We love David very much. He is a wonderful child.

Really. We love him.

But sometimes he stinks.

So we ask him, “did you poop?”and sometimes he tells us, “I poop.”

But lately he also tells us, “No. Just gas.”

And usually? He’s right.

Wikipedia defines tautological reasoning as:

“repetition of meaning, using dissimilar words to say the same thing twice, especially where the additional words fails to provide additional clarity and meaning”

Matthew provided an excellent example on the drive yesterday.

“Mommy, Delaware is where Delaware is.”

You can hardly argue with that.

I got to enjoy a parental right of passage on Tuesday.

The pre-school Thanksgiving Feast. It was every  bit as fun as I thought it would be.

We got to sit together at the tables, with our knees around our ears, and eat pumpkin cookies the kids had made.

We sat next to Sarah and William.

We frosted our cookies and made faces with raisins. I thoroughly enjoyed the craft-as-snack activity.

So did Matthew.

Then it was time for songs,

which Matthew refused to sing.

We stuck around playing with friends for a few minutes, then headed home.

We are thankful for many things in our household this year, but chief among them is the teacher’s and staff at Matthew’s school.

Getting two boys to look in the same directions and smile is….

a real challenge.

Last week, Matthew got to go to Pump It Up for a birthday party. David was too little, so he stayed home with Nana and Grandpa.

Mommy and Matthew enjoyed going down fast slides,

bouncing through a mini obstacle course,

smiling for photos,

and eating pizza and cake.

It was fun to have a little time with just the two of us.

The boys have formed a band.

A drum band.

They grabbed some empty containers (which I could be using, by the way) and a couple of lincoln logs. They convinced Grandma to sing a tune while they banged wildly played.

They’ll practice for a while, then come get me for their concert. Matthew thoughtfully puts out a chair for me. And then they play with wild abandon.

Happiness is a drum band.

Yesterday we went to visit “The Enchanted Forest,” a Christmas fund-raiser for the Junior League. They had dozens of decorated Christmas trees, a room full of trains, and some other kid-friendly activities.

On the way in, we rain into our buddy, Owen, and his family. Owen is a big fan of trains, too.

I don’t know the kid in the blue jacket.

The trees were fun to look at. We each had a favorite, although we didn’t bid on any of them.

Daddy liked the tree decorated with bottles of scotch.

Matthew liked the one decorated with games.

David liked the tree decorated with cars.

Mommy liked the Starbucks tree.

We got to see Chef Spike, from Top Chef, too. He was doing a demonstration on turkey burgers. They smelled pretty good.

Next we headed to the science room. Apparently, a  hands-on science museum is coming to Reston. Matthew made a fossil and some goo. Both boys enjoyed watching a volcano erupt, and playing with bubbles.

Then it was back to the train room.

We finally dragged them out to go home for lunch.

We love a good Saturday morning pancake breakfast. Sometimes I get “help” cooking breakfast.

Sometimes I get “help” taking pictures.

I always get lots of help sopping up any leftover syrup.

It’s hard to find good help. I consider myself very lucky.

Steven has been away, but Grandma came to help us out. Hooray! I have spent the bulk of the last two days cleaning dry wall dust off every single item in the family room.

I had a feeling, when I saw the mess, this would take a long time to clean up.

Sometimes being right is no fun at all.

I spent a large part of Thursday baking and icing cupcakes for the wedding. Then I came home and….made a bunch of cupcakes.

What can I say? It was a cupcake kind of weekend.

The cupcakes I made at home were for the St. Mary’s Boutique. It’s a Christmas craft sale, so I went with the theme.

Here is Rudolph

and the holly wreath.

They were pretty easy. I used raisins, pretzels, and red gum drops for Ruddy. I used red M&Ms, squished green gum drops and coconut for the holly wreath.

For the record, I have very little self-control when it comes to gum drops.