Gingerbread Houses, Sandboxes, and Laundry

I keep having this recurring thought as the holidays continue to grow closer and I get flashbacks of the holidays a year ago: THANK GOD I'm not about to give birth!

I am hoping to actually be able to remember the holidays this year and not just remember the miserable blur that they were a year ago when I was overwhelmed with the trauma of post-surgery recovery, sleep deprivation, and a whole lot of other miserable post-birth ailments of which I will spare you the details.

That being said, I couldn't be more thankful to have a beautiful healthy son who is about to turn a year old. So there's a perspective to remember here.

I intend to enjoy the holidays and festivities thoroughly this year, and so I indulged a whim to make a gingerbread house with Daughter last weekend. I didn't actually set out with gingerbread houses in mind, but on our weekly trip to the local stuff-mart, I was picking up a box of graham crackers to make a Thanksgiving pumpkin cheesecake when we discovered ginger flavored graham crackers (compliments of Nabisco) and on the back of the box was a recipe for gingerbread houses. That was all it took for Daughter. We were calling Daddy up at home to see if we had powdered sugar to make the fosting-glue.

I've intended to post a note about the sanbox adventure a few weeks ago, but that all got lost in the shuffle of...well, life as I know it during the past few weeks.

Daughter really wanted to play outside but it was a bit on the chilly side, though sunny. Son was up from his nap, and wouldn't need another one for awhile. I decided to bundle up the kids and drag a blanket out to the deck where Son could play while Daughter played in the sandbox. I predicted Son would not want to stay on the blanket. I also predicted he would be very curious about the sand. I did not, however, predict that he would insist on climbing into the sandbox and belly surfing in it. He looks pleased about the whole thing, though, doesn't he. *Sigh* It wasn't worth the battle of keeping him out, so I let him be. He only tried to eat the sand once, and apparently once was all it took to convince him not to do it again. So I figured there was little harm in having two wiggly piggies covered with sand. I've given up on having a clean house anyway--at least for the next decade or so.



And since this turned out to be a mishmash post anyway, I will include a picture of Son helping with the laundry for those doting relatives that don't get to see the kids often enough. Son loves to "help" with everything these days.