Before Christmas

Bree loves to draw and color.  We have crayon that I can't get off the wall thanks to our little artist.  She's actually prety good.  While I was making dinner one night I caught her tracing her foot.  

I love that she loves to hang out with me.  I spend a lot of time in the kitchen (in the morning it's getting the kids breakfast, packing lunches, doing dishes, etc.) and she will just come in with her blanket and lay down in the middle of the floor.  She is definitely my girl!

If she's not laying on the floor of the kitchen she's helping me.  She cooks with me and she LOVES to do the dishes with me.  

The first weekend in December our stake hosts a creche exhibit (that means nativity display) and live nativity performance complete with horses, sheep, goats, etc.  It's always a beautiful even and so well done.  See Kai in the front of this picture?  and then right above his head is Cesar Augustus mingling with visitors.

It's a bad shot, but here's Kai in front of some of the nativities.

Shhhh.....Don't tell Finn but in the midst of all of the December madness I picked up this bed for him.  I had been looking for a twin bed for Bree so that I would be ready when she was done with her crib, but then I realized that I really just needed any twin bed.  So Finn saw this one and got super excited.  I got it off of a Facebook buy and sell group and it is hiding in our guest room.  When Bree is ready for a big bed she will get Finn's and he will get this one.

Bree and I have started to eat lunch with Kai at school about twice a month or so.  He loves it and so does she and it fits perfectly in our schedule.  Kai has lunch at 1pm and Finn has to be dropped off at 12:45.  Sometimes we sit with him while he eats his packed lunch and sometimes we bring him something special. This month we brought him Freddy's.  There were several drooling kids watching us.  :)

I can't believe this kid is old enough to loose a tooth.  He "lost" his first tooth on December 9th (same day as the picture of Kai above).  It had been lose for a while and he was refusing to eat because it hurt.  We were sitting at dinner and he was ready for it to be out so he let me try to pull it.  Well, I got a good tug and my fingers slipped right as it would have sealed the deal and it hurt Finn.  He clamped up and wouldn't let me touch it again even though it was now super lose.  Kai in the meantime was freaking out and hiding under the table because he didn't want to see what was happening.  I managed to calm everyone down and then told Finn we should play a trick on Kai and pretend to pull out his tooth.  I told him he needed to scream to make it seem real and while he screamed, I pulled, and out it came.  He was MAD at me.  And I felt bad.  But it was out and it was over with.  It needed to come out so he would eat again (he hadn't eaten in about 2 days and he doesn't eat much anyway).  He did bleed a bit which made me feel worse.  But the tooth fairy made it up to him by bringing him $5 ($1 of which was a silver dollar).

Being room mom for both Finn and Kai's class means that I had a lot of party planning to do this month.  Finn's class party was a snow theme and Kai's was a gingerbread theme.  For Finn's party I made this cute water bottles for drinks a couple of days ahead of time and then the rest I had to make the day before.

Finn loved seeing the countdown at Walmart all month!

For Kai's gingerbread class party I pre-made the gingerbread houses.  I have to admit that the thought of doing this stressed me out big time, but once I got started it turned out to not be as big of a deal as I had imagined.  It took me about an hour or so to pre-cut the peaks on the houses.

For Finn's class I made these cute and easy and quick string cheese snowmen.

And here it is the day before the party.  I pre-made 27 gingerbread houses (there are 24 kids in Kai's class and I wanted some extra in case something broke).

For Finn's class I also had to make some snowflake sugar cookies and so once I was done with that the kids helped me use the rest of the dough.  This is Friday the 18th in the morning before the afternoon full of parties.  Finn's party is from 1 to 2pm (so I go to set-up at 12:15) and then Kai's party is 2:30 to 3:30.  I end up being at school for almost 4 hours on party day.

And then after class parties on the 18th, I also had to make my presents for all 75 of my primary kids.  I ended up making a CD for each family (there are 38) with kids in primary.  It actually wasn't as hard as I was worried it would be either.  So, I guess lesson learned this year is that the thought of doing the work is often worse than actually just doing it!

A box full of CDs ready to go to church on Sunday the 20th.

After we made it through the class parties and then I got all of my gifts done for primary it was time to relax.  While waiting for our home teachers it started to snow.  We turned on the Christmas lights, lit a yummy smelling candle, put on Christmas music and decorated the left over gingerbread houses.  There was a wonderful spirit in the house.  One of those perfect moments.

Ok, perfect except for the fact that this kid wouldn't pose for a picture....

and this kid got his church pants covered in frosting.  

With all of the graham crackers in our house I was trying to convince my kids to eat graham crackers with frosting.  Bree was the only taker and she would only eat the frosting straight from a spoon.  No graham cracker needed!  :)

Once the kids were out of school we tried to do some fun "Christmas" types of things.  I had heard that the lights at the Broadmoor were worth the trip and that they had a large gingerbread house.  So, we trekked down there.  Kai loved that we got lost in the hotel and ended up taking the service elevator.  I, on the other hand, was trying real hard not to be embarrassed or feel out of my league at this ritzy hotel.  We finally found the gingerbread house.  It was all real, and super neat.  But the kids weren't exactly impressed.

After seeing the gingerbread house we headed out back for the lights.  I will admit to being disappointed.  I was expecting a lot more.  It was pretty cold, but we decided to walk around the lake to take in some of the lights (hoping there was more somewhere!).

At the other side of the lake there was this fire.  I was worried that it would be smokey (which would really bother Finn) but it wasn't at all.  There was a gas pipe to feed the fire and then some fake charcoal.  Finn noticed that someone had even thrown a snow ball into the side of the fire pit and it wasn't even melting?!

The pretty Christmas tree  After our visit to the Broadmoor the kids and I were disappointed.  So we decided to head into the city to find some more lights.  We went to a neighborhood where 8 houses worked together for a choreographed light show and it was awesome.  We sat and watched the lights for a whole cycle of songs that lasted over half an hour.  And I didn't take a single picture or video!

That night we had pizza for dinner and once again Finn was refusing to eat.  His tooth was SOOO loose, but of course at this point he's never going to let me touch a tooth again.  I took this picture of it hanging there in his mouth and wondered how much longer it would last. 

Well, Reid was working late that night and so I was getting everyone to bed by myself.  I had tucked the boys in and was taking care of Bree when I heard a bit of a startled/upset exclamation come from the boys' room.  I went in to find that Finn had lost his tooth!  He told me that he felt something "icky" in his mouth and tried to spit it out.  He ended up spitting out his tooth.  Yes, it was that loose!!  Reid came home right after that and got to hear the story again.  So, for Christmas this year I had two boys who both needed their two front teeth (Kai is still missing his top teeth and Finn is missing his bottom.)

The next day the kids and I went up Park Meadows (the resort mall on the south of Denver) to do some last minute Christmas shopping.  After spending a couple of hours at the mall we headed to the neighboring Burger King where we had lunch and let the kids loose to play for a bit.

Bree wanted to play with her brothers but needed some help.  I had to ask the boys to help her several times and she eventually ended up melting and so we knew it was time to leave.

In the lead up to Christmas I was eating way too many treats.  I was trying to combat the weight gain with more and more time on the treadmill.  I was proud of myself for working my way up to 4 miles.  I've found that watching a sitcom helps me to stay distracted and run longer.  I've gone through all of the available episodes of Girl Meets World and am going to move on to Boy Meets World.  I've been a slacker this week and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. I'm also looking forward to using my Christmas gift (a gift card to Colorado Running Company) for some new shoes as my feet are starting to hurt.

November (in one post!)

Finn loved seeing this sign in Walmart.  He asked me nearly daily, "How many days until Christmas?"

Bree loves making pink scrambled eggs.  And this day she was eating them with her pink Frozen yogurt while dressed as Tinkerbell.  Love my princess!

I think I can cook some pretty good dinners.  This one tasted as good as it looked.  Yum!!  That's quinoa under the stir-fry.  It all went together perfectly!

Kai's co-scout leader was out of town one Tuesday early in the month (the 10th) and so I was asked to sub.  I got to bring all 3 of my kids and we watched the scouts learn about the military from a veteran and then make robots from recyclables.  This is Kai with his friends Ezra and Marcus and their robot.

Bree and Finn had their last joint well-child check on the 11th.  It snowed that morning and so Kai had a 2 hour delay.  The roads were scary slippery.  I saw at least 6 cars off of the road before I ever made it to the interstate.  Needless to say that by the time we checked in at the pediatrician the 2-hour delay had changed to a closure.  Making the best of the situation, I asked if I could throw Kai into the appointment for a flu shot (there was a flu shot clinic going at the same time in the office so I figured we could jump it).  They were great about it and got all three kids lined up for a flu shot.  Kai wasn't prepared and was an emotional mess over the whole thing.  Finn had gotten nervous and upset in the car on the way to the office when I told him and Bree...what can I say.  She's a tough princess.  I sang the "time for a check-up song" for her (from Doc McStuffins) and told her she needed one shot.  She volunteered to go first out of all three kids.  I placed her on the table and she laid down and was super brave.  Not one tear or even a whimper.  I was SO SO proud of her.  And then it was her brothers' turns and that involved pulling crying boys out of corners of the room and pinning them down while they screamed.  I wish they had followed their sister's example or at least set a better one for her.  

November is always my favorite sale at the grocery store.  They normally have all the canned goods on sale for great prices and so I try to stock up for the year.  This is one of three counters' full that I got at the sale.  It was $300 worth of food for under $150.  The receipt was over 4 feet long!

The night that Bree fell asleep on the couch at 5:30pm.  This whole trying to drop her nap phase is hard!

I was excited about 5-8 inches of snow.... (this was 2 days before the storm)

Bree's favorite thing to do in the snow is make snow angels.  We had a little bit of snow left over for an earlier storm and so we found her a place in the yard with enough snow left to make a great angel.

By Monday morning that 5 to 8 inches of snow had turned into 8 to 18 inches of snow!  Kai headed to school in the morning with his boots and winter coat even though there was no storm in sight.

At noon it was still warm enough to ride a bike without a coat and this was the lone pile of snow left in our yard that Finn could find.  

By 12:30 the storm was clearly on it's way.  And I was headed to school to drop off Finn.  By 2:30 the snow was sticking and email had come out from the school saying that we could come get our children early if we would like.  I had gone to lunch with a friend and didn't get the email until after I was at Wal-mart shopping and there was only an hour left of school, so I decided the kids would be fine heading home on the bus an hour later.  As I was getting Bree ready to head out to the car to get the boys at the bus stop there was a surprise greeting at my garage door.  It was the boys who had arrived home earlier than expected because the school decided to dismiss early (by about 10 minutes).  I was a tad irritated that they had been dropped off on the street corner in a blizzard with no parents and no warning that they were coming home early.  Apparently my neighbor had no knowledge either of the early dismissal and found all 4 of our kids walking up the street by themselves.  Grrr.....

And just 24 hours after I had taken the picture of Finn sitting in the grass, our house looked like this.  This picture doesn't even do it justice.  That snow is up to Reid's knees, which is the equivalent of my mid-thigh at least.  

I tried to use Bree as a measuring stick in this picture but it still doesn't do any of this justice.

Our house manages to get a fairly large drift right at this corner of our walkway every time.  This snow was nearly as tall as Finn right here.  I tried to walk through it and then just turned around and headed back.

All of this snow resulted in Monday's early dismissal, no school on Tuesday or Wednesday, and a 2-hour delay on Thursday.  Of course, this was also the week before our one-week Thanksgiving break.  My kids did not go to school that much in November (don't forget there was also that snow day on the 11th that I mentioned earlier).

Wal-mart used shopping carts to block off this dangerous snow drift situation.  I think they have some design flaws with their roof because I've now seen this twice already this winter.

My kids were all staring out the window one morning looking at the geese flying by.  It was too great not to get a picture, even if it is bad lighting.

On Tuesday the 24th (2 days before Thanksgiving) we headed to the zoo.  It was so fun to see the lion cubs up and playing.  We had first seen them when they were about two months old in August.  They have grown so much in those short months.  And they were super playful.  In this picture a cub is standing right by a wire gate.  For some reason they had separated the dad from the cubs right as we got there and he was sitting on the other side of the door and this cub wasn't moving.  He clearly wanted his dad back.  So cute.

There have been some recent renovations in the australia exhibit and this is one of them.  Finn loved climbing all over this alligator.

I was too lazy to pack lunch that day so we bought lunch there.  I forgot how horribly expensive their food is (think Disney prices!) and was shocked when I paid nearly $30 for a slice of pizza and a hotdog (and I think I got something for myself but I can't remember what it was).

Of course, lunch was right next to the carousel and the kids insisted on riding.  I used that as bribery to get them to eat some and then we headed out for our ride.

What an incredible view of the city behind Finn!

Bree loves "rides"!

Walking down the path I happened to glance over and just see this bald eagle hanging out in the tree.  It was really neat!

And the grizzly was nice enough to come up for a close-up for us.

Even the tiger was strutting his stuff that day.

But hands down my favorite part of the day was the hippopotamus.  We got there right as a special group was allowed back to the area and was given a whole cantaloupe to feed to the hippo.  (I'm guessing they were high-end donors as the zoo has a program where you can get some encounter experiences with a generous donation.)  The group got to spend a good 15 minutes with the hippo and the trainer learning about what he ate and what tricks they were working on.  And since they were just behind the bar one foot in front of us, we were able to hear it all as well.  The trainer showed the group how they are working on getting the hippo to back up into place so that they can do a blood draw when needed.  The skin of a hippo is so thick (about 3 inches) that the only place they can draw blood from is her tail.  So they have her back up to the railing here and use a screwdriver to apply some pressure to simulate a blood draw.  It was fascinating to watch them work on this behavior with her.  And after the group left it was only fifteen minutes before an actual scheduled feeding/show for the hippo.  So, I let the boys walk around the building looking at other things while I held our spot right at the front for the hippo show.  We spent a good 45 minutes standing right here watching the hippo and it was fascinating.  (except Bree lost interest and so she got to play on my iPhone, which is why I have no pictures of the hippo show).

Our last stop is always the ape house.  Bree enjoyed watching this gorilla.

Two days later it was Thanksgiving.  We had a quite, slow day at our house.  (see the boys still in jammies?)  We watched the parade in the morning while eating cinnamon rolls and then I cooked dinner that evening.  Finn has decided that Thanksgiving is boring and I don't entirely disagree.  I guess I need to find someway to spice it up next year. 

The day after Thanksgiving saw us decorating for Christmas.  The boys were so excited and loved helping.  Even Bree got into the spirit of it.  I'm glad they like hanging the ornaments because that is not my favorite task.  :)

On Saturday evening right before dinner I was cleaning up and was about to toss out Kai's "cursive book".  It had come home in his backpack and was pretty much empty.  I figured it was one of those in-class assignments he hadn't finished, but I knew they had already had their cursive test so I figured it wasn't a big deal.  Kai saw me moving it and casually mentioned that it was "due on Monday".  Umm....come again?  It turns out that the rest of the class had pretty much completed the book but that Kai was SOOOO far behind.  There were 72 pages in the book.  Kai had completed no more than 12.  In fact, he hadn't been allowed to take his cursive test because he wasn't done with the book.  And he was now at the point where it had to be done by Monday or he would begin losing recess.  I was angry that this was the first I was hearing of the situation.  His teacher had not sent any communication home and hadn't even sent the book home until Thanksgiving break.  So, in other words he had been assigned 60 pages of homework for the break and I had never been told.  Poor Kai.  (Yes, he is partly to blame for the whole mess, too, but the teacher's request was unreasonable in my opinion.)  Kai diligently began working on Saturday night.  And then he had to take a break when we had friends come over for dessert and some play time.  And then on Sunday after church Kai sat at the kitchen table and worked and worked and worked.  He was at the table from 1 pm to after 10pm doing cursive.  His hand hurt and he was tired.  He went to bed with just a few pages left.  The next morning he managed to spend a good half hour or so finishing it all up and then he was off to school.  I should have felt relieved but there was nothing but a pit in my stomach.  The teacher and I have exchanged emails and talked about the situation.  I think I handled it well and I hope we have a system in place to keep this from happening again.  Yikes!