2012 advent : day 17

Today's advent activity is a little funny.  It was a good idea and sort of failed.  But that's what made it funny.

We bought a gingerbread house kit at IKEA.  Little did I know, though, the kit wasn't so much a kit.  It was the house and that's all.  I anticipated it would include some sort of frosting (mix or something?) and candies.  Mostly because of what the packaging looked like.

We talked about what our activity was going to be for the day and opened the package.. so I had to move forward despite my serious mistake.

I melted sugar to use for the "glue" and used chocolate chips for the decoration.  Melted sugar hardens quickly and is extremely hot to the touch.  So that was interesting.  It also melts chocolate chips.. because it's so hot.

So.. lots of hot sugar, bite marks in the gingerbread, and one cracked roof later.. we sort of made a gingerbread house.  At least Olive had a great time.  And we can only do better from here.

This gingerbread house is basically completely opposite of any gingerbread house I would ever want to make.  I like to design things.  And to do it perfectly.  heh.

These are mostly unedited and were poorly sifted through because Olive is incredibly clingy and climby today.




















There was a big gap in the roof so I filled it in with sugar.  And the back roof section cracked in half.  So there's a sugar glob on it.  Pretty, eh?







Now you know her secret.  Only one pigtail.















Sure.  Why not.



She doesn't realize this is a gingerbread house disaster.





The most chocolate.  Ever.



I think she got some chocolate stuck between her teeth.

Olive's Advent Calendar
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16

Easter recap.

Easter 2011 will surely go into the history books. Yes it was Olive's first Easter but that's not necessarily the interesting part.

We decided not to travel home for Easter this year mostly because we didn't want to travel far with tiny Olive. To keep with the style of Thanksgiving 2010 (affectionately known as "Friendsgiving") we celebrated with our friends Brooke & Scott who also did not go home. The week prior to Easter our plans seemed somewhat up in the air.

Easter morning Tyler & I picked Brooke & Scott up at their house, a few blocks away. We drove downtown to Bethlehem Baptist for the 11:00 service. Tyler & I used go to Bethlehem pretty regularly but stopped sometime last year. Since then we haven't been able to find a church that we really want to go to but I suppose we haven't been trying too hard. When thinking of where to go I thought Bethlehem would be a nice choice since I'm familiar with it and it would be our first service with a baby. I like that you can sit outside the sanctuary in case of fussy babe - so that's where we sat. Olive had to go to the bathroom mid service and used the big person potty in the basement. Yay Olive! There were so many tiny babies around Olive's age. I had the thought to hang out there regularly so Olive could get some friends. Including this adorable kiddo sitting in front of us named Oliver. Unfortunately for most of the time Oliver sat near us Olive was outside with Tyler. I was hoping they'd become friends. :(

After church we stood outside while Scott networked. Scott likes to network. We debated where to go for food. Easter at IKEA? Would there be enough time? Is there somewhere closer? We drove the slow way looking for other spots to eat but, of course, everything was closed. We did stumble upon Fat Lorenzo's but we're all too slow at decision making and were soon on the highway headed to IKEA.

When we arrived we checked out the menu - it sounded wonderful so we stayed to eat! Easter at IKEA! An employee told us that if we bought or meals together and then spent at least $100 in the store our meals would be free! We accepted the challenge and proceeded to eat an amazing Easter meal. We, of course, had Swedish meatballs, gravy, and potatoes. We had a few deserts, we had cheese, we had crackers, we had salmon, shrimp, and more. It was wonderful! There wasn't much time for shopping before the store closed so we quickly browsed, grabbed what we needed, and were on our way. Olive got a tad fussy as she was hungry so we went to the car for a snack while the others checked out. I may have caused a scuffle between an older couple parked near us.. but I'm not sure. All I heard was "Jim! She's breastfeeding her baby... I don't know... I don't know.." I don't know.

We dropped off our friends and went home for a bit - Olive needed her diapers washed and we wanted to get a few chores done. After that we headed to Brooke & Scott's for Easter sushi. That's right - after a nice Easter late lunch at IKEA we had Easter sushi. :) This was my first experience making sushi and I had a great time. Olive seemed to enjoy herself as well.. and she used a big potty again. We headed home with a sleepy Olive and went to bed. It was indeed a wonderful Easter.

Here are some photos from the day... Scott had borrowed my camera Friday night so I wasn't quite prepared for photos until IKEA. Unfortunately I didn't get a nice shot of Olive in her Easter dress (which was actually an Easter gift from her NiNi opened the previous afternoon!). Scott, of course, took photos of the day as well so I'm eager to see if there is a nice one of Oliboo in there!

[slideshow]

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

This Easter joins the ranks of:
- Our first Thanksgiving, in 2006, when we were friends - hoping for a turkey dinner at Denny's we had to settle for chicken. We barely knew each other and both stayed in Chicago for Thanksgiving rather than traveling home.
- Our next Thanksgiving, in 2007, our first as a married couple, was spent in Uganda. Obviously they do not celebrate Thanksgiving there but we found ourselves at someone's home having a big chicken meal and joked about it being Thanksgiving. :)
- Thanksgiving 2010 - Friendsgiving. My first attempt at making almost everything that a holiday dinner entails and it all turned out and wasn't the least bit stressful.