You are four years, going on Seventeen

I've mentioned before that I have a child who seems to think she is a teenager--we joke that she is just so advanced for her age. This picture is further proof--she's already in the punk stage and putting green streaks in her hair.

Actually, she was water coloring with Isaac last week and in the moment my attention was elsewhere, she decided it would be fun to paint her hair. What a silly girl! Also, she just walked up to me and said, "Mom, I really need a bra."

Dream Mansion

Keith and I decided to make a mansion gingerbread house this year. It is a bakery/chocolate shop, which we of course named Enticing Icing. We love taking on projects like this, even though it entails many hours of baking, assembling, decorating, and detail work.

This house has a cute little window display that shows off the bakery's goods--a wedding cake, a chocolate torte cake, donuts, a chocolate cake, and three gingerbread houses. It was pretty fun making such tiny confections.

The house also features a lot of scrollwork done in royal icing, including a fence that Keith designed.

I made the Christmas trees by stacking waffle cones and covering them with icing leaves.

This sign for the shop is molded out of chocolate.

There are even two working lights inside.

We put the gingerbread house up on our entertainment center in the hopes of it making it through the holidays intact. Who knows, maybe it will last through several Christmases.

Fun at Fry's

Today we went to our local Fry's grocery store to visit Santa. The kids got to sit on his lap, which was good because Sareny needed to tell Santa that she changed her mind and instead of a baby doll she wants a bike after all. (I might add this was after much hinting and prompting from me.)
Hopefully Keith can get over the fact that Santa was sitting on a throne of Coke.

Hopefully Grammy Jo can get over the fact that poor little Finley's socks fell off.

They also got to decorate sugar cookies. Lots of frosting and a gummy worm on top--yum!

And lastly, they got to write letters to Santa. Sareny said she didn't know how to draw a bike, but I encouraged her to try and this is what she came up with.

I was very proud of her!

Isaac loves drawing as well.

Anyway, kind of strange to say I took my kids on an outing to the grocery store, but that really was the only reason we went to the store today and I think we had a pretty nice time. Especially if you ignore the little "Oh no, where's Isaac?" incident that occured in the midst of the crowd near the end of our excursion...

Speaking of things that have disapeared...

What ever happened to my baby girl's hair? I mean, she never had an over-abundance of hair to begin with, but she certainly had some. (see pictorial evidence below.)

And here she is now...

Although it started out dark brown, her hair is obviously growing in blond. Hopefully not too long from now she will have a full, lush head of hair. Until then, she makes a pretty cute baldy.

So this has nothing to do with Finley's hair or lack thereof, but on Thanksgiving, we asked Sareny what she was thankful for. She thought about if for a second and then answered sweetly, "My head." We all tried not to smile as we agreed that our heads were pretty important things to have, and we were thankful for them too.

Where, oh where have my spoons gone?

I love our silverware. (or flatware, as Keith would say, pointing out that they are not actually made from silver.) Our service for 12 was a wedding/Christmas present from Keith's older sister, and it has served us well. I even have fond memories of us picking the pattern out at the store with Heather and then going out to lunch afterwards and eating Monte Crisco sandwiches. Lately, however, we have noticed a problem with our utensils--we always seem to run out of spoons. (See photographic evidence below.)

We've looked online to see if we could buy more, but sadly, our pattern is no longer available. The great mystery of the disapearing spoons was cleared up for me yesterday when I went to tie up our garbage bag. I heard a strange clanking sound somewhere beneath the nasty piles of rubbish and decided I needed to investigate. I found, you guessed it, a spoon. I guess I had already suspected Isaac for some time, since I had previously found a plastic kid's spoon in the trash. Anyway, I guess all this time when he has been being so "helpful" by throwing his yogurt cups away, he just chucks the spoon in as well.
This clears up the great mystery of the disapearing sippy cups as well. Tonight, frustrated at the lack of sippy cups, I announced that I was going to Walmart to buy some more, and that Isaac has probably been throwing those away as well. Sareny said, "Yes, he threw my princess cup in the garbage." With further questioning, she said that she didn't retrieve it because it was covered in something gross.
I'm beginning to feel like one of the rich and famous people who only use things once before replacing them. Minus the rich and famous part.