Santa!

Do you love Santa pictures as much as I do?  You are gonna love these ones!

We tried the Santa at Molback's this year.  Awesome experience!  11am-3pm every weekend and one person in front of us, gorgeous suit and loved kids.  A little hard of hearing, though so he told Carter to e-mail his list...

Practice photos in front of the tree.  I LOVE the expression on Valerie's face in the second one...

Valerie is finally growing some hair!

Here's how I got her to sit so still for the picture of her hair...

One of our advent activities was "make cookies for someone who need encouragement."  Well, our pastor's dog died last night after years and years of being just a wonderful family dog, so we figured they qualified.  On our way, we stopped to see the light show near us and drove around the pastor's neighborhood to look at lights.  There was also a strong possibility that "No-Nap" Henri would fall asleep.

Well, Henri fell asleep during the light show and I found out after dropping off the cookie that apparently we were stalking the pastor's family that had gone out to look at lights to get out of the "no dog quiet house"  and I got a text message from him wondering why we were following them :)

Busy week with a chance of Friday Laziness

So this week I got everything done. Christmas Shopping & wrapping (save 1 item I need Paul to order)  I switched babysitting again this week and also babysat for my co-op for some points. Also finished my dinner swap meals. Feels so good to be done!  Yesterday I really needed a sick day, but pushed through and got my house cleaned up and my office finally cleaned up.

Today the only thing I have to do is go through the inbox on my desk and go to our annual MOPs Christmas Tea this morning, which I contributed nothing to, am able to just go and have fun!

Wednesday after shopping Carter and I had a date.  We had thought about going to Sky  High Trampolines, but they don't open until 2pm (we had 1/2 days Tues & Wed this week) so we went and saw Tangled in 3D.

This weekend Saturday the only thing we have to do is sign up for swim lessons, we're trying to get all 3 kids in class at the same time.

Sunday is our family Christmas party.  We have our last swim class right before, so we'll be a little late, but it should be fun.

Henri story

Forgot another story from swimming.  Henri was watching the bubbles from the jets in the hot tub by the swimming pool and kept going, "uh, oh!" and then the timer ran out and the jets ran out and it was calm, "I did it! " Henri told me excitedly

Exhaustion setting in

Yesterday we hung out in pajamas until we went to our dear friend's housewarming/engagement party.  It was fun, but the kids and I managed to leave before Henri could stuff any more cookies in his mouth and they could break anything.

Today was our typical swim, church, swim (so glad next week is the last week of it).  Henri did great and had fun during his class and I laughed during Carter's-it was life jacket day and the teacher was pushing them off the mat "boat" and Henri was shouting, "oh, no!" and Carter was telling his classmates to watch out for sharks.

Then we went back to church to pick something up, stopped by home for a birthday gift and some food (kids didn't get out of the car) went to Jump Planet for a birthday party.  Then 8 hours after we left the house, we finally got home.  The kids were then pretty good, but loud and mommy was TIRED.  I went to bed with the kids last night.  I've been doing this several nights and am still tired, and grouchy.  Then I got a knock on the door and two cute little girls in dresses handed me this note:

I actually cried.  And started to get back in the Christmas spirit :)

End of week

Let's see... Wed was the last week of this session of bible study and there was a surprise birthday party for someone in our group. She turned 40 on Wed and her husband came and decorated the room and brought in one of those HUGE cookies you see at the mall.  Thursday was MOPs with a great speaker about how to remember why we have the holiday season and how to focus on not overspending, rather enjoying the season for what it is. Then I watched kids and Carter started his first class back in gymnastics and ran into a friend there who I'll now get to see once a week!  Friday was a cookie exchange for my other MOPs group.  Then I had the neighbors over to eat some cookie and have mulled cider, then our babysitting family came over and had dinner with us and advent with us and Paul and I went to his company party at Experience Music Project and Good Charlotte was the entertainment.  It was fun!  Fancy party food, good music, open bar. 

Now the pictures!

The boys and our advent candles... or "Happy Birday!" as Henri calls it.

Henri showing his buddy how to accessorize.  This friend did have the headband on and Henri adjusted it and said, "there you go..."

Rockin' the headband...

This little girl is getting a baby sister soon and was practicing holding babies.  Henri thought that sounded fun and wanted to try as well.

Trying to get the band in a picture with us...

Look at all those tatoos, you know he's a rocker!

those of you who don't have any idea who Good Charlotte are, they are the band fronted by twin brothers Joel and Benji Madden, one of which is married to Nicole Richie, daughter of Lionel Richie.

They were having a rough time warming up the crowd until they started yelling things like, "f*** Apple!" and "Playstation Sucks!"  Microsoft doesn't have one huge party, each group has their own and this was mostly an Xbox Group, so those comments got everyone excited, haha!

A busy day

Since my hair took so long yesterday and I had so many things to do since I barely left the house over Thanksgiving weekend, I had to run some of my errands with the two little ones while Carter was in school.

First I took Henri to gym, which always makes him happy.  We were in the 2-3 year old class at 10:30, but this session switched to 1-2 year old class at 9:30, which is easier because 1) it's only 45 minutes long rather than an hour and 2) I can drop Carter off at school and go straight to gym.  We had been going back home and hanging out for an hour.  I had originally gone for the 10:30 class even though he's young because he's terribly coordinated and we were walking and wouldn't get back home until 9:30 at the earliest from our walk, but now that the weather is crappy and it's so dark and hard to get moving in the morning, we are driving most mornings anyways.

After gym, Henri was sweet as could be as we ran around because he LOVEs being out and about and was getting cabin fever over the last week with the holiday and the snow.    We headed to Costco and filled our cart with easy to prepare meals, ingredients for a dinner swap, Christmas gifts (which I later discovered I left one at the store. They are supposed to call tomorrow to tell me what we'll do about it, arg!!) and we were going to get hot dogs, but the machine was broken.  Darn!

Then we headed to McClendon's for dowel for my current sliding pantry door childproofing.  I cut a piece of 1 1/4 inch dowel (think a closet rod) about 2inches longer than the one door I want to keep him out of. I put those no-scuff felt circles on either end and I jam it between the wall and the door.  They can still get in the art supplies side, but stay out of my snacks now.  We also got night light bulb for Lightning McQueen, one more strand of white lights to finish my stairs out front and a $1.99 cassette of Handel's Messiah for the car.

At the grocery store we celebrated Henri's birthday yet again because 2 year olds can go in the free childcare!  Woohoo!  I've been counting down to this day for MONTHS! 

Then we headed to the nearby OshKosh store where I picked up two gifts plus pajamas for Valerie that match the boys for Christmas morning (you know I'm going to post a picture of THAT!) and paid $3 after my $20 in rewards I got last week. 

I put the babies down for naps and unloaded my poor car. 

We picked up Carter and the kids played and splashed in a huge puddle at school. I think Jackie maybe got a picture.  The kids were in heaven jumping around, esp Henri!

This evening we started our advent.  Every year I really want to do advent but I never get my act together!  Tonight, that's right 11/30, I filled the kids' advent calenders.  I've NEVER done it on time before.  Then we did our Sunday advent (ok, so I'm close.  Next year I'll get it!) I had gotten a candle set from the church silent auction/bazaar last year so we lit a candle and it was so cute; since we'd just had Henri's birthday he kept saying to the candle, "Happy Birthday!"  Then I took the stack of advent packets I'd gathered at church and we went through 1 or 2 for Sunday.  I told the kids we could do one every night.  We have about 3-4 advent booklets that go day by day and we talked about advent and waiting for Jesus to be born and each night we'll do an activity from one of the books and we watched the candle as we drank hot cocoa.

Then we had our battle for bed I only gave Henri water, which he wasn't pleased about, but the fight was only about 30 minutes tonight.  Either he's more tired, saving the fight for the middle of the night or consistency is actually working. 

Mommy's Day out

Monday morning, after taking Henri to his 2 year checkup (26 pounds 4 ounces while holding a huge apple and being dressed; 32 or 33 inches tall?) my friend came over to watch the little ones so I could do some errands by myself.


I started off by getting my hair taken care off. I hadn't been in the salon in about 12 weeks, so cut and color took over 1/2 my few precious hours. Then I raced to Bellevue Square and shared lunch with Paul to celebrate our 7 year anniversary. While we weren't there long due to my overscheduling, it was nice to breathe and talk to him without interruption, esp since he'd been gone all weekend for curling.  Then I did a return at the mall.  I had purchased online and found the shirts run small so had to exchange for bigger sizes and they had everything I needed.  Score!

Then the babysitter called and told me not to rush, so I went to the Wide shoes store and found some cute winter boots and everyday black flat shoes.  Then I got stuck in traffic coming home.  I was so stressed.  Carter gets out at 3:35 and I didn't get to the school until 4 when I got there he, his teacher and his teacher's daughter were all having some nutella on saltines.  Whew!  The babysitter told me everything was fine, everyone got along and calmed me down. 

Fast forward to 2am.  When I was at the doctor's I mentioned Henri had been getting up every night around 1:30 am.  She asked what I did to get him back to bed and didn't really like my "give him warm milk" answer for two reasons; 1) it does not allow him to get back to sleep on his own (a vital skill) 2) she looked at how tired I was despite 50% of the time going to bed when the kids do and my having to get up and actually do something is not good for mommy and what is not good for mommy is not good for 3 kids.  She would rather I just leave a cup of water next to his bed. So, when Henri got up, I did not warm the milk, I just gave it to him.  I figured: 1) start small by switching the temperature before the actual thing 2) I could leave cold milk in an insulated cup by his bed. 

For TWO HOURS that kid fought me, trying to make me take the cup telling me, "Hot, Mommy!"  I absolutely cannot believe no one else woke up.  He was screaming right next to Carter, who just changed position once.  He did stop for about 15 minutes, long enough to pump, which was great, because Valerie went to bed at 6:45pm and didn't wake up until 8am the next morning.  I almost cried, I prayed, I did pilates and my hand therapy exercises, but DID NOT GIVE IN I just put him back to bed about 700 times.  Finally at 4am he went to sleep.

I will not negotiate with the 2 year old!  But boy am I tired!