Thursday, December 16, 2010

Ian's Christmas Program

Monday Night Ian had his school Christmas program. It was....what you would expect for a three year old Christmas program. His class got up and said a poem, or at least attempted a poem.

Then they sang Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star. 





At the end all the classes got up and sang Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. During Jingle Bells, Ian was too busy to sing. On the way home, he excitedly said, 'Do you know what's inside a bell!?' Well, he discovered it during his Christmas program :)



Ian did great and he looked adorable in his little angel costume!


Journey to Bethlehem and Live Nativity

The church that is part of Ian's school had a Live Nativity last weekend. It started inside the fellowship hall with a marketplace in Bethlehem.



They tasted some flat bread and wine (grape juice). They got to mill some grain, pet a fuzzy chicken, help make and keep a dreidel, watch someone make pottery and weave baskets. It was pretty informative and kinda fun, despite the crowded room.

Then outside we went to six different stations that had a little drama that told the story of Mary and Joseph's journey and of Jesus's birth.


The kids ate it up. But I think for Scott and I, we went to see the camels....


I don't know how to rent a camel or how much it is, but I want one for my next birthday :) They're cool.

And Fall Still Lingers On


Now that we're in December and we have our Christmas tree up, shouldn't Fall be done with now? At least you would think so....but we're still having some decent color out there (at least for Texas standards :).




And enjoying....leaves :)

Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Timely Convergence

Have you ever had one of those moments where multiple things seem to converge all at the same time? And your brain seems to get a little scrambled and you get a little flustered?

I was finishing a batch of toffee with melted chocolate on top. If you've ever made a candy that requires boiling sugar and butter, you know that you can't get distracted because it has to be stirred. You have to take it off the heat at just the right moment, and then you have to do something with it immediately. Otherwise you have hard candy in some undesirable formation that you can't do anything with. Well, I was stirring my boiling hot sugar/butter mixture when I heard the characteristic 'Mommy!' scream from Ian upstairs. This is the scream meaning, 'I'm about to poop in my pants!'

I can't leave my boiling candy, so I yell out, 'Go to the bathroom!' (Daddy is in the garage, sanding his latest woodworking project and thus, useless to me at this point.) I hear running and stuff going on in the bathroom upstairs, so I figure perhaps everything is ok. I'm about to pour my bubbly goo over chopped pecans when Ian yells from upstairs, 'I did it mommy. I wiped myself!' I'm thinking, 'Great, we haven't even mastered the actual pooping process and he's trying to wipe himself, now'.  But I can't deal with it at this instant because, this is when I put chocolate chips on top of my cooling toffee. The chips are suppose to be added while it's hot so they melt, forming a nice layer on top - yum.

At the same time, the alarm on my phone goes off signaling that it's time to go get Payton from school. Hit snooze. Then I yell out, 'Wash your hands- with soap!' (Thing that seem obvious to adults, don't always appear so to kids.) Spread melted chips on toffee. Ian comes downstairs and starts dancing behind me, and telling me how he did it all by himself. I asked him if he washed his hands, and he says yes, but that he couldn't get it all off - as he shows me his pointer finger.

I rush him off to the bathroom to clean his hand when I notice, he's still stinky. Alarm goes off again. I check Ian and there's poop everywhere - in the underwear, down his leg....Ug!

I had to clean him up and take him with me to get Payton because we were going directly over to someone's house for a play date after we got Payton.

So I start cleaning Ian up. I run upstairs to get him new underwear, and I see the bathroom he was in when 'he did it all by himself'. It was not pretty. I don't want to go into all the details, but  I had questions as to how some of that poop ended up where it did - enough said.

But I couldn't deal with the bathroom because I had to finish cleaning up Ian, get him dressed and out the door to rescue Payton from school. Oh, by the way, the toffee needed to be cut before it was eternally hardened into it's delicious candyness.

Somehow, it all got done (except the bathroom - that had to wait), and we got to the school just as the kids were being let out. And all the rushing and frantic stuff was forgotten.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Christmas tree

Christmas has come to the van Poppel household - at least we have decorated for it. We haven't gotten to all the shopping or baking - but that will come soon too. I love this time of year.

The kids love getting out all the decorations and playing with them. Payton especially loved setting up the manger scenes this year. And the dancing Santa Claus is always a big hit.


He sings 'Jingle Bell Rock' over....and over.....again.....sigh

 It was Payton's turn to put the angel on the tree this year.