Category: family
-
Favorite gifts
Calico Critters family and house, Lego boom box (and the resulting endless dance party), and an American Girl doll.
-
Christmas Eve: Cookie making
I kind of forgot that Neko had her heart set on baking cookies for Santa.
I hope Santa appreciated these cookies with whole wheat flour and year-old decorations, because, um, some parents didn’t have time to go to the store and get three bonkers-excited kids in bed at a reasonable hour.
-
Christmas Eve: Museum
It’s becoming our new Christmas Eve tradition that we head to the museum. As soon as everyone is up and coffee is made, we load into the car and hit the road.
This year we had a few errands to run on the way—a box of shirts to drop off, papers to file, and a few last orders to the post office.
Then off to the holiday train display, and then some serious negotiations about what to do next. Chris came along this year, and was extremely patient as we made our way through. We got a bonus tour of Ye Old Fashioned Type Shoppe, a place where we will definitely return. A quick spin through the Egypt exhibit. And the star on the tree of our day—our favorite museum naturalist handed over her corn snake for Neko to have some serious one-on-one time.
-
Pizza night
Tom attempts professional dough throwing. Neko insists on doing every bit of it herself. Ellery uses half a bag of cheese on her pizza alone.
And Shep? He crams as many black olives in his mouth as he possibly can before we cut him off.
-
Capes! (And a long overdue thank you.)
When my uncle Keith blew into town for Farm Day, he brought with him some really wonderful gifts for the kids. Handmade capes for each of the children, crafted by my aunt Becky.
I should point out that my aunt Becky is a professional seamstress who sews costumes for a theatre company, so these weren’t just any capes. These have their initial sewed on the back with carefully detailed necks, even nicer than these ones I’ve admired online.
So Susie and I are finally getting around to saying a huge THANK YOU to Becky for all her hard work. They are gorgeous, and our superheroes are putting them to good use!
-
Decorated
It mostly went off without a hitch. There was the requisite arguing over ornaments. Ellery wanting “the one with the button!” Then when I finally con Neko into giving it to her, she threw herself to the floor wailing because it wasn’t a real button.
And why, oh, why can’t we ever find all three of the ornaments that are personalized?
But other than the few hiccups, it really felt very Christmas-y.
-
We got a tree!
December is our busiest time of year. The press is cranking non-stop, we’re shipping and printing and photographing and on and on. Needless to say, last year the days got away from us, and suddenly it was almost Christmas and we had no tree. We went one day after school on a cold and gloomy day. Hardly the holiday event I had hoped for.
This year, we were determined to get it done early. It was beautiful weather. The kids were in (mostly) good moods. We all agreed on a tree almost immediately. (We even picked one out for my parents to save them a trip.) There was even photographically documented skipping from Neko.
-
I do exist!
My friend Nancy H. took these photos when we whizzed by her house to pick up Neko after school. Their rope swing and a big pile of leaves were too much for the kids to resist, so we got out of the car for a short visit.
Nancy had her camera on hand, and took a few photos that included me…a rarity around here. It’s something I should do more often, and I should probably aim to get a few someday that actually include children that are my own.
On a completely unrelated note, the second photo shows that I am *this close* to having my dental implants completed. The last part of the post has been put in place, and all I have left is for the dentist to give me some new teeth. Yippee!
-
All seven-month-olds belong in cardboard boxes, right?
On Mondays, we watch my nephew Joe while Bonnie goes to work.
He might be a first child, but once a week he gets to live life as a fourth. (And as a third over at Susie’s house on Wednesdays.) Having to wait a bit longer to be tended to. Sometimes getting stepped over or toys stolen. And sometimes a six-year-old drags you into a cardboard box to hang out for a while.
I should also mention that the striped pants and shirt combo was my fault. They're plain blue on the other side, and somehow I flipped them inside out during a diaper change. I spent the whole afternoon thinking I needed to teach Bonnie how to match clothes. When she picked him up, her first words were, “Why are his pants inside out?”