Christmas 2020

Christmas Preparations

Steve picked up a gingerbread decorating kit from Costco, which turned out to be a pretty fun activity.  

According to Steve, the boxed gingerbread wasn't all that tasty, but Henry really seemed to like it and barely finished decorating before chowing down.

Henry:

Jack:

The boys also made some traditional spritz cookies from scratch. 

Henry uses the mixer:

Jack sifts flour:

Jack carefully decorating the little cookies (he selected the dog-shaped insert for the cookie press):

Jack, feeling dapper in his purloined decorative hat: 

Steve has been reliving his youth by purchasing Lego sets. One acquisition was a pretty cool Christmas fire station. 

Jack begins construction:

Jack demonstrates the proper way to use the Lego brick separator tool:

Well, maybe not.

Mom and Henry build the ice skating rink while Jack looks on:

Final product!

Since we were going to be home for Christmas, we decided to go all out with the tree and picked one that was eight feet tall.

Jack hangs ornaments:

Henry gets in on the decorating:

Completed Christmas decor with my stuffed penguin collection in the foreground:

This year's penguin census reported 9 giant penguins, 10 large penguins and 87 small & medium penguins for a total of 105 stuffed penguins, or approximately 2.8 penguins per year of my life. It's... slightly out of hand.

The boys asked that we hang lights in their bedroom as well. One of the boys took this picture:

Steve put up quite a few outdoor lights with his assistant, Jack:

We also had a little Christmas dinosaur and a wind-surfing penguin on the porch. All in all, pretty festive.

One of the boys' favorite activities this Christmas season was watching videos of animated lightshows. In a show of spectacularly good taste, one of their favorites was one we stumbled upon that was done for Halloween featuring Metallica's Enter Sandman.

The boys bugged me most nights leading up to Christmas to watch lightshows with them. Jack would sidle coyly up to me and say, "This is a very good night for lightshows," with a hopefully arched eyebrow.

There weren't many decorations around town, but the residents of one large Victorian set up a bunch of those little laser light machines to spectacular effect. The picture doesn't do it justice at all, but I wanted to include it to remember how cool the place was.

Christmas Day

Jack is challenging to shop for, as most of the things on his Christmas wish list were novel inventions. For instance, "something that will pick up leaves that's on wheels." I think he was envisioning something like the Cat in the Hat's clean-up machine, but I'm not entirely sure. 

First up on Christmas morning, stockings! Jack digs in:

Train whistle!

Hair clips with glittery flowers!

Henry's desires were much more concrete. He wanted hair ties, something with flowers on it and a unicorn. You got it, kid.

Both boys really enjoyed the bath bombs we put in their stockings, so that's definitely an idea we'll be reusing on other gifting occasions. 

What else?

A piano horn!

Jack wanted a trumpet, which I doubt would be all that satisfying since it would take a lot of practice (and be very challenging for a four year-old) to make a decent sound, so Steve and I found this option at a local toy store. It's actually really fun to play.

Henry shows off his butterfly wings from Grandma Loveridge:

Jack shows off his kitty cat balaclava from former nanny Kasey! So cute!

Opening their gifts from Mom and Dad, kinetic sand starter kits:

The kinetic sand wasn't met with great enthusiasm initially, but they've definitely enjoyed playing with it for decently long chunks of time, which has provided much needed breaks for Mom and Dad.

Really, we should have just gotten them bubble wrap, tape and zipper bags. It's amazing the activities preschoolers can come up with just those ingredients. Anyway...

The boys were very excited about their Christmas duckies from Grandma and Grandpa Pool. 

However, the biggest hit (literally) of the day was the faux snowballs.

With a battle cry, Henry unleashes on Dad:

And then, because this was a pandemic Christmas and Steve and I were exhausted, lunch was leftover fries and assorted other stuff we found around the house.

The boys were not impressed.

However, our food fortunes soon improved as Steve used his Christmas money to buy a little smoker. 

For his first smoking project, Steve made ribs, since those are my favorite. They turned out absolutely fantastic. 

Yum...

I was skeptical, but I'm now completely supportive of the tiny smoker.

I bought myself a little mopping robot (iRobot Braava Jet 240). So far it has mopped the bathroom and kitchen and actually did quite a nice job, in addition to providing solid entertainment for the four year-olds.

But, alas, Christmas had to come to an end. We put up our tree so early that it was getting extremely dry and shedding needles profusely when the time arrived for it to go. So, we made an activity of it and let the boys cut the limbs off so it could exit the house neatly in buckets instead of squeezing through the doorways and dropping needles everywhere.

Henry:

Jack:

We hope you had a merry pandemic Christmas, and that all of us will have a happier new year.

4 Years, 5 Months

December was a strange month, to put it mildly. But time marches on, and kids keep growing.

One of our more successful crafts in the past month was "snow paint," which is made with shaving cream and glue. It turned out really well. The boys enjoyed painting scenes themselves, but were most interested in having me paint snowman shapes that they could then decorate with various beads and gems.

Jack gives great consideration to his bead placement:

Henry carefully adding more paint to help his embellishments stick better:

I got to paint and decorate one too!

Another highlight of the month, pajama day at preschool!

If anyone needs evidence that twins are not the same, these pictures should do the trick.

The director of the boys' preschool noted in an e-mail to me that "your boys are so sweet, loving and caring to their friends and us." We're proud of our kids... although if they could extend that sweetness to each other on weekends at home, that'd be great.

It was also extremely exciting that sewer work was required on our street (fortunately didn't impact our service any, so it was just fun to watch). The boys greatly enjoyed this pile of fill rocks that was deposited in front of our house:

In yet more excitement, my friend Kristi and her daughter Alexa sent us some wonderful board games and dress-up clothes (and stuffed animals Alexa selected) to help get us through a long holiday break stuck at home.

Henry especially loves the dress-up shoes and has been frequently clip-clopping through the house ever since their arrival:

Showing off colorful skirt and pink shark!

Jack has been delighted by the board games and Marshall is his new second favorite stuffed animal (no one can compete with Blue Bunny):

The boys' favorite thing to do last month was definitely go the beach.  

Just some boys building a sand castle at Natural Bridges State Beach:

Henry working hard to mix the sand:

The castle expands to a fortress complete with moat:

Taking a stroll with Dad:

Closer to home, back on main beach...

Jack loves his mask and frequently wears it even in places where we tell him it's not necessary (like a deserted beach):

No amount of running on the sand is too much running on the sand for Henry:

Jack is more interested in sand construction, and lacking sand toys on this particular trip, settled for digging lines with his hands and feet:

Not yet satisfied with the number of beach trips, we were back at Natural Bridges just a few days later.

Sand construction is serious business for Jack:

Satisfied builder Jack surveys the beach:

The boys are getting really big, it's amazing. They can grab things from the freezer and wash their hands at the bathroom sink without step stools. They are certainly of the opinion that they're big kids now. They recently asserted that Steve and I could leave them home by themselves. 

Jack: "The bunnies will keep us company!"

Henry, much less reassuringly than Jack: "I can get an ice pack if we need it!" 

Uh, no. But nice try kiddos.