Messy

I. On the way home from a birthday party for one of James' classmates last night, Ruth was playing with his party favor: a clear bag with hot chocolate packets, marshmallows, and a chocolate dipped spoon. Suddenly the car started to smell a lot like hot chocolate. When we stopped and turned on the light in the car, I realized Ruth had eaten through both packets of hot chocolate and spilled the powder all over herself and the car seat. James and I started talking about our plans to clean the messy car including definitely needing to use James' vacuum now. When we got inside, and Ruthie looked at me with sad puppy dog eyes and said, "Mommy, I don't want you to vacuum me!".

II. While putting away laundry upstairs this morning, James came up to report that he'd finished cleaning up breakfast and that Ruth had spilled milk and dumped out the rest of the Raisin Bran. I came down to find Ruth, pants on inside out and backwards, hair and face a mess, standing on a chair in front of a pile of Raisin Bran on the table. She was holding the bag with one hand and using the other to alternate putting handfuls of cereal into her mouth and into the bag. Between each handful she said, "I'm cleaning it up, Mommy, I'm cleaning it up with myself!".

Good thing James is still really enthusiastic about using his vacuum!

Christmas!!

Before

I really want to make these for my kids, but this year they were gifts to go with a toy kitchen we got for Nicole's kids and the toy kitchen Ethan got for his birthday from my dad. My kids just got to be the models.

 James loving the decorations

 Ruth too:

 the Monday before Christmas we had 2 families and the missionaries over. We reenacted the Nativity, had yummy desserts, and listened to a devotional by the missionaries. Thanks everyone for filling in the cast and making this such a fun night for us. 

(James as Joseph, Megan as Mary, Cameron as the donkey)

 practicing new hair dos. This day she let me blow dry and flat iron her hair, but the headband only lasted about 5 minutes and after nap time the whole thing was a mess *sigh*. Darn mullet.

 Change in plans: Christmas...in NJ!

So the plan was to stay home for Christmas and have Dan's parents join us here. On Wednesday afternoon while I was out shopping for our Christmas meal, I called Andrea to see if they had left yet for their drive and found out that she wasn't feeling well enough to travel! They were hoping she might feel better in time to come on Christmas Eve, but we could tell they weren't 100% sure, plus we wanted all day Christmas Eve for festivities as well.

Around noon we decided we would take Christmas to NJ and by 3 we were packed up and on the road (with strict instructions to James that any gifts he saw when peeking in the trunk would be given to another little boy).

We spent Thursday and Friday shopping for the food items we hadn't packed and brought with us, finishing our wrapping, and just hanging out. Friday night we went to an annual Christmas Eve party a member of Dan's ward throws and got to see a lot of old friends. We pushed back our nice Christmas Eve dinner so we could attend.

When we got home, James sprinkled a mixture of crunched up cereal and glitter on the lawn to lure the reindeer. He was very serious and methodical about it. It was so fun seeing him really get into Christmas and Santa this year. He was sure he saw Santa's sleigh in the sky when we were going in!

S

 Christmas morning, waiting for Grammy and Grampy to be ready to go downstairs. Both kids were anxious for gifts, Ruth was a little less polite about it. When Grammy finally came out James yelled, "Grammy!" and Ruth yelled, "Presents!!".

 JJ made this mask in preschool and had been asking for days if he could wear it and hand out the gifts from under the tree.

 the haul. As usual, our kids were very well loved this Christmas! Notice the popcorn strings we made and the paper ornaments Grammy I mean the elves made for the tree since it was so last minute that Christmas was going to be there and all the decorations were still in the attic!

Santa brought sleds. After all the hype and excitement about Santa coming, the sleds were quickly overlooked for everything else! Plus, there was no snow in NJ.

 stockings made by a family friend, Robin. Thanks!

 Of course the first stop was the trampoline from my dad and his wife Dianne.Ruth stayed on for quite awhile until we reminded her about the rest of the gifts.

 tea set from Joe and Lauren. We tried to play with each gift a little as we opened it so the kids actually grasped what was going on instead of just tossing boxes aside and going for the next one. I think it really made it fun. Joe and Lauren also got the kids a new Wii game and an awesome airplane book for James that actually has a track and a toy airplane in it!

 I got spoiled too! Dan's parents got me a new helmet, water bottle, padded bike shorts, running tights, and running hoodie. I am all equipped to stay in shape this year! The tights are especially great too since I totally biffed it on my run there on Friday and tore through 2 layers of pants (including my nice under armour running thermals) and my knee. Sad. I'll go ahead and spoil the surprise and tell you that later in the weekend I get some new clinique make up from my mom (yay!). I could've used it for these pics!

  

Now you may think its weird, but James really did want a hand vac for Christmas. We even found this top rated one being sold for half price on craigslist still new in the box! I think Dan's parents were skeptical, but James was anxious to keep every speck vacuumed all weekend! He really loves it!

 "It's what I've been wishing for!" It is fun seeing James be a "real kid" for Christmas. He saw this toy in a catalog months ago and insisted I keep the catalog so I would remember he wanted it. The main reason he wanted to see Toy Story 3 in the first place was to find out how the toy worked. Dan's parents got it for him for Christmas and James was thrilled.

 both kids got sit-on bouncy balls. Ruth had a hard time deciding which to use to get out all her endless bounciness. Seriously, this girl is 20% springs.

 stockings! They got some cute hats and gloves from my Grammy, slinkies from us (James recognized it right away as something he was allowed to throw down the stairs since that is a problem in our house with other toys), some candy, and trains from Ethan.

 They also both got flying turtles. You propel these by swinging your arms back and forth. James was surprisingly good at it and not as afraid as with his bike because he was already so close to the ground!

 took her awhile, but she figured it out!

 first thing he did after lunch and dinner was find his vacuum and start cleaning!

 appetizers before dinner (yes, still in their jammies)

For dinner we had prime rib, shrimp cocktail, twice baked potatoes, asparagus, carrots, challah bread, homemade mac and cheese, and a giant chocolate Costco cake. yum!

What a great Christmas!

Sunday we headed out after church in a snowstorm and thankfully got around it a couple hours into our drive. We had told the kids that they would have more gifts at home since my mom and Nicole's arrived after our unexpected departure. As soon as we got off the highway, Ruth started whining and begging for more presents so we did it when we got home.

My mom got the MarioCart game for our Wii for James and Dan who were both really excited. James also got a whole collection of Sunday movies and activities (per his request), some build-it yourself cars, a flashlight, a magnifying glass, am I forgetting anything? Ruthie got a new baby with hair, shoes, changeable outfits, a diaper bag equipped with bottles and hair clips! She was so happy and resented that I wouldn't let her sleep with the baby and the diaper bag.

 Nicole sent the kids Toy Story 3 the movie, a whole collection of Toy Story 3 action figures, Buzz Light Year jammies, a Jessie shirt and boots for Ruth, a dolly from the movie for Ruth...am I forgetting anything? Again, this makes it seem more like a real Christmas with a child old enough to be really excited about the latest movie and its merchandise! Oh, and Nicole got us a tiny handheld waterproof video camera! I am so excited to test it out! It's smaller than my point and shoot camera! Thanks, Nicole!

Holidays

So these first photos are just a little late in coming, but at least I did them eventually (now that I am all caught up with other people's photos)!

Halloween is actually one of Dan's favorite holidays, largely because he just loves Fall festivities. He especially loves corn mazes. Some friends told us about a huge corn maze about 40 minutes from us. I took a whole Saturday off from photography (in October which is busy season!) just for Dan. Aren't I wonderful? Haha. Anyway, we did some other things too, but we met up with some friends at this corn maze.

 happy to be with daddy

We were so impressed with ourselves with our finish time. They had people talk into a mic as they left the maze and while we were wandering we kept hearing times like 2 hours, 1.5 hours, etc and we did it in 45 minutes unassisted! Well, except by my genius. The only call I ever dared to make ended up being the way out! And Dan doubted me and thought he was such the King of corn mazes :) Admittedly, he is much better at it than I am. Those flags are team flags you carry through with you and you can wave them to communicate with the employees on the towers if you're lost.

 giant pillow. This would be so fun if I wasn't terrified of falling on my children. I only had about 5% control over my own balance. Hence my face in this picture. James was a little wary at times, but enjoyed it. Ruth was all about it. No concept of consequences. Heck, even after jumping off something hurts her, she still thinks its worth doing again.

 Most the games were old and homemade, but were actually really fun. In this one, you pumped a water pump to race rubber duckies.

 Isn't she adorable? Grow back, hair, grow back!

 best of friends

This weekend we went to the Garden Factory where they have a little Christmas themed carnival and train display set up. My camera was telling me it didn't have a memory card so some friends brought one for me later and then when I opened it, my camera just wasn't registering the card and I had one all along so I don't have pictures of anything but Santa.

James was all ready to sit on Santa's lap and ask for a saucer sled. Ruthie didn't "want to sit on his lap. I want to stand on the ground". And stand she did.

 This was a great Santa. He even brought out a book to help get Ruthie close enough to hopefully get a picture good enough for us to pay for :) I'm glad they let us take our own photos!

I'm so glad they have each other. Definitely the best gift we can give them is each other!

Fair warning

Its time for a nap Ruthie.

No I want to play for awhile.

I know but its time for your nap.

I don't want to. I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna cry in my room.
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

You don't hear that everyday

After over an hour of playing outside in the snow with the kids, I told them it was time to head in. Just at that moment Ruth's gloves fell off, again, and for some reason she kept grabbing snow. No big surprise, she started screaming about her hands being cold and wanting her gloves and wanting to go inside. We trucked inside and started the long process of de-robing and putting everything on hooks and in baskets. She continued to cry and as I got her final pieces of gear off she stopped, looked at me, and whimpered, "I want to take a nap." I asked if she wanted to eat some lunch first. "No, I just want to take a nap". I carried her up and she cuddled under her quilt and went straight to sleep. What a sweetie.

So suppressive!

Seemingly out of nowhere, in the past few weeks James has started to read! We've played words games with him about letters and sounds and when I read books I occasionally have him try to find a word that I have read, but I didn't realize how many words he had picked up! He knows tons of words, mostly by sight and context, but he is also getting better at sounding words out. And to top it off, he actually likes it.


Anyway, on to the funny story. James was reading a book to Ruthie tonight (with my help on the hard words) and I commented on how great he was doing. Dan is working late tonight so James said, "Yeah! If Daddy was here, he would be so...suppressed!".

Snow!

 I'm a little behind. These pictures are from last week after our first really big snow. We were supposed to just be running an errand, but got distracted, otherwise my kids would be in snow pants.

 We use our picnic table as a measurement of how much non-drifted, non-plowed snow we've gotten. All of this melted this weekend and has now been replaced. Our picnic table has a pile about half this height now,  but the snow is still coming strong!

 playing with Winter photography. the last vestiges of Fall.

An Optics Christmas

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus...

 At the 2nd of 3 Optics related Christmas parties we've attended in the last week or so, Dan got to dress up as Santa and  hand out joke gifts he'd bought and made for the 6th year students in the program.

 I prepped Ruthie and told her Daddy would be dressed up like Santa like Halloween. 

She took a minute to check him out and said, "Daddy, you got a Santa on you!"

 For the next two days, Ruth kept asking where daddy's Santa was.

At another of the parties, they handed out these holiday specs which are pretty much the COOLEST things ever!! When you look at Christmas lights through them, each light looks like the shape associated with the particular pair of glasses. I was totally blown away. Its old news to Dan, so he's not as fascinated. Really, though, I need to find a reason to buy a pack of 50 of these next year!