This is Carter's Favorite Holiday

The last two days have been full of activity - getting ready for Christmas and Santa Claus and Mimi and Papa. It's hard to know how to even start. Let's begin with the surprise visit from our friend Prentiss. He is an old friend of ours, who lives in San Francisco and is excellent at relating the crazy things that happen to him. He's a structural engineer, athletic, and pretty random. He enjoys doing things that are different. For example, he picked us up from the airport in S.F. wearing a bright orange KY federal prison jumper and a cowboy hat. He really enjoys coming over and getting our kids all riled up and then leaving. Someday, he'll find the perfect girl and then he'll have a house full and we will return the favor - only we'll know how to do it better.
Anyway, he dropped by last night and Carter immediately switched on for our company. Prentiss tried to catch up with us while this 4 year old Tazmanian Devil rotated fiercely around him. Then, the eye of the storm. Carter plopped on the couch and announced that he would like to say a prayer for us all. We all supported that idea, secretly hoping it would calm the energy level. He instructed us to close our eyes. Baby Will assumed the position - head bowed and hands loosely clasped. We all bowed our heads and then Carter said, "I'll just start out by saying 'God, thank you...' you know." We thought maybe we were supposed to all say something that we were thankful for and he suddenly started, "God, thank you for all the people who come to our house. This is my favorite holiday because it's all about YOU" <> "and because I get all kinds of toys." I peeked around the room and Nathan and Prentiss still had their eyes closed and both were struggling to not to laugh out loud. Carter finished up his prayer and Prentiss was moved to clap. Carter was visibly startled by the clapping. Nathan said, "we're clapping for God." Carter said "Yay God!"
Will, on the other hand really took up with Prentiss which really shocked us. Will hangs close to his immediate family, and his mama in particular. He leaned right up next to Prentiss' leg and drank from his sippy cup. Prentiss seemed to like it; he likes kids though. We were even further delighted when Will spent the entire time in the nursery at church today and didn't even cry at all. We are buzzed every week to come get our miserable little boy. We were so surprised, in fact, we kept looking at the pager wondering if maybe it was broken.
Tonight Will was being so funny. Nathan told Carter to take his finger out of his nose. Will, sitting in my lap, hears the word nose and starts squeezing his nose and saying "gonk gonk" (honk honk). I praised him for being correct. Then I said,"what do you do with your nose? Smell?" and he held an imaginary something up to his nose and inhaled loudly a couple of times. I asked him where a ball was and he leaned over and started looking toward the toy box. I said "yep, that's where the balls are." It's truly amazing the things he understands although he can't speak too much.
Tonight we decorated some allergy free sugar cookies. They are very tasty! Carter really loaded them down with all kind of different sprinkles. After Will ate a small one, he cried so hard and his little hands desperately made the sign for "Please" that I couldn't tell him no. I found one with no icing and gave it to him. He looked up at me with his big, round, blue eyes, tears trickling down his face, and gently took the small star shaped cookie. Then I realized why he's partial to me. I'm a soft touch.