The Holidays

I have so loved the holiday season this year. This Thanksgiving was the first in our married life that we haven't spent with family. Usually we spend it with Jon's family, but since none of his siblings were coming home this year, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and have Thanksgiving with some of our church family instead. We had 3 families over- 8 adults and 8 kids...it was crazy but SO fun. (and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a single picture!) Good friends, good food (LOTS of good food!), good fun. It was a really enjoyable day.

We waited a few days to break out the Christmas decorations. As you can see, we don't have much, but it's just enough to make it feel like Christmas. Jon talked me into getting a real Christmas tree this year, and I have to admit, I'm glad he did. I LOVE the smell, and as far as looks go, there's just no comparing it to our sad little fake tree. It really is gorgeous. I love turning off the house lights in the evening, and sitting in the living room with just the Christmas lights on. And I love this time of year with kids. It's so exciting and magical. It's interesting to me to look back and see how Christmas has changed for me over the years. I no longer care about getting presents. The excitement and anticipation come in watching the kids' excitement. And as we try to teach the kids about Christ and his birth....the REAL reason for Christmas, I find myself reflecting more on Christ and the events surrounding his birth. I love this time of year!

 

Emma Says

I was getting Ellie to sleep when I heard "the laugh" coming from the play room. You know the laugh (kind of like the quiet) when you know something is going on that shouldn't be. I went to see and found Emma and Matthew painting each other. I got pretty upset and told them to start cleaning and then I took the paint. While they were scrubbing paint off the table (and I was lecturing on why it's not okay to paint other people), Emma looked up and very seriously said, "I really wish I was you right now". Made me laugh out loud.

When Emma gets upset with Matthew she yells "you're not my best friend anymore!". And then when he does something she likes she'll enthusiastically tell him that he's her best friend. The other day he must have done something that really upset her because she told him "you're not my best friend forever anymore".

I was brushing Emma's very tangled hair and explaining how hair gets tangled. She looked over at Matthew and very seriously told him, "Being a girl is REALLY tough!" When I laughed she looked at me and said, "It is, isn't it Mom?"  Haha, she's a quick learner.  :)

The Magic Binky

 Ellie LOVES her binky. Out of all the things and people in her little world, the binky might just be her favorite (though I'm probably a close second :)  ). When she was only a week old, my dad started calling it the magic piece of plastic because she loved it so much. It can make her go from screaming hysterically to sleeping peacefully in like 2 seconds. 

Because she loves her binky so much she is getting really good at controlling her hands enough to pick it (and everything else within reach) up. It usually goes like this...

She spots the binky

Grabs it like a pro

That was the easy part. Now to figure out how to get it in the mouth...

 

Close...but this works too...feels really good on those teething gums.

Got it!

Oh no! It fell! Don't worry though, Mom came to the rescue and she was sleeping with her  beloved binky about 2 seconds later.  :)

November in a Nutshell

 I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving already! This month has flown by....really this whole year has! It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is this week and then Christmas is just a few weeks away!

I wish I was better at keeping up on the blog. I really hate going back over a month and trying to remember the little things that I wanted to remember....all the funny things the kids have said and done, all the random thoughts I've had, all the milestones that have been reached. But here I am again, trying to remember...

Ellie can sit on her own now. Really she's been able to sit on her for over a month now. All 3 kids were able to sit by 4 1/2 months, which I LOVE. The world is just a happier place when you can sit on your own.  :)  She still has absolutely no interest in rolling or being on her stomach, but Emma was that way too so I'm not really worried about it. It'll come when she's ready.

Ellie and Matthew both took their turn with a nasty cold/cough last week. I love that the kids get extra snuggly when they're sick, but I really hope we don't end up with the sickies too much this year. I'd forgotten how hard it hits those little babies. It was a rough week!

I went to my very first parent-teacher conference this week. Emma's  teacher said she is doing fantastic and is a joy to have in class. She said that Emma is a great story teller (very true! She gets it from her dad) and that she's also really good at math. She is also advanced in her reading skills and is doing a really good job sounding out words and spelling phonetically. I am SO glad that Emma likes school. A lot of stuff just comes naturally to her and she is just soaking it all up. I love helping out in her class and being able to watch her in that environment.

Jon went on a short (left at 6:30 am and was home by 9:30 pm) "business trip" this month. He flew down to L.A. with his co-workers to visit the Dreamworks studio down there and do other fun stuff. They visited the L.A. opera costume shop and learned about making and designing costumes. While there, they were divided into teams and had to design a costume out of a material (newspaper, coffee filters, bubble wrap, etc). Jon's team made a viking costume out of newspaper and won the fashion show. The prize was 2 tickets to the San Francisco opera. We've never been to the opera (I'd say we're not really fans, but who knows....maybe we'll decide that we really are :)  ) so I'm excited to go.

And here are some random pictures from the month...

We went to a birthday party for one of Matthew's friends. One of the party favors was play doh...can you tell he was excited?

I LOVE that all my kids have blue eyes. I think they're gorgeous!

It's a special treat when the kids get to take a bath with Ellie

Ellie thinks it's pretty fun too

I also love Matthew's scowl/pout face

For a family night activity we played pudding pictionary. Jon and the kids were not too sure about it until we started playing. It ended up being really fun. We kind of got carried away and stayed up way too late playing. Good times!

A Halloween clearance find. I bought this ghosts and monsters brownie kit. Of course the picture on the box showed lots of cute little creations.

The picture on the box looked nothing like this...haha! But the kids did these all by themselves and were really proud of them.

On Veteran's Day, we decided to take advantage of Emma's day off of school and go to the Berkeley children's museum with some friends. Apparently the entire bay area had the same idea. It was packed! But we the kids had fun anyway. We ended our little outing with a quick trip to Yogurtland for the best frozen yogurt ever!

I bought this swimsuit on clearance....isn't it adorable? Too bad Ellie never got to wear it (aside from this little photo shoot) and now it's too small...sigh...

Sisters

Awww...I wish it was summer so they could wear these dresses more...why do I get so attached to their clothes???

Emma's class is learning about Native Americans right now. As part of this unit, they had a trading day. Each student brought in items from nature to trade. I happened to be helping in her class that day. It was such a fun little activity. As part of the unit, they also chose Native American names for themselves that they've been using all month. Emma is Climbing Cub.

Emma traded something for a "plumello". She thought it was a pumello (we have a pumello tree in our yard) but it's really a cute little squash.

Serious negotiations going on for some sea shells. Emma actually scored here...she got 2 really cool sea shells in exchange for 2 leaves.  :)

Family Dinner

Lately (the last several months...or years) our dinner time has gone like this:

4:30- I scramble to come up with something for dinner
5:00-5:30- Time to eat...the kids have been STARVING for the last hour, but magically as soon as dinner is ready they're not hungry and they don't like what I've made (unless it's pancakes).
5:30-6- I try to get Matthew out of the play room and into the kitchen, Emma sits at the table complaining about what we're eating, and Ellie is screaming because she needs to eat or go to sleep.
6:30- I've given up. Emma ate a couple bites, Matthew is playing happily in the play room, his dinner left untouched, and Ellie is down (or going down) for the night. Jon gets home and we start bed time.
7:30-8- Jon heads to the kitchen and grabs yogurt, cereal, a quesadilla, or (occasionally) dinner. I'm annoyed that I put any effort into cooking something that nobody appreciated.

Sound familiar to anyone else??? Maybe....or maybe we're the only ones who struggle with dinner time. Either way, we finally decided something had to change. We need Matthew to start eating so he can gain some weight, but more importantly we just wanted our evenings to go smoother. We wanted dinner time to be something that we all looked forward to and could actually enjoy together. So we decided that we would really try to eat together every night. We also have been trying to plan a week ahead for meals, to avoid the last minute scramble. I know it's not rocket science, but it is just not something I think of ahead of time...honestly it kind of stresses me out to figure out meals every single day.

So, we put our plan into place and I have to say dinner time, and our evenings in general, have been going SO much smoother. Jon has been trying to get into work earlier so he can leave a little earlier. He's also started letting me know each day when he'll be home (or when he's on his way home) so I can have dinner ready when he gets home. We have also started planning our weekly menu together each Sunday...no more last minute scrambling- hooray!

The kids still don't LOVE everything I've made, but they have eaten ALL of their dinner every night. It is amazing! I have to give full credit to Jon for this. He is really good at making up little games, songs, etc to get them excited about their food. Races are very motivating and we've found that it's way more fun to pretend to be an animal eating it's food than it is to be a kid eating their dinner. They're little things, but it's made all the difference in the world!

Tasty Toes

 There's no doubt about it....this little girl loves her toes! And I love her squishy chub.  :)

Yum!

Those red cheeks and chin appeared last Saturday. I'm guessing it's excema so I've been putting hydrocortisone cream on her face, which seems to help. The red spots look painful, but don't seem to bother her so I'm hoping it just clears up soon!

A Little Bit From Halloween

Emma and Matthew REALLY got into Halloween this year. It's not one of my favorite holidays, but it was fun to see them excited about it. Our Halloween decorations consisted of their school art projects and a few pumpkins scattered around....maybe next year we'll do better.  :)  

The Saturday before Halloween we carved our pumpkin. Emma chose the design. She actually filled several pages of a notebook with different design options. It was really cute. After the pumpkin was carved, Jon put a jar of dry ice in it, which the kids thought was super cool.

Saturday night we went to our church Halloween party. There were lots of fun games, friends, and of course candy.

It's becoming tradition for our kids to have 2 different costumes each year. So for the church party Emma was a bumble bee

Matthew was our little doctor

and Ellie was a tired little pumpkin

 On Halloween, Jon went to work, but the power went out in the morning, so he got to take the rest of the day off. Luckily, he got home right when Emma's class Halloween party was starting, so he was able to take Matthew and Ellie while I helped with the party. 

That night we went trick or treating in our neighborhood with some friends.

SO excited to go get treats!

Costume #2- the spider witch

 

 

The cutest little chicken

Our trick-or-treaters

These pictures were too cute not to post. These two are fascinated with each other.

 An hour's worth of loot! They both LOVED trick-or-treating. After he got his candy at each house, Matthew would run back to us and yell, "I need more treats!". Emma could have gone all night, but Matthew was so tired he didn't even go to the last few houses. It was a fun Halloween!