Tucker’s Photo Essay of Everything Else

 

Tucker’s Self-Portrait Photo Essay

  

 

  

Merry Christmas

We had a nice Christmas celebrating with all of the grandparents. The highlights included Molly walking more than 3 or 4 steps for the first time, Austin and I getting to go to church alone on Christmas day, and a delicious and relaxing Christmas dinner (thanks, Helen!).  Molly’s favorite Christmas presents were some plastic bracelets and Elmo silverware (that apparently really hit the spot to chew on), and she actually didn’t tear into wrapping paper like we thought she would.  She actually didn’t like the opening process at all… if it was something she was interested in, she wanted it NOW.  And if it wasn’t something she was interested in, she wouldn’t look.  Tucker’s favorite presents were a real kiddie digital camera/video camera and a puppet theater and puppets.  I’m going to need to post videos of his shows and some of his own movies and pictures.  I think he’s up to about 300 pictures in the past three days.  I’m not sure any of them will ever be able to get deleted because he never gets rid of anything, ever.

  

Tucker got a green monster hat for Christmas so Molly went to the kitchen and got her green frog hat to wear.

Celebrating with Henny and Papa

 

 

I might’ve woken up first, thinking I heard Tucker… and ended up waking Molly and Austin while Tucker slumbered on till past 7. 

Daddy’s girl dresses her daddy.

Santa knows the way to Molly’s heart: a banana! 

 

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Tucker’s friend Henry had TWO Christmas trees, so Tucker begged to get a table tree.  Austin and Tucker went into the woods and found a little evergreen to cut down to fill the need, and Tucker decorated it just perfectly.  I didn’t have a stand so I taped a mason jar to a square of cardboard, and tried to wedge it into the mason jar so it wouldn’t tip over.  I need to work on my wedging skills next year (actually, next year I’d pack it into the mason jar with gravel). 

Quote of the Day

Scene: 3 am, Tucker is outside our door
Austin: What’s wrong? [Follows Tucker to his room]
Tucker: I don’t have any sheets on my bed!
Austin: Where are they?
Tucker: I don’t know, but don’t check the closet!
Austin: They’re not wet?  You don’t need to get changed?
Tucker: It’s a trick!  They’re in the closet!

Molly helps Austin workout

Molly is definitely Daddy's girl, at least lately. On Monday she was so much more content sitting in a stroller watching Austin workout than having my undivided attention inside. Austin took her interest in stride and let her help him pull the sled with weights on it.

Quote of the Day

Austin: Tucker, please stop making that noise.
Tucker: It’s not me, Daddy, it’s a wolf!

Ben’s Christmas Indiscretion

Yes, Virginia, Ben ate the gingerbread house.  No, Virginia, the gingerbread house did not agree with his tummy. 

Last year we put the gingerbread house on a waist-high bookshelf in our sunroom, this year it was in the dining room window.  But we put up our tree the other day, and had to move end tables and lamps, and something ended up right in front of the window, blocking the house. 

What did I do?  I moved the house to an end table that was now in the dining room.   This end table is kitchen table height, every inch as high as the shelf we used for the gingerbread house last year.  But when I was moving it, Ben happened to be in the room, and a piece of candy happened to get knocked off while I was transitioning it.  Ben helpfully cleaned it up.

My lab may be dumb, but he knows what food is.  And he figured out that that gingerbread house was food.  Thankfully it didn’t have very much chocolate on it.

Fast forward several hours: throw-up on floor greeted us as we returned from our morning excursion.  Honestly, this didn’t even raise a suspicion because Ben eats so many socks and other things so that he is always throwing up (I had just cleaned up a regurgitated sock that morning).  But he kept drinking water so I did look around to make sure all our playdoh was accounted for (it was).  Playdoh also does bad things to dogs’ tummies.

I figured it out after I put Tucker down for his rest time.  I was going down the front stairs and saw the destruction.  Actually, there was one very unique thing about this indiscretion of Ben’s: he wasn’t able to finish the whole house.  In fact, he only got about halfway through--he ate two sides and a roof more or less—this is the first time he’s ever not successfully finished an item of food (that I know of). 

Oh, and one more thing: Tucker still hasn’t figured it out so shhhhhh!!!

O Christmas Tree

We made our annual pilgrimage to the best Christmas tree farm ever. The only problem with it is that it takes much too little time to pick out a tree if you're trying to make it a family outing. We tried to be REALLY picky this year, but still was out of there in 25 minutes, including loading/unloading kids and tree. The highlight this year was when the tree almost fell over on Tucker, which the video actually captured!

Tucker's Christmas Concert

Tucker's preschool had a Christmas concert on Thursday night that was highly entertaining. Tucker was in the second row behind a little girl in pink so it's hard to see him (he's wearing a green and red stiped polo shirt). I wasn't sure if he'd sing or not, and was surprised by how excited he was and how into it he was. By the end of the concert I think he was the only boy left in his class still actually singing!

He looked forward to the concert all day, and took a bath and picked out Christmas clothes all by himself with no prompting besides asking him to at the dinner table. Wow! He did have a moment of stage fright when we were walking to the concert hall (the local middle school auditorium) when Austin told him this was where the big boys went to school. It took a lot of reassurance to convince him that it was, in fact, just his preschool friends that were going to be there that night.

Besides seeing my little man sing, the other highlight was the youngest class--the two and three year-olds--that had two boys who stole the show. Someone had taught one boy how to bow low, and he spent the first half of the concert continually bowing low. Another little boy in that class had the only solo of the night when he started "This Little Light of Mine" about 10 seconds before everything else--yelling. I think throughout the concert he was as loud as almost all the other kids put together.

Quote of the Day

“Is that tent bigger than God?” -Tucker

Thought of the Day

“Take time to be holy.  The word holy does not mean goody-goody; it means set apart for sacred use.” – Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Quote of the Day

“Heavenly hosts sing wa-wa-woo-wa!” –Tucker, telling me the words to Silent Night

At church this week, Tucker really got into the Advent singing.  He sang with real pleasure and definite gusto—Austin and I had to restrain our giggles and smiles because Tucker can get quite self conscious these days. 

I wasn’t sure how many other people could hear him, but it turns out his voice carried from the altar to the back row because we had people from both places commenting on his singing.  In fact, Fr. Glenn said that he heard Tucker and his first impulse was to laugh and then his next impulse was to cry it was so beautiful.  “That is how it’s supposed to be done!” he told us after the service.

Visiting the Salt Mines

Austin and I went to Williamsburg for a night away from the kids (thanks Helen and David!).  We didn’t actually go into any of the Colonial Williamsburg buildings, but enjoyed walking around the town, and even stumbled upon a glorious Christmas concert at the Bruton Parish Church.  Since we were late, we got the only seats left—front row! 

One of the highlights was getting to visit a salt spa the next day.  Basically, it’s a room with 15 tons of salt making up the walls and the floor, simulating a salt cave.  You sit in chairs in the cave, and it’s supposed to purify the lungs and help all these respiratory ailments.  Apparently the idea originated from the Polish salt mines in the 19th century—all the miners were so remarkably healthy that a doctor started examining why. 

I’m not sure one session has cured Austin’s asthma or my allergies but we definitely emerged feeling very relaxed and refreshed.  I highly recommend visiting a salt spa if you have the opportunity!