Wanna confuse a one-and-a-half -year-old?
Wrap some boxes in pretty papers, put them under a sparkling tree and tell the child, "don't touch."
Then, one day, allow her to rip all the boxes apart and keep whatever she finds inside. Do this after giving her a sock full of chocolate.
She is now under the impression that Christmas is pretty cool.
She got a pretty exciting toy kitchen, which she spends a good amount of time "cooking" in. She then brings us plastic dishes full of the imaginary food she has prepared and warns us that, in a word, it's "hooooooooooooooot." It also came with an imaginary phone, and the imaginary phone bill is likely to be astronomical she has called so many people on it already.
Ben was less confused. I think he found the whole thing kind of annoying actually, as it disrupted his routine. However, he found a few things to put in his mouth, which is always good.
Elsa is now the proud owner of a robotic penguin (because Santa was fresh out of robo-horses you can ride and feed, like she asked for, as well as out of robots who clean rooms and teach classes, I guess Santa's Elves had a slow production year).
And the three of them are co-owners of this new sweet ride. Here is footage of its maiden voyage:
Don't worry, Benjamin was not on-board. He will probably opt to wait on riding till he's mastered sitting-up solo, and if he's like Adele, that could be another six months.
This was her apprehensive face before we went out there. This was her first time on wheels and she was nervous. The nerves lasted until about three seconds after her skates hit the floor. 
In the event of a couples' skate, it's always good to have a sister. 
Just don't say the "G" word (as in "Go" as in "time to...") she hates that.
My grandparents met at a skating rink, my cousins and I grew up at one, and I will admit to an occasional disco-skate night still. So I guess this is just kind-of in my kids' blood. 
