Gifts from Tara...and stinging ants...

Like I've mentioned time and again, we have the best babysitters ever. Tara was with the kids yesterday and brought Christmas gifts for them. (There was even one for me! An awesome picture frame set for the stairway once the painting is done!) Here is the stack of gifts:

"To my favorite kids"--how sweet is that?!

Getting ready to tear into them! They got a Hungry Hippo game, a fun pizza PlayDoh set (which has entertained them for HOURS), activity coloring books and stickers. Awesome!!!


On the topic of Christmas gifts, I got my nephew an ant farm for Christmas, and was worried that the ants wouldn't be shipped in time. Lo and behold, look what showed up at my office yesterday! 25 ants arrived in a small vial in a padded envelope that read:

I don't want to ruin the fun for my nephew, so I'm letting him put the ants into the habitat himself. In the meantime, my job is to simply keep them alive... Their current residence is in a jelly jar (with TINY holes in the top--I was getting tired of Brent making gasping noises because he thought I was suffocating them, so I tapped some holes in the lid).

The white matter is "sand" from the habitat--I had to sprinkle it with water to make it moist. Apparently that's how they drink. I also had to feed them, so I put a small piece of apple in there. They attacked it! It was gone by this morning.

I think this is a SUPER cool gift, but here's where the whole thing goes South: The instructions said that these ants sting and leave welts (good heavens, what did I BUY??), so not to touch them. I dreamed all night that they had escaped and were in my bed biting me. My friend at work said "His parents don't mind that you're giving him this for Christmas?" Um...well...to be honest I didn't ask them. (I wonder if I should have??) Oops. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a jar full of stinging ants, right?