Merry Christmas!

6:04 a.m.  That's the time that Will woke us up this morning.  We told him last night that the time on the clock had to start with a 6 before he could wake anyone up. He came into our room at 5:45 because he had a headache. I sent him back to bed but that only lasted for 19 more minutes. He and I spent a few minutes watching tv before the rest of the family trickled downstairs. Grandma and Pop-pop spent the night with us and Unce Matt and Aunt Vicky and the star of the show came over bright and early to open presents.  It was a great day, one of those magical Christmas' where everything seemed to go as planned.  The kids were buck wild yesterday and brimming with excitement and a fair helping of cranky/naughty, but today, after the presents were unwrapped we just had a nice day.  Both kids received the present that they were most hoping for and we spent the day assembling said presents, eating yummy food and napping.  What a lovely end to the year. 

This was taken a few weeks ago and looked much different this morning.  Dangit!  I didn't get a picture of the tree with the mountain of presents underneath. Maybe next year?

Meet Cuddles, Reina's most-wanted toy also known as monkey-with-a-diaper.  This thing makes 100 noises and is motion-activated.  Fun for the whole family! 

Will and one of his top toys (he had a big list).  A battery operated nerf gun.  Now that IS fun for the whole family. 

The cutest Santa Baby on the planet.  She brought a different kind of joy to our holiday.  And she fell asleep on my shoulder.  Snuggles! 

These pictures are out of order but I'm too tired (see 6:04 a.m.) to rearrange anything.  This was the beginning of the present-opening. 

Yeeeeehaw!!  Yep, it's dark outside. 

Merry Christmas friends and family!  Here's hoping your Christmas was the equivalent of a 6-yr old boy opening a 1,175 piece lego set.  Yeeeehaw! 

You oughta be in pictures

We are in the middle of Christmas pageant extravaganzas.  Reina's program was last week, the church's program was Sunday and Will's school program was Tuesday.  AND W and R will fill in angel and shepherd duty at Aunt Vicky's church on Christmas Eve.  It's a fun week.  

Last Sunday, we had one excited participant and one not-so excited.  Can you tell which is which?  

To his credit, he perked up for the actual performance and sang *most* of the songs. 

Earlier in the week at Reina's preschool program, the kids had a surprise visitor.  These pictures are out of chronological order but I'm too tired to fix it. 

Shy Will meeting Santa.  He wants a Star Wars Lego and mumble mumble mumble.

If I make eye contact with Santa, does that up my odds of getting what I want? 

During her program, Reina sang her heart out.  

I was trying to get a good picture of her outfit but this is all I came up with. She had a cute charcoal grey skirt, with the white shirt and gold cardigan.  She would've worn it to church on Sunday but I made the mistake of letting her eat breakfast in it.  It was a charcoal grey skirt and gold cardigan with toast and jam. 

December

It's December 8th and I'm woefully behind on my Christmas to-do list, and that includes blogging.  Christmas Card, you are next.  We had a busy week and now it's that whirlwind time of Christmas programs, shopping and baking and whatever else we can squeeze into the month. Here's the last week in pictures. 

 

Saturday, Reina and I did some holiday shopping (for me) while Will hung out with the Hansen grandparents and Glenn hunted.  Reina was an enthusiastic shopping partner even though she wanted me to limit my selections to pink, purple and yellow. Not really my signature color(s), especially for work clothes.  She also enthusiastically liked everything I tried on which was great for my ego, but not so great for the budget. 

 

I'm helping! 

 Saturday night, we braved the local Christmas parade.  It wasn't as chilly as in previous years.  Will had left his jacket at school for the long weekend so he wore one of my fleeces.  It didn't fit as well as it could have. 

Trigger would've loved this float - a giant pheasant made out of twinkly lights.

My little hearty Wyoming parade watchers.  It's not cold! 

 A few days after the parade (luckily) we had a crazy cold front come through and drop our temperatures and drop a bunch of the white stuff for good measure.  As I write this, it's -2.6 which is a little balmy considering we had lows in the negative teens and twenties with the wind chill.  The dogs are stir crazy and we're all a little chilled to the bone but we have a heat wave coming this week - it's actually going to get above freezing.  Yeah! 

This was my workout over the lunch hour on Wednesday.

It was a 2-dog night.  Cold pups love to snuggle! 

We had a great weekend, busy with basketball and shopping and a birthday party and football. In the midst of all of that, Will decided to open up a little shop to sell some toys and make room for new Christmas presents.  The catch was that he'd only sell to people in our house with the understanding that he'd take the toys back when he was done.  So not exactly capitalism, but I appreciated his entrepreneurial spirit, and that cute face. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year's Thanksgiving was a potluck affair at Aunt Vicky's house.  The turkey was delicious thanks to Uncle Matt, Vicky made a yummy appetizer, Grandma contributed delicious homegrown mashed potatoes, Glenn made a giant salad and I remembered the sugar in the pumpkin pie.  We were stuffed.  The theme of the day was BABY COUSIN as we all angled for as much Baby Cousin time as we could. 

This big cousin is very interested in baby cousin.  He loves to hold her, even though I'm still holding on to her wobbly head.  Will always reaches for her hand and sits there perfectly still as long as she holds it.  It's very sweet. 

When he's not holding his baby cousin, Will's holding on to my Ipad.  Uncle Matt had just finished bandaging Will's knee because it's not a trip to the aunt and uncle's house without some sort of bloodshed.  Or maybe it's not a day in the life of a 6-yr old without something needing a bandaid?  This time, he found the biggest rock in the front yard and whacked his knee on it.  After we tried a bandaid that didn't do much to hold in the blood (yuck), Uncle Matt wrapped up the knee in a concoction that would've made a field surgeon proud and certainly brightened the spirits of the warrior on the sofa.  He's hoping the bandage will last until Monday when he can show it off to school. 

If 4-yr olds were allowed to babysit solo, Reina would be all over that.  She loooooooves to help with baby cousin.  She even assisted me on a couple of diaper changes. 

The highlight of my day was a giant smile from Baby Genius.  I had heard of the smiles but hadn't seem them in person yet.  You can tell how much I love that little smile by my willingness to post a picture of my wrinkled face and nose.  Look at that cute little grin!! 

Lots of love in this picture. 

After Thanksgiving was over, Will left with the grandparents and the rest of us came home.  Reina had a slight cough during the afternoon which turned into croup overnight.  We avoided a trip to the ER but took her to the doctor this morning where she got her own inhaler and she's already feeling better.  She and I stayed home today and cleaned up (me) and watched cartoons (her) and turned every doll and stuffed animal into a baby.  The best part about today?  It's only Friday and we still have a nice weekend stretched out ahead of us.  What a great way to kick off the holidays. 

Sportsmens' banquets and dinner dates

Last weekend we attended a fundraiser for a local sportsman's conservation group. It was a family-friendly event so we all made an evening out of it.  There were activities for the kids and silent auctions and raffles for the grown-ups. I continued my streak of winning things that I don't need but that other people like (a welder, a gun and now a fly rod).  We had a nice time even though at one point, we had to have a five minute conversation about whether our meal was a piece of fish or chicken (it was chicken).

It's Hunting Girl!  She looks concerned because she was mad that she didn't have enough prizes yet but it was early.  This girl has grown about 3 inches in the last few months and all of her dresses are now micro-minis.  Time to go shopping! 

This is the face I get when I ask Will to smile for the camera these days.  Sigh.  First-graders. 

Last night, Will and I had dinner at a local fast-food restaurant (actually my favorite fast-food restaurant) because it was Spirit Night for his school and each class has a competition to see who can collect the most receipts.  It was a tough sacrifice but I had to do it.  It's for the kids!  Reina was spending the night with the grandparents and Glenn was eating a healthy meal so it was just the two of us.  Afterwards we walked around for a few minutes and talked about Christmas.  I still can't believe it's time for that.  Bring on December!  

My toothless dinner date

 

Will's Thanksgiving Speech

Will had to give a speech in class today about his family's Thanksgiving traditions.  We've been practicing it for a few weeks and yesterday we made a poster collage (pics of that later.)  For all of posterity, here's the speech (cute misspellings included):

Will's Speech

We eat pie- but I do not like pie.  Mom forgot to put sugar in the pumpkin pie year.  Yuc.

We eat turkey. My Uncle Matt cooks the turkey.  Yum. My dad likes to hunt turkeys.

We spend the day with our aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma and Pop-Pop.

We watch a movie after we eat.  I like to watch Star Wars.

My favorite food to eat is the turkey.  This year I want to have ice cream.

My mom likes to watch football on Thanksgiving afternoon.

I hope you have a happe Thanksgiving.

A list of things the dogs have eaten in the last month*

Several potatoes, raw.  Mostly chewed into tiny pieces and not necessarily digested.
1 loaf of bread, minus the plastic bag
2 bananas carefully peeled.  (I would've actually paid to see Trigger peel a banana.  I believe It was Trigger because Tootsie was much, MUCH too humble about the whole thing)
1 of Reina's art projects from school but shhhhhhh, don't tell her. She hasn't noticed.
2 tomatoes
1 sizeable bag of leftover Halloween candy, also Reina's so shhhhhhhh......

*besides dog food and dog biscuits and food mysteriously falling from the table.

Next time, our plans for making sure the dogs are never, ever left alone in the house again.