Photo Friday-Christmas Day

As always, it was a lucrative Christmas in our household this year. As well as busy. We manage to open presents at 4 different houses in the span of 31 hours, ate countless cookies, and spread good cheer (and germs) to most of our close relatives. Here's a photo perspective of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. More photos to come....

Robbie won for the biggest present this year. It is a new train table for his new trains (and his 32 million cars...)Padyn and Katelyn...happy as can be that Christmas had finally arrived.

This was the Christmas of Lightening McQueen for Robbie. That will be a whole other blog post. But you can see here that one of his favorite presents was his LM jammies. He demanded to put them on right away. And yes....he is pushing around two LM's.

Padyn got her much needed bigger rollerblades. I don't recommend skating in fancy dresses, though.

The big hit Christmas morning was Robbie's new GeoTraks. I bought them (and two other sets) at our rummage sale this fall. We are only giving him one set at a time. Everyone loves playing with them. Daddy was particularly excited to put them together Christmas Eve after the kids were in bed.

Maybe Robbie is unhappy because he is jealous that this isn't actually his new beanie?

This is not his new headlight, either.

Kate is dashing in this wig headband from Mimi and Grandpa.

Padyn is starting softball this fall, so to prepare her, Papa got her a new bat, mitt and softball.

More photos to come late. For now, Happy Friday and Happy New Year!

My Living Room a.k.a The TB Ward

With the coming of Christmas, we also had the coming of sickness in multiple forms.

I got a touch of food poisoning Christmas evening, Robbie and Joel and I are still getting over our 2 week old coughs, Padyn started coughing on Tuesday and Katelyn came down with a fever Christmas night. Here she is two days ago...relaxing (ie sleeping) outside after her snack.
Now all 4 of us are (Joel is working) are sitting around watching Phineas and Ferb, coughing. Quite a pleasant experience.

Here's to a healthy New Year.

Christmas Carnage

Christmas puked all over my living room... ...and this is after cleaning up for about 30 minutes.

Tis the Season...

On Sunday night I created this spectacular post with witty comments and enticing captions....then blogger didn't save it. And now..., I'm too tired and lazy to try to recreate it. So instead, I'll give you the cliff notes version of the following photos.

What: Two Christmas plays at two different churches
Main Characters: Padyn and Katelyn

Why: Because it is Christmas, and variations on the nativity scene are plentiful

And now, for you viewing enjoyment, Christmas Play #1:

Lots of angels. Robbie refused to be a stable creature.

Angels, post play.

Play #2

Padyn=flower

Kate=sandpiper

Yes, yes. Sandpipers and flowers were present at the birth of Jesus. What? That's not in your bible?

See...there is Baby Jesus, among the flowers, stallions, a lion, sandpipers, and woodland creatures.

May your Christmas be filled with just as many miracles....

More Photos From Grandma's House

We spent a few days before Thanksgiving up at Grandma and Grandpa's House. We didn't have as much snow this year as last, but we did find this cool trail that we had never hiked before. There were waterfalls, red trees, a rushing river, and HUGE boulders. Something for everyone! I won't narrate each picture...you can just make up your own story.

Photo Friday-New Favorite Toy

Tonight I let Robbie play with my plastic tongs while I was cleaning up from dinner. He had been trying to climb up on the counter so I gave him the tongs as a means of distraction.

Guess what he took to bed with him?

Happy Friday.

End of a Thankful Day

So many things to be grateful for today. So many things to be grateful for everyday. It's good to have a day that forces me to put it all into perspective.

Thank you, Lord, for the abundant blessings that I do not deserve but gratefully accept.

And if I were to make a list of all those things, this would be at the top...

Happy Thanksgiving.

8 Years Old

Dear Padyn,
I can't believe you turned 8 years old today. Long gone are the days were I could rock you to sleep or pick you up and swing you around. Actually, I can still do that last one, but only at risk of injury to one of us.

I can't believe how grown up you are becoming. You certainly look more grown up. Your face it maturing and you are getting taller. You don't like to be called "cute," even though you certainly are. Would you prefer beautiful? Pretty? Adorable? All those are true. And you are much more capable and confident than you were a year ago. You read, you spell, you solve math problems, you try to help me solve problems. I'm so glad you are finally interested in doing things for yourself! And when you choose to be, you are extremely helpful, especially with your brothers. These are things I really look forward to as you grow older.

But I also fret. I worry as you get older that you will stop talking to me and telling me things. It has always been incredibly hard to get you to talk about anything, and I fear it will only get worse as you get closer to your teenage years. Already you show signs of the future years...moodiness, attitudes, crying even though you don't know why....sigh....I am so not looking forward to that. I would love to just stop time and have you stay 8 forever. In third grade. Innocent. Happy. Carefree. I know you want to grow up, but trust me. Later you will wish you could remember more of this time, enjoy it a little longer. I know I will. I pray this 9th year will be full of joy and friendship and growth and happiness and fun. I hope you know how much your Daddy and I love you. It makes me cry, you growing up. Soon you may want to have much to do with us for a bit as you can sort out who you are and what that will look like. I pray that will be a very long time from now. Until then, enjoy being 8. Be nice to your sister. Enjoy your friends. And keep giving me hugs and kisses. Keep telling us that you love us. We feel the same about you.

Love,

Mommy

Favorite Comic Strip of the Week

You can see it bigger here.

Photo Sunday-Playing with the Fishies

On Friday we headed out to the fish hatchery on the American River to watch the amazing quantities of salmon that are spawning at this time of year. And while we often visit a fish hatchery when we visit Grandma and Grandpa in Oregon, this one was humbugs in comparison. It was a bit of a different experience. Plus, I think it's the first time I've let Robbie out of his stroller to feed the fish. You can see that he thought this was the best thing since the yogurt he had earlier in the day... There were two areas with these troughs of trout and salmon, each the length of a football field. In each area there were at least twelve troughs. At one point the feeding truck came through row by row, shooting fish food into the troughs. What a scene. Between the fish leaping out of the water to get all the food and the mass quantities of children running behind the truck screaming with joy, it was pure, delightful chaos.

Then there was the extra long fish ladder. I'd seen a few fish ladders in my day, but never one this big. In this picture, we are about a third of the way up from the gate entrance on the river. What you can't see is at the top of the ladder, it makes a sharp 90 degree turn to the left and continues another considerable distance.

The kids (and their friends) could have spent a hour walking along the ladder, watching and cheering for the salmon as they made their way up stream. They were especially fascinated by the gate. Salmon packed in gate to wall, fighting for their chance to get past the gate and up the ladder. And they just seemed to keep pouring in from the river. Really amazing.While the other kids were watching the fish, Robbie spent some time enjoying the vegetation. Kooky kid.

Happy Sunday.

Photo Friday-Funderland

Thanks to the teacher in service day today (sorry, teachers, that you still needed to work today and we didn't), we had a random Friday off of school. And since it was a beautiful sunny (yet chilly) November day, we decided to take a family outing to somewhere we had never been-Funderland. Yes. That is what it is called. It's a little tiny amusement park in our state's capitol city. There are only about 9 rides. We only rode on 8...but the kids loved every minute of it.

The Octopus Ride (Padyn was too big for this one)

The Cars

Padyn as a train

The Carousel

The TrainThe Log Ride

The Airplanes

The Dragon Rollercoaster (the girls favorite)

The Tea Cups (Mommy refused to go on this one)

Happy (Fun) Friday! Hope you had as great of a day as we had.