for 2 wheels, but she is nowhere near that, & the day and place weren't right to test his theory!!!
Of course, the biggest novelty for the boys was climbing on the new median and trying it out.