Christmas vacation - a day at the park

Before the snow and wintry weather hit we enjoyed a lovely day at the park in Lubbock.

Gwen loves the swings

Nate posing while feeding the ducks and geese. There are 8 bazillion Canada geese here this winter.

Gwen, Ava and cousin Anna on the tire swing. We partied on this thing.

Brenna climbing in a cage thingy.

Ava and Anna

Here's an unrelated photo; just a shot of me and Ava at her class Christmas party the day before we left on our trip. Her class was adorable. They sang three Christmas songs complete with hand motions. There are few things more adorable than a classful of cute 5 year olds lisping their way through songs about "Thanta Clauth", including my own daughter. I guess I'm not so worried anymore that she still has a lisp!

What would Christmas be without the traditional Christmas vomiting?

We had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner, followed by the reenactment of the nativity and some rousing Christmas carols. And to round out the wonderful evening, Nate unloaded his entire stomach contents on the dining room floor. He threw up several times during the night, but was better by the morning, so he joined us for present opening and all the events of Christmas day.

Although we had hoped to escape a full-fledged family viral fiesta, we did not. Yesterday my brother, who very kindly helped me clean up Nate's Christmas Eve puke, got hit hard, followed by my sister Sara, and now today, me. Oh joy. I'm in isolation in one of the bedrooms at my parents' house, with easy access to a bathroom.

My youngest sister was planning to leave with her family early this morning to return to Utah. They left at 12:30 a.m. instead, hoping to escape this thing, or at least be back home before it hit them. Unfortunately they didn't.

Woohoo. Merry Christmas folks!

It's a Christmas Miracle!

My sweet, snow-starved children are going to wake up to a white world on Christmas Eve!!! I'm so excited I can't sleep. I love Christmas!

Oh, yeah, we're clearly not in central Cali right now; this would be north Texas snow. My sisters who live in Michigan and Utah are very patient with my excitement over this.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Recap

These are the events of the last few weeks in totally random order because I do not feel like messing with details tonight.

Ava helped bake her first batch of bread. For the record, it was my first batch too, although she contributed more than I did. Thank goodness we had someone on hand who knew what he was doing. The crescent rolls that she made turned out delicious (and beautiful, of course, since Ava was rolling them and everything must be beautiful when Ava is in charge).

Gwen exhausted herself enough to pass out face-down on the couch at 8:30 in the morning.
The pilgrims and Indians ate a wonderful feast together in their kindergarten classroom.

More exhaustion, leading to passing out upside down on the slide.The world's best baby continues to be a party and Ava is still a fabulous big sister.

We indulged in a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with my Mom and stepdad.

And last but not least, Nate turned 3 November 1st.

The Jig Is Up

Brenna is feeling the need to blow the lid off this whole Santa nonsense recently. The crazy girl is convinced that Scott and I are the real Santa Claus.

"There's no way Santa is real. Nobody could be that old."

This is said in front of Ava and Nate, of course, followed by an expose on why the tooth fairy is not real either. I need to have a talk with that girl before she ruins this for everyone. Ava loves fairies (surprise, surprise) and is anxiously looking forward to her loose tooth falling out so she can get a lucrative visit from one. During the course of this conversation Ava declared that the tooth fairy comes at midnight, because that's when everyone is asleep. I told Ava that I am frequently still awake at midnight, which resulted in Brenna giving me a knowing look. Just further proof, I guess.

By the way, just because Santa isn't real doesn't mean you can't submit your Christmas list to the old guy. Here's what they've told me they want for Christmas so far.

Brenna: Nintendo DS, Lego Indiana Jones 2 for the Wii

Ava: a Barbie, a dollhouse, and "Whatever else you want, Mom. I just like everything." Which is true.

Nate: a motor-mackle (aka motorcycle), "A small one, not a big one, Mom." Thank goodness. I could spring for the real motorcycle, but the leather chaps, jacket, and helmet were going to cost a fortune!

See that baby?

The one in the pictures in prior posts?

21 pounds 8 ounces.

30 inches long.

That's right, she's huge. She's heavier than 90% of baby girls her age. Taller than 100% of them (this is where I start laughing....those of you have ever stood next to me and looked down at the top of my head understand why). She is 4.5 pounds heavier and 3 inches longer than Brenna was at the same age, and Brenna is a tall girl.

Holy huge. No wonder all the cute 6-12 month sized fall/winter clothes I've bought her aren't fitting very well!

Does anyone else find it odd that a woman who is only 5'2" tall has four tall children? As I always say, enjoy it while it lasts, kiddos!

Death of a Computer

Arthur Miller, I am not, but here is the summary of the story. It was slow, it was painful, it was inevitable that my ghetto laptop die. No, it wasn't an old computer, but we'd had major problems with it for a while and it finally blitzed out last week (hence the lack of posting here). Fortunately I have an external hard drive and didn't lose anything. Nothing except the big bucks it costs for a new one.

But the new one is so new, so shiny, and so far so good. Except for today when we discovered our printer is not compatible with a Mac. Dang.

Brace yourself

For a zillion Halloween-related pictures.

First, Tuesday we went to the pumpkin patch. It was a nighttime visit for a change, and I loved the evening atmosphere with the twinkling lights and crisp air. The only problem is the pictures didn't turn out so great, but here you go anyway.

Picking the perfect pumpkin.

We love our cute little pumpkin patch.

Once perfect pumpkins were selected by all, it came time to carve them. It was gross.

It was boring.

It was still necessary to break out the paints and finish the job.

Then came the big night. We had a dragon who refused to wear his hat, but was still plenty scary.

A snow princess ready to pose for the paparazzi.

An unintentially, inescapably feminine clone trooper.

And a happy, yet slightly overwhelmed fairy.

Waiting for Mom and Dad to load the car so we could go to our church's "trunk or treat" was pure torture.

But eventually we arrived and enjoyed petting a beautiful dog named Lucky while waiting for the festivities to begin. Good grief, my kids need a dog.

Ava worked the camera like a princess.

Nate played with Mother Goose's goose.

We got candy at church, then we headed home and hit the streets. The getting was good. We're ready for our sugar-induced coma now.

Favorite pastimes of our favorite 9-month old

Unloading drawers in the kitchen: Slowly growing shiny chompers (look carefully on the top right, you'll see why we call her "Fang").

Making a beeline for this plant every time it crosses her mind:

Then ripping the faux moss out of the bottom and tasting it. Yum.

And generally cracking herself up.

Her two newest tricks: clapping and shaking her head "no".

Homework

Brenna is amazing. She doesn't love homework, but she'd rather get it out of the way and be able to spend the rest of her afternoon after school playing, so she does it most days without prompting from me. I don't even get a chance to sit down with her any more while she does it, except for last Wednesday, when I sat with my camera and snapped a few shots of her deep in concentration.

She had blue eyes until around her 5th birthday, but clearly not anymore.

Sand, prime, paint

Two years ago I painted these dark brown shelves a cream color. Without sanding or priming. I honestly didn't know you needed to do these things, but as you can see from this before picture, they're pretty important. The paint started chipping and peeling off these within days.


I was having a baby shower at my house last week and couldn't let people see these pathetic things, so I got to work. I started by peeling off as much paint as I could, then came the endless scraping. This lasted forever, during which time I wondered why I didn't just buy some new shelves. I don't have an answer for that one, except this seemed like a good idea at the time.

Then I sanded and primed. This time I was very thorough.

And here you have it: the finished product. Two freshly painted, un-chipped, not peeling bookcases. And I have the pleasure of knowing I did it myself.

If your hysterically laughing 2 year old

ever tells you "Don't get my tummy again, Mom!" listen. Don't even try to get his adorable, round, bare tummy again. And whatever you do don't pull him in close while you're playing this game.

Because when he throws up his just-eaten dinner from laughing so hard it is going to get ALL OVER YOU.



Oh, and for the record, just b/c your just-eaten dinner still looks good, doesn't mean you should grab a chunk of it and stick it back in your mouth. It does not, in fact, still taste good. Nate will vouch for that.

A few favorite pictures from camping

Scott, Gwen and Nate around the campfire this morning:

He's a giver...

Nate was sitting at the dining room table, happily chomping on some gorp (raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms) as an after-nap snack today. Gwen was playing close by.

Nate: "Mom, I shared some m's m's with Gwen!"
Me: "Uh, what?!"

The good news is he had not actually shared an M&M with Gwen.

The bad news is she was happily gumming the peanut he'd given her.

So much for avoiding peanut products until after her 2nd birthday. So much for protecting her from choking hazards.

But at least he's sharing, right?

Things I learned at this year's county fair.

1. Turkey legs: not that great. And it doesn't take 4 of them to feed our little family.
2. Brenna is a hard woman to please. I give up trying.
3. 70 degrees with a strong wind feels cold when you've been living in 100 degree heat for 3 months solid.
4. Sheep stink. Bad.
5. If you put a duck, a goat, and a pig in a corral and race them, the duck always comes in 3rd place.
6. Carnies still freak me out.
7. Fresh kettle corn is delicious.
8. Gwen likes fair animals. The rest of the sights require intense study with a furrowed brow.
9. My kids still enjoy having one-on-one close-up conversations with livestock. Maybe they gave their apologies to the cows for the hamburgers they ate last week.

Have your gums ever hurt so bad

you could just chew on a wall?
Tooth #4 is breaking the surface right now and #5 isn't far behind.

What the....?!

Did my kid just dunk his entire face in a puddle of mud?!
Yep, sure did. But not until he'd bathed the rest of his body in it first. Super.

Why does he DO stuff like this?!

Oh, right. Because he can.