Dear Murphy: Building a delicious house

Dear Murphy,

Believe it or not, this is your third crack at Christmas in your just-over-two-years on the planet. For the first yule, you weren't doing a whole heck of a lot except adorably staring at lights and making gurgling noises - mostly because you were three months old, but probably also partly because you share my DNA. Let's take a look at that shall we? This is your life, Murphy.

Last year was a little more exciting for you (and us) because you seemed to understand that the mountain of colorfully-wrapped boxes under the tree was full of toys for you. And I think you vaguely understood the concept of Santa.

This year we KNOW you know who Santa is, and you expect him to show up any day now. We're using an advent calendar to try and teach you about the concept of days, while counting down till Christmas...but mostly it's just about the candy.

Your mom, being a Christmas lunatic (I use the word lovingly), has made about six dozen different cookie recipes already this month and if you know anything, it's that your mom+food+fire=delicious. So, in addition to the annual cookie-a-thon, we decided we'd take a crack at having you make a gingerbread house with us...but you saw bags of candy and things went south for a few minutes until we could restore order.

I love these looks you give us - like, "No, for real, somebody better open these damned sprinkles."

Your mom did the heavy lifting for the build, but you made sure you let us know that the house needed a doorbell....immediately.

The best thing about having a kid is seeing them get excited about the little things in life. "Childlike wonder" is a special thing, even for little stuff. Seriously, Murph, you applaud when candy gets opened. That's awesome. If I could get back to a place in my life where I felt sugar-coated gum drops deserved oratorical acclaim, I'd probably be the happiest, wisest man alive.

Doorbell: check.

Of course you tried out some of your building materials...I love the next two shots together.

We probably decorated for a good hour until the directions caught up with us. Apparently, the royal icing needs to set overnight for the house to be structurally sound...but the gingerbread house was more about the fun of the activity than having one of the dogs eat it while we weren't looking anyway.

I'll write again soon little buddy...