SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPER CLUB

After a REAL tea party featuring Rooibos tea (which both kids liked, but James especially), we settled down for a large South African dinner party. The menu featured bobotie, chicken in balsamic barbeque sauce, "monkey burgers" (sliders made with monkeygland sauce, which contains no monkey products, don't worry), and lamb stew (I have the recipe for anyone who wants it, prepared by Oliver who was raised in South Africa). EVERYONE went back for seconds, so it was another successful Ethnic Supper Club theme!

Yes, the kids had applesauce too. And eventually cheese sticks and PBJ, since the sauces were a bit spicy for them (and they are picky toddlers).

No, our wine was not from South Africa. But we did sample some beers after the wine, one of which was a porter from South Africa (and I actually liked it - and I don't normally enjoy porters).

Sorry I don't take beautiful food photos, but here is my desert. Upside down apple pie (for which I also have the recipe - Keri, Oliver's wife, made it for the British/Dutch influence) and Malva pudding. Both we delicious! I'm actually going to attempt to make that apple pie some day (I've never baked a pie from scratch before!) and I'm pretty sure we need to make the pudding again for James (he ate his serving PLUS Cora's serving - she's not really into sweets unless it's straight up chocolate or cookies.)

THE PUZZLER

The kids opened their box of puzzles from Gramma today. Jay supervised the first two games (each puzzle has 12 pieces), giving the kids tips (put the straight edges together, remember that the sun is up high in the sky so it will be at the top, etc.) but not interfering much. I helped with the second two games, and Cora didn't need any assistance from me at all. She finished quickly, then went over to help James, coaching him just like daddy did, then placing two pieces for him when he didn't move fast enough for her (which made him pretty grumpy, as you can imagine). It seems we have a little puzzler on our hands...

FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE...

Spidey's house, Gotham City, the Bat Cave, My Little Ponies Wedding Castle?, and a pirate ship

39 LBS AND FACING FRONT

James weighed 39 lbs on a scale recently (and his car seat, like most, allows rear-facing to 40 lbs), so after all our holiday travel (when he and Cora watched many DVDs rear-facing together in the car), we ordered him a new car seat. Yes, he could have stayed in the Britax Boulevard 70, just flipped to forward-face (since it goes to 70 lbs forward-facing), but we wanted to move Cora up out of the Britax Diplomat anyway. (The Diplomat is a retired model, a smaller convertible car seat, and goes to 35 lbs rear-facing - so technically Cora has a ways to go before she'd outgrow it, but since we want to keep her rear-facing to 40 lbs, we figured we'd go ahead and move her up to his Boulevard now. The Diplomat can only be used forward-facing for an additional 5 lbs anyway, to 40 lbs, so it really is a small seat.) We decided to go with a combination harness-to-booster seat, the Britax Frontier 85 SICT, that allows harnessing to 85 lbs (and booster use to 120 lbs). We, of course, have no way to predict the future of where James will be height and weight-wise throughout preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school, but we know this car seat will last him a long time (probably beyond it's expiration date).

It's been interesting having him forward-facing... We definitely have a backseat driver now. He tells us when to stop and go (at lights and stop signs), warns Cora about upcoming cool things he sees, and asks even more questions than before as we drive along. And he's even better with giving directions to his house now that he can see where he's going (as opposed to where he's been). The biggest bonuses for us in having him forward-facing is that we can now actually walk into the van from the back seat (before, the two rear-facing car seats blocked both entrances, so we had to jump over the center console up front) and we can actually hear every single thing he says (no more voice lost to the back of the van). So yes, we are very happy to have moved him up (but also very happy that we were able to keep him rear-facing and extra safe for as long as we did - almost 4 years!)

As for the new car seat, James LOVES it. When we sized it for him, we did a "crash test" in the living room that cracked him up (we were just happy that jostling him around in the seat didn't cause him to budge an inch, and his head was well protected with the SICT). The cup holders are super cool (for cups, as well as small toys). And the fact that he is now forward-facing and no longer tilted at an angle means that he sits up higher and can see out the windows much better, which makes him super happy.

The only issue we've come across is car naps. The lack of angle makes it hard for him to get comfortable and find a way to rest his head, and there's now no place to rest his feet, which makes him grumpy. Turns out though, that he CAN sleep in the new seat just fine, once he acknowledges that he's tired (instead of pouting about nap time).

He suddenly looks so small to us again, in this big new car seat...

SWINGING IN THE RAIN

It was slightly warmer today, but raining. We managed to avoid the storm during our 8.5 mile run this morning, but drove in the rain all the way to Jackson (heading to the airport to drop off Grambot - boo!) Even though we didn't think we had a good chance of beating the storm to the playground, we still told the kids they could play on the "big fancy playground", so when we arrived to wet slides and swings, we figured "oh well, we have extra clothes" and sent them out anyway. They had a blast, so it was totally worth it!

PORTRAITS WITH GRAMBOT

We have a bit of a tradition of taking portraits before heading to the airport or saying goodbye when we have visitors, and I'm trying to be better about getting family/group photos this year, so we snapped these quick before heading to Jackson. The kids (especially James) were not in the mood, but at least we got something to document us all during this trip!

NOT TOO LATE IN THE SEASON...

...for leaf piles in the Deep South!

The kids had a lot of fun at the park this afternoon, despite the cold (note Cora's bright pink hands after removing her gloves - poor girl can't handle temps below 50!), due to a giant leaf pile. They threw them over the fence, at each other, and all over me. I happily let them bury me in leaves... until Cora got upset that mommy was getting hurt. She hurriedly tried to dig me out of the leaves, asking if I was ok - sweet girl.

This photo just cracks me up...

And another random thought I just want to record before I forget. James' gloves have bones on them, and he loves them (just cheap $1 gloves from Walmart). What cracks us up is that anytime he sees bones or skulls (on his gloves, in books, on TV, etc.) he calls them "stone heads". Very appropriate, I suppose (for the skulls, anyway), but it still makes us laugh every single time!

KID-CRAFTED PRESENTS FOR GRANDMAS

Since Gramma and Grambot have now received their bird houses and butterflies, I thought I'd share some cute pictures of our little painters, hard at work. Their only rule was to keep the paint (acrylic, not the usual washable crayola) on the projects. As you can see, we still had a painted Cora. And table. Thank goodness it washed off ok (and that we have an awesome tablecloth from our Panuco-living game night days)! And that Cora didn't eat any much...

Once the paint had dried, I modge-podged them (the bird houses and butterflies, not the kids) so that they will last longer. Fun project, for sure!

"YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE"

NEW YEARS EVE, TODDLER-STYLE

We planned a toddler-style New Years Eve party to celebrate the holiday with our buddies the Kennedy and Sanchez families. We finished the new play set in time for the party, barbequed some hot dogs and beans, whipped up some deviled eggs and red velvet cupcakes, and expected the kids to play, eat, and crash well before midnight. To our pleasant surprise, the party-goers lasted until near 10:00pm, and OUR kiddos were still awake when the ball dropped on 2013. 

Going down the slide choo-choo style

Cora was attempting to push Manu (nicely, not push him off)

Intimidating biker gang, eh?

A couple of Spider-Man superheroes

Mom and I made Pinkalicious cupcakes (red velvet with pink instead of red, and the brightest pink frosting ever) since the kids are very into that book this week

Poor Al was the chosen one for the kids' noisemaker antics

Lauren is just the happiest little baby!

Cheers! (Toasting the New Year at 7:45pm, just in case...)

They REALLY liked their "special juice" (sparkling white grape juice). Especially James. I think he had 4 glasses. Maybe 5...

Fireworks in the driveway. The bike blockade ended up being unnecessary, since every kid except James was scared of them (and all went into the sunroom to hide, except Manu, who sat at the back of the carport with his hands over his ears). Very strange, since we expected James to run and hide and Cora to cheer daddy on. Oh well. Just goes to show you how extremely unpredictable kids can be.

Sophie and Leo with a sparkler

Grambot got a workout pulling these 4 kids around... That's about 130 lbs of toddler plus the weight of the wagon.

Sophie is the only adult small enough to use the play set (due to weight limits - though I can use the swings, at least). And also the only adult small enough to ride the Big Wheels. And Strider bikes. And scooters. The rest of us are understandably jealous. Or maybe that's just me... The kids loved having her chase them around and ride with them (bike riding and lawn mower pushing occurred throughout the party)!

This is when Leo decided it was plenty late enough...

After our friends left, we went back down to the campfire for more "special juice" (and champagne for us adults, of course), since the rain held off. Cora and Jay are giving another "Cheers!" (And yes, we still need to move the old swing set down the hill and trash/burn the boxes that the play set came in - all in due time.)

Last but not least, here are our kiddos at midnight, making some noise after getting New Years kisses from their mama and daddy and Grambot. Happy New Year folks, we hope you had a wonderful end to 2012 too!

STREET SWEEPER

Just like Pawpaw, James likes to keep the neighborhood clean.