Gingerbread House 2011-Oh, the Drama

I was really happy to find a pre-made gingerbread house at Costco this year.  I didn't realize how hard it was to make those walls stand up until last year.  The best part about this year's gingerbread house is that it only cost $9 compared to others that I have seen that are close to $20.

The very first thing I did, before I even took the plastic wrap off of the house, was to take all of the candy and divide it up into 3 individual bowls.  (This isn't my first time dealing with 3 kids, can you tell?)

Have I mentioned how messy decorating a gingerbread house can be?  The frosting (i.e. glue) kept coming out of the top of the bag and getting all over my hands.  I decided to just pipe where the kids wanted me to rather than handing that bag of stickiness over to them.

What is a kid-friendly craft project without some drama? 

-Kanin kept looking at the box and telling me that our house didn't look like the ones on the box.  I tried to tell him that professional bakers decorated that gingerbread house but he really didn't want to hear that. 

-Gracie wanted all of the large circle gum drops and was mad that she had to share with her brothers.  She was also mad because none of her candies were sticking to the house.  I tried to help her by telling her that she had to press it down and hold it for a but she really did not want to hear that.

-Caleb just wanted to eat the candies.  He could have cared less about decorating.  He also kept grabbing candies out of the Kanin and Gracie's bowls which did NOT go over very well.  I kept telling him to put the candy on the house and do not take any of his brother or sister's candies but he really did not want to hear that.

Finally, we were finished decorating and decided to take some pics of the finished product.  Gracie isn't very happy, can you tell?

Like the good little model that this mommarazzi has trained, though, she sucked it up and gave me a bit of a smile.

So, here it is:

Here is our house in its place of honor.

Visiting Santa Claus 2011

Last night we went to visit Santa Claus.  This year we decided to go to Bass Pro and their Santa at Winter Wonderland.  They had a very cute area set up with a train set, crafts, carousel, and some shooting games.

Santa Claus really took his time with each of the kids.

I love this picture.  Kanin started to have some doubts this year but, as you can see, he and Santa Claus had a good little talk. 

Santa asked Kanin what he wanted for Christmas and Kanin said "Baseball stuff."

"Who is your favorite baseball player?" Santa asked.

"I have 3.  Babe, Mantle and The Man." Kanin replied. 

I think Santa was quite happy yet surprised that he would mention those three.  It was very, very cute.

Of course, Gracie was so excited all day to see Santa but then when he started talking to her, she was really shy..

When it was Caleb's turn to talk to Santa he wasn't shy at all.  He walked right up there and sat on his lap.  Caleb told Santa that he wanted coo coo trains.

I love this picture.

The kids played some of the games and then they rode the carousel.

Caleb was really into the carousel and I finally got some good pics of a "real" smile.

Although Kanin did smile for this picture . . .

he spent most of the carousel ride looking like this.  I think he was torn between wanting to ride it but then feeling like he was too old to be on it.

The Bass Pro Winter Wonderland was really very sweet.  They give you 1 free 5x7 photo with Santa but, of course, I ended up buying a small package.  We went immediately after school and beat the line.  By the time we were finished, there were a good 20 families waiting for their turn.

Have your kids visited Santa yet?  You better hurry!  There are only 10 days left until Christmas.  Can you believe that?

What I'm Loving Wednesday

It's been a while since I participated in What I'm Loving Wednesday with Jamie (as I was reminded this week)

Here is what's on my list:

1. I'm loving . . . that I got to go to another Traveling Table last week.  The food was fantastic, the wine was great, and the company was unbeatable.  Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera in so I haven't blogged about it.

2. I'm loving . . . that I have finished all of my Christmas shopping.  Now I'm hoping that I can relax . . . yeah, right.  LOL

3. I'm loving. . . that this weekend is jam-packed full of Christmas activities.  Friday night will be our 2nd annual Christmas Crafts & Pj's night.  Saturday night we are having Scott's family's Christmas get together.  Sunday we are going to my mom's and doing my family's Christmas party.

4. I'm loving . . . that our next Vegas trip is booked.  I feel like it has been forever since we've been there even though we were just there in June.  Now the countdown to March . . .

I'm also loving . . . that a bunch of friends are going.  We had a great time with the Hooper's when we went back in December 2010 to see Dave Matthews so I'm excited to be going with them and a few of our other friends, too.

5. I'm loving . . . that I got to celebrate the St. Louis Cardinals winning the 2011 World Series by going to our Left Field Bleacher Post Season party this past week.  We've sat by or around the same people since 2004 and have really grown to be close friends outside of baseball with them.

Many of them from in this picture from winning the World Series in 2006 were at the party Saturday night.

6. I'm loving . . . that the St. Louis Blues are on fire.  Since Ken Hitchcock has taken over, the Blues are 9-2-3 and have an amazing tandem goalie team.  My mind is already thinking Playoffs! 

7. I'm loving . . . that I found 5 super cute stockings for next year that have each of our initials embroidered on them.  They were at Kohls on sale for $6/each.  Normally, they were $14.99.  Looks like red will be our theme next year.

I'm loving . . . that they each of a couple of jingle bells on them.

8.  I'm loving . . . that Kanin has been learning Christmas songs at school.  He is really in to "The 12 Days of Christmas" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." 

9. I'm loving . . . that I have started on my year end post that looks back over the things that have happened in 2011.

10. I'm loving . . . that we are going to see Santa Claus tonight.  I've heard so many people rave about Santa Claus at Bass Pro that I think we are going to give it a try.

What are you loving today?  Head over to Jamie's blog and share with everyone.

How Much Do I Love You?

Do you play the "How much do I love you?" game with your kids?  We play it all of the time.  I will ask the kids "How much do I love you?" and inevitably I will hear the following responses:

 "Bigger than a giraffe!"

"Bigger than a giant!"

One day Kanin came up with a great one . . .

"More than numbers."

"More than numbers??" I asked.

"Yes, because numbers never end!!"2

How perfect is that?  I absolutely fell in love with saying

"I love you more than numbers".

Somewhere along the way Caleb connected numbers with the fact that he is 2 (years old) so whenever I ask him . . .

"How much does Mommy love you?"

His precious response is . . .

"2"

How stinkin' cute is that?  I guess that is the top for him.  He is 2 and Mommy loves him 2.  Can't beat that.  I swear this baby melts my heart.

All Aboard The Coo Coo Train

The last couple of months Caleb has grown to love trains.  He can't say Choo Choo train so he calls it Coo Coo train.  It's kind of the running joke between Scott and I that ever time he Caleb will say Coo Coo train one of us will end up saying, "My life is a ride on the Coo Coo train."  Anyway, I was on the fence about whether to get him a train set for Christmas or not because of all of the pieces that would come along with it.  Let's face it, 3 kids and all of the little pieces that come come along with toys can add to an already messy house.

I remembered that Kanin had some Geo Trax trains that we and other family members had gotten him when he was about 2.  I never wanted to get rid of them because I kept thinking that he would want to play with them when he was older but with moving and adding 2 more kids, we kind of skipped right over that phase for him.  Scott suggested that we dig those out and set it up for Caleb.

Kanin helped Caleb set up the track and this little baby was so happy.

The train is actually battery powered with a remote control but he also pushes it sometimes.

All of the kids have played with the Coo Coo so much that we've gone through 2 sets of batteries. 

I am so happy that we brought the train set out.  Caleb and Gracie have spent hours playing it and even Kanin got in on the action and built a Lego tunnel for the train to go through.

  

Albert Pujols Not a Cardinal?!?

Wow!  How things have changed in the past 48 hours.  2 days ago Cardinals fans were sure that Albert Pujols, the very beloved star athlete of our team, would sign a deal that would make him a Cardinal forever. 

Source

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I was more than a little annoyed by Albert leaving.  I absolutely believe it is his right to leave and I can't sit here and say if I were in his situation (wouldn't that be great!) that I would or would not make that same choice.  My frustration comes from a few things:

1.  Just the sadness that he will no longer be a Cardinal.  He's been in the uniform for 11 years and it just seems weird to think of him as an Angel now.

Source

2. Albert is a first-round Hall of Famer.  Sports is a business and I understand that but it would have been amazing for a Hall of Famer to spend their entire career with the Cardinals.

Source

3. For those of you who aren't from St. Louis or you are not a Cardinals fan, it will be hard to understand this one but . . . Albert has made a point, as have all of the media covering him, how important faith, God, Christianity is to him.  To be honest, it has almost been like a public relations campaign.  In 2009, Albert Pujols stated:

"Do I want to be in St. Louis forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in St. Louis, and they're jealous that we're in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 million or $4 more million a year? It's not about the money. I already got my money. It's about winning, and that's it."-Source

I hate to question someone else's values but it just seems to me if the fact that you have such strong values and faith has raised you to deity-status in St. Louis and you make a statement like the one above then how can you turn around and leave for essentially that $3 or $4 million a year over the course of 10 years? 

But, as I stated above, I've never been actually faced with this question.  It's easy to say what you would and wouldn't do until it hits you in the face which is what I believe happened to Pujols.

4.  I'm not bitter that the Cardinals didn't sign Pujols.  In fact, I think it would have been a horrible deal for them to wrap themselves up in a player for 10 years, $23M a year . . .not smart. 

Source

The St. Louis Cardinals and fans got the best years out of Albert Pujols.  I'm sad that he didn't choose to stick it out with us as I know that Cardinals fans would have stuck it out with him even in his inevitable declining years.

Now, it's on to a new chapter.  I'm excited for next season to start.  A new manager, young players, and the World Series Champs.  It's hard to stay bitter about all of that.

Thanks for the memories, Albert.  I hope when you enter the Hall of Fame, you go in as a Cardinal.

I Want to Reply To You/Chat With You

I've seen various bloggers post on this before but it has never been an issue for me. . . until recently.

I remember when I first started blogging I would comment on people's blogs and then go back and check the same blog post again to see if the author had commeted back to me.  Many times they actually had made a comment back to me and I'm sure that they were experiencing the same frustration that I am now.

The last couple of weeks I have received several sweet comments on posts.  These comments are sent directly to my email so that I never miss anything that you say to me.  The problem, though, is that many of you do not have your accounts set up to where I can respond straight back to you.  Did you even know that your blog could be set up like that?  I didn't know it for months and months but once I fixed it, I started hearing back from those bloggers whose posts I had commented on.  Heck, we even started having normal email conversations. 

So, here is how you do it:

Go to your Blogger Dashboard

Click on "Edit your profile"

Find the section that says "show my email address"

Check that box

Save

Now just because it says "show my email address" does not mean that your email will be posted on your blog page for all of the world to see.  All it means is that when you comment and that gets sent to me, I will actually be able to hit "reply" and reply directly back to you.  If you do not have the "show my email address" box checked then when I receive your comment in my email it just says no-reply-comment@blogger.com so there is no way for me to respond to you.

If you have any questions, comment here and I will check back.

Also, I will be chatting on my blog tomorow night (Thurs) at 8CST/9EST.  Hope to see you on!