Christmas season is underway here at Hansel house. Nikolaus has already visited from Germany, dropping his regular booty of candies and toys in the kids' boots on the night of Dec. 5th.

And, of course, my handmade advent calendar is up. The boys have been enjoying special little presents every day. I kind of thought they were getting too old for this, if only because dollar toys are slightly less exciting to 9 year-olds than they were for 6 year-olds. But hubby said I should keep doing it, so I had to come up with some new ideas. I decided I could swing some bigger gifts if they were divided up into parts: one part one morning, one part the next. Last week, the boys had a three-part chocolate pretzel gift that kept them stumped until the very last day!

the pretzels were delicious!

This week it's a three-part LEGO surprise!

They had no clue on day one, but after day two - this morning - they were on to it. They're looking forward to playing Lava Dragon tomorrow!

Wee is ecstatic over this year's Playmobil advent calendar. She picked out the fairy one, with flowers and magic wands and fairy princesses.

seven days in and it's already so pretty pretty

She loves this thing so much that every afternoon, she'll suddenly look up at me and say, 'is it the next day now so I can open another box on my advent calendar?' Sorry, babe, not yet.

In the meantime, when we are not spreading early Christmas cheer, the kids are busy with their usual things and I'm bogged down with final papers for school. I have begun my three-year quest to become an elementary school teacher by taking a math class and a psych class. Math has been by far the more interesting class. In fact, I find myself doing math with wee all the time now. Here we made a bar graph of the different Hello Kitty noodles wee got in her pasta.

we have more flower noodles than Hello Kitty noodles

A few weeks ago, when wee wanted to eat her dessert before she'd finished her lunch, she suggested a pattern (making and recognizing patterns is a very early pre-algebra skill), so we drew it out and she got to eat her food as follows:

Two nachos, one chocolate ball, one nacho, one chocolate ball, two nachos, one chocolate ball, one nacho, one chocolate ball.... Math is yummy.

Also very very yummy, is this faaaabulous little yarn from Trendsetter, called Cha Cha. It makes the most delightful ruffly scarf ever.

Can you believe that this this is knitted?! I couldn't believe it when I saw a sample being knit up in the store. All I knew is that I loved it! And I loved the rich purple color too. I was slightly less in love after watching the silly video about how to wind the tricky ribbon yarn and knit the first few rows, but once I got past the starting difficulties, I've really enjoyed working with it. Part of my enjoyment is due to the rosewood needles I borrowed from the store while starting the scarf. Mmmmmm, rosewood. I didn't even mind that they were straights. Yes, you heard right, straights!

I may have to sneak some more Cha Cha and some rosewood straights into my own Christmas stocking on the 24th!

Yesterday, B brought home the requisite 'what are you thankful for' activity that he'd done in school, but this year, his teacher had them think of less tangible, more conceptual things. He wrote that he is thankful for space, friendship, laws, light, warmth and the full feeling of food. (He's a poet at heart, our B!) Of course, he is also thankful for LEGO, K'Nex, and Pokemon...

...and books, to hold up giant marble roller coaster creations.

Told you he was a poet at heart!

I am thankful for brothers who get into tickle fights while I'm trying to take a picture of them.

And little girls who love to shop for purses.

And a husband who takes care of them while I go back to school.

And two homework-free days to enjoy with them all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Big beds rule. Cribs drool. (She had to get in on on the fun!)

Now that wee is completely potty trained, she needs to be able to get up to use the bathroom in the night. It's amazing that we were able to keep the crib sides on her bed for so long - the boys hurled themselves over them at age two! But she was never a climber and never complained about them. She was excited for them to go though.

Guess it's time I finished up that quilt for her, huh?

Fourth graders rule. Third graders drool.

That is all.

Wee one spent a half hour this morning making this little lego scene. When I asked her what everything was, she pointed out the house you go to when your car gets bumped and the other house your car gets brought to to get fixed and the house you go to to fix the bumps you get when a car bumps you. You see, we were in a car accident this weekend and, although wee is fine physically (her doctor checked her yesterday), it seems that psychologically she's got some stuff to process. Also on her little diorama: a black ring for catching oil that has spilled in the ocean. Man, does this kid have a lot on her mind!

In the meantime, there is knitting. I've started the Spud & Chloe Flap Happy hat.

Wee did an early try-on, because I read on ravelry that this hat tends to run large. And large it was! I've since cast on again (for the second size) and have worked the first few color stripes. The pink isn't in the original pattern, but any hat for my girl needs pink so I had to add it. It doesn't hurt to lighten things up a little, right?

For all my fellow Harry Potter fans, here's a fun link my husband spotted that lists a bunch of hilarious fake Harry Potter books from China, like "Harry Potter and the Filler of Big", and whatever the heck this is:

Harry Potter and Beaker and Burn

And, in other HP news, Sunshine Yarns - THE source for HP yarns - has a huge selection of Harry Potter colorways going on sale tomorrow! Check out the preview:

Top: Herminone, Professor Sprout, Luna, Butterbeer, Cedric, Phoenix Song, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Phoenix, Pumpkin Juice, Every Flavor Beans, Hedwig and The Colorway that Must Not Be Named; Bottom: Department of Mysteries, Gillyweed, Felix Felicis, Draco, Snape, Polyjuice Potion, Rita Skeeter, Patronus, Tonks, Pygmy Puffs, and Nargles

More preview pictures are available on the Sunshine Yarns Flickr page. Awesome stuff!

I got these photos of the boys seven years ago from a little kiddie ride at Chuck E. Cheese's. They only ever agreed to sit on the ride one time and even B couldn't hang out in the seat long enough for the picture to be taken. Boys.

Now that wee one is old enough to enjoy Chuck E. Cheese's, I've been trying to get her in the car for a little sis version of the same picture. But she's been afraid of the big shaky car with the giant mouse in it. (Smart girl, that one.) Until this week, that is, when she went to Chuck E's with some little friends and watched them have a blast on the kiddie rides. She hopped up in the car and finally, I got my picture!

Okay, not awesome, but still, now I've got these three little matched crappy pictures of the kids, oddly similar in quality and size to their ultrasound photos and oddly just as likely to cause me to tear up.

But then she hops in again. Yes.

Crap. Now, I'm on it. I will get a good photo out of this silly ride thing with one of my kids or else! "Come on, sweetie, smile. Smile!"

"Nope, no, look this way, honey."

Ugh. Finally, my friend came up with the brilliant idea of standing in front of the ride and acting like a fool to get wee to laugh continuously at us during the ride. (She's good with the kids, that one.) And....

But Chuck E. saved the best photo for last. Wee and one of her buddies did this one all by themselves while I was ordering the food. She grabbed it out of the machine and ran over to me, overjoyed with their success.

That. is. AWESOME!

Last week I got to go on a field trip with my boys and their classes to walk Boston's Freedom Trail, a red-brick path that takes you past some of the great historical sites in Boston. We started at Boston Common where we were greeted by dozens of Tea Party rally-ers in town to see Sarah Palin. (They even wore silly outfits just like the original Tea Party group!) However, as they were not there to learn anything about Boston's great history, we quickly parted paths.

We sat down beneath the State House (pretty little thing, isn't it?) for a snack and some sketching.

We searched the Granary Burying Ground for the graves of famous Founding Fathers like John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Sam Adams.

Next, we visited Boston's Old City Hall (waaaay nicer looking than our "new" concrete City Hall, by the way) where Ben Franklin looks down on all the school groups as they come by.

And we continued our walk to the tiny corner in front of the Old State House where you can stand on the spot of the Boston Massacre.

The Declaration of Independence was read from this balcony and, once the Royal Governor was ousted, the first Massachusetts State Government was here.

We had lunch on Boston's new Greenway (yes, we did finally get that Big Dig project out of the center of town and now have lovely green spaces instead of big highways along the water). On our way back, we spotted the Old North Church where Paul Revere had the lanterns hung to warn the Patriots of the arrival of the British by sea.

Not parts of the official Freedom Trail: our current City Hall (yes, the ugly thing on the right) and the equally ugly City Hall plaza, which we try to hide by holding big events on it such as the Big Apple Circus.

Pack wee one into stroller with her sippy cup, bubble juice and favorite pink things. Grab B's swimming bag and sling S's guitar over shoulder. Walk to school.

Pick up boys. Walk with everything and everyone to music school.

Drop off S with guitar. Put S's backpack over one shoulder and walk with B and wee to swimming pool.

Drop off B with swimming bag. Put B's backpack over empty shoulder and immediately walk with wee back to music school.

Pick up S. Give S his backpack, sling S's guitar on back and walk with S and wee home.

Get wee, wee accessories, S, two backpacks and stroller in house. Enjoy 7 minute sit-down and debrief with hubby about the day. Drive to swimming pool. (I know, I'm supposed to be taking a walk but it was a trade off: seven minutes of resting or just turn around and walk back.)

Pick up B. Bring B and swimming bag back home. Are we done?

Somehow, I remember Spring walks being more relaxing.

Knitted fruit, bunny butt baby shorts, a fabulous fancy poodle, and Mr. Roboto!

I love nutty knits! Great job Knit Picks!

Oh sure. I wasn't doing anything with them anyway.

So the rain has finally stopped, which means we can move our bed back to where it belongs since water has stopped dripping from the ceiling onto us while we sleep. But a few nights of no sleep has left me sick. Of course, I'm also running an early morning PTO project at the school and organizing a classroom activity for B's class for next week and juggling a schedule including two or three other school events. It's only Tuesday and I'm exhausted!

So, sure, honey. You knit. I'll just curl up in a ball somewhere and watch.