Gingerbread house close-up

OK, if you haven't read the blog post before this one, go read that one first, so you don't ruin the surprise of these details! Really, go....you don't want to be sorry!

Ok, good, now that you've read the first one, here's the detailed pictures of the girl, the kitty and the fire.

Addie is convinced it's her. You know, blonde hair, blue eyes? If you look through you can see the back of the cat.

The cat is happily perched on the windowsill. She's got green eyes and brown spots. Her tail actually sticks out of the window.

The fire. It's small pretzel sticks with Big Red gum cut up to make the flames.

FUN! Overall, it turned out as well as I could have hoped.

Annual Gingerbread house entry

Tomorrow is the due date for the annual gingerbread competition at the hospital. The major rule is that everything has to be edible and you must use the cardboard base they provide. I look forward to it so much each year. It's really neat to see all of the hard work on display in the lobby, and better to see the children's (and their parents'!) faces as they inspect each one.

This year I decided to really try something very different. I even searched the internet first for anyone with a similar design and couldn't find one!

So below is my very own design, a totally gingerbread-free gingerbread house! Enjoy.

The front. Addie insisted on a balcony above the front porch. The front door is graham crackers. The columns are those Piroline hazelnut stick things. The second story is chocolate, strawberry and vanilla sugar wafers. The braided things are called marshmallow twists. The front path are Nerds candies.

Right side. Roof is pizzelles. Side is sugar wafers. Shutters are Big Red gum. I'm especially stoked because I thought of going out on a limb and having open windows to look inside the gingerbread house. That little lady peering out is from sugar cookie. Her hair is Ramen noodles! Behind her is a Christmas tree made of peppermint. From here you can kind of get a sense of my first attempt at drop-piping skills on the porches. I wish I had gotten the consistency like that earlier, because I would've tried it elsewhere too.

Back of house. Just about same ingredients as front. Look at those piping skills on the porch awning! The column blocks it a little, but that's a wreath on the back. I like how it's relatively minimally decorated. To the right corner you can see a fire.

The other side of the house. Same ingredients as the other side. This time I sculpted a kitty out of sugar cookies and she's perched on the windowsill. Note the pretzel log pile against the house and the fire. If you look in the window, you can even see the back of the girl with her Ramen hair and necklace continuing around the back!

From the top looking down.

Hard to see, but I wrote Merry Christmas on the snow.

I will have to post a different post with close ups of the kitty, person, and fire.

Picking our tree

After Snacks with Santa, we headed out to cut down our Christmas tree at Linvilla Orchards. The weather was really warm at about 50 degrees.

How about this one?

This was the face we got when Brian and I wanted this tree. In case you can't tell, Addie didn't agree.

They liked this one.

While Brian prepared to saw it down, Ben enjoyed a warm beverage.

Brian cut, and cut, and cut. Ultimately he borrowed another guy's saw (we just grabbed one off of the hayride once we got to the tree area) and cut through with no problem.

Benjamin was most impressed by Brian's incredible manliness. He exclaimed, "I had no idea Daddy was strong enough to carry the tree by himself!"

Like a mother (or father) duckling with hatchlings in line.

In front of our tree, waiting for the tractor to come pick the tree up and for us to catch the hayride back.

Snacks with Santa

Saturday was my work's Snacks with Santa event for employee families. As part of the Employee Activities Committee, I help organize it each year. Addie was super excited to be able to wear a holiday dress, tights and her fancy shoes, with a little heel to them!

I was in charge of the "sand art" station, which was as messy as you'd expect. It was an activity that took quite a bit of time, and Addie and Ben were determined to finish their projects.

She looked so sweet, didn't she?

That's Ben's project, about half-way through.

One of the best family photos of us.

Ben made a snowman ornament

He made the rounds at the different project stations.

Addie was very concerned in the morning, even asking me, "will it be the real Santa?" I told her I thought so. Well once she heard that, she had to make him a picture. On the back she wrote, "For Santa, put this in your ofis." When Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived, they greeted Addie so well and she was SOOOO psyched. She is absolutely beaming.

The full shot of her dressed up.

Bell ringing, once again

Gotta love my ringers, outside in the cold for 2 hours. With the exception of needing bathroom breaks, there wasn't a peep of complaining out of them. I continue to be humbled by most people's generosity. I also have to laugh at the people who tell me, "It's good to teach your kids a lesson young and get them involved, " as they proceed to walk by with contributing one cent. Addie was belting out the hits like nobody's business. Ben really was excited to ring this time too.

Our final ringing of the season will be on Christmas Eve!!

We are just busy, busy, busy

Can't believe Christmas is less than two weeks away. We have some much going on. I can't imagine what it'll be like when the kids have after school activities and such around this time of year.

Work has been keeping me really busy. My physician partner and I presented Grand Rounds on Wednesday, which is a big deal in academic hospitals. It went over really, really well and very well attended. Preparing for that has consumed so much of my work time recently, it's a relief to have it over.

Muddy and Guppy have been away for about 10 days now, so I've also been responsible for getting Ben to the temporary daycare each morning and then driving Addie to school, before heading to work. Then I got to reverse that each night. Phew. Time consuming and exhausting, to say the least.

The weather has finally gotten bitterly-cold. We've had snow flurries a few days now, which is always fun. Nothing has stuck yet, but if you recall this time last year we were just a few days away from the first of two huge storms.

Advent calendars

If you recall last year Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda sent the kids My Little Pony Advent Calendars that were about as cool as cool can get. At the same time, Onkteb had come across these PlayMobil advent calendars and bought them, but seeing as how they already had the MLP ones, we held off til this year.

Sorry the pictures loaded backwards.

Too funny, because they both were shocked with each door they opened, even though they put the items in!

The finished product, all assembled.

You can't see my face, but let me assure you, I was thrilled with the notion of assembling two of these, not to mention my little helpers who were uber helpful.

When I opened the boxes up, it says in big letters "WARNING ASSEMBLE BEFORE GIVING TO CHILDREN. Approximate time 15 minutes." That's never a good sign. So it's not your traditional advent calendar, ultimately all of the pieces come together to form a little forest to play with. We're talking straw, a trough, animals galore, carrots, trees, birds, etc. Very serious stuff. Both wake up each morning so eager to open their "toy calendar." Thanks Onkteb.

(Notice how Ben becomes less dressed as the assembling wore on....it was almost bed time.