The boys and I made a gingerbread house today. Or, should I say, I made a gingerbread house while trying to prevent the boys from eating their weight in candy - candy that was, of course, intended to decorate the gingerbread house.
It was fun, though. Gabe actually enjoyed the decorating - Dante had no interest in putting candy ON the house; he just wanted to eat it. And there are actually several smears in the frosting on the roof where he managed to grab a few pieces of candy off the house and eat it before I could stop him.
The funniest part, though, was after we had finished. We had put a few pieces of peppermint candy on the roof of the house, and when Scott came out of his office to see the finished product, Gabe went running over to him yelling "Daddy, look, look! We made a gingerbread house, and we put pepperoni on it!" Scott and I nearly fell over laughing, while explaining to Gabe that it was pepperMINT, not pepperoni. They also both enjoyed licking the frosting off of the spatula - and were actually quite nice about sharing it with each other. Hopefully neither of them is harboring any kind of awful germs....
Backing up a bit - after the race yesterday afternoon, I threw a sweater and a coat on over my running clothes, and when I saw what time it was, realized that if I wanted to make it in time for the tree lighting (where I was meeting up with Scott and the boys), I was going to have to hurry. So after running with everything i had for 3.1 miles, I had to then jog another half mile over to the park for our rendevous. The boys were crazy excited, and when I got there we let them out of the stroller so they could run around for a few minutes.
They both liked the tree lighting up, but only Gabe liked the fireworks. Dante was absolutely terrified. He was so scared he didn't even cry. He just clung to Scott, trembling. The poor little guy : ( Gabe, on the other hand, couldn't have been more thrilled. He was jumping up and down yelling "Hey, look!! Wow!! Look at that one! Hey, everybody, clap! That's my favorite! Are they all done? Hey, there's another one!" It was pretty awesome : ) And there's nothing like 5pm fireworks - we got home just in time to have dinner and get everyone to bed right on schedule.
A few random things -
If Scott and I are talking to each other, Dante gets very jealous and yells "Mommeeeeeee! Daddeeeeee!" to get our attention. It's cute now, but I know we won't feel that way a few weeks/months from now.
The other day, Dante explored new culinary frontiers when he dipped his grilled cheese sandwich in strawberry yogurt. He loves to dip, and every time we sit him down at a meal, he points to his plate and asks "dip?"
I am ashamed to admit how many cookies the boys ate over the course of the weekend. Starting with the cookies we baked Friday afternoon - I don't know how many they (and I) ate, but I know it was too many. Then there was the "Cookies with Santa" event Saturday morning, at which they each ate 3 cookies. Then they each ate a cookie when we went to the grocery store later Saturday afternoon, and then again when we went back to the grocery store Sunday morning. That's a lot of cookies.
Scott and I decided that we have to stop going to the grocery store at 4:30 Saturday afternoon, because the boys end up filling up on cheese from the deli and cookies from the bakery, and then they don't want to eat dinner. Bad, bad parents.
Dante used to say "dow" when he wanted to know what something was. He'd point to something and say "dow?" Now instead of "dow," he's saying "Hey!" So we hear a lot of "Hey!" over the course of a day.
Dante is also practicing for his first surprise party. He likes to go over to a light switch, turn on the lights, throw up his arms and yell "Surprise!"
Yesterday morning we were getting ready to go out, and the boys were going to brush their teeth, so I got their stools and put them in front of the sink, but I accidentally put Dante's stool where Gabe usually stands, and he pointed out my mistake and said "You made a mistake. Say you're sorry, Mommy." I obliged, and told him I was sorry I had given him the wrong stool, and he said "Oh, it's ok. It wasn't your fault." The kid cracks me up.
But today he said something that I KNOW I will never forget. We were playing in the living room this afternoon, and out of nowhere, he said "Mommy, you're my best friend in the whole world. I love you so much."
My heart overfloweth.
Kids are amazing!
Posted by: Shawn | December 10, 2007 at 10:42 PM