The perils of hot chocolate

When choking on hot chocolate don't try to keep it in your mouth. Just spit it in the nearest sink. Otherwise it will end up on your new carpet. And new paint. And your tile. And your baby. And your baby's blessing certificate. And your visual aids. And your clothes. And it will make your toddler wake up early from their nap. And you'll have to try and clean it up while holding your hot chocolate covered baby listening to your toddler cry. Did I mention it got on four wall? And two doors? I picked the worlds worst place to choke on hot chocolate.

At least the second time I made it to a sink. I don't think I should drink hot chocolate any more.

How quickly we forget

I was changing Benton's diaper and I thought, "Man, this is the nastiest diaper I've changed in a while!" So I started thinking about it and came up with the last time I'd changed a diaper that bad. It was Brita's diaper that I had changed less than an hour earlier.
Fun times.

Brita

Brita (as we're eating breakfast just now): Daddy comes home in an hour or so.
Me: No, Daddy's not coming home for a while.
Brita (proving she's right): OR SO!

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

She asked me yesterday if the bottom of the tomato was the tomato's bum.

She's still kind of obsessed with nativities.

Her foot is looking lots better and she doesn't act like it's bothering her at all. Unless she doesn't have a sock on. Then she hobbles around and asks to be carried.

I was really hoping we were done with those

I just got tonsilloliths out of my tonsils for the first time since I was pregnant with Benton. I got out about 1/4 tsp of them. Nasty. And now you know. Hopefully we aren't going back to the everyday thing. They're so gross.

Was that too much information? Yes. Sorry. It's my blog.

Christmas

Here's a few pictures from Christmas. Peter was off work for two days and it was heaven. I love it when he's home. We went up to my parents house Christmas evening so that we could spend some time with Shawn. It was so, so fun.


Peter putting together a trike. Benton was in on the great Christmas secret this year.


After Santa Claus came.


Brita learning how the bell works on her trike.


Brita with her very own chapstick. She put it on for about twenty minutes straight today.


Benton playing with his shopping cart.

Christmas was awesome this year. It felt like a vacation and Brita is having so much fun and being so occupied by all her new toys. We'd like to thank the generous people who donate to DI and the makers of the Magic Eraser for Brita's Christmas this year. :) Peter got socks, shirts, and jeans. And Penguin dominoes. I got lots of books. And a crockpot. Also thanks to the grandparents for all the fun stuff.

Vacation

Last night I was laying in bed trying to figure out the date. I figured it was the 29th, since I knew that Sunday was the 27th.

You've got to love vacations that seem longer than they really are in a good way.

What we've been up to...

We don't do much, but there have been a couple new developments. Benton laughed for the first time last night. It was pretty cute. Brita started cutting today. Benton's learning to sneak. And he likes working on the computer. My dad figured out pretty early on that the waltz is the best dance step for getting Benton to sleep. That still holds true. Brita can climb up on couches all by herself now. She could mostly do it when Benton was born, but then she started needing help again. Brita is in love with books from the library. And youtube videos--she'll beg those off of anyone she can. She recognizes videos on blogs and things and always wants to watch them. She was watching the Nativity on youtube today and the wisemen were a little scary for her. We have four or five (or six) nativities in our living room and she really likes them. Last Sunday we gave her a bath and then were changing her diaper in the living room. She looked over at one of the nativities and said, "Hey, Joseph--I got a bath." It was pretty funny. She's since told Mary and baby Jesus things that she's going to do like get a diaper change or take a nap. Peter got a new phone. It's pretty much the love of his life. It's a Christmas present, though, so don't tell him. Monica said it's probably a good thing he got it early--that way he he might spend some of Christmas not playing with it. He's actually not that bad. You can just tell he wants to spend all of his time messing with it.

There's a bunch of stuff that I need to do for Christmas, but it probably won't get done seeing how I don't ever leave the house these days. At least Benton decided to like the sling yesterday so the house got almost cleaned. It's messy again today. Go figure.

Brita loves nursery at church. She finds the pictures that she's colored there and tells us about them. Especially the one of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. She didn't like it so much at the beginning, but now she's a big fan.

When Brita says "no" she usually says, "No, I'm dry." I guess we might ask her if she needs her diaper changed a little too often.

Fairly off the wall thought.

Since Peter and I have been married we've spent at least as much on ice cream as on our phone bill. That may have to change when Peter gets his Christmas present. Maybe I should stop thinking of money in terms of ice cream. Or maybe we'll just get really, really fat.

A dinner conversation

Mom: I love you a lot, Brita.
Brita: I love you a lot. I love you a lot, too, Mommy. I love you, too, Benton. I love you, too, pacifier.

That's a lot of love.

Tonight's fun

Tonight Benton got a bath.

Then he got dressed in his penguin outfit.

Then he got to jump for the first time.

Not bad for one night's work.

Snow

Like I said it snowed a bunch while we were gone. It snowed a bunch the next day too.

Peter had Brita help him shovel the snow. She loved it a lot. She's a big fan of the snow.

She didn't want to come in and when she finally did she wanted to go back out about two minutes later. So Peter told her that they could build a snowman the next day.

The next day she met him at the door when he came home saying, "DADDYWEGETTOBUILDASNOWMANNOW!!" She was a little bit excited about it.

They managed to build it in the pure powder. Go super-dad.

Brita's Christmas present

Brita got a Christmas present from her Grandma a few weeks ago. She spent a long time playing with it.

And she hasn't even seen the actual present yet.

You want to eat cheese with me?

Brita: "You want to eat cheese with me? Eat the cheese that Mommy made."
"Sometimes Mommy makes cheese for me."

It's true: I'm a cheese maker. It's pretty much the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. At http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/blog/ the lady tells how to make two kinds of cheese and butter with two gallons of milk, and since I had two gallons of raw milk sitting around, that's what I did. I'll post pictures when I find my camera thingy, but for now just know that it's amazing.

My new mission in life is to get everyone to make cheese. It's amazing.

Stretching the cheese (i.e. the reason everyone should make cheese)

Ricotta and failed (but eventually conquered) butter

Sleep on the brain

We got home at about four o'clock this morning from my parents house. It took us almost twice as long to get home as it usually does because of the weather. I got a tiny bit of sleep on the way home because Peter was driving. Benton slept the whole way and Brita slept for quite a bit of it.

We went up to my parents place to do a Christmas fireside for their empty-nesters fhe group. All my siblings were there except two. It was really fun. We all got there between two hours and half a day later than we were planning on.

Brita was terrified of Uncle John for the first day. She cried every time she saw him. She loved all the cousins. She was also the most prevalent person in the Christmas program--that's one busy little girl.

Just now she's saying to Monica in the kitchen, "I seed the cousins! I seed the cousins, Monica. It was too fun."


Here are a couple of pictures so you can see we were really there and how lovely my family is. :)

Self-sufficiency

Brita had corn chips and goldfish for breakfast this morning because I was making cheese. I was feeding Benton on the couch when I heard the sound of a chair being pushed around in the kitchen.
Me: Are you getting more goldfish, Brita?
Brita: No. I'm done. I'm pushing the chair to wash my hands.
Sounds of climbing on the chair and the water turning on.
A little while later, Brita: Mom, I washed my hands.
Now she's doing dishes.

I like her.

Brita says

I like ice cream.. And oats. Do you like oats, Daddy?

Because it needs told

We had Peter's family staying with us this last week. It was so very fun.

Brita's cousin Ensley was staying on Brita's bed (the bottom bunk on some bunk beds that are in the corner of the room). We took the mattress off the top bunk for Stewart to sleep on, so it was just the wires above her. The first night Ensley woke up in the middle of the night and started screaming, "Let me out of this cage!" It happened a few times. That is one funny girl.