New Years

Winter break continued after Christmas with a whole lot of nothing to do.

What there was to do was a lot of Lego building and video game playing.

Bello!

And, well, when they were not occupied with video games or Legos, they built houses out of blankets.....

....or excavated for precious stones.

New Years Eve was fast approaching and so was Katie's stomach virus.

It made its way through everyone else in the family.  Yay.

It was pretty blucky.

I picked it up the day before New Years Eve.

I resigned myself to sitting on my bathroom floor for a bit that day.

Katie would come in to check on me every once in a while.

As I was laying on the floor, she would sit next to me and run her hand through my hair.

She also spoke softly to me reminding me that it would get better and saying things like,

"I knoooooow you're not gonna be happy about this......but, you're gonna have to eat things like bananas, toast and rice until you get better.  No milk for you!  It will mess up your tummy."

She also drew this picture of me and her with a giant rose.

Sigh.

It's moments like these that make me think that I must not be

TOTALLY screwing up my kids.

And then it was New Years Eve.

It was Huzbends turn to be sick, so we stayed away from society that evening.

Katie made it to midnight.  No problem.

Mikey made it 'till about 11:50 and then started nodding off.

He was SO close.

Oh well.

Here's us at about 11:57pm.

The ball!  The ball is dropping, Mikey!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz............

To compliment the pajamas he received for Christmas, Thor got his very own New Years Day present - Mjolnir.

As he likes to remind us, ONLY Thor can lift it.

He tests us all the time.

"Can YOU lift Mjolnir?  No.  You can't."

Huzbend had to go back to work after New Years Day.

I decided we would immerse ourselves in American Girl Doll culture.

We headed to the store for a doll ear piercing appointment and Afternoon Tea.

Katie was ecstatic.

Mike enjoyed making spoon weapons.

Tea was cute.

It was $12 per person and you got a beverage of choice (we picked hot chocolate) and this tray of goodies for each person.

They were also able to accommodate our food allergies.

I awoke one morning to find that Mikey had come down before anyone else to grab himself breakfast.

Breakfast that he then got all over the couch and promptly fell asleep on top of.

It was the cutest thing.

I meant Mikey.  Not the squished breakfast bar.

In our house we have to take pictures of cute or weird looking food.

I don't have a choice.

I show the kids something and they yell, "TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!!"

I've got a million such photos.

This is a yogurt top smily face.

Vacation was about to come to an end.

The kids did a good job of not killing each other.

Here is one such moment.

They wrote a book together about a character Mikey created called, "Binky Superhero".

Mikey drew the pictures and Katie wrote the story as dictated by Mikey.

Katie's self-published stories about Sara the Elf always have fantastical elements and mystery.

Mikey's have a lot of fighting and walking to castles.

At one point, Binky Superhero, "froze a guy in half!".

Whoa!

It's Christmas 2013

It was quite the party atmosphere around here leading up to Christmas.

Here's Mikey busting some moves to his (still) favorite song.....

As a treat for all you loyal readers, the rest of this entry will be written by my guest blogger.....

KATIE.

Take it away, kid!!!!

Hello, people! (giggle)

I'm gonna write this thing! (giggle)

Here is making gingerbread cookies.

We cut out the dough....blah, blah, blah....

Okay.  Now we baked them.

Okay.  Well, it took, like, almost an hour to cook them.

Well, that's what Mikey thought.

And here are our gingerbread cookies all baked and frosted.

I know one of them looks kinda silly.  Well, guess who made it?

I did.

And it splatted on the counter and his foot came off and I got to eat his foot.

And some of them are ninjas from Ninjago, zombies, angels, candy canes, Christmas trees, a plain cookie, reindeer, unicorn, a star, Lord Garmadon, a teddy bear and that's about it.

And here is our Christmas tree.

I know it looks kinda pretty.

And here is it on Christmas.

And there's lots of presents.

And here's the morning of Christmas.

I know you're probably tempted to open all those presents because they have pretty good stuff in them.

I'm telling you, they do!

"Ooooooh!  I got my favorite toy!"

It's not exactly my favorite toy.

All my toys are my favorite.

Here is Mikey being a silly dude.

He's yawning in this picture.

Well, he's actually "oooo"ing.

Because he has a super cool present.

And, I'm opening another present.

"Hey, it's a thing book!"

He's trying to whack something.

Well, I think he's actually shaking it.

Insert from Mikey - "Yeah.  I was trying to see if it was Legos."

Oh, cool.  Gryffindor!

Oh, no.  Slytherin.

Albus Dumbledore sent me this thing.

Okay.  Wow.  He really loves that thing.

I think it's a Spiderman Lego set.

I like legos too.

Oh.  And here he's showing it to you.

Oh.  And I got my American Girl Doll.

She looks just like me.

Okay.  Nothing else.  Down.

Opening presents video now.

Okaaaay.  We're building legos.

Come on, guys, lets get building!

And here I am, building my own.

It was hard.

I know I have crazy hair.

Here's Mikey playing legos in his Brony Hat.

A Brony.....  Oh wait.  I'm talking about a Brony Hat.

Okay.  A Brony is a boy who likes My Little Pony.

I'm licking this because it tastes so good.

I forgot to mention, it's whipped cream.

And Daddy gave it to me.

It was from his recipe for Pumpkin Mousse.

He made the Pumpkin Mousse because we were having friends over for dinner.

Here's me and my friend eating gingerbread cookies and you can see a little bit of pumpkin muffin and probably a red water bottle.

And that I painted hair today.

Not mine.  Hers.

Here is our dessert.

Here you can see the cookies that I showed you earlier.

Mikey and Logan and Mr. Tim are in this picture.

And the one above is part of my Dad's sleeve, me and Sienna.

And Mrs. Kerri is sitting there too.  And so is my mom.

Sienna, Logan, Mr. Tim and Mrs. Kerri are our friends.

Here's me with my American Girl Doll all dressed in jammies.

And her name's Ella.

She has matching pajamas.

Here's Mikey eating bar and reading a book before going to bed.

He was Thor at that time.

Next blog, I might be writing.

Wrapping up Christmas and now we're hitting New Years!

YAY!

Catch Up Before Christmas

We got back from our jaunt to Florida and it was suddenly December!

Time to break out the Lego Advent Calendar!

The first week of December was a blur of:

 - Christmas shopping and shipping

 - Various doctor appointments for Katie's eyes (she has glasses now) and tonsils (recommended she have them out)

 - Scouring the crawl space for dead rats

(Two were found.  One in a trap.  One in the insulation, quite dead and full of maggots. Fun.)

 - Mikey being sick and then puking all over the art table at preschool

Then, at the end of the week, it was time for the annual preschool holiday party.

They had an ugly sweater contest.

Here's my pals Kerri and Kerri participating.

They didn't win.

Neither did I.

Sorry, I don't have a picture of the winner.

But it was a pretty ugly sweater.

The kids got to watch Frosty the Snowman at the end of the party.

I didn't get to take many pictures as I was running around helping with stuff.

Oh well.

So it goes at the preschool holiday party.

I did win a silent auction to have our preschool teacher come babysit again.

That was awesome. 

Our friends, Gillian and Jon, invited us to a fancy Santa Brunch Buffet.

It was really fun and super delicious!

Here are the kiddos with The Man.

Getting ready to eat.

And eat.

And eat.

As usual Katie tried a little of everything we put on her plate.

But didn't eat much.

In the end, I think she ate some fruit, some ham and some rainbow colored whipped cream.

And then topped off with some Hershey kisses, and more whipped cream, and a candy cane.

NEED MORE SUGAR.

Mikey ate croissants and grapes.

Oh.  And a blue candy cane.

Despite the fact that our children ate only heaping helpings of sugar for breakfast, we really enjoyed the brunch eating about six plates of food between us.

And then on Friday, the 13th, I opened the door to pick a package up off the porch and found two kids and three adults standing out there.

They had balloons and flowers.

Turns out they were there for my 40th birthday.

Surprise!

Wish I had thought to take a picture of them standing there before they came in.

But, I think they got a picture of me looking dumbfounded in the doorway.

The kids were overjoyed.  Cousins!!!

The cousins managed to sit still for about 20 minutes to do this craft.

Other than that, it was constant craziness from Friday until Sunday night.

As it should be when cousins come calling.

One of the best parts of the weekend was going with everyone to pick out a Christmas tree.

We had missed out on any local U-Cut trees.  So, we went to a tree farm and selected a pre-cut.

Kid majority ruled and we purchased this little crooked tree.

If you were wondering what was on Katie's head, here you go.

Self applied candy cane tattoos.

While the tree was being baled and stuff, I tried to get a shot of the kids together.

Hmmm.

Good enough.

The crew - Uncle Nick, Aunt Kelly, Granma (aka Nana, LaLa), Aunt Kari,

Sophia, Katie, Joey and Mikey - made their way back to the truck after receiving the second most important part of any Christmas tree selecting trip:  candy canes.

Huzbend was already at work back at the truck.

Here is another attempt at a nice shot of "the cousins with Granma".

Hmmm.

Good enough.

I have no idea what's going on in this picture.

Candy cane cornballs.

On Sunday, Huzbend cooked up a feast.

Eggplant and chicken parmigiano with homemade sauce, pasta and bread.

In the middle of his culinary craziness, he made time for a quick jam session with the kids.

Then I got my favorite for dessert.

Apple crisp a la mode.

That would be twice in the space of a month I got apple crisp.

SCORE!

Wow!  A family picture!

With apple crisp in it!

And a decent one at that!

"Fffffffffffffffffff"

Nope.  I can't tell you what I wished for.

It was time to say goodbye.

Sigh.

What a great surprise that was.

It was nice to share our Christmas tree trip and a special birthday meal with my family.

Thanks, guys!

After the exodus of the family, it was quite quiet around here.

Huzbend was on vacation and was just hanging out.

Mikey took full advantage by cuddling with him every morning to watch his "show".

On my actual birthday, we sent Katie off to school and Mikey went to visit with his best friend while

Huzbend and I went to the movies to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

On Imax.  In 3D.  At 48fps.

Really, could this birthday get any better?!?!?!?

Alas, Katie came down with a really nasty stomach virus the day after my actual birthday.

As I write this, multiple days later, she is STILL recovering from it.

She has spent a lot of time in the bathroom; being tired, having tummy cramps, and feeling altogether blecky.

There has been one thing that's made her happy though.

Harry Potter.

Huzbend started reading her The Sorcerer's Stone.

She LOVES it.

I caught her trying to read a chapter by herself the other day.

Hooray for the boy wizard!