This is a perfect example of how technology makes life better.

Santa brought Isaac a book that he LOVES to read, called Dragons Love Tacos.  The book is a public service announcement to a young boy about Dragons, their love of tacos (which they get at Taco Cave, in the story), and they hatred of spicy salsa.  Isaac is absolutely enthralled with the book, especially the page where the Dragons burn down the house because of the spicy salsa.

So earlier this week Mom had an awesome idea.  We would Skype with Nanna and P-Pa and both groups would make tacos, careful, of course, to avoid the spicy salsa.  Around 4:30 we set up the computer in the kitchen.  Mom was at her post (the stove) and Dad and Isaac were on the far side of the kitchen island.  Mom would cut ingredients and Isaac would chop them up with his wooden cut cut (I made him one for Christmas, but he demanded a bigger chef style knife made of wood as well, so I obliged; one of the beauties of having an awesome band saw).

Isaac did well until, well, the salsa came out.  It was a little spicy (Isaac loves saying the phrase "spicy salsa" BTW).  Isaac breathed fire on his taco-eating grandparents, even through Skype.  He breathed fire on his Mom and Dad.  Despite that, the tacos came out great.  I forgot how awesome tacos are, the perfect size and mixture of crunchy and creamy and chewy.  Isaac also loved his tacos and I think his grandparents enjoyed watching him make and eat them.  I know we did.

So huzzah to Mom and Skype. 

Short Isaac story:

Isaac and Bianca go in today, Bianca's first day back.  He is a little clingy because it was a great three day weekend.  Its natural, it happens.  But there were new toys in Up Up--dinosaur puppets.  These two words in combination work on I-man's brain like "free doughnuts" on a binge eater.  He went bonkers for them.  Right before Bianca left though she took him to the potty and he had to part with his dino puppet.  When he returned he found that the puppet had been appropriated by his friend Jonah.  Crestfallen Isaac looked to Bianca for help, but the rules of the daycare are clear (and the same as championship chess): your turn ends when you take your hands off the piece. 

Bianca was gathering her stuff and about to leave and Isaac was a little sad.  Then, out of no where Jonah put the puppet down and Isaac's long time BFF, Molly (she of the many ponytails) came over, grabbed the dino puppet and gave it to Isaac to cheer him up.  It worked and they went on their merry way.  Bianca told the teachers and said that it was "Sooooo Cute". 

Then tonight when retelling the story to me, Isaac told me that Molly was "soooo cute."

Like I said, cute on top of cute. 

Nanna and P-Pa were held off by a massive storm that swatted down most of the planes in the Midwest.  They finally left though, some time after they were scheduled to land and they landed almost two hours after Isaac had nodded off to dream land.

When we woke up the next morning the same storm that delayed them dumped about a foot of snow on us.  It was a perfect day to dig in and cuddle up inside.  We also happened to have a ton of Christmas presents still left to open.

Isaac wandered downstairs and saw more presents left to open and unlike the two previous days he really went to town.  He tore through gifts with reckless abandon, this time not even bothering to open the packages, once the paper was off them.   He also spazzed out for his easel, which was impressively large (and something he has come to really love).  The best part of the morning was giving Nanna and P-Pa their gift, which was a picture of Isaac taken by Nancy Gould.   Okay, I take that back, the best part of the morning was when Isaac and I opened out lightsabers (see, you though for a minute I was going to be mature and responsible...really, the picture was awesome).  Here is a preview of many lightsaber fights to come:

After Christmas morning, we had a week with Nanna and P-Pa and it was wonderful.  Isaac and P-Pa made pizza for everyone:



Later in the week, Isaac painted Nanna and P-Pa's homemade Christmas presents (a tissue box for Nanna and a picture frame for P-Pa).  Here is a video of everyone getting painty: