Christmas Fun

 Christmas Eve

We kept the surprise of our visitors really well, mostly because until we knew how the weather was going to be we didn't know if they were coming. Luckily the weather was clear and they arrived midday on Christmas Eve with great joy from Claire and Shay. They instantly wanted to play games with Grandma and impatiently waited for them to unpack by setting up the game they chose. Buttercup was happy to meet Grandpa and Grandma again too, and I tried to keep her from annoying them too much. We also got to watch a Christmas movie that night and I read a story about the symbols of Christmas that they got to decorate their own trees with. The story is adapted from one my family had read when I was growing up and I actually liked it so much I printed it and handed it out with my treats this year. They both wrote a letter for Santa to thank him for coming and to enjoy the treat we left for him, then we opened one present so we could all wear our matching PJs to sleep.

Christmas

Santa left a mess on my floor with footprints, filled our stockings, left presents for everyone, and ate the girl's muffins and milk. The self-control to not open presents without everyone awake was impressive, and we opened them while breakfast was cooking. I thought it was cute that they wanted to open the presents from Santa first and then the ones they got each other. As much as I tried to slow them down so they can remember who gave them each present, they still forgot by the time it was all over, luckily I have a pretty good memory about most of them. I asked Shay what her favorite was and she said her new kittycorn squishmellow, and Claire said all of them. Classic indecisive Claire...the morning was mostly spent playing together and then we had a wonderful late lunch of turkey, ham, dutch oven potatoes, gravy, and salad. It was super tasty and I'm going to make Chris make those potatoes again! 

The Week

We have had a lot of free play time during the day with their new toys, but they still ask to watch movies so I can tell them they have to finish their homework and reading. We only missed out on Christmas so I don't feel too bad. It got rainy this week so going for our walks has been wet and cold, but I'm working on getting over my own discomfort because all the kids and puppy enjoy it so much. We had a swim class on Friday, enjoyed the water since we didn't have to rush there or home, and the girls like to work out with me...or get in my way while I'm working out, however you want to see it. I love the joy they have this week, but they are also getting into very little fights where they have to hate each other for a minute before figuring it out. It isn't fun to hear them be so mad and yell, but they can work it out really quickly. Shay has already asked if she gets to go back to school tomorrow because she wants to wear her new socks, she wore them with shorts to say she is opening her hair salon thought and it looked adorable.

Caroling, Dressing up, and Santa

 Adrian

He is such a chill happy baby as long as there are things to look at and he isn't hungry. He came along while we went caroling in the neighborhood with our friends and I made sure he was bundled up nice and warm in his stroller. He also met Santa! He was getting bored just waiting in line so when I put him up on the lap facing away from the stranger he was confused and kept wanting to turn around to look at him. So I didn't get a picture with him looking at me because I didn't want to take too much time and the girls already wanted to run off and get cookies. He is very splashing during bath time now so I've put up a curtain to try and protect myself, I think it only started because he now has a fun game that is throwing toys and food over the edge of his seat and if I don't put them back he has to find something else to do.

Claire

We had a lot of fun this week dressing up for Christmas spirit week at school and I was terrible at getting pictures so you just have to imagine that they are fun. Monday was green or red day, Tuesday was Christmas hat day, Wednesday was fancy (or PJs for Shay's class), Thursday was ugly sweater day, and Friday was PJ day. Claire had her first Activity Girls night this Thursday to introduce her because she joins next year and luckily we have our neighbors in too so we can carpool when my life is a little crazy. I helped out this week by making the little angel sugar cookies they were decorating, but they also made an ornament, and a baby Jesus in a manger. Shay was jealous she didn't get to go so instead we watched a movie together and cuddled after she got one of the extra cookies. Friday was the last day of school this year and Claire said they watched Polar Express, ate treats, made an elf ornament, and a 2025 calander.

Shay

Shay was crazy excited to see her best friend when we went to the Santa and cookies night at their school and that made her extra crazy. It was fun to see she has her own friends that are excited to see her too and that they get along and play together. She had two parties in her class at school for some reason, one was a mug exchange party on Wednesday, sadly her mug broke while she was on the bus becasue she takes out her stuff to look at...I was able to glue it together so she can at least still have it, even if we don't drink out of it. She came home from her last day with an ornament with a string with her height, a upside down ice cream cone tree, and did a lot of fun activities. I like that they are making happy memories.

Sunday Music

I am so mad at myself for not getting a family picture in front of our Christmas tree before we went to church! I spent so long curling all the girls hair in my 'salon' doing make up, bought them pretty matching dresses and we all looked so good. Of course I also had a lot going on because my calling is music coordinator and I was in charge of the Sacrament Christmas music program. I am very happy with how it went and got many people saying how wonderful it was. Luckily I also have my husband I can ask about the negative parts and trust him to be honest! Now I have critics to help next time and I made it a good program for the members of our ward as well. We have many talented people help out so we could have instrumental music (including cello, violin, piano, oboe, and flute) playing while the narrations were being read with songs people know well from the hymn book. We had the choir do a hard song of my favorite song O Come O Come Emmanuel, the primary do a beautiful version of Away in A Manger, a talented duet of O Holy Night, and then another choir song with a small group of children close us out with Picture a Christmas. I was too busy to know if there were any tears out there in the crowd though.

Christmastime Fun

 Adrian

I worked on keeping everyone in the house from getting sick because Shay was coughing and started showing signs early this past week. Unfortunately, I think it was inevitable because Claire got sick then Adrian and Chris started getting a little and now I'm just waiting and dreading my turn. Luckily, he is still mostly a happy boy and just seems to be tired more often and needs a little more sleep, but doesn't sleep very long because he gets uncomfortable. He was happy hanging out with Daddy when I was throwing a Christmas Puzzle party on Friday, and he still sleeps well at night for the most part. Hopefully, it doesn't get too much worse before it gets better! I'm starting to think he is just going to skip crawling because he still hasn't gotten it yet and will push himself backward instead of getting up on his knees to go forward. He also practiced standing at the baby table playing music for a while and had good balance all by himself!

Claire

Despite the spreading virus in our house, we had some fun holiday traditions and decorated cookies Sunday morning for when we go caroling around the neighborhood tomorrow. I'm the one decorating the cookies that will be handed out, but I gave the girls their own cookies to decorate, and then all the leftover frosting went towards our gingerbread houses we did after dinner. I keep seeing fun Christmas things at the store when I'm shopping and then buy them...oops! But these window stickers that can be rearranged will work for more than just this year and should give us a few years of fun. 

Shay

Her cookies were very heavy laidened with frosting and I smoothed out the tree so she could add color, but still ended up piled on. She was on a dress-up kick for the weekend and ended up wearing a scrambled princess costume for our movie date. I took them out to see Moana 2 for a girl's date and now Shay asks to see it again even though I've explained it's not available at home yet. No amount of logical explanation will convince her to stop asking...I think she loves skirts and just wishes it was summer again so she could have all the ones back that I've put away for the winter. Anytime she has seen one she puts it on. It does seem like time is moving fast and it is already almost Christmas! I hope I'm ready...

Thanksgiving and Decorating

 Adrian

We were traveling last week so I didn't get a chance to write, but we had a fun Thanksgiving with family over the weekend. Adrian did a lot of playing with cousins and enjoyed the attention but he was a little overwhelmed with so many new faces and was concerned when I would leave the room and not bring him with. It wasn't a big fit unless he was already cranky, but he definitely had some concerned sounds if he watched me walk away. I didn't get to feel very helpful with cooking because I brought food that was already cooked, good planning since Adrian didn't like the idea of me leaving him behind and he couldn't follow like his similar-aged cousin. I was hoping seeing another baby crawl would get him going, but he still resists it and would rather complain until he gets what he wants. Maybe before Christmas! And most likely because he will see all the pretty presents under the tree and want to play with them.

Claire

She is infectiously excited for Christmas wanting to eat her advent calendar chocolates before breakfast and touch every Christmas decoration before we decide where it goes. I wish I wasn't as controlling so I would let her have what she wants...but luckily she gets distracted easily for now. I do remember all my memories helping my mom so I can work on letting them help out in the future! We did get to do some fun crafts because Shay had a homework project decorating a tree with anything and Claire wanted one too, I even made it so they could stand up. They also liked visiting the park when Daddy had his day off for Thanksgiving and wanted to help Shay practice her bike riding. And then yesterday we got our tree and decorated it! First year of having a real tree and getting the beautiful smell in our house. Claire made sure to pick all the ornaments she wanted to put on before we went and had them separated so no one could do them but her.

Shay

We watched a puppet show she put on at the library when we went and had Adrian sit in a chair was cute. She also always asks me what I'm cooking when I'm in the kitchen now that I've been making some treats like pies, chocolate-covered cherries, and the chocolate strawberries with the leftover chocolate I had. It is mostly just getting to lick the spoons, but it is nice they want to help. My biggest ask is to play with Adrian so I can cook without him getting sad and impatient with me. She is good at that job though and does a good job making him laugh because she is a goofy sweet girl. She is doing so much better at school and doesn't need a star page sent home every day to tell me if she has been good. I hope she never has to go back to that and is the sweet girl 100% of the time from now on!

New beds and More Fun

 Adrian

He is a little picky with what he wants to eat and will avoid the foods he doesn't want and more of those end up on the floor than the foods he likes. He does love his fruits though and has tried most of the common ones now and picks fruit over other things in front of him. I think I need to be more creative though because I'm already giving him foods I know he has liked and making it a habit like I do with the girls. This week will be fun because Thanksgiving has a few unique foods he hasn't had yet that might interest him. He helped me get Chris's car to get an oil change so we are ready to visit family this weekend and he didn't like just sitting in his seat so he sat in the front with me. I also got a fun moment of him playing with Buttercup because she puts her toy down for him to throw and he holds onto it and loves that she looks at him while he has her toy.

Claire

She had a birthday party for a classmate at Wahzoo, which is a place with an arcade, rides, ropes course, bowling, laser tag, etc. There was so much to do and she was all over the place, which was a little crazy because of how many people were there. She had tons of fun, earned some prizes, and wants to go back because she wants Shay to try the bumper cars and the laser maze. It is right next to the Roaring Springs Water Park so next summer we might do a day to do it all if we have family in town. This week they also got new beds! We got the mattresses handed down and then ordered loft beds so they have little 'rooms' underneath by hanging sheets from the frame. I'm sure being organized will come with time but the desks constantly have paper, books, and toys all over them and aren't used as desks yet. But at least they will have them in the future and we can add lamps and chairs when they need them. I had a long day setting up the beds before they got home so it would be ready and did the first half during Adrian's morning nap and a little while he played in the hallway then finished at his second nap.

Shay

While Claire was at her party, Shay and Daddy went on a date! She planned three things on a list and was secretive about it because she didn't want Claire or me to know what they were doing. They went for ice cream, watched a movie, and had popcorn. I was told that she had fun controlling Daddy's time and picking the date activities because she picked Moana as the movie and he doesn't watch that often. It makes me think that in the next couple of weeks, we should go on a date to see Moana 2 in theaters with the girls! It might end up being a girl's night out because Chris wouldn't care for the movie or want to pay to see it, but the girls would think it was cool to go to the big screen. You can see her dressed up as a kitty because they still love playing with all their dress-up costumes, even in public!

First Weeks of November

Adrian

He has fun games that make him happy like 'throw things that someone gives me as far as I can', and one daddy played last night called 'try to bite the daddy's finger off before he can get away'. He had a pretty delighted giggle when Chris offered up his finger as a sacrifice instead of Adrian having to hold on to it, but Daddy was pretty quick and only got a bit a few times. Everyone who sees him when we are out and about falls in love and he smiles and flirts like crazy. He is getting some little bug that is causing buggers that I want to get out of his nose, but he hates me touching it now and gets super mad. All I want to do is help! I'm starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of being a mom of a newborn again because he had a normal schedule most days, but there are other times that I'm not so sure. Luckily since he is a happy boy 90% of the time I think things are pretty good.

Shay

As you heard in the video with Adrian, we were at the dentist this week and that was Shay in the background talking about her school. She likes answering questions about her life and is always extra excited to see her teacher at church. We even hired her teacher's daughter to babysit them when we went to the temple last week and she lost her mind when telling us who her babysitter was. Last Saturday we also went on a family date to BWW and then ice cream which was a fun time even though we need to find a closer favorite wing place because the drive is so long! The girls now ask if are we there yet when we are driving anywhere longer than 10 minutes. I've been trying to teach the girls grown-up things like how to wash their own hair in the bath, make their own lunches for school, poor their own milk and cereal for breakfast, and brush their own hair. When it all first started Shay took pride in doing things on her own, but Claire was resistant and I should have started a long time ago! Shay acts much more independently and is willing to do things on her own, just like me when I was younger. My parents said I used to say "I can do it all by myself" but I don't remember that, I wonder how much the girls will remember. I put sparkles on some food that Shay didn't like to make it 'fairy food' and it worked for the first bite, then she said she still didn't like it, but Claire ate it!

Claire

I'm starting to get a little worried about her test scores and looking for more opportunities to help her sound out words. The homework she brings home makes it seem like she should be much farther in her ability to sound out words and spell by hearing words. I wish I knew how to help her more but life is too busy and she isn't all that interested in it of course. The best system I've set up so far is making sure they both read and do homework before they get to do things they want to every day. Sometimes it is playing over at the neighbors, sometimes it is on the computer, but I'm good at saying "No, you haven't..." when they ask for anything. I opened a hair salon yesterday and gave the girls a little trim, then braided their hair so they could have wavy hair at church. It was fun to play pretend because then I talked with Claire about her life and found out how she sees the world. We did a craft with the fallen leaves from our trees so Chris could take them to work and hang them on his art wall!

Holidays

Life seems a little boring after all the excitement of Halloween, I've put up some lights on the house and even put our old small Christmas tree on the porch as a decoration since we plan on buying a real tree this year. Now we are in a transition between fall and winter with the decorations and I think it looks alright. It was windy the day I put it up so it gave me a lot of problems, and it seems to tip over so I need to fix that. But the girls are excited and want to play with the Christmas decorations instead of letting me use them to decorate! I haven't got all of them out yet but since I keep seeing neighbors put up pretty decorations so I want to do it. We've been planning for the holidays and hopefully can get a good time with family. Chris's job makes it difficult since he is in charge of the clinic and can't take off time on holidays without setting a bad example. We had our first snowfall this morning, it lasted about an hour before it turned into rain, but the girls were excited and took Adrian and Buttercup outside for a few minutes to let them experience it for the first time!

Happy Halloween!

Candy

Between our ward's Trunk or Treat and going around the neighborhood on Halloween, the girls got plenty of candy! We decorated our trunk with a graveyard since we were all skeletons and saw some really fun outfits and trunks when walking around. It was nice to get together with the church family and show off our make up faces while it was still light outside. It was darker on Halloween and Chris didn't get home in time to put any make up on, and the girls wore their costumes from school. Buttercup came with us around the neighborhood and even got a treat from one of the neighbors which was a fun surprise. I saw a few other dogs going around the neighborhood and she was able to stay close to me because I had her on a very short leash just in case she got too excited. She still likes to jump up when she thinks someone wants to play and people running around is playtime.

Costumes

We had a family costume for our Monday night together even though Chris came straight from work and didn't change to match us since we was sitting at the car cuddling with Adrian as soon as he showed up. I let the girls have their own costumes for their school day and they just stayed in them instead of switching after. Shay was a witch and the only hard part was to figure out the hat, but we used a little decoration glued to a head band. Claire was Wonder Woman which I thought we had a costume, but it wasn't in their costume tote so I threw it together the night before with some fabric adhesive after cutting out the symbol and stars. I think everything turned out great and I'm sure the actual costume will show up eventually, and I didn't see another Wonder Woman during the whole school parade. I didn't get pictures because they only went around the track twice, last year they went around at least 4 times! I let Adrian wear a very warm monster costume that won't fit him by next year so might as well wear it at least once.

More Celebrating

Shay brought a lot of fun things home from her school's Halloween party, Claire had fun but was just excited about the movie they watched. Since they now love Hocus Pocus, they were very excited to see people at school dressed as the Sanderson Sisters! They had spirit days and for Wednesday I got a cute picture with the 70s Ghostbuster theme because I put ghosts in their hair that they were super excited about. For Halloween, we had little mummy pizzas because I thought it would be an easy meal Chris could eat quick, and it was fun. On Friday, our ward celebrated the Day of the Dead with a dinner and we brought pictures of our Grandparents who are up in heaven. Claire was most excited about her Grandma Twila because she recognized the name, but my name sake was exciting too. Lastly, we went to the library for the first time since school started because I was driving and picking them up from school this past week.