Somehow sleep seems to be the topic du-jour here. Isabel sleeps. Thomas sleeps. What on Earth am I doing up? Argh… well, if you don’t, you should know me by now. And, aha! Craig calls. We must watch SYTYCD! I will finish up later…
*Next night*
Is it foolish to even try to make Isabel and Thomas a pair of matching Christmas pants? I think I just spent the last twenty minutes trying to draw the pattern onto the fabric. My eyes were half open. What’s wrong with me?! And this after nearly falling asleep on the freeway driving home from a visit with my college friend and family:
Andrea, Isabel (2) and Thomas (10 weeks); Ana, Vivian (almost 2) and Patrick (12 weeks)
Thomas (10 weeks) and Patrick (12 weeks)
So, back to jolly festivities. I have never made a gingerbread house in my life (help!) For years now, I have meant to try it; certainly, it would have been good to get some practice in before plunging into a home-made-from scratch gingerbread project with Isabel. Not that Isabel had anything to do with the end result:
Gingerbread House
Now you say, “Come on, Andrea, just follow the recipe.” If only Martha Stewart and Cooks Illustrated could be so clear. First, MS said “roll out dough to 1/4″.” Do you know how thick that is??? Well, my little cottages have a greater R-value than our own home! Isabel’s gingerbread snowman even melted in there. Jeez. And then her caramel recipe was worth the money I spent to get it. Exactly. NOTHING! I just got crystallized (white) sugar. So, I checked out CI and it gave me temperatures – duh! But, it failed to explain the timing and reasoning. Now, I know that funny chemical properties change at different temperatures, so they could have warned me, “do not leave the room! Even though you have been standing there watching the thermometer slowly creep up the scale for what seems like forever now, do not leave the room! I promise at any moment I will shoot right up.”
Well, I left the room. It was only a couple of minutes (to my Mommy brain, at least) and then I smelled burning sugar. Then I bobbled back and forth like a chicken with its head cut off between the stove and the gingerbread to glue the darn thing together before my “amber” caramel glue turned to stone. Beautiful piece of artwork, isn’t it? Yeah, I thought so, too. And then Craig said, “yeah, I meant to tell you how difficult it is to clean that out.” And I said no problem! I’ll just stick some water in there and boil it. HA! It hardened so fast my brush got stuck in there. Aj jaj, jaj! It’s okay, I finally got it out.
And I threw the gingerbread out, too. Hello BB&B! Give me that kit! 🙂 Learning curves. I thought I finished with those back@mit.edu.
The pretty side is we got our tree and done her up!
Putting the lights on
It's getting there - just forgot the garland!
That night Isabel was up until 11pm insisting on helping me to put up some balls, “this one is NOT fragile, Mommy.” I started to fall asleep at 8pm but couldn’t and because I had a headache took some Excedrin and decided to finish the tree… at 2 in the morning. “Silly Mommy.”
***
This Christmas season is a ton of fun so far. Isabel has so much anticipation. She loves the Christmas lights Daddy put up and makes sure they are lit every night. She gets this wide toothy grin and her eyes just sparkle when she sees all the colors turn on. And, of course, she does her thorough inspections to make sure all the bulbs are in proper working order.
Daddy's putting up the lights
She also got this Advent calendar from her Aunt Mary with little bags of treats for every day of December. I swear Isabel started to wake up earlier and earlier every morning just to open the bags up. Pitter patter pitter patter up to our bed. “Can I open another present now, Daddy?” Turn over… It’s 6:30 in the morning. Oh maaaaan… We caught it on tape the first or second morning. Now one of us drags ourselves out there to do the deed. How can we deny her this LOVE? Every day now, she tells us she is a good girl and can get a present under the tree in the morning. What’s on her list? Well, for days we have been trying to pry a wish list out of her (okay, she is just 2) and all she wants for Christmas this year is…. Candy. 🙂 Maybe we should go over our Halloween lesson again.
Okay, really, I’m going to bed now.
a little over 2 months now
little Isabel
my little Stud