Christmas Catch-up

This afternoon I finally got to all those pictures on my camera. I don't like to get too far behind with them. So here is some of what we've been up to recently, some of these things I've mentioned before, and here is the proof. ;)

December 1 we had our friends' kids over. We are doing a babysitting swap with them. Tomorrow we leave our kids at their house while we go to Brian's company dinner. Ours are sooo excited. Austin has been asking me all week when he will be going to Justin's house! Anyway, while they were at our house, the kids all decorated these huge gingerbread men cookies. I bought the kit at Costco; there were 6 in the box--perfect! They all enjoyed it.




Julia's choir play was Dec. 4 (for the Awana kids) and Dec. 8. She played Joseph's angel. Here she is with the whole Nativity. There are only 3 boys in the choir, so a lot of girls played male roles.


Giving Joseph his message. And singing with the other angels.


Christmas finery! These were taken after church last Sunday. Julia informed me that they were not Christmas clothes, and that she would be wearing her red dress on Christmas Eve! Had to post a few so you can see some of the different poses. And to show off our lovely flower beds. (Kidding! They looked so much better in the summer!!)


My favorite


Don't let Baby Sister escape....! That one has a mind of her own, most often, and is a wiggleworm! Notice she is sitting on the wall in all the pics. That is because if she were standing she would likely run right out of the picture.


Dec. 9 before bed. Brian was on the phone with his friend, and Julia wanted to read bedtime stories (in his place). They were reading Angel Mae, by Shirley Hughes. I really like her childrens books. The steam cleaner is out b/c I had to clean up a "little accident" (in Austin's own words...ahem) in the family room. Years ago I thought I would never own one of those (when we borrowed our realtor's when we sold our old house). But, we bought this one last year, and have used it SO many times!! Cat hairballs, kid accidents and spills, no more scrubbing the carpet by hand, no way. ;)



And one from today. This little prowler thinks he's so sneaky hiding behind the presents. He's cute though, isn't he? :)

Christmas Decorations

It has been a busy, busy week again! Tonight Brian took Austin and Julia to Awana, while I stayed home with Lauren. She is sick with a nasty cough and a slight runny nose. I gave her a bath and we read stories. Gave her cough medicine and put the vaporizer on in her room. Hopefully it will help for a few hours! Last night I woke up at about 4:30 because she was coughing so much and gave her more medicine. Poor girl. Sadly, I'm wondering if "sick days" or a "sick night" in this case, will be the only way I'll be able to update here this season! We just have a lot going on.

Tomorrow we need to go grocery shopping. My breakfast group is doing our annual cookie exchange next Monday, so I need to buy ingredients for those recipes. I have three I plan to make. We have to bring a total of 5 dozen cookies to share, to give each person 5 dozen. Julia's choir Christmas play was last Saturday. Brian's mom stayed with us Friday and Saturday nights. Friday night I went to a ladies Christmas event at church. Saturday I tried to figure out printing envelopes for our Christmas cards on this computer, with our new MS Word program (new since last year). Of course it is ever-so-slightly different than our old Word. I did figure it out, but then fed a sample through the printer which twisted it all funny, so I decided at that point just to do labels instead!! I also made brownies and frosted them for the reception after Julia's play that night. Of course she did a great job, and of course I have lots of pictures, but as seems to be the case this month, they are still on the camera. Maybe sometime in January I'll have to do our December in review! (Not too likely.....)

Anyway, here are some of our bigger Christmas "decorations". The Target tree: a 7-8 foot Noble Fir. The tree skirt is constantly getting rumpled as the cats wrestle on it and Pongo wrestles with it. He knocks off needles with his wrestling so I have to vacuum them almost daily. And our other tree, our 6-foot faux fir from Sears, purchased 4 years ago. It's in the dining room, with the hard floor, so 99% of its ornaments are unbreakable, in case (and highly likely) they get knocked off. I didn't even bother with a tree skirt this year for this one, because in the past Bailey would like to run and scoot on it, messing it all up. I am sure Pongo would love to play the same game! Also, most of the kids' handmade ornaments are on this tree.


Our fireplace: stockings hung by the chimney with care.... ;) I really should put names on them somehow. Oh well. From left to right: Austin's, Julia's, mine, Brian's and Lauren's.

The Everyday

It has been absolutely insanely busy around here the last couple of weeks. Julia has had more choir practices than usual, due to her Christmas play. They are performing tomorrow night for the Awana kids and then Saturday night for everyone. Last Thursday both she and Austin had dentist appointments: she had to get sealants put on her teeth, and he just had a regular checkup and cleaning. My breakfast group met a week ago Monday. I know there was more last week, but that is just what comes to mind right now!

Saturday was the Christmas craft day at church. For $2/kid, you drop them off at 9:30 and pick them up at 12:30. They make crafts, sing songs, play, hear the Christmas story, eat snacks, etc. And the parents can go do other things during that time. Brian and I headed up to San Luis Obispo. We got coffee and treats at Starbucks and then split up to do some shopping. When we picked the kids up at church we all headed to Burger King for lunch. Then back to church for Julia to practice for her play for an hour. The rest of us went shopping for a birthday gift for a friend. Home for naps, and then we had our friends' three kids over while the parents went to their company dinner. We are swapping babysitting, as Brian's company dinner is on the 15th. Anyway, we met Paul and Cindy about a month ago at church. Their kids are 10 (girl), and two boys, 7, and 3, and played very nicely with our kids. I think they all had a lot of fun. The noise level was pretty high around here for awhile, but they were happy noises. :) All the kids decorated giant gingerbread cookie men (I'd gotten a kit at Costco) and enjoyed that. I have pictures, but....they are not even on the computer. Julia said when our friends left, "I am so glad we met them. I am so glad they are our friends now. I want to play with them all the time!"

Sunday was church. Julia had to be there at 8:15, to practice with her choir, since they were singing in church that day. Brian drove her in and then came back to get the rest of us. Sunday night we went to a birthday party for the little 3-year-old, Justin, that was here the night before. The party was at Chuck E. Cheese, where we have never been, and my kids loved it!! They had SO much fun. I think we left around 8 (Lauren was crying because she wanted to stay!), and then went to Target to get our Christmas tree! We bought our tree at Target last year, and decided to go back. There are 3 tree farms right in our town, but we wanted a Noble Fir, not a pine this year, so Target was where we ended up. The tree has the widest trunk of any we have ever had, and it just barely fit in the tree stand! Brian said that that also made it the easiest to straighten! Austin and I put the lights on this morning, then tonight we all put ornaments on. The kids were SO excited and loved that.

These pictures are from last week, I just never got around to sharing then. Brian took this a week ago Sunday after church.


Tuesday we didn't have to go anywhere. In between sticking in loads of laundry (which still has not been folded....soon we are going to be grabbing underwear and socks out of the basket instead of our drawers.....oh dear....), I hung out with Austin and Lauren and took these.


One of her favorite things to do....play dollies....why she is in the cradle herself, I am not sure.


I've said it before: these two love eachother!! Notice the beginning of the pants problem....Lauren measures a 3T for height and about at 18 mos for her waist (these are 2T). She has lots of pants problems.... And the legs in the air...that is just the kind of thing that goes on around here.


Austin loves to "rig things up"!! I've given him the elastic strings that come on new shoes, or other items, and he, well, rigs things up. He makes cranes and slings and tows cars and other toys. A future engineer maybe?



More pants problems. Poor girl!


Being silly. She asked me, about that little man in her hand, "Who's dis guy?" I said, "I don't know, who is that guy?" She answered, "Samanfa." Austin pipes up, "That is not Samanfa! Samanfa is a girl's name!" Other things heard recently around here: Austin told Lauren at breakfast, "Wauren! Stop making hash out of your banana!" This was repeated after I'd said it, and just struck me funny when he told her the same thing. She was chopping and smashing her banana slices every which way. Not eating them. And we are in a hurry in the mornings! Shouldn't she know that by now?! Hee hee... Also at breakfast (a different day) last week, Austin was singing, "Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rot." Julia promptly corrects him, half laughing herself, "It is not jingle bell rot! Jingle bell rot?! It is jingle bell rock! We don't want the jingle bells to rot!!" For that matter, what is he doing singing at breakfast? Shouldn't he know by now we have to hurry in the mornings? ;) Amazingly enough, Julia has not been tardy once this year (so far...)! Anyway, here is Lauren. And Samanfa.


"See my hat, Mommy?" She had to push it down tight--guess she didn't want it to fall off!


Just a couple of Lauren being sweet with sweet Pongo.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We slept in this morning. I made pancake batter and Brian cooked them up, for breakfast. Julia and Austin ate by the coffee table because they were watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade at the same time. They were getting really irritated though, because the parade didn't actually start until an hour after it was supposed to. They kept showing pre-parade shows and ads! I made deviled eggs, which we had to bring to our friends' house this afternoon. We left around 3:20 to go to their house to share Thanksgiving dinner with them and some of their extended family. We had a fun time! Julia told my mom on the phone, when we got back, "We just got back from a Thanksgiving party!" I didn't take any pictures tonight--can you believe that?! My friend, Teri, took these, of the kids.






Monday morning Julia had a field trip to see a play. That afternoon was the second-grade awards assembly. All the second-graders performed two songs too, which were really cute. Many students were honored for various things: the character words of the month (trustworthiness and respect), perfect attendance, academic achievement in reading, math, English language learning, and spelling. Julia received an award for spelling. On the back her teacher had written a note saying Julia gets all the words right on the weekly tests, plus does very well on her dictation, including those "pesky marks that teachers nag about" :) like commas, quotation marks, punctuation, etc. Here she is with the other spelling award winners.


We finally have barstools! After living here 3 1/2 years, I finally ordered some! I couldn't decide how many to get, what color to get, and if I should get ones with or without backs. Finally I thought I better just get some!! They arrived Monday night and Brian assembled them. The kids were excited to sit on them to eat breakfast and lunch on Wednesday! Although Austin said he moved over by Julia, because Julia was lonely over there, and because Lauren was touching him with her messy yogurt fingers! Here they are at breakfast. Notice the truck by Austin's cup? He often brings a vehicle or two with him to meals. :) The stacks of books are there because we walked to the library once we were dressed and ready for the day. Austin had to walk home, because we checked out so many books that the stroller was too heavy to put all the books in and have him sit in it. The books sat in his spot on the walk home.


Here is view of the backs of the stools. I decided to go totally unmatching to the other furniture in the house. My friend went with white at her house, and I thought her stools looked good with her white counters and trim, so I copied her! That blanket on the floor is Lauren's current favorite.

Dolly Mine and the Indian Village

Here is a picture of Lauren and her doll Julia "bought" at the Awana store. On the tag it says "Dolly Mine" and 1987, plus some other info. I was curious about this 20-year-old doll and did an online search and found a few (different styles) on Ebay. Fun. So far Lauren just loves her. I asked Lauren today what her doll's name is...."Baby Scarlett? Baby Ruby?" Suggested for obvious reasons. ;) She repeated each of those names, then said, "Baby Abby." All her dolls are Baby Abby (still). Tonight however, we were asking her what her baby's name is, and she got so silly!! She answered, "Baby Dipper!" and "Rockin' Baby!" and "Baby Knuckle!" and "Baby Tum Tum!" Where does a little two-year-old come up with this stuff?! Julia and Austin were laughing so hard, of course encouraging her more..... I asked her once more before bed what her baby's name is, and she said, "Baby Wuvs Me". That was sweet. Especially since the baby has "I Love You" on her dress. Lauren asks me several times a day, pointing at the phrase, "What dis say, Mommy?"


Julia came home from school with this tent and canoe. They are learning about Pilgrims and Native Americans, because of Thanksgiving. While Ausitn and Lauren were helping me make pumpkin bread, she made this village, using her Pollys for Native Americans. Overhead view of the whole setup.


Julia said the "guy" on the horse with the pink mane and tail is the chief. She said the name of these Indians is the Meeay tribe. She invented the name and spelled it out that way for me! She also told me some of the people are only wearing shirts and some are only wearing skirts. I asked her why, and she said that is because that is just what they wear!


Peek into the entrance to the teepee. See anything?


I asked Julia about that, and she said two girls are in there taking a nap. See? :)

Last Disneyland Day

For this year, anyway. ;) We went to Disneyland last Friday to use up the last day of our 4-day passes, which also expired Nov. 13. It was a great day! The temperatures were pleasant and it wasn't terribly crowded. We were so glad it wasn't hot, like the last two days were when we went! I got headaches both of those days and I wonder if it is because it was so hot? It was in the 80s each time, and it feels so hot when you are standing in line with all that pavement around you. I probably didn't drink enough water either, maybe, for it being so hot...? Anyway, we didn't have to wait in long lines this time either! Sooo nice. The longest line was probably 15 min. The It's a Small World ride was all decorated with Christmas lights and decorations and was really pretty. Lauren is still telling us every day, several times a day, "Went on 'Mall Woowld' twee times!" We all did it twice, and I took her on in once when the other three went on a "big" ride. We arrived at Disneyland right around 8 am, when it opened, and ate breakfast at the Carnation Cafe inside the park. This was the first time we'd eaten breakfast there, so that was fun. The food was good too: Julia got Mickey Mouse pancakes, Brian and Austin got egg scramble breakfasts, and I got cinnamon roll French toast. Or something like that. After eating we made our way to Fantasyland and did most of the rides there. It was SO nice to not have long lines!! (Did I say that already? ;) )

Lauren is scared of Buzz Lightyear in the Buzz Lightyear ride, and seeing him "in person" was no exception!! Austin wasn't too trusting of Buzz either, but Brian told Austin we would all be right by him with Buzz. Hee hee

Our friends, Mike and Carol-Ann, who live in L.A. met us for a few hours at the park. We were watching the Parade of Dreams when the arrived, and later ate dinner with them at the Plaza Inn. Mike took this family picture of us. We saw Pluto later that night. Austin refused to have his picture with Pluto. He does not trust these big characters! Lauren doesn't look too sure either, does she?!

Waiting in a very short line (oh they were nice!) for our last trip on Small World. Austin was SO tired. Nobody had naps all day, even in the stroller, and all the kids were sleeping in the car on the ride back to Brian's mom's house, where we stayed.

After a fun-filled day, we finally left the park. Fifteen minutes before it closed. :) THAT was the time to be going on rides, and we *did* do a couple which we walked right onto, before we decided we *had* to go.