I wish to give a special Christmas thanks to the choir teacher who sent Patrick home with a recorder over the break ...
Nathan went to a bunch of effort to set up a place in the garage for Patrick to practice dribbling during the winter months. Perks of a three car garage!
Eleanor and her friend Evie had a school assignment to engineer a cupcake with a fun design for school and look, I try to be supportive and not laugh at child projects, but the googly eyes on the mushy reindeer cupcakes put me over the edge. They did it all themselves though, good kids!
I had a bit of a heart attack when I grabbed my water on my nightstand and I heard a kitty noise and a paw reached out for me. Sookie found a new sneaky spot!
Winter is tough on kitties
I miss the cuddles with all three cats but really it didn't happen all that often. At least these two are happy to snuggle upon occasion.
Paw over kitty sister!
Nathan and I tried to kill ourselves in the first full week of December by having parties and activities practically every night. Here we are at the annual steak dinner at 801 Chophouse!
The next night we went to the Lied Center in Lawrence to see Cirque Musica. We had Panera for dinner before the show and Juliet is a silly silly girl.
The best photo I could get of Bradley and Grandpa. Incidentally, Panera mac n cheese is Bradley's favorite meal in the whole wide world.
Ready for the show!
The kids loved the show but I had many heart attacks from the people dangling from their teeth at heights and some guys jumping rope on the outside of giant hamster wheels. I was mostly concerned about people dying which I know is the point of the show but the one act I really enjoyed was the giant hula hooping one so perhaps I need to switch to another form of entertainment.
Nathan's company holiday party was this week as well (of course). It was at the Nelson-Atkins museum of art and there was a special exhibition for The Great Wave while we were there! It was an extra $22/person to go see this exhibit, which was a bit annoying, but we really enjoyed getting to go see it in person.
Although fun fact: turns out it wasn't the original because there is no original. The artist drew it on rice paper and then his students would make a bunch of woodblock prints using the rice paper, which eventually disintegrated because it was so fragile. Such a unique form of art!
And of course, like the Mona Lisa, much smaller than you would expect it to be. Especially since I've seen versions of this with a cat Kraken type figure for a shower curtain.
I only lasted for about 45 minutes for real art. So it was nice, but I'm encouraging Nathan to go with one of his work buddies the next time he wants to go to a fancy art museum.
Juliet had a couple birthday parties to attend the next day. The first was for her good buddy Stella who lives just a few houses down the street.
Immediately following that she changed into pajamas for a party at her bestie Addie's house
And that night Nathan and I went on the neighborhood progressive party where we walked from house to house. Fortunately it was reasonably warm and we had a fun, festive time, although I was rather tired of parties by this point in the week. Eleanor got to babysit the neighbor girl Lilah and her sister and was paid the rather ridiculous amount of $80 for four hours of babysitting. Granted, it was from 8PM until midnight but still. Patrick and Bradley had strong reactions to this news and Eleanor was beside herself with joy.
The next day (Sunday) we had the Girl Scout Cookie Carnival. Eleanor is adorable and chose to come along even though her troop wasn't going because the event is primarily geared for little kids.
Most of our troop went. It was pretty relaxed and very fun!
The next Tuesday was band concert night. The 6th grade band did great!
I had to leave for a Girl Scout meeting but Nathan got to come for the 7th grade concert which included a pretty hilarious Santa themed performance.
We got an early Christmas present from Uncle Daniel!
He pointed out that you were supposed to be able to put a cat in the sherpa pocket, which we were delighted to test out on a Sookie who had a lot of questions for us.
Juliet likes the wearable blanket as well
During one of Juliet's birthday parties I had finally checked out a store called the Painted Tree which is a bunch of boutique shops with booths throughout the store. It was awesome and I told Nathan he should take the kids there sometime. He did and it was a very popular outing!
They somehow did not purchase this tiara!
Patrick had a day of choir performances which ended in a very cold performance at the zoo in the evening. I'm very grateful that Nathan wanted to take him.
Lots of sweet kids in choir! Hot cocoa break was happy for everyone.
Callie is the nicest
We went and saw the high school show choir's Christmas performance and it was so good! Poor Charlie Linn is getting used to our family being at all of his performances. This time Juliet leaned over to me during one of his solos and said, "That boy is so handsome!" the next time she saw him she said, "I think I'm in love!" I was rather surprised because every time Eleanor says the word "boy" at home I respond with an instant "gross" so it's not like we've been encouraging Juliet to go out and find a boyfriend. I AM trying to become a better person in the new year, especially since I have boy children and I should probably stop saying boys are gross. But have you met little boys? I'm not wrong.
After running around all over the place the girls' happiest December morning was when we went to McLain's and preordered or Christmas morning pastries. We got a couple pastries while we were there and discovered that a screamy whiny Juliet can be cured with a cinnamon roll, even if she's already had breakfast.
Meanwhile, Patrick had five hours of basketball. I think it was just three games but it took up most of Saturday.
Patrick earned MVP for his team for the day!
And they made it back home in time for our big cookie swap party!
This was perhaps our best year yet. So much fun. I had "real" prizes this year and the proud winners of the splatypus were the Odegaards with a variety of delicious truffles.
The Clouds got second!
And we discovered while counting votes that my gingerbread brownies had somehow gotten third! I whispered to Nathan that I couldn't win so we gave the third place price to the next highest vote count, which was Theresa. It turns out that it was really good I did this because Patrick later informed me that he had used all three of his votes for me, which was legal, but then someone gave him another three votes to cast and he used them all on me again. I was only ahead of Theresa by two votes so hers was the rightful victory.
Juliet had also put all of her votes on me - the youngest two are quite loyal. And like winning.
The winners! But really everyone was a winner and went home with a bunch of cookies.
Bradley has been volunteering in the church nursery with Nathan once per month and there's a little special needs boy in there who absolutely adores Bradley.
Someone gave Juliet fancy Christmas nails and I have to say, I'm okay with a lot of things but long nails on my little girl is a little weird feeling. I'm glad she already lost a couple of them.
We went caroling with Juliet's Girl Scout troop. It was a bit of chaos but it was so cute! They only sang Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. They never actually got through Jingle Bells and Rudolph took a bit of parental assistance.
The Schlagel's! We didn't know that our friends from church lived next door to one of our Girl Scout families.
I think we ended up singing at about 8 houses. I had us stop when the girls were tiring on singing the songs and were fighting over who would ring the doorbells. Time for hot cocoa!
They were very happy about the cocoa. Eleanor came too! Eventually she might not come to every Girl Scout event but it's pretty nice right now.
Patrick had his piano recital and was very good although he could have dialed down the hamming up of everything.
A little bow at the end
Juliet and Patrick had their class winter parties before the break!
Juliet and Addie are so cute together.
I helped with Patrick's party and this was the only photo I took. So lovely. Here he is with Emily Ramthum, my friend's daughter.
Boy picture on the way out to the parking lot. Patrick did baseball with at least one of these boys - I can't really keep all of his friends straight. He loves everybody.
To start off winter break all the kids but Bradley went over to my parents' house to decorate some Christmas cookies!
It's so lovely that Juliet is convince my dad to do angry photo faces with her
Meanwhile Bradley was watching Christmas movies with Nathan and Callie. Die Hard was a big hit!
We did Pinstripes brunch with Santa the next morning! It was delicious and relaxed and so much fun.
This is my darling little girl, oh yes.
Playing NY Times games
And then on Sunday we had the Christmas program at church! I ended up running this because otherwise they would have canceled it. It was a very relaxed program, which was quite nice. And we had very good participation!
There were a total of seven lines and I think five songs, all of which were just the first verse of the song. But you could hear the kids singing and they were all proud to perform! Afterwards we had older kids play instruments while people had lemonade and cookies and chatted. Eleanor played her flute, the pastor's daughter played her viola, and one of the other girls played trumpet with her dad. It was lovely!
The weather was so nice and I was able to talk Eleanor into going on an adventure walk with me. We found a swing!
And we found an animal skull. Great success.
The next day Patrick and I decided to do the same walk and we found the swing but we couldn't find the skull. It was also a lot muddier, which made the part where we jump over the river inlet a bit more exciting.
Evening show! Callie was happy to smooch on Patrick. She loves adventure walks.
On Christmas Eve it was reasonably warm so I talked everyone into a walk out to the Wilderness Science Center park.
We let the boys play a Pokemon game on the walk. Preserving the peace even when it kills me a little.
It's so fun to climb the rocky hill. Juliet did it this time and was so proud!
The kids climbed all over the place. So much fun!
Nathan had never been out here before so it was nice to show him what I've talked about a bunch.
We didn't know it at the time but we're pretty sure Patrick got poison ivy out here somewhere. Delightful.
Juliet is so cute and naughty
We cleaned up for the Christmas Eve service at church
Eleanor made everyone special hot cocoa for their dessert that night.
Christmas morning!
Christmas love for everyone!
Juliet wept on Christmas Eve when I tried to get her to wear her Mrs. Claus jammies that she had loved until that night. Fortunately, Eleanor had decided she didn't want her fleece Santa dress anymore and Juliet deemed that acceptable. Here she is unwrapping her birth stone necklace she had been talking about nonstop for about a month. I have no idea why she decided she needed this necklace, she never wears necklaces. It's cute though!
Christmas joy
More Christmas joy!
We had fun playing Bingo with my parents. There were fun prizes!
I made the mistake of going on a walk with Nathan and the boys and all three of them played Pokemon the entire time.
Meg has been enjoying cozy time with both Bradley and Eleanor.
We went ice skating at the new Bluhawk sports complex!
We took Eleanor's friend Malia who had never been ice skating before. She had fun though!
Bradley didn't want to ice skate and instead we played the coolest virtual reality game I've ever seen. We did let Patrick have a turn.
Nathan left with all the kids besides Eleanor and Malia. I was impressed with how long they did the ice skating and then we tried the little zipline ride around the place.
Cozy time with a kitty afterwards!
Patrick went to Costco with Nathan and got to have yummy lunch!
Kitty scarf!
Meg has been getting more and more affectionate around Bradley. He is quite proud.
Our neighbor girl had to check whether or not she had a cat allergy so we literally had her come over and rub her face all over our cats. It seems to have worked out because she got a kitten!
More proud Bradley
I got to try a hot sauce a friend made. It was pretty good!
And we talked Patrick into trying it. He survived!
Juliet is so so pretty
Bradley had been having a rather tough evening until Juliet decided it was smoochy time. It's amazing how that perked him right up.
By this point we had figured out that Patrick had poison ivy and no one but me would sit by him. Poor kid!
Juliet had another birthday party to attend.
It was Moana themed and it was rather adorable.
Patrick got to go to a rock climbing birthday party at ROKC
Then the kids went over to our neighbor's house for much of the rest of winter break - at least the bit where we were in town. They are fancy and had gotten a VR headset for Christmas and apparently it's the coolest thing ever.
Eleanor decided it was time for quality time with neighbors.
Patrick too
Bradley had a fun sleepover with grandparents and watched a bunch of Murder She Wrote. It's heartwarming to me that the same show I watched as a kid with my grandparents is what my kids now watch with their grandparents.
These two asked for a photo of them being pretty and it's so accurate.
Juliet came downstairs later and Nathan was delighted to see her in a Seahawks dress. It seemed a bit small though and we told her she needed to change into something more comfy to sleep in. She started crying and talking about how hard it had been to get on so we checked the label to see what size it was ... it was 12 month.
She had traded in her 10T dress from earlier for 12M. Fortunately, we have a 4T version of this dress which a much happier trade. I have no idea how she got the tiny one on all by herself.
Nathan had a bunch of time off and used a couple days of vacation to make Eleanor's dream come true for a newly painted bedroom. It was light purple before this. It turned out really well!
Then we had a New Years Eve party over at the Rutherfords. Lots of our favorite people were there, it was such a nice night.
So festive!
This can of soda was the only thing Bradley cared about for the evening.
