All she wants for Christmas ...

are her two front teeth! So awesome. She's got an enormous gap and is learning how to sing the appropriate song. Her lisp is 1,004 times more pronounced, as she would say herself. V likes to let her teeth hang until they fall out on their own. I know some parents are bugged by this, but it doesn't bother me. As long as I don't have to pull it, I don't care. Yesterday I almost fell over laughing because she had turned her tooth all the way around and then couldn't turn it back. Luckily she wasn't concerned that I was laughing at her and cheered right up once the tooth was back in place. E (just turned 3) occasionally tries to wiggle her teeth, to no avail.

Gratuitous pic of the baby. Apparently the bumbo seat is in the news again for being unsafe. Don't put it on the table, parents. My kids have wiggled out of it, yours will too. Apparently we have to litigate this. Oy.

Also in the news, the death of Vaclav Havel. He was the George Washington of the Czech Republic (and Slovakia, for that matter) -- a world-changer, and he is missed by millions.

Last Friday was the sugariest day ever. It was the last day of school before the break, so my two older kids had class parties. Junk food is heavily restricted at our school. (I think they get 3 non-nutrition days a year. Otherwise things like birthday cake are food non grata.) So when one of those free days comes up, there's a lot of sugar and fat going on. They ate treats at school and then brought home goody bags to eat and share with their little sister.

M1 had made a gingerbread house. When I went to pick him up, another 2nd grade class came out of the building first, each kid carrying a gingerbread house. Their teacher showed off all the cute things the kids had come up with -- an ice cream cone as a tree or as a Santa, marshmallows as chimneys. And then my kid came out. "Look, I made a machine gun!" Yes, a machine gun on the roof of his house (cleverly made with a large marshmallow, chocolate chips and a pretzel stick), a tree that had fallen down and was crushing the house, etc. I have no further comment on this.

Further treats: of course, this would be the day that E decided to finally make the next big step in potty training, requiring a trip to Braum's for some ice cream! So after the early day at school, we headed over and got pink ice cream for her. And of course the other kids got ice cream, too. THEN we had a church party making ... gingerbread houses! They had pre-made the houses for us (using caramelized sugar, which I haven't seen before), and there were quite a few extras. So we came home with a lot of houses. E in particular loved putting things on her house. She made two houses and then really wanted another, but Nathan convinced her to make a yard for her houses instead. That cute house in the picture with the smiley face is V's, of course.

Extra funny moment: the following day, M1 had eaten all the good stuff off his houses and experimented with eating the graham crackers. He told me that the one from church didn't taste good at all. "That house is not put together with sugar. It's not sweet at all. I think it's glue. I just ate glue!" Yeah, it wasn't glue. I tasted it -- the sugar had just gotten a little scorched.