Cookies, sleds and santa

As should be expected, it's cookie time! They made some pretty cute "free form" gingerbread men with Grandma Affeldt that they carefully decorated for the rest of us. Henry described his as "delicate man" because he had squashed it SO thin.

A trip to the Clasen's giant gingerbread house to sample some of their goodies with Grandma.

They also got invited to a daddy/kiddo cookie party at Mr. John's house where he had the ultimate set up that included at least 4 different kinds of cookies all ready for them to put the finishing touches on. Needless to say Jay and I are trying our best to keep from emptying out the trays of treats that they brought home with them!


The cookie party turned into a sledding party where they took some rides on Mr. John's hand packed sled run. Miss Kristi and I had a lovely morning of brunch at a local restaurant followed by some shopping on Monroe St. while the kids and dads burned off LOTS of energy!






Bryn pulled Henry home from our neighborhood sledding hill the other day. I actually had to run to keep up with that little muscle mouse!

We finally made it over to Hilldale for a visit with Santa. Henry walked right up to him and quickly rattled off his wishes which included a hockey stick, hockey puck and skateboard. Bryn has not asked for a single thing this year which blows my mind. She has said that she has enough toys (which they do) and that she will be surprised. Even as the days count down, she hasn't changed her tune. She needed some convincing to go up to Santa and he knew just what to do. As she got closer to him he was able to reach out his gloved hand and touch one of her flowers and somehow it squeeked. Below is her describing how "magical" Santa is!



I am SO lucky to have great mom friends who want their kids to feel the happiness in giving. We usually head off to a local nursing home but because of the H1N1 scare, they could not visit this year. After several phone calls we decided to make ornaments and then drop them off at the UW Childrens' Hospital. Sam, Abbey, Simon, Bryn Henry and the moms made 5 little baggies full of ornaments and were able to drop them off at the hospital for the kids that won't be home for the holidays.


Wishing you and yours love, joy and peace this holiday season.

Sharing the holidays

Last Monday, Jay's parents' amazing neighbors, the Nelsons, let us help out at the food pantry for the afternoon. They run a full service pantry at a local community center. We spent a little time there last year, but as Henry and Bryn get older, the tasks offered to them get a little more advanced. This year, they started by making birthday bags, filled with good things for neighborhood kids with birthdays coming up. This was Bryn's favorite part because they got to fill them with cake mix, frosting, candles and invitations. Ms. Kristi, Sam and Abbey joined in too.

Here's the gang, ready to start working on the shelves.

It was a flurry of cardboard, little hands and lots of cans. I honestly have NEVER seen four 4 year olds work so hard on a project and practically fight over who got to stand on the stool to stack boxes of Mac N Cheese.

Mr. Nelson spotted the tots as they climbed up high for certain items.

Here's Mrs. Nelson, getting the Swiffer ready for action as Sam listened very carefully to directions. Not a speck of dust in the place. The Swiffer was Henry's favorite and Mrs. Nelson made it such a treat since they each got their own cloth to dirty up and throw away.


Henry wrapped things up with some finishing touches under the shelves. Now I need to figure out how to get the kid to clean like this at home. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Nelson, for all you do for the community and for helping teach the kiddos what the holidays are all about.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Well, last weekend we made the annual trek to find this year's tannenbaum. We scouted a new place but the trees were a little nicer (more expensive) than what we were looking for. So, we rolled to the tried and true spot way out of the way, and scored this beauty for $28.

We fielded a set of questions from Henry and Bryn about how we planned to keep the tree alive once we got it inside our house. That led to an explanation that the tree died when we cut it down, which was followed by the discussion about trees being alive in the first place, though they don't talk.

The following morning, we put on some Christmas tunes, and got the decorations going.

The adventure involves carefully extracting ornaments from the mass in the box they were put in at the end of last season. Henry ended up with this trio of stuck ornaments and that is the way they are now hanging on a branch.

Here he is carefully installing the most delicate ornament, which is a glass ball that was "rosemaled" by one of my family's Finnish friends. Don't worry dad, it has been moved to a safer and higher spot on the tree.

They're now able to get the ornaments another couple inches closer to the top, too.

Among many cool things that happened along the way, the best was noticing when we were done that every pair of ornaments we have somehow ended up next to each other on the tree. I guess twins have a way of doing stuff like that.

Hanging with Alli and Mia

We were thankful this year to have a houseful for the big meal. Jen, Shawn, Allison, Mia, Uncle Scott, Mr. Sam and BOTH sets of grandparents came over to to indulge in all the eats and festivities. The near perfect weather gave us plenty of time to hike in the arb and play at parks over the long weekend. Both kids take a liking to playing big brother/sister to the girls and it's pretty fun to watch them interact with each other.

Allison with her stick.

Mia and Bryn who were the cutest of hiking buddies, fingers clasped the whole time.

Introducing Little Jerry!

This summer our flock of 4 was reduced to 3 when Henry's chicken Bugspray "flew up to the clouds". Jay and I were frantic trying to figure out how to tell Henry and Bryn about the fate of his chicken and discussed what and how we should break the news. Low and behold, Henry listened to our explanation and said "Oh." Bryn was more concerned and had many questions about how dear Bugspray found a cloud, what happened to her body and wanted details about how we knew she was dead. Henry did tell our vet the other week that he is waiting to see a cloud in the shape of a chicken.

Bryn's chicken Miss Marmalade has had it rough, being at the bottom of the pecking order (yes, with chickens there is such a thing and believe me, they can be mean) and even stopped laying eggs for some time.

Mr. Jerry, a friend of Jay's, lives out in the country and has just under 2 dozen layers. He heard what happened to Bugspray and he invited Henry to come out and pick out a new chicken. Henry wanted a white one that lays white eggs (apparently WAY cooler than brown) since all they know is brown version.

Henry decided on naming the bird Little Jerry , though Prudence and Marshmallow were in the discussion. Not quite sure what Mr. Jerry thinks about having a female chicken named in his honor.

As a side note, Lady Marmalade has benefitted greatly by the arrival of Little Jerry and has moved up one spot in the pecking order. Within several days of passing the torch to Little Jerry, Miss Marmalade was laying again!

A warm November pic of Bryn with Miss Marmalade.


The three before the arrival of Little Jerry.

Mop top no more

Henry has been sporting a rather longish "do" for a while now and as we watched his bangs approaching his eyelashes we decided a trip to the hair salon was in order. Below is the finished product. Pretty handsome, but not much to run my fingers through anymore.


As most know, Henry LOVES to make others laugh and is always trying to get Bryn, Jay and I giggling. I do fear he may be headed for class clown status but so far no concerns yet from his preschool teachers. Here is a sampling....

All that fun with a carrot and a plastic knife. Who knew?

the scowl.... through the years.

As both our parents will attest, in the early days of twinville I was slightly obsessed with Bryn's scowl and questioned whether it was a permanent fixture of her face. I swear, she was born with the furrowing brow and it seemed to be much more prominent than any other "look" when they were tiny littles. We did joke that she looked like a little old man with the serious face combined with the tongue that was always hanging out and the receding hairline.

Obviously as time went by we were pleasantly surprised to see the range of "looks" she ended up with. More often than not, she is pretty smiley but the scowl still shows up every now and again and I thought I should share.


In the above pic she was fast asleep in a bouncy chair with her hands splayed out. We were calling her conductor! Yes, she scowled even while sleeping folks.

Nibbling on the "A" for our DADA pics.

And here is the 4 year old version of her scowl as she was trying out the chair in the spiffy Badger men's locker room.

More often than not the scowl is now directed at me or Jay when we catch her doing something she shouldn't be doing. I can only guess that my look of disappointment is the mirror image. At least she will have that look mastered by the time she is a mother.

Enjoying Boo at the Zoo in Green Bay with cousin Liam a couple weeks ago.

On Halloween they donned yet another of their costumes and headed out to collect candy with their friend Simon. In case you can't tell, Henry was a police officer with a sword who was riding a horse. Bryn was a straightforward cowgirl and Simon was Spider Man.


At some point during the neighborhood trek, Henry looked at me and asked if I could carry his candy bag cause it was "too heavy." They weren't out for long but they managed to bring home a heapful. A local dentists office collects candy and sends it overseas to troops abroad and also pays the kids $1 for every pound of candy. We really didn't need all the candy we had so it was decided to empty our house of the sugary stuff. Would you believe we had 7 pounds of candy? They wrote out a check that both Henry and Bryn signed (center of table) and then they got coloring books, toys,flashing toothbrushes, and even coupons for free meals at some great local restaurants! I swear these two were WAY more excited with dollar bills and toys than all the candy. And it made Bryn happy to think that some soldiers would enjoy the treats that they sent.

Happy Birthday Daddy

Now that our crazy scheduled has calmed down a tad, I can catch up to post some pics of the latest busy-ness. Jay always gets to share his birthday with goblins and ghosts as well as a long weekend thanks to teachers convention, so he didn't disappoint with his birthday time off! They took part in Kids Day at the Kohl center(and it was free!). He did call me at some point during the day, almost screaming into the phone, trying to tell me how much fun the three of them were having and what a bummer it was that I was at work. As you can see from the pics, they basically got a "backstage pass" to all that is Badger sports! I loved that as soon as Henry found out where they were headed he quickly ran upstairs to find himself a RED shirt and convinced Bryn to do the same.

Maybe just a tad bit more to grow before she fits into a basketball jersey.

Playing around with Mr. Richgels and enjoying their $1 hotdogs.

I SO wish I would have been there to see the "postgame interview" that they did with their friends Maya, Jocie and Eliot. The cheerleaders asked them questions about their favorite sports, what they were dressing up as for Halloween, and then it was broadcast throughout building. I am hoping they send up a copy of the interview so I can hear it for myself. Bryn told them she like football but is a fan of BOTH womens and mens sports (you go girl) and Henry made sure the cheerleaders were aware of his decision he was making between dressing as a ghost or a hippo (that's my boy).


Henry didn't need any coaxing to snuggle up next to Bucky but Bryn needed her daddy close by. Based on the pictures I can promise you that Jay enjoyed his day with H and B just as much (but probably more) as they did! Happy Birthday Jay!