Wednesday, December 30, 2009

My Own Mormon Ad

Have you ever seen one of those Homefront Mormon Ads? Well, tonight I feel like I walked into one at my own house! For those who don't know what I'm talking about, click on this for an example:
http://http//www.youtube.com/profile?user=MormonMessages#p/u/62/kPmSyOlv5D4

Darren has recently developed a fear of the dark, and the traditional night lights are not a safe option at this point in time. Joseph unplugs them, sucks on the prongs 'til they're good and slobbery, and then tries to plug it back in. Uh... NOOOO!!! So, for Joseph's safety, Darren's security, and Mom and Dad's sanity, we found a fun, SAFE, creative, educational answer. Perfect!! It's a Twilight Turtle. It's a stuffed turtle w/ a hard shell that lights up and projects stars (with actual constellations) and a moon onto the wall in 3 different colors.
Anyway, tonight Matt put Darren to bed, while I got Joseph to sleep. My sweet, tired, little Joseph fell asleep in my arms. As I carried him upstairs to his bed, the bedroom door was closed and all was quiet (a little unusual). I didn't think anything of it though, and as I approached the door, I turned the knob oh so quietly, so I wouldn't disturb the silence and wake the baby. When I opened the door, I was "greeted" with Matt and Darren laying on their backs on the floor in the middle of the room with the light off, and Twilight Turtle on their bellies, turned on. As I laid Joseph in his crib, and tucked him in, I was keenly aware of two sets of eyeballs staring at me. When I turned around, both Matt and Darren gave me a look that seemed to say both: "Oops! We were caught!" and "How could you dare interrupt our Father/Son time!" I smiled to myself as I quietly slipped out of the room, closing the door behind me. I knew that they were creating a great memory together.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Christmas Train

The boys and I experienced a first today! We made a graham cracker Christmas train! My ONLY experience with anything like this before was (one time - a long time ago) attempting to make a gingerbread house, but the frosting was too soft, and everything kept caving in. Not successful at all. So, I had no idea how this was going to go together and if it would even work.

I found a frosting recipe online, looked at a couple pics of gingerbread trains, and went to work with my graham crackers! D had very definite opinions about the wheels, smokestack, engine light, and other mechanical things on/about the train, but for the most part, coulda cared less about how it was decorated. J was all about sampling the candy!

Here is the naked train, with an excited, happy boy!
Front view of the finished product!

The engine! D is super excited about that smoke stack - he built it! He also insisted on putting a "roof' over the 3 wheels. (looks like wheel wells) And adding train track, the arm connecting the wheels, etc. He did a pretty good job!
The coal car - filled with M&Ms. I prefer how it looked decorated, but before filling the car. Wrong candy choice for inside - shoulda done plain old chocolate chips!
The logging car.
The caboose! The back is open, so the gumdrops serve as a railing. D wanted to put one of his cars in there - surprise, surprise!
Happy boy and finished product! I'm glad that it worked, and that both boys are still pretty excited about it! We had a good time.