Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Trees, Rinks, Dickens & Gingerbread


We went to the Festival of Trees with my mom and sister a few weeks ago. Dylan wanted to play with all the trees that had toys! He also loved watching the hip-hop dancers, he was totally rockin' with them. I'm telling you he can't sit still when there is a beat! He also ate SIX of these gingerbread men along with Hershey kisses, he's been on a sugar high most of this month. He had fun painting a gingerbread man and making a stained glass ornament too.


The Dickens Festival was fun too! Dylan fell asleep in the car and actually made it through transition to the stroller so he slept for the first hour, it was fantastic! Once he woke up he was on the go. Grandpa was looking at this amazing "playhouse" that Dylan of course fell in love with, well to be honest we all did! We also played in this synthetic snow stuff, it was really weird.

My mom gave us this rink that we had given her 14 years ago and Dylan absolutely loves it! Anna was about his age when we got it and I remember her nicely sitting and watching the pretty ice skaters and listening to the carols. Dylan sees this as an entirely different game and he is not content with simply observing. He loves to take it apart put everything back together, knock down all the skaters in one fell swoop often using the Christmas tree, put his cars on the ice, run over the skaters - basically there is the grand addition of crashing and exploding sounds to this once serene piece. Boys are so awesome!

I was totally a slacker with the Christmas decor this year, it didn't get up until last week. But totally worth the wait. Dylan loves his own little tree and for a few days wanted to hang anything on it that had a string, for example his boots. So funny! I can't tell you how many times I heard "hang on dare?".


I ventured into uncharted territory this year by making homemade gingerbread and it was not a simple task, especially with the "help" of a two year old! But it turned out to be a lot of fun, Dylan loved decorating the house, tree and cookies and it was actually quite tasty. However next year Ryan will not be in charge of buying the candy decor, M&M's and Mike & Ikes - that's it! What? No gumdrops, licorice ropes, red hots, mints, etc. etc....But the end result is still pretty impressive.
Such a good helper!

Flour on the face, floor, you name it!

Our supplies...

Cutting the cookies & snitching the candy. I love the "who me?" face.

When Dylan broke this one he said "sorry gingerbread man leg".

Yeah ~ Our masterpiece is complete!!

Oh and a funny story that I don't want to forget...Dylan was at my moms house a couple of weeks ago and she had her tree with wrapped presents under it (she is very on top of things for Christmas!) and he took one over to her and said "open book?" - and it really was a book for him! Clever kiddo :D

1 comment:

McCall said...

Holy crap! I had no idea the Dickens Festival still existed! I went to that every year as a kid!