Christmas!

Christmas Eve was relaxing and enjoyable with Linda, Alex, Vanessa, Mark and Leon. We had some yummy food and played some games. Christmas Day was fun but messy. It took a while (as usual) to get everything cleaned up and put away. Santa came to see the boys, much to my surprise. I told them I was sure they had gotten themselves onto the naughty list this year. Santa must be more forgiving than me.

Consequences

Elliott at 16 Months

Snowed In. Shoot me now.

Winter break officially started yesterday. But because of the crazy amounts of snow we've received, the boys have been home every day for the last WEEK. Sure they've been having fun in the snow but they can only stay outside for so long. So they keep bugging me to watch TV, play on the computer, play their Leapsters, etc. I've been encouraging them to find other, more creative things to do but it's not going as well as I would like. Oliver has gotten his Erector set back out. He took apart the airplane and is building a motorcycle with it now. Owen played with Play-Do for quite a long time the other day. The cutest thing they did was to host a birthday party for Nutty, their stuffed animal squirrel. Nutty had lots of stuffed animal friends attend the party. The animals played a game of kickball together with the whoopie cushion serving as home base. That was a riot.

As I write, all I hear is a raging din coming from downstairs. All three of them are yelling and laughing like wild men. NPR is in the background as Brian is in the kitchen. I just heard Owen yell, "Dad, Oliver took off all my clothes!" Must I go down there and face it? Sigh. I guess so. I just have to remember they're not always like this. Sometimes they're like this:


I did get out the other night to take the Os to see The Tale of Despereaux. It was lovely. A bit dark but that's the story. The book was much better, by the way. I also took Oliver to hear a sing-a-long of Handel's Messiah last night with a friend and her daughters. I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever been to. Oliver was totally bored. The Messiah is pretty boring as music goes. But there were between 75-100 people who showed up to sing the chorus and it was beautiful. The sopranos in the audience were the highlight of the night for me. They were having much too much fun. The conductors were having fun with it too. Most of the musicians were high school students but you would NEVER know. There were all the cream of the crop from the local area high schools. There were several violins and violas, quite a few cellos, one bass, one percussionist, two trumpets, two oboes, one bassoon, and a HARPSICHORD! It was most excellent.

My car is snowed in and there are NO snow shovels left in the stores. Not that I trust my tires on snow. Brian has fancy new snow tires so if I want to go anywhere I have to wait to take his car. He's off work starting now. He's barbecuing brisket for Christmas Eve. I'm glad he's home to help me control those things that have replaced my children since the snow came.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas.

Santa Photo 2008

Doesn't Santa look sweet? We thought he was just great. Poor Owen. Unlike Mr. Photogenic (Oliver), Owen is not the most comfortable in front of a camera, is he? That's ok, he has good hair. ;o) Do you love Elliott's scarf? I knitted that a few years ago for Oliver and thought it would dress up Elliott's outfit. I'm so glad I put it on him! He looks like such a little man.

Santa in Seattle

We went to Seattle last night to see Santa and attend an annual caroling party. It was COLD! But it was dry for most of the night so it was nice. I like it to be cold and dry at Christmastime. It makes it seem so much more Christmasy. (Is that a word?) We had dinner at the best food court in the world (Westlake Center) where I got to eat the honey-lemon chicken from the Indian place I frequented as a Seattlite. Then we took the kids to ride the carousel and see Santa at Macy's. Seattle Macy's Santa is now better than Seattle Nordstrom's Santa in my opinion. They had a really fun set up with lots of great decorations and the photographers worked really hard to get a good shot. The best part though was that they accept appointments or give you a return time for your photo so you don't have to stand in line! What a relief. At Nordstrom you have to stand in line for 2.5 hours or you can forget it.

The caroling party took us out around Green Lake and it was beautiful. The snow started coming down while we were out there and the Os caught many on their tongues. We all had snow in our hair. It was good times.

The tree at Westlake Center.

The Os were so silly. They kept holding hands with all the inanimate decorations.

Poor Linda could hardly hold onto Elliott until the ride got going. He's so wiggly!

What is it with my family and nose-picking?

Elliott was not the happiest camper being stuck in the baby backpack.

These reindeer were animatronic. Fun stuff while waiting our turn to see Santa.

Preschool with Owen

Brian and I got to spend the day with Owen at preschool last Friday.  We played, did crafts, listened to the kids sing a few songs on the stage in the sanctuary, watched a slideshow of the kids dressed up and role-playing the Christmas story and had lunch together.  Only one kid in 24 got stagefright and thankfully it wasn't mine!

Owen and I count the links on his countdown-to-Christmas chain.

Brian and Owen color a Christmas tree with melted crayons on a hot plate.

Owen takes a whiff of the lemon-scented marker.

Owen tries to get Brian to take a whiff as well.

Their completed cooperative artwork.  What a masterpiece!

We had a wonderful time with Owen at preschool and enjoyed watching his performance.  He was very proud to have both of us there.

BINGO Night

Kindergarteners and 1st graders got together on a Friday night for some serious BINGO. This is Oliver at the beginning of a round.

And this is Oliver's scary looking competitive face when the letter he needed to win didn't get called.

Still Getting Into Everything

It looks cute, right? That's because you don't have to pick all the junk up that he drags out of these drawers!

Where D'ya Get Those Peepers?

This was a random snapshot out in the front yard when I was playing with my new lens. Dang, look at those eyes! Click on this one to see the big, clear version. Blogger fuzzes out the photos for some reason.

Scouts Cake Auction

I knew I couldn't escape participation in Scouts forever. The pack had a cake auction in November. Cakes had to be decorated according to a theme: scouts, patriotic, outdoors or sports. I'm no cake decorator so I had to sell Oliver on something easy. At least I thought it would be easy. Have you ever squeezed firm icing through one of those tiny star attachments? I thought my hand would fall off! My cake decorating career is over before it begins. AND I will never eat cake with buttercream icing again as long as I live. When it has to be pure white like ours was for the American flag, there is no butter in the so-called buttercream. It's CRISCO. Greasy, nasty vegetable shortening with this fake butter flavoring and a lot of powdered sugar. Disgusting. But it looked pretty!

I think the Hot Tamales put people off. We ended up buying our own cake. For a measley $12!

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving was great as usual. Brian smoked not one, but TWO turkeys so there were plenty of leftovers for everyone. Brian also made sweet potato casserole with the cinnamon, cloves and marshmallows. He made two loaves of bread, cornbread dressing and bacon-wrapped, cream cheese stuffed, grilled jalapenos. I made a pumpkin pie for the first time ever and it was perfect! I was pretty proud of myself. Linda brought the cranberry sauce. Mark was in charge of the gravy and green beans and Vanessa made butter with the Os. Homemade bread AND butter. Yummy! Vanessa also made a dessert with huckleberries she picked on Whidbey Island and Linda made whipped cream with the Os. Alex made snide comments and kept the couch warm.

The chefs at work.


Alex forced Linda to watch showed Linda photos from his recent trip to Europe. One hour and 220 photos later....

Brian isn't used to so many carbs anymore and passed out for a few minutes on the floor.


Vanessa read to the little guys.

While Mark got crazy with the medium-sized guys.

Oliver and Owen go totally nuts when a grown-up gets down to play.