Christmas in Kennett

We visited with our family in Kennett on Sunday. Cousin Treston was a big hit with James and Amelie (in part because he kept slipping them candy & then he turned on the cartoons). Hey, he has younger siblings :)

Kamron & Amelie watching My Little Pony with Sadie the dog.

Holly and JC.

And then the mayhem began. 

Amelie got a fuzzby.

The boys look happy with their paintball guns. They went out to shoot them later and Amelie said, "I'm interested to see how this goes."

James, on the other hand, does not look so thrilled.

Someone didn't much want his picture made, either.

Someone else got an iPhone!

Patti & Jeff 

Grandpa Bob got the kids scooters (and Holly and JC put them together).

Sam takes a scooter for a spin.

James is a little copy-cat. 

Whee!

Preschool Program

The kids had their preschool Christmas program before they went on break. Aunt Holly, JC, and Grandma Mary got to come (and Mama and Dada, of course).

James shook the jingle bell and started doing some hand motions toward the end, but didn't actually sing any of the words. I wasn't surprised that he was bashful, but I thought Amelie would love being up in front of the crowd. Amelie knew all the words to the songs, but she didn't sing either! She did all of the motions, though. 

Family photo.

Grandma Mary.

 JC got this one on his phone because of the dapper way James has one hand in his pocket.

Christmas Eve

Wowza, I have a lot of holiday posts (and probably some others) to get caught up on.

We went to the family Christmas Eve service at church again (I imagine it's somewhat rowdier than the later service). We got there early so Sam could set up the vibraphone & practice with the choir.

 Don't worry - I didn't let them hold the lit candles. Afterward, we got a family photo.

And, since we did it last year and now it's tradition, we drove out to the magic tree afterward. James fell asleep on the way (apparently also tradition), but I woke him up this time.

This is the best I managed to do of pictures of the kids. They liked it! James yelled, "I FOUND IT!" when he saw the tree. Sure you did, bud. 

Little Elves

James's teacher emailed me this picture today. They were elves making toys in Santa's workshop. You can tell which one is James by the purpleness of his pants.  It looks like he's the shortest one in his class (he's the youngest in the room, too).

Rudolph

We all sat down on the couch to watch Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer when it was on CBS last night (it first aired Dec 6th, 1964).

In what has become a Baby Buffaloe blog tradition, I recorded what James had to say about the movie as we were watching it.

Amelie said something funny right at the beginning, though. The snowman narrator asks, "Haven't you ever seen a talking snowman before?" and Amelie very seriously answers, "Yes." 

Here is the commentary James had to offer:

That Santa. 

That Rudolph. Rudolph reindeer. Reindeer!

Santa's reindeer.

Where Rudolph?

That baby reindeer is ... That baby reindeer blink nose. That baby reindeer nose pink.

Rudolf reindeer! Rudolf black nose. 

Baby reindeer. That mom. That house. Those Christmas. This Christmas place.

[during a commercial] Want watch Frozen! Watch Frosty! Want Frosty Snowman. Watch Rudolph?  

That Rudolph red nose. 

That name Rudolph.

That Santa.

[talking about the green pen I was writing with] Want that. Need it! Color pen! [then he started drawing on the paper instead of watching the movie.]

 Pbbbbbttttth [to Rudolph flirting with Clarice]

Make Christmas.

Shiny.

Two Christmas reindeer.

It snowing outside.

Santa have a sleigh.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells.

Let it go, let it go!

[trying to get Sam to color with him on the notepad I was using to write these down.] Need it! Draw Santa. Draw Santa paper.  

Reindeers!

Rudolph?

Santa.

Bye, reindeers!

I wish you a merry Christmas!

Watch Frosty now?

The end.  

Lights

We put our lights up. Nothing too fancy, but I like them. We got two new strings of LED ones this year. Amelie, however, apparently doesn't like for the lights to be turned on on the tree. How strange! She goes over and unplugs them "to save electricity." And even after I say it just uses a little and we'll just turn them on in the evening, she still doesn't want them on.

In related news, our fake tree is on its last legs. I thought that last year was going to be its last year and that we might get a real one this year, but that didn't pan out. I'm getting a new one when they go on deep sale the day after Christmas for sure. 

Salt Tray

We did a salt tray sensory activity a few days ago so that Amelie could practice writing some letters with her finger. (Salt and not sugar for OBVIOUS REASONS. James said more than once, hopefully, "James eat it?")

I taped construction paper to the bottom of the container so that the letters would be easier to see. 

James wanted to draw on his with a pen, because why not?

 Here's an "M" Amelie made.

I liked shaking it to erase the drawings like an etch-a-sketch. Eventually the kids started picking up the salt and just playing with it.

They've played with these three times so far and we've only had one incident of salt on the floor. Success? Success.

Cosmo Park

Cosmo Park has been undergoing a huge renovation since this spring/summer. It was scheduled to be done in the fall, but they're still working on it. It should be awesome when it's complete, but Amelie's been chomping at the bit to go back. Anyway, they've opened up the parts of it that are done for playing just in time for cold weather and we checked it out last week.

This thing looks like nothing so much as the luggage roller at the airport.

There is a triceratops fossil statue.

And a ton of pictures of Amelie, but not so many of James. That's a little bit of a switch from the norm lately.

And then this happened ...

Surely you saw this coming: 

Why not take a video, you ask? Good question. But now we have this handy GIF. 

Sam was very impressed with the new teeter-totter technology. I'm on the opposite side, teetering and taking photos at the same time. Safety first!)

Sam took a turn balancing.

Amelie pushed James on the newfangled merry-go-round.

Now they're both pushing.

Sad face because A) it's cold B) it's time to go home C) not heavy enough to bounce the toy properly D) pants too purple.

Amelie Says / James Says

"I looked all through my papers, but I still can't figure out how to save the world!" Amelie exclaimed.

"I have keen eyesight, just like a T-Rex." 

Amelie's been calling me "Mother." I'm not quite sure where she picked it up, but it was probably in a book. "Mother, would you like to hear the song I learned at school today?" It cracks me up.

Speaking about the nutcracker ornaments, which the kids have taken off the tree and play with like figurines: "The mayor nutcracker doesn't have a beard like the other men. He's crying about it because he doesn't look cool."

We finally went to the evening storytime at the library on Tuesday because I've been teaching during the day this semester and we've missed out on our regular library visits. Anyway, at the end, the somewhat inexperienced librarian asked the group, "Would you like to go back out into the library and play, or ..." Amelie pipes up with "YES!" and starts running toward the door. She finished "... or sing one more song?"

(I am nearly 100% certain Amelie must just be copying this from something she's watched, but it's not something I've seen with her. Maybe the babysitter?) Telling a story, Amelie says, "Once upon a time, a boy did not believe in magic ... Ironically, his father was a magician." Sam and I died.
---

"I got your nose!" James shouts as he pinches your face.

He just keeps making longer and longer sentences. The other day he told me, "There a monster outside in the backyard. I go get 'em." 

Sometimes we ask James to ask nicely instead of issuing demands, but he still doesn't really get it. For example:
JAMES  "Want juice NOW."
ME        "You need to ask nicely."
JAMES (in a super-sweet voice) "Ask nicely." 

James was trying to kick his pants off but they got stuck on his foot. "Not quite," he said.  

Sam and James were shopping at Schnuck's and James was riding in the cart. They passed another shopper and James said, "Hi, Man!" The man said hi back, and James informs Sam, "Man say hi!" The man could still hear them, and he laughed.

Belated Thanksgiving

It looks like the only photo that turned out from Thanksgiving at Luke and Barb's was this one (from my camera, anyway -- Great-grandpa Kohler took several!)

We learned this Thanksgiving that the kids prefer the canned, jellied cranberry sauce to the real stuff and that the holiday is definitely not about the food for Amelie, who refused to eat any of the traditional fare -- not even a roll. 

The kids' preschool had us do an at-home activity where we were supposed to talk about what we were thankful for. Amelie's list was:

• Ice cream
• Stuffed animals
• Pumpkins
• Videos
• Dogs, cats, elephants, and panda bears
• Pepperoni pizza

I'm not sure what James's exact understanding of the question was, but he came up with a list, too: 

• Coloring
• Nana Jana
• Dada
• Our car
• Airplanes
• Mama