December Post

The blog is up! I knew this month's post would be tardy since we had house guests Friday night and have been occupied preparing for and spending time with them. So fun! That will be included in next month's blog.

But . . .

Happy New Year!!

What a year! And what a December! 

Lydia helped me make this holiday message for y'all.

Since Aunt Sue had other plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas, she decided to visit Atascadero for my birthday!! We were so happy she could join us picking out our tree and decorating (among many other activities). 

I'm trying to get a tradition of watching Elf and drinking hot cocoa while decorating the tree started. It can only be mildly successful with little kids, I suppose, considering the cocoa is safer at the table and the littles aren't too good at multitasking. Are we watching a movie or decorating the tree?!

Gak is so much fun!!

We wrapped up our music class this month. We had such a great time and will miss it. Hopefully I can find a way to take just Lydia in the future. Music class isn't Everett's cup of tea anymore. Too many babies?

Our outdoor kid "helping" Dad with yardwork.

It was so hard waiting for Christmas to come!!

But come it did! 

Christmas Eve lunch we spent with Grandpa George and Grandma Kathie! 

Grandma made another fun, jingly hat for the kids; Lydia makes her new Sesame Street friends talk; Lydia learns to unwrap gifts!; Grandpa opens gifts, and Lydia got her own name puzzle!

 Opening gifts can be hard! And ultimately exhausting!

After nap, we made cookies for Santa.

After dinner, we opened gifts as a little family.

First thing in the morning (6:30 am?), Everett woke up, went into the living room (I quickly followed him to make sure he waited for the rest of us to open "Santa Gifts"), and he said, "I guess I'm not on the naughty list!" My response was, "of course you're not on the naughty list!" Oh boy, our culture and its silly songs and stories! We never once told him he needed to be worried about getting on the naughty list! Ugh. 

I didn't get any pictures from that morning, but it was fun. Their "Santa Gifts" were an old fashioned wind up lady bug (for Everett) and stacking butterfly box (for Lydia). They also got stockings full of toys and treats.

We spent basically all of Christmas Day on San Pedro. Food and presents and more food and games. My parents came over for dinner: Chicago-style pizza! Yum!

It was so nice to have Katie here.

After Christmas fun playing with toys, among empty boxes.

Siblings' toys = double toys!!

Everett got to go skating with Brian and Katie. He had a blast. But he wants to go back so he can show us all how great he actually is at it.

 Dance party in the kitchen with Katie!

One last outing with Katie before she went home. Oh wait no! Our last outing was lunch and a tour of City Hall with Rachel the next day. But we didn't get any pictures.

We look forward to Katie's next visit. 

Some quotes from Facebook: 
 
Grandma Kathie is helping Everett make a "cook book-tionary," which I gather is his word for a recipe? It's for potato soup, btw. Does this mean he might actually eat potato soup?!

Everett: Look! He has two faces, cheesed-off and regular Batman.

. . . 

A fun month and an awesome year! Welcome 2015!!

November Post

It's December already!? December's a great month! Christmas, the lead-up to Christmas, 2nd Anniversary, my BIRTHDAY! It's a big one! (no it's not)

But November was great too. Let's talk about it. 

These kids are still total goofy goobers.

And the deck is DONE!! Ok, it's not 100% done, we still need steps and lattice and sealing, but we're at a really good stopping place. I just want a few months of family weekends and a few months of not spending a single cent on that beautiful wooden structure attached to our house. 

The finishing touch before stopping, Brian built these lovely gates. So much prettier and easier than baby gates.

Popsicles and "love taps." It was way too cold for popsicles. Behind the camera I had my hoodie on, but they insisted.

We threw a deck warming party (!!) that happened to fall on Everett's half birthday, so I thought we should celebrate that a little during the party. Partly because I had some great ideas of ways to celebrate (half cupcakes, 4.5 balloons, guests bringing jokes as gifts) and partly because he had been denying that he was four-and-a-half and telling people he was just FOUR, which I thought might get a bit confusing if he approached five and was still demanding that he was just four.

Our new "lawn"--please stay with us leaves so we don't have to go back to dirt!

And our driveway, which isn't too great for party parking.

It was a wonderful party. Whenever we get our friends together, I'm overwhelmed by how lucky we are to have all these awesome people in our lives. I think we found the best people in Atascadero. I mean, I'm always willing to meet new people. But I'm pretty sure we already found the best ones.

Not surprisingly, the best people have the best kids. They all had a blast playing inside and out.

The next day I asked Everett if he had fun at the party, I was sure he had, but he stuck out his bottom lip and said, "but nobody was staying!" He can be shy sometimes, but he's definitely an extrovert. He said he'd like to have his friends here "all day and night" and I believe him.

After the guests left, the spoiled, half-birthday-boy got to sit on the counter and eat cupcakes. He was in heaven.

We went to Albertsons to use the CoinStar, and when we came out feeling flush with cash, I let the kids ride as many times as they'd like (I mean, until I got tired and wanted to go home for lunch).

Grandpa George and Grandma Kathie went on a trip, and we got to babysit the Monarchs. It's always exciting to watch them change, no matter how many times you see it.

I've been trying to get a good picture of them together, but it's so hard! Too bad I was in the wrong position for this first one.

We went to a birthday party where the favors were umbrellas and fabric markers to color on them with. Crafty, shiny fun.

We decided we wanted to take a trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo during Brian's time off, and we asked my parents to join us. Luckily, they were available! Fun to share a favorite place with family. We all rode down together in my parents' mini van. Everett was VERY excited.

Everett telling jokes to the grands.

And Buttercup, the 2-week-old baby giraffe.

This was an amazing experience. The gorilla was napping by the glass. To see his giant hands and human-like ears super up-close. It was incredible.

Everett's favorite spot in the zoo this time, the Ewww exhibit. Bugs, spiders, snakes, lizards, etc.

Everett wanted nothing to do with the train this time, so we took our family photo out front. Everett was beyond tired by this point. Poor guy.

My in-laws commissioned this painting a good long time ago, and with some frantic last minute painting, I had it done in time for Thanksgiving! Second picture for size reference.

Everett has been really into writing lately, so he wrote place cards for everyone spending Thanksgiving with us.  The night before, he wrote a note for Grandma Gion to remind her not to set the table until he found enough pine cones.

Katie and Michael came for the holiday! And we get to see Katie at Christmas too! Yesterday Everett said, "I really like my aunt."

The Grandpas marveling over technology. I think Phil was asking Siri a joke.

The food was amazing, of course. Lydia had a long nap and woke right as we were sitting down to eat. She perked up half way through the meal and gorged on mac and cheese. 

Lydia's sweet, little scribbles. She'll often say "bee!" Is she drawing bugs? 

Everett added something to the shopping list. Ha! Yes, he's been really into writing lately. He has to ask for a lot of help with spelling, but he knows the letters that go with most sounds, if you work with him slowly and patiently.

Hand in hand with writing, he's been READING! The first time he did a lot of reading at bedtime, I was floored! It totally snuck up on me. I was expecting a slow progression to reading, but it seemed like, all of a sudden, he was reading full words and big chunks of words. I mentioned this to his teacher, and she said this was totally normal after all the letter and sound work they've done over these many months. 

Watching him learn to read and write is even more amazing than I'd imagined. 

Posted on Facebook:

Everett: eenie beady miney mo, catch a fire by the toe, ashes ashes, and mom picks the best one you've ever seen!

We've moved beyond me helping with Everett's Lego sets to Everett giving me tasks to complete on the Lego set. He tells me I'm helping, but I'm not buying it.

December's going to be a fun month!!