We've had quite the balmy December so far and there have been far more shorts and t-shirts days than I would have anticipated.
Shorts and t-shirt Patrick demonstrating how our Christmas dinosaur likes to roar.
A reminder to family and friends: toys are fun but generally our favorite things to play with are things like stick soup.
Patrick and his best buddy Mabel went on a barefoot scooter park outing together. I brought shoes for my child but whatever Mabel does he must do. My children all like to copy their friends in all things. We're deeply fortunate they are friends with such good kids.
We started a new tradition this year with a nativity advent calendar and it has already gotten a ton of good use. Do you see all the shepherds and wise men sleeping in the picture below? The kids get really excited about whose turn it is to put up a new piece every day, this has worked so much better than the toy advent calendars I was crazy enough to try on the children this year (we're not into delayed gratification when it comes to toys that are in mystery boxes).
The other night Bradley was staring off in space after we talked about our nativity advent calendar and said "The closer we get to Christmas the closer we get to Grandma and Grandpa's deaths." Yeah, it's morbid. When Bradley thinks about something in the future along with someone he loves he takes things a bit too far forward in the timeline. It's just really good we have Jesus and heaven or I don't know what I would tell him. And what I actually said was "... that's true. The closer we get to Christmas the closer we get to everyone's deaths, not just Grandma and Grandpa's." Upon reflection, this may not have been the most comforting response.
I tell the children lots of really great things that only occasionally backfire on me. I've been telling wise and beautiful mommy stories and my latest one was after I came home from the gym and I was telling the children how Mommy would become a swamp monster if she didn't get a shower. Unfortunately for me, Patrick pronounces swamp monster "snot monster."
Sweet Patrick is really into cool accessories right now, whether they are Eleanor's stretchy headbands or the seriously cool Idaho winter hats his Aunt Tami sent us.
Standard Patrick outfit these days. He can put on his own boots so as far as I'm concerned he can wear them every day.
Eleanor loves ordering Patrick around and Patrick generally loves obeying orders so they have a pretty great relationship these days.
And all children play together like this, right?
We had a seriously fun cookie exchange party the first weekend in December and I think we ended up with 16 kids running around our house.
Fortunately, they were all sweethearts and were game for cookie decorating, pizza, shows, and lots of Bradley cuddles.
Patrick was very pleased to get to steal cuddles from some of his big brother and sister's friends.
It went surprisingly well overall. It helped a lot that it was in the mid sixties outside so we could send kids out to play on our platform swing. We'll definitely do another cookie swap next year!
And not to toot my own horn, but in addition to hosting baking events I have also been crafting with my children lately.
They really wanted to do messages in a bottle so I helped them roll up pieces of paper and rinsed out some beer bottles for them to use. Because we're nothing but classy around here.
I'm basically the new Martha Stewart. But with beer bottles and paper. The kids were SO happy, this was actually a really fun activity.
Patrick's kitty affection has not waned in the past few months. You would think they would get better at running away ...
Fat Sookie gets caught the least and we're actually encouraging Patrick to chase after her, as this is the only way she gets any exercise.
Meanwhile, Eleanor is having much better kitty success and Meg mostly tolerates her love and Layla has started seeking her out for cuddles.
I don't know why the kids mess with the cats so much. It's not like I talk about the cats all that often. Look at this new game I invented! It's called there's a yeti on my spaghetti kitty. Meg was not a fan.
Eleanor and I got to go to a Nutcracker performance last weekend when we were invited by a friend who lives down the street from us. Here's Eleanor with the younger sister of the friend who was in the performance.
It was just an hour long and it was at a nearby high school. We loved it!
Eleanor is now planning on signing up for the dance company that put on the production. So many tutu cute moments in our future!
Isn't it lucky Eleanor is cute? Her teacher came up to me in great excitement the other day to tell me that Eleanor had had such a good two or three days in a row. She had been so agreeable and participating in and cooperating with activities? Had anything changed at home? I said, no, maybe she was getting a little more sleep since we had booted her little brother from the bedroom with her and Bradley (sweet little Patrick had been waking everyone up by yelling at 6am until people woke up and played with him). I would be pleased by the positive teacher report except for a couple things: 1) It took until December for Eleanor to be agreeable at school more than one day in a row. 2) The teacher was a little too excited about this development. I'm really happy I don't see what happens in the classroom on a regular basis. This same teacher is extraordinarily nice and greets Eleanor with a big smile every day and Eleanor told me that she loved Ms. Phillips so perhaps the problem is that Eleanor feels too comfortable at school and treats the teacher like family.
Nose booping her brother - this is an angel child, yes? She hasn't kissed anyone for at least a year now. Just not into it. But nose boops are cool.
On this note. I found out that my four year old daughter has already been sent to the principal's office (in a manner of speaking). My daughter came home with a sugar cookie recipe a few weeks back which had written on it "Good job! You did it!" and a smiley face. I was rather confused but pleased that she had seemingly done something worthy of such a prize and didn't think anything of it until a week or so later when I saw class compilations of art work about things the kids were thankful for. Every child said some variation of "friends" or "family" or "Jesus" until I got to Eleanor's page which read "I love sugar cookies." I thought this was rather funny and made a comment to the teacher who gave me a funny look and said "do you not know?" It turns out that sweet Eleanor had rather not wanted to have to do some dumb thankfulness craft and had a screaming tantrum over it and had been sent to the head of the preschool's office to cool down (when I asked Eleanor about this later she reassured me by saying "don't worry, I only missed a little bit of recess"). The head of the school talked her through things and the only thing she could get Eleanor to agree to was her love of sugar cookies. Which, incidentally, I have never made. We're reeeeeeally looking forward to what Eleanor brings to the table in Kindergarten next year.
Today I came to school and saw new art. This is what Eleanor would give baby Jesus:
Naked Eleanor playing with kitchen magnets. It's too bad stripping the girl naked and having her run around isn't allowed at school, it's an instant happiness fix for all of my children when we are at home.
Nathan story about Eleanor: She and Patrick were fighting over a toy microphone and Nathan told them they each got to share and have two minute turns. Eleanor started talking back in a crabby manner "NO, I want 5 minutes!" and other general naughtiness so Nathan told her she was in time out until she said "I'm sorry." She paused and asked "How do you say sorry in Spanish?" Nathan said "lo siento" so Eleanor said "Lo SIENTO!" and marched over to Patrick who immediately and very sweetly handed her the microphone.
Patrick in action. This kid is so hilarious and fun. Note that the video ends when Eleanor decides to "help" Patrick with his hood. That did not go over so well.
And she had her Christmas Program at school this week! She was so cute!
Doesn't she look nice? That's my new necklace she stole/borrowed for the performance.
Here are a bunch of cute videos! And good news, Eleanor only fell from her spot on the risers once so we're calling it a win.
Happy Birthday Jesus (my favorite video of the bunch)
Candy Canes on a Christmas Tree (My second favorite due to excited motions)
Silent Night (lots of yawning in this one)
Jingle Bells
We Wish You a Merry Christmas!
This is how Eleanor makes her exit.
After the performance I tried to get one nice photo of Eleanor in front of a Christmas tree in the lobby.
I finally called it good after a dazzling variety of poses and facial expressions and a little girl who had been waiting for her spot in front of the tree marched up and requested that she get to take pictures with "that girl". Eleanor has a fan club, I'm not surprised.
Class picture before the performance (girl on far left doesn't do school pictures).
Then I took my kids to a science class on snowflakes at the Museum of Prairie Fire after we picked up Bradley from school. It turned out it had been a rather big day for Eleanor and she insisted on me staying in the classroom with her which meant Patrick got to sneak his way into his first Little Explorer's science class at the museum.
I don't know which brother was happier about this development.
Snowflake craft at the end! We love these classes.
I need to make Patrick pose for pictures more often because his fake smile is everything to me.
Nathan was gone on a work trip so I tried to split up the kids to minimize fights in the evening but instead everyone insisted on cramming into a tiny space together. Sometimes the love is a bit much, even for me.
But we're really excited Daddy is coming home today (he's been gone for three nights). Bradley has this crazy cool new Lego toy that my parents got him when we went to Legoland and he takes it apart and builds new dinosaurs over and over again. I'm usually too busy to be a proper audience but his daddy loves Legos and is always ready to play with him.
And Patrick wants to show Daddy how well he can put on his own clothes now. Shirt is inside out and backwards, pants are just backwards. But he does pretty well, even if he does insist on wearing a Paw Patrol Halloween shirt to Eleanor's Christmas performance.
It will be back to this before we know it! Welcome home, Daddy!
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