Flying Barrel Of Monkeys

I had grand hopes of baking twelve different types of cookies this season, but so far it hasn’t happened. I have been cooking up a storm with main courses, side dishes, and various desserts (including red velvet “Happy Birthday, Jesus” cupcakes for Christmas day), so at least I haven’t slacked off in the cooking department. I did bake up two batches of sugar cookies before Christmas and in a moment of insanity invited over a bunch of friends and their children to decorate the cookies. Actually, it was great fun. I think we had about a dozen kids under the age of four in the house playing, eating, and decorating cookies. I went to the cake store and bought bulk sprinkles and hit up my friends for their old formula scoops, which the kids used to scoop sprinkles onto their edible artwork. I’m not sure any kids took naps that afternoon, after the copious amounts of sugar they consumed. Here’s MonkeyBoy’s pièce de résistance.

Since MonkeyBoy was still hyped up on sugar, that evening we met MonkeyMan for dinner and then attended our city’s light festival. We splurged on a battery operated, light-up bubble gun from a street vendor which kept MonkeyBoy fascinated and entertained on the walk to the event.

He’s looking up at the tree made entirely of strings of light. It looks like this when you stand under it…

And it looks like this if you spin…

Besides the tree, there were also themed light displays along a walking trail. Of course, we spent quite a bit of time at the dinosaur exhibit.

We ended the weekend before Christmas with a Christmas play at church. After starting out his acting career as Baby Jesus, he’s had a tough time filling other roles. Maybe he doesn’t like being demoted? This year he was supposed to be a shepherd, but he refused to wear the costume, stand with the other shepherds, or sing any songs. He was persuaded to carry a candle in during the precession to the front, and towards the end of the pageant he did climb onto the stage with the other little children. He didn’t sing though, and instead jumped from stair to stair while everyone else performed their parts. Quite the monkey, our little man.