Santa Cow & Elfie Cow

Those of you up north don't have Chick-fil-A.  Sorry.  mmm... chick'n minis.  The one around us does a lot of family things. They have different game nights each week, do school fundraising meal nights, have special things for holidays and seasonal stuff in the restaurant and, of course, have their dressed up Big Cow and Baby Cow around town at various events a lot handing out free coupons.  They are visible (and huggable) at things at the Children's Museum, at the county fair, at the mall, etc. 

Each December, they do a Christmas breakfast craft and have the Santa Cow and Elfie show up.  Well, now the twins are in school and we can't do that this year.  But, for Saturdays in December, the calendar said Santa Cow was going to be there for an hour and a half at lunchtime.  Baby Elfie Cow was an added bonus for us today.  We have a series of pictures with the Holiday Cows...  how could we skip this year?  Gretchen was disappointed when she realized there was no ornament to make today. 

Here they are last year...
December 2010

and here they are in 2009.  They were going to pre-school on opposite days, so they are not in the same picture. 
December 15, 2009

December 16, 2009... check it out... Carl is wearing the same outfit in his 2010 picture.  Even the sneakers!

other cow sightings....

October 18, 2008... Halloween party at favorite play place.  Gretchen wasn't even 3 yet! 

November 3, 2009... at the county fair with the pre-school class. 

April 1, 2010... Easter Egg hunt at the battleship. 

right now it's...

70* out.  It is 5:40pm.      (we hit 76* earlier in the day)

Ho Ho Ho???

2 hours at the dentist

Oh man.  Last Friday I broke a molar (on Lucky Charms.....magically delicious???) and had to find a dentist here.  I did that really fast, actually.  I somehow managed to break this tooth, call Lew to ask what insurance we have, find a dentist in our plan, call, get an appointment, go in, have it really temporarily capped for the weekend and get home all in 90 minutes!! 

Monday they had me come in for a cleaning.  I had not been to a dentist in over 6 years.  The hygienist gushed over how perfect my teeth are and how clean they were and how my gums didn't bleed and how I must floss regularly (which I do... you should, too, you know!)  and she even ended by saying I don't need to come in every 6 months for a cleaning - I could wait a full year.  My teeth are awesome.  Oh -and she said she hopes my kids get my teeth.  I even have my wisdom teeth in there still.  The cleaning went well.

Then, this morning I went back in to have an oxymoron put on.  You know... a long lasting temporary. 

It was 2 hours in the chair.  Halfway through, I asked for a bathroom break!  I looked at the clock and it was over an hour of him drilling away at the old tooth.  While it didn't hurt, eeeww ... that sound coupled with the smell of heat as the tooth got worn away was pretty unpleasant. 

By the time I left, I had a wicked headache.  It hasn't gone away yet.  So, this concludes my regularly scheduled blog broadcast.  I am not going to sit at this computer screen more than the three minutes I just did.

must be Santa...

... must be Santa, must be Santa. Santa Claus.

If you have young kids around, you are now humming that Raffi song.  That is what Gretchen & Carl's kindergarten class performed yesterday at the Kindergarten Breakfast with Santa concert.  Each of the kindergarten classes sang one song followed by the entire group singing.  So, for the twins' class, Gretchen had the opening line!  Another little boy had been assigned that solo part, but apparently, he couldn't keep the tempo correctly so the teacher asked Gretchen to do it.  She was so proud!!  And, she was awesome!! 

(I have been trying literally all day long to upload the video of that one song.  I wrote this blog early this morning.  I am giving up on getting the video on here.  You would have loved it.)

After breakfast, the kids came into the cafeteria to have breakfast and they were surprised to find Santa was joining them!  Each child got to sit with Santa and tell him what they would like for Christmas and pose for a picture with him.  Prints of the photos will be sent home with the kids today...a s soon as I pick them up after having them printed and bring them up to school.  Yup.  They asked me to photograph the kids.  And, I agreed. 

Actually, the lady said, "If you don't want to do it, someone else could do it with your camera."  Ha ha!  Everyone knows that having a good camera = taking good pictures.  There is a photography joke about a man who goes to dinner at a friend's house.  All evening, he hears people say his pictures are beautiful and ask him what camera he has.   Before he goes to leave, he compliments the hostess on the wonderful meal and adds, "You must have some really nice pots." 

Lew didn't snap a shot of me with my set-up, but I borrowed an umbrella light and another tripod for my own flash.  It made for a lot of pressure because I looked like I knew what I was doing.  What if the shots were horrible after all that?  Well, I wasn't that worried... the parents did not know this was going to happen and weren't expecting anything, so how much pressure could that equate to, right?  They aren't award winning photos, but I will say... the kids all looked soooo cute.  How could the shots not look good?  I think the parents will be happy to get their copies.

Carl wasn't crazy about wearing the vest because he didn't want to cover up his red shirt, but once he put it on, he was fine about wearing it.  Turns out, there is enough leftover when making a jumper to make the front panels of a vest!  Good to know!! 

Yes, Gretchen has a big scrape on her face.  I removed in in a few of the Santa photos.  She fell on the playground Sunday morning and cut the inside of her lip.  She managed to only get a few scrapes on her face, but there is a little bruising, too.  She loved having a chocolate protein shake for lunch and red jello (that we happened to already have made...  what are the odds?) and don't worry -she is still fully capable of eating her Halloween candy. 

sooo.......

just who do you have to know to get invited to Rifton this holiday season? 

holiday music

Today, we are going to the mall to hear Tuba Christmas.  I love it!  Low brass playing Christmas carols - and they invite you to sing along.   Look them up in your area and go!  It will be a group of local euphonium and tuba players (with maybe a flugelhorn player thrown into the mix) who have all volunteered to come together to play for you.  You'll have all ages... anyone from young students to college musicians to teachers to retired players.  This is a group that is used to playing the bass line.  Playing oompah music in the background for other instruments to take the melody.  You can see they are totally enjoying their time to shine and belt out the melody.  And, if your group is anything like the performers here... they'll be decked out in hats and have everything from tinsel to Christmas lights strung up on their instruments.

Now, if you happen to read any of the blogs I follow over on the right hand side, you will already have seen this.  Or maybe it is going around the internet.  I don't know.  Meg's blog 'whatever' was the only place I have seen it so far.  And, I love it! 

Hope you enjoy it, too.

this is the house that Jack built

Jack is a sweet little boy in the twins' kindergarten class who really had fun this morning eating M&Ms decorating his gingerbread house.  However, I think my kids having fun decorating their own gingerbread houses are equally as cute.  Just not in a "nursery rhyme line makes a catchy blog title" sort of way.

So, here is the house that Gretchen built...... and, Gretchen working on it.  Mike Holmes would be proud.

Here is the house that Carl built. 

Here are the houses that I built!

I did have a little help from the Elf. 

He was not as helpful in the transporting phase....

At school, ready to decorate with the kindergarten class this morning....

The whole class was so focused and really creative.  Look below at this scene next to one little guy's house.  He told me, "It is a nativity.  See, Baby Jesus laying down?  And Mary and Joesph and 2 Wise Men."   I was unable to find out where Wise Man #3 was at the time.  Possibly off getting an insulin shot. 

Carl ate marshmallows and the gummy bear he was given...  not the 3rd Wise Man, fear not, for behold, I saw him get the bear from the bag Charlie's mom was holding.  He wanted only yellow gumdrops.  When he decided to make a sidewalk, he picked Skittles and M&Ms.  Each of those candies is labeled with a single letter from it's name, of course.  "Is "sm" a blend?"  I was sure than when I told him yes it was that he was going to do his pattern in SM SM SM, but he stuck mainly to the M&Ms.  He also did a lot of socializing.  He didn't spend as much time decorating as the others did, so he wandered around talking to his friends and checking out their houses like a little Gingerbread Village Mayor.

Gretchen was covered in that icing.  Oh, I made all of that, too.*   The teacher requested it in the baggies.  It was actually (or as Carl would say, 'accidentally'.  He substitutes accidentally for actually all the time.  It's too cute to correct.) cleaner than I expected for most of the kids.  "Most" being the key word.  One of the Colins did have a sleeve coating incident and then my kid was just covered.  Extreme Gingerbread decorating!!!  She didn't care, she was having too much fun building and making sure her building supplies were up to code.  Most contractors and carpenters taste their supplies, right? 

The teachers got a nice break while parent volunteers helped the kids with this project.  Then, we lined the kids up and sent them back to the classroom completely hyped up on candy.  At least the next activity on their schedule was snack/outside play.  It is still nice enough here that they eat snack outside on the picnic tables every day and then have their first recess of the day.  So, they did get to run off that sugar high.

It was fun to get to visit with the other moms, too.  This class has some really great families in it!


*  icing recipe
If you ever have to make 21 gingerbread houses, you will need some serious icing.  I ended up making 8 batches of this, but the kids have quite a bit in their baggies.  (Well, I made 4 double batches... I only spent 40 minutes with my mixer, not 80 minutes mixing it up.  My mixer was getting a bit tired - had a hot smell by the end of about batch #3.)


1 box confectioner's sugar (1 lb)
4 room temp egg whites
1 tsp cream tartar

beat for 7-10 minutes until peaks form