Movie Mania, Happy Birthday Grandmama!

We love you, Grandmama! Hope you got a laugh out of that video. Myself, I love the potholders!

I don't know why, but we have more movies than anything else from our past week and a half. Maybe it's 'cause my little one's noses looked mostly like green goo for most of the week, so pictures just wouldn't have captured their golden personalities as well as a movie. At any rate, you're in for it now.

Aside from blowing our noses, we've stayed home. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun. It just means that everyone else missed out on our fun.

Alden and Rhianwen really love to dance. Rhianwen is getting picky now and must have her dance floor clear of all toys before she can begin. I hope we're not raising a diva...

Despite the cold weather, we've spent much time outside. I've really grown to love our field out back. It's sunny, wild, full of natural color, and leaves so much "room for the imagination" as Anne of Green Gables would say.

We "ride horses" quite often back there.

One benefit to being way behind on winterizing our yard is that we were able to make a skating rink out of the water in our kiddie pool. Daddy almost threw all that lovely ice away, but mommy saved it for some winter fun. It's about the best you can do down south.

It's all melted now that some warmer weather has hit, but I bet Rhianwen will be excited to see the winter Olympics now that she's tried it out.

This is the most successful attempt to date at keeping Alden from clambering over us to get to the computer keyboard. I keep wondering if we gave him an old one, if that'd work, but I think it's the fact that it's way up on the desk and connected that really gets him interested.

We've been reading lots of books. Alden is really loving the train books and goes into his bedroom and says, "Toot toot!" before he selects one, climbs into his giant chair and reads.

I can't believe my little honey is going to be 18 months tomorrow! And we've made it without a hair-cut. I'm ready but have to decide who's going to do it. I guess eventually, he'll have a say in what we do. We do let him pick out the first piece of his outfit (pants or shirt) and then we match what he's picked. One day he picked out a shirt and I picked out his pants, and I said, "What do you think?" Alden said, "That'll wuk" (that'll work). I almost did a double take. I'm just amazed that he's speaking in complete sentences and being pertinent too, but that's really how he's been all along. He's picked up phrases instead of single words. He does have some single words such as "chickee" for chickadee and "showa" for shower and "Rhian-n" for Rhianwen. He's also still showing a lot of interest in using the toilet and has done so successfully many times now. If he isn't successful, he'll often just bend and spit instead. It's quite satisfactory in his mind. As if that wasn't enough, he's taken to checking other people's pants for poop, so watch out any of you who come to visit! He is very eager to reassure you that there is "no poo-poo" and in fact believes it is his duty to tell you so.

Maybe you can try Wally's tactic in preventing a poop check.

Singing is something Alden likes to try out too. This is the first time we sang this song with him aside from when he was a tiny babe. I think he did a great job!:

Rhianwen still loves to pretend to be Bert from Mary Poppins. When will this obsession end? Not any time soon apparently. She was sitting at the breakfast table, and said to Alden, "I'm Bert!" and Alden replied, "Bert!" Oh, no, it's spreading.Then in gymnastics, she got to fly like Mary Poppins.

The first time she had an opportunity to try it, she balked, but after telling her I'd take a video if she did it, she was all for it.

And, if you are wondering where on earth those thank-you cards are, they will come. Eventually. Hopefully they will not disappoint, since they probably will be hand painted or marked or scribbled by some munchkins.

December Highlights

I can't believe it's almost been a month since I posted a blog! Wow! I guess we've been busy or I've been procrastinating. I always feel like posting all of our Christmas pictures after Christmas is fopaux, but if I don't, then there'd be a big hole in the year. So here goes.

A romantic getaway to Biltmore for the 2 of us. The first time since Alden was born. Of course, my highlight was the freezing cold trail ride. But the candlelight tour with live music and dancing was cool too as was the winery. Thanks Grandmama and Grandaddy for looking after our little ones for us!

Then it was off to USC (we managed to restrain ourselves from wearing tiger paws and playing the tiger rag) to see Skipper's commissioning into the Army National Guard. We had to miss graduation b/c of scheduling. Soon Skip will be off to training but so far he won't be going out of the country as at first thought.

Then it was back home where we regretted the fact that we forgot our rain boots at Grandmama's and Grandaddy's.

Oh yes. We risked my sanity again this year. I figured out that if we bake the cookies first then decorate the day after, it works much better, and the kitchen and dining room aren't turned over when we're done.

We made snowmen from socks (see our reno/extras blog) and beans and a felt Christmas tree and stockings for Rhi's doll house. I think Alden only consumed one sequin.

We affirmed our strangeness to the neighbors by giving them hand-drawn Christmas cards straight from Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus. Alden absolutely loved throwing hay from our wagon into people's pristine driveways.

We again did a Christmas play on Christmas eve. Notice all of the stuffed "stable" animals surrounding the "manger". In the morning we read the Christmas story, ran down the hall yelling "Jesus is born! Jesus is born!" (so exciting even for me), and sang happy birthday to Jesus with a candle in some coffee cake.

When they opened the kitchen, Rhi couldn't figure out what it was! She thought it was a house. They got the hang of it pretty quickly though, and it's continued to be a favorite here. This is one thing that, as a girl, I always wanted, so it's extra special to be able to give this to them.

"It's a guc!!!" (a really cool one too. He loves it.)

Christmas chaos at Grandmama's and Grandaddy's. We were able to see Aunt Clara and Uncle Brooks there too.

To sweeten the deal, Clemson won their bowl game. Notice how nonchalant we all are about it.

Visiting with some sweet friends.

Yelling through the vent holes. Alden also participated, but here he looks like he's saying, "What?"

Wally's no city boy and neither are his friends from back home. We got to visit some dear older friends who have been so kind to Wally and to me. We give them full credit for the existence of our honeymoon since they allowed us to use their mountain and cabin free of charge!

There's something about SC and Chic-fil-A. We went to Grandpa and Nanny Kim's 'though it wasn't our year for it, b/c Uncle Christopher flew in from Seattle.

A nice visit with Great Grandpa.

With the Grandparents who always spoil me. I feel like a child again sometimes not having to worry about cooking and such (same goes for when I'm at Grandmama's).

Visiting Great Grandma. We started reading the Bible to her, and she took it away from us and wanted to read it for herself! Alden gave her lots of hugs at the end, and she said, "I'll take more of that!" Rhianwen sung Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer (Rhi's favorites) I'm so thankful for my 2 kiddos who do so amazingly with the Greatgrands.

She'll probably kill me, but it was fun getting reacquainted with a girl I knew way back in the Jr High days. Rhianwen really enjoyed it!

Some funny sayings by Rhianwen:

At the beginning of the season I asked her "What does Santa Claus do?"

Rhianwen pondered deeply for a moment and then replied, "He drinks Coke."

After watching part of White Christmas, Rhianwen is now singing the "Sisters" song. But instead of saying Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters, she sings, "Sisters, sisters, everlasting life for sisters!".

And after all of our festivities, Alden now can say "dince" (dance). He adds many words and phrases daily it seems. It's so fun how much he is learning. A favorite winter pass time for him is looking out the window at the bird feeders and watching them all eat seed.

You made it to the end of the picture marathon. Now eat some plastic pasta.