Santa Tales

Sorry, its been a slow blogging week. I told you Decembers make my head spin.

A brief catch-up:

I enrolled Travis in tae kwon do last week. He's been to two sessions and loves it. I think it will do him a world of good in terms of balance, coordination, self-confidence, and focus -- all things he needs a little work on. I'll post pictures soon - it's awesome.

Sophie turns two on Thursday! Her birthday party is tomorrow, just a small thing with family. I can't believe she is two already, but she has the personality of a precocious four-year-old. Sharp as a tack, fearless and stubborn, she is not one to slide under the radar. In fact, she is flitting about all over the place so that the radar mistakenly thinks there are three of her.

We took the kids on a train ride to see Santa over the weekend. Fun trip, they got to see cousins, and they all did good with Santa. Noah was the most leery of the gigantic bearded man, but he did sit with him and shyly make his request (a Backyardigans toy). Travis chattered on and on about his list; a Bumblebee transformer that really transforms, and also a Pillow Pet, preferably a moose but if not, then a bumblebee, but you don't have to get me both kinds of Pillow Pets, Santa, I only need one, so whichever one you can get me is fine. Sophie, of course, had no idea she was to have developed a LIST, so instead she clambered onto Santa's lap and regaled him with stories of Canada, and snowmen, and flashlights, pointing dramatically around her for effect. Santa and his candy cane wielding elf were properly charmed.

Tonight, Travis and I counted out pennies for a donation drive at his school. The teacher recommended tying it to some type of counting activity, like count the windows in your house and the put aside that many pennies in a jar. But, I'm sorry, that's only, like twelve cents. So, Travis and I decided to set aside two thousand and ten pennies, one for every year since Jesus was born. Perhaps a little ridiculous, but it's a good cause, donated to needy area families, and I like the symbolism by relating it to the birth of Jesus, since I seem to recall that that somehow fits in to this whole holiday season somewhere. We'll never miss the twenty bucks, I pulled it from a gigantic coin jar that I've had literally since high school (okay, you got me, it perhaps got raided once or twice in my college years). Travis counted out the last hundred and ten coins, and Sophie had a ball pretending to count them (ever try to count to a thousand with a two year old nearby screeching " one! Two! Six! Twenty, twenty, sixteen! Two!"? It's....er.....terrific.)

More to follow once I find some time to breathe.