Some Christmas Fun

We have our camera back (thanks for sending it, Grandma)! I tend to blame a lot of things on "pregnancy brain" these days, but for good reason. In the past few weeks, I have blown out a week-old tire, left my phone at the grocery store only to discover its whereabouts two days later, turned on the wrong burner on the stove, and I'm sure the list goes on but I can't remember them all right now. I'm seriously a hazard.

Anyways, I have a few cute pictures of the boys. Here's Benjamin decorating the gingerbread men we made. He did a pretty impressive job I thought! I handed him a tube of decorating gel, left the room, and came back to find they all had eyes, smiles and buttons.
He wrote a nice letter to Santa this year. It says, "BENJAMIN. DEAR SANTA, I'M A GOOD BOY. (I want a) WORKER OUTFIT, DVDs, (monster) TRUCK, (thomas toy) TRAIN." He dictated, then traced the letters Paul drew for him.

I put the letter in an envelope with a stamp and addressed it to his grandparents (I mean the North Pole...), and we were set to send it off in the morning. Until he devised a much better plan. He wanted to put the letter in a box, tape it all up, tie a rope around it, attach the rope to a balloon, and let it float to the North Pole. Unfortunately, the wind wasn't strong enough to overcome gravity's force.

So we made it lighter, but that didn't work either. Then he wanted to get lots of balloons and take our whole family to the North Pole to Santa's house. I told him it was pretty far away and that I didn't know how to get there, but he told me that Daddy would be able to take him. I finally struck a deal with him. I told him Santa might be coming to the church Christmas party tomorrow, and that we could give the letter to him there. Benjamin wants to ask Santa if he can go back in his sleigh with him to the North Pole to put it in his mail room himself. Oh, man...

Here's our Christmas tree this year...I admit it's a little juvenile, but we're cheap. Much to my surprise, Peter has left the ornaments alone, so I haven't had to redecorate it at all. I filled a container near the tree with plastic ornaments that he's free to throw around and play with, and so far, that's seemed to work.

Peter is so much fun these days. His jabbering is starting to turn into words, and he's a great imitator. He loves reading animal stories and imitating the sounds they make. He likes to run now, and climbs up on little chairs. So he does get hurt a lot.

He likes to find the baby Jesus in every nativity. I got this set at the dollar store last year, so I let him rearrange and play with it.