When I asked them if they knew why they had gotten in trouble they said yes. I sat back, expecting an apology on not listening, or a plea for mercy related to their bad behavior. Instead Braeden said, “It was Fate that caused us to get in trouble.” How do you argue with that?

This year we continued the Cramer family tradition of making popcorn wreaths to give to our neighbors as a Christmas treat. We decided to get Owen and Braeden more involved in the entire process even though we normally try to steer them away from metric tons of sugar and scalding hot liquids. They were very helpful through the whole process, though Uncle Steven and Uncle Scott may need to give them some food-handler pointers. Several wreaths became “family” property to prevent an unsuspecting neighbor biting into a dog licked gumball.

The boys set up all the plates and helped to mold all the wreaths as I divided the popcorn/hold-it-together-sauce mixture around the table. Hold-it-together-sauce is not the technical name but I can’t come up with anything better at the moment.

Braeden getting psyched up (this is before quality control sampling began).

The work in progress. Everything that was needed for assembling the wreaths. Plates, gumdrops, ice and a toy dinosaur.

Gavin was content with a supporting “I get any gumdrops I can grab” role.

The finished creation, artfully presented by Chef Owen.

So we made it through the whole evening with no fights, few burns, and some pretty good looking treats. Not to shabby for a non-health department rated operation!

Past Years

2005 (Nice small batch to get us started)

2006 (Skipped this year, something to do with a baby being born or something)

2007 (Unfortunate hair pulling incident right at the end)

I know that I have 3 boys and I’m not down with the whole “What little girls like to play with” thing. But I would never have guessed that the Barbie/Street Troopers Mobilized Attack Vehicle link was so obvious. Now that I think about it though, it totally makes sense.

So Tammy and I have been having a discussion about homework lately. I’m coming down on the side that kids in elementary don’t need to have any homework at all, while Tammy thinks that it is an important piece in their educational experience.  I don’t really remember doing that much homework in elementary school (my parents assure me that I did), so of course I’m adding that to my list of reasons why they shouldn’t do so much homework.

I’m basing a lot of what I’m thinking about this on two articles by Orson Scott Card about homework. Basically he is in the camp of ‘kids need to be kids’ and that homework puts too much stress on the kids and the parents. Now Card can be very polarizing in his writing, but these are two well written articles that make me think about the issue. For me this is ‘Strong Opinion, Weakly Held’ and the next more convincing article I read about the merits of homework could remove the whole argument. But until that happens I will resist the teachers tyrannical rule! (Only after the boys are asleep of course).

The boys start up soccer tonight. They have Monday practices and games Wednesday and Saturday. I don’t know if I’m ready to be a ‘Soccer’ family, but it will be fun to get them out there running with the bunch.

Sledding at Grandma’s

Rocking New Years

Gavin and Mommy strutting their stuff

Getting silly with the popsicles

The drive down was a little hairy (passed 3-4 accidents along the way) but we made it alright. Once there we had a good time talking with family while we waited for Santa to arrive. Yeah that’s right, SANTA came to Benjamin UT for this party. The boys were very excited to go, and because of the relatively small number of kids there they got to be right up in the middle of it all. Even so much as helping Santa with his sack.

Both of the boys got to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas (Owen:Shake and Go Racer, Braeden:Dinosaur Factory). Gavin was NOT a huge fan of Santa, so we get to add to the “Kids afraid of Santa” pool. When you think about it though, Santa is pretty freaky. And the whole “Breaking and Entering to leave presents” concept could easily be misinterpreted .

Besides scarring Gavin for life, we had a great time down in Benjamin. We even got a nice family picture with the big guy, but you can see that Gavin is still very aware of where Santa is at all times. You never know when he might try to get you!

And one more of Tammy, because I think she looks really hot in this picture:

I am one lucky guy I’ll tell you what! You can see the rest of the photos here:

So today I decided to do just that, scoop the poop. The boys decided that today they wanted to go out and help me with my task. They both grabbed old boxes and resolved to follow me around collecting the artifacts.

Naturally, we had to take turns depositing the poop. Because of course, fairness is the fundamental law when dealing with chores. But we didn’t take turns in order to spread out the awfulness of the task, oh no, we took turns because each one of them thought it was a great thing to be holding the box while I dumped in dog poo.

Things were going well until Braeden ran into the house to get some shoes on. (I suppose he didn’t want poo in his toes, wimp). While he was gone, Owen slyly grabbed his brother’s box of poo and began to dump it in to his box. Braeden came out of the house during the middle of this and started to SCREAM bloody murder. Because, you know, HIS BROTHER WAS STEALING HIS DOG CRAP!

This ended up requiring parental intervention, because it was such a contentious issue. Never in my wildest parenthood dreams did I ever imagine that I’d be breaking up a fight over a box of poo, but there you go. Make lemonade out of that!

Hunting for Babies from djcramer on Vimeo.