Tag: Lego

December Madness

Begins.

I’m still working on the Thanksgiving update so stay tuned for that dear audience.

So. Yesterday was December 1st. Therefore Advent Calendars are back in this household.

However this year no edible ones.

Mainly because we think TT is still a bit young for daily chocolate, and she’s old enough to be totally annoyed if her big brother has one when she doesn’t. So we went with fancy toy ones.

But, there are very few options for two year olds.

#1 Son has a Lego one. TT? Well we scoured everywhere and finally found a Paw Patrol one with no tiny pieces. TT still insists on sticking non food items in her mouth!

As for me, normally I have a Hotel Chocolat sharing one, but I didn’t think about it in time and I don’t know if they ship here.

So instead, I treated myself to a Sparkle Yarn advent box from Tinky Dye Yarns. The lovely Maria has been still shipping my clubs to me so this was a lovely addition.

The glorious box:

Dec 01:

It also comes with a bespoke pattern which will soon be on sale on Ravelry from the lovely Julie-Ann Amos and I am happily working my way through it.

I have not yet opened today’s window.

We also went to the Melrose Christmas Lights switch on last night:

There was live music

The children wanted some of the light up plastic tat that they sell. #1 Son got a light sabre, TT a snowflake magic wand.

That wand lasted less than 30 minutes before she whacked it against the stroller hard enough to shatter the snowflake 🙄

It’s not like they were $10 apiece or anything….

But the piéce de resistance of the evening was seeing SANTA.

Yes those are the Melrose High School cheerleaders.

The best bit though?

The kids. Both were so thrilled to see Santa.

I teared up with the happiness. I didn’t expect the sheer delight for both of them.

Mall visits will happen soon.

Today or tomorrow we will buy a tree and new decorations.

Oh, I’m also trying a new nail salon tomorrow as my last set didn’t last two days 😡😡😡

Of indigenous peoples day and allowances

And visits to Legoland. So Monday was a public holiday here in the old US of A.

Apparently good old Christopher Columbus has been co-opted into a celebration of indigenous peoples day. so we’ve gone from celebrating the person who did the murdering to celebrating the people he murdered.

I guess that’s progress of a sort?

Anyway it meant that #1 Son did not have school.

We had rented a car, with the intention of going to the zoo. However the rain was appalling, so instead off we went to Legoland.

#1 Son had a whale of a time on the (two) rides, and built many things.

TT made a friend:

And woe betide any other child who dared to seat him or herself on this Friend.

😂🤣😂🤣🤣😂

We also discovered what rain does to her hair:

Daddy threatened to chop it off when she wouldn’t let us brush it over the weekend. I threatened to chop off various parts of his anatomy.

We called it even.

We have also started introducing the concept of budgeting to #1 Son.

He gets a weekly allowance with two options:

  • $5 cash in hand which he could spend on anything he wants within reason.
  • $10 in his bank account to allow him to save for a big item. (Well, in reality it’s notarised in a spreadsheet until he tells us what he wants to buy).

He has never asked for cash in hand. So, up until Monday he had $75 dollars earned (he had $5 docked one week for reasons).

He has been saving up for a big Lego model. The specifics of the model in question change a bit but they have always stayed within the $80-90 mark.

Well, we couldn’t visit Legoland without visiting the gift shop.

We bought TT some Duplo as she’s really into it right now, which was $30.

So we explained to #1 Son that he could have a set worth $30 which we would pay for or he could use some of his allowance in addition and buy a bigger model of his own choosing.

Well, he has $15 dollars left of his savings, and a huge Lego model that he and his daddy are building together and is only halfway done.

They are having brilliant quality building time and daddy isn’t needed per se, so it’s really nice.