Christmas morning

Geeze la weeze (is that how you write it, I don't think I ever have before).  I'm having the darndist time keeping up on this blog, maybe we've entered a new phase of life here with 1 walker (Henry's still content with crawling) and 2 curious 1 year olds.   Not to mention Ada.   In the last week she has downed half a glass of wine (yes, she was a little tipsy), and half a bottle of children's Tylenol that I failed to close all the way to the "click".  Anyway, we've been busy and I'm behind on the blog, but I'm actually caught up on the laundry (folded and put away 9 loads yesterday!), which is a miracle and makes my insides happy knowing my kids now have clean socks so we don't have to search through the dirty clothes for decently clean pair.  I also came up with a new shoe organizing system that I am feeling quite optimistic about that might help avoid the morning scramble to find shoes... oh I hope so!  Well, I've gotten distracted now and forgotten what I'm posting for, oh yes, Christmas!  We had a wonderful Christmas.  We spent the morning with Maz and Papa and then we headed over to the cousins up here.  And then a week later we went down south and celebrated with my side of the family.  I love the compressed cousin chaos.  I'll post some pictures from our time down south soon, but for now, here are some from Christmas morning.



This is Will talking to Santa on Christmas Eve, I like this picture.

I bought Will some new pjs, but before we went to bed he asked, "would it be ok if I wear the Star Wars pjs that grandma got me instead?"  I mean, how can you beat Star Wars?

This girl has just got her own look, her own personality and I am actually quite perplexed at who she looks like. She's such a petite little gymnast, intrigued by this one...








Oh yes, and did I mention, she knows what she likes and what she doesn't like.

Twins?

You would never know... but they're still cute together.

Christmas Show

               Lucy was in a Christmas ice skating show with her cousin Emma. Good job girls!

The joy of completion!

All decorated!

We finally got our tree!  I felt like we needed to get it because I wasn't quite convinced it was Christmas yet, it just came so darn fast this year for some reason.  So, it was especially important to have the decorations up so I could start feeling the Christmas vibe.






Ada wanted to wear the Easter bunny hat, sure, why not?




The "after", I love it!  The first night we had it all up Nate and I slept on the couch.  Now on to the Christmas shopping.  I'm doing ok on that.  Can't figure out what to get the twins, so if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear it.  We don't need any toys and the older kids will be very upset if for some reason M & H were forgotten.  What to do?  What to do?

afraid to go to sleep

Sitting here at 10:20 wondering if I should go to sleep because it just seems inevitable that I will be woken again.  It has been quite the series of events here everyone! To start, Nate's folks house was the top story of the news. If you haven't heard yet why, the video is below.



Everyone was ok, but it was quite scary.  Edie and Tony had to rush Granny (94 years old) out of the house down a steep bank, while the fireman couldn't get up the hill to get to their house because of the snow, so they had to run up this huge hill with hoses in hand to put out the fire.  Both their cars are goners and the "lounge", which was under the garage and was my first room makeover project is in need of another huge makeover.  Gladly, I can report that our wedding china survived the flames, but Nate's 5,000 dollars or so worth of books that he was given didn't....  But really, that stuff seems so small.  There house was ok (Praise Jesus!) and everyone involved was ok (Praise Jesus).   Anyways, while we were still processing this news, I go to pick up poor little Henry and he threw up.  All over.  It's so sad to see a little guy get sick like that. We thought we were in the clear and then miss Ada chimed in tonight and now has had 3 baths, 3 sets of sheets and 3 jammies.  I might also add that I have thrush, yay, I know, weird.  Sooo, I think we're going to be alone on Thanksgiving. Initially I was pretty bummed. We were going to some of our good friends house, with Nate's family coming up, and other good friends, and scrumptious food from talented chefs. A big party. Lucy and Will, well, they've been talking about our Thanksgiving party for a while now. However, I think Lucy started to sense that it might not happen. We were talking in the car and she said, "I'm trying not to get too excited about Thanksgiving, because I'll probably get sick or something". For some reason the stomach bug seems to come on important days for her. Like, a couple years ago she woke up as sick as a dog on Christmas. And she missed an assembly she was supposed to be in when she was sick last week. And I'm just remembering now that on her first Thanksgiving our house was in the middle of a major flood.  Our house was literally surrounded by a lake for hundreds of acres (up to Nate's knees) and we had to evacuate and get rescued by our landlords with waders on and turkey in hand (we made it on the news that Thanksgiving too).  Cynicism growing about special days.  Sooo, I was driving to Fred Meyer to get a few items this evening and decided that, gosh darnit, Thanksgiving will be fun!  We really do have so much to be thankful for and this is a good lesson to focus on ALL the things we have, rather than the things we don't have this Thanksgiving.  I ended up buying some fun little toys for the kids and am going to do a scavenger hunt for them throughout the house over the course of the day.  I think I'm also going to put a big ol' piece of butcher paper on the dining room table and we can all draw pictures of things we're thankful for throughout the day and look at/ talk about the pictures while we eat the Thanksgiving dinner that our friends will still be bringing to us. And then, I know I will totally win Will's heart by watching Star Wars which we just got in the mail and letting them sip on some hot cocoa on the couch, usually a no-no.  And all those games we always love playing, but rarely do (hide-n-go seek, uno, charades, talent show),  I think those will make an appearance.  Anyway, I'm discovering more and more that it's all about perspective, it really is.   From the fire, to sickness, to Thanksgiving, we can look at the many things we have, how blessed we are.   It's utterly ridiculous.  One last major thing we have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving is the last two years we've have with Ada.  Tomorrow is her 2nd birthday and we have absolutely cherished every single day we've had with her.  We love you so much!  Happy Birthday!

Do you want the good news or bad news first?

I'm a good news first kind of gal, so that's what I'll give. It snowed!!! Only 2 or 3 inches, but enough to get the kids out in the snow and do a little sledding. The twins also got to meet snow for the first time and were quite intrigued by it, until they got cold, then they just cried.














And the bad news. One kids is missing from these pics- well, this is because he was inside throwing up. We recovered from lice just in time to get the stomach bug... oh boy!  (and now anyone who's hung out with us lately is concerned, here's an early apology)