Can we open them now?

Auntie Nille's presents arrived from Brooklyn yesterday and the boys haven't left them alone since. I did text her to make sure they wouldn't break if the boys hauled them around the house and she assured me that they would have to drop them from a jet plane to cause much damage.

The boys have been carting their gifts around the house playing "fed-ex guys". They deliver them to each other over and over. The funny thing is our packages were delivered in a budget rent-a-truck so I don't know how they knew he was a fed-ex guy. It's not like we get tons of packages. Oh well, they are having fun.

I did catch Tate trying to peek under the wrapping this morning. He had the gift on his lap and was lifting the wrapping paper just enough to look under it. He wasn't able to see anything, but he sure wanted to! (See Mom, it must be genetic!)

(sorry for the crappy picture... I took it with my phone.)

Hello??!???

So, I've decided it's very hard to talk to myself on this blog all the time. I know there are people (besides my mother!) who read this thing... some even every day. Could you do me a favor and leave a comment or even just a smiley face (or a frowny one if you feel the need)? It would help me immensely to know if people care what I have to say or if they just stop by to laugh at me. Thanks!


I would add a cute picture if I could, but Blogger seems to have it in for me today... and a day I actually post!

What is Mary doing on the roof?

Sorry for the bad pictures, but I wanted to post about the nativity set that I now have. It was the same one my baby sis and I had a little girls. There is a manger with real hay on the roof and it even lights up. The great thing about it is all the animals and people are made of plastic, so it is completely kid proof. If only it was dog proof, but I'll get to that in a minute...

My sis and I used to have a great time rearranging all the Christmas characters every year. I can remember us spending hours trying to get it to look right. Should the donkey go here? What about the camels? How can we get the angel to stand out? It has lots of memories for me and so I was glad when Mom handed it down to me for my kids to enjoy. (Sorry Nille... that's the prize for having kids first!)

The boys are fascinated with it. I think partly because I'm not yelling at them to just look at it! Don't touch! like I tend to do with the rest of the Christmas stuff and also because they are movable. Riley of course loves packing the animals around. He has a thing for things with four legs. He's even added a few more mammals to the picture. I found a giraffe and elephant in there yesterday.

He also enjoys looking at the "baby". He always picks up Baby Jesus and wants him put back in his manger. Ri also likes to cart him around the house. Baby Jesus enjoyed a wheelbarrow ride on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Jesus is small and so I have to do a house search for him before I vacuum. There was a bit of a panic yesterday after I vacuumed and realized I couldn't find Him. Luckily I have a canister vacuum and can quickly look through all the dirt and dog hair to see if He was in there. He wasn't but was under the recliner. (Hope all this activity isn't buying me a one way ticket to hell.)

Tate likes to play with the angel and if you have boys, you will know why... she has wings so she can fly! He whips her around the house yelling, "Look out!" at everyone he come close to hitting. i tried to explain to him that angels probably didn't yell Look out! since they were nice and had great manners. His solution: "Look out, please!"

On to why dogs are such a problem with this set... take a look at the difference between Mary and Joseph in the picture below. Want to know why Joseph is sooooo small? Our dog ate both Jesus and Joseph when we were growing up. Mom was able to replace Jesus with a correct sized one, but poor Joseph... not so much.

(Also look at the top picture. Did anyone notice Mary on the roof of the barn?)