Let It Snow

We got our first snowfall last night. Just a 1/2 inch or so, but it seems to be sticking around.
The view out our bedroom window

(believe it or not, that IS the sunrise. I'm seeing the sunrise on my day off... What's wrong with me?)

From our kitchen window to the Hagan Financial building across the street


My birthday was last Friday, and I chose to decorate my house for Christmas as my birthday activity. I don't know what I was thinking, because Matt had to work at noon, so he helped me get all the boxes out, then left. This is the finished product. (Turns out it's really hard to get a good clear picture of Christmas decorations because of the lights. You'll have to imagine how these look not blurry...)
Here's our family room tree upstairs- the kids and I decorated it together.


The stairway and the little Christmas tree that Grandma Leigh Anne gave us last year (Xander mostly decorated that one). This is the view as you come in our front door.


Maia's little tree and even littler tree above it. This is right beside our front door.


My Willow Tree Nativity scene sits on the piano. Very pretty. I love the gracefulness of these carvings.


It was fun to decorate the new house, see where everything would go. Man! I had a lot of stuff crammed into that little apartment that last 2 years!

My friend Cris from Indiana told me about a Christmas tradition of theirs that the day that they put up the Christmas tree, the whole family would sleep in sleeping bags under the tree that night. I thought we'd implement this tradition into our family, but it didn't work too well because Xander had this loud dragon cough that kept everyone awake, so I took Maia back down to her bed and I slept in mine just on the other side of the wall from where Xander was and didn't get any sleep because I felt so bad for him coughing all night. Matt took some Benadryl and zonked out right next to Xander and slept like a baby all night. He must not have mother's guilt.

Matt did my birthday shopping at Scheels, but in the gift lodge, so I didn't get tennis shoes for my birthday, I got this painting


and this cool platter


and a prayer journal.

Mom got me a couple of neat cookbooks for holiday gift-giving and a pretty sweater. I mostly got money from everyone else, so I have to decide what I'm going to spend it on. Wonder if I'll be able to save up enough for Lasik eye surgery? I suppose eventually...

Oh and the other thing that I did for my birthday was borrowed "Pretty in Pink" from the library as my movie to watch. I finally got around it it Sunday night and told Matt I had to be careful how I dressed the next day because that movie along with "Desparately Seeking Susan" (minus the smoking part) influenced my fashion sense for an entire decade of my life! Lucky for me, the style of the 80's is coming back! Pull out the leather pants! Bring on the hairspray!

Quotes of the week

I had to take the kids to the doctor this week because both of them showed symptoms of Pink Eye. (Xander was just tired, but Maia really had it). While the nurse was taking Xander's blood pressure, she asked him what he wants to be when he grows up.
Apparently, he's not pondered the question in a while, so when she said, "You're really smart. I bet you're going to be a rocket scientist or something," he thought that sounded like a good option.
I said, "Well, for the longest time, he's wanted to be a garbage man."
She asked him, "Why a garbage man?"
Xander said, "Oh- I can handle extreme stinks!"
I thought that nurse was going to wet her pants, she laughed so hard!

Yesterday afternoon, Matt & I were talking after I got home from work (it was his day off), and Maia was watching "King George and the Duckie" in the other room by herself. Quick synopsis for those of you who have not seen every Veggie Tales movie ever a billion times: It's the Veggie version of the story of David & Bathsheba, only instead of wanting another man's wife, the king wants another man's rubber duckie. It's really quite amusing when you think of the duckies as wives, because they all look the same, and they all just sit on the shelf decoratively and the king gets bored with them pretty fast. ("Those are yesterday's duckies."
Anyway, there's a song where King George (Larry the Cucumber) is singing to his servant, Louis (Bob the Tomato), commanding him to go and get Thomas's duck (Junior Asparagus). The words are:

I must have it, I must get it,
You must go and get it for me...

As Larry's singing these words, Maia's shouting at the TV, "No Warry, be nice! Don't steal!" How 'bout that? She DOES know right from wrong.

As for the Pink Eye, what kind of maniac doctor thinks that it's possible to put eye drops in a 3-year-old's eye? 2 drops in each eye, 3 times a day!? It's really hard when Matt has to work 9 hours a day, so I have to do it myself. Mission accomplished- she's looking much better, and feeling better too.

Quotables

Last night, the kids & I were driving back to Sioux Falls from Yankton (Matt had to work), and I turned on the radio.

Maia wanted her music to listen to, and I said, "I'd really like to listen to my music so I don't fall asleep."

Xander translated to Maia, "Mommy has to listen to her music or we're all going to die."

Whatever works.

Happy Birthday Xander

We celebrated Xander's 8th birthday last weekend, though his actual birthday wasn't until Thursday. Friday night and Saturday we went to Grandma Georgie & Grandpa Bruce's. Grandma Katie & Papa Svale came over from Ft. Dodge, and we had a nice visit with them.

When it came time for presents after lunch, Xander was so excited to open his first gift! I forgot to warn him that this set of grandparents always give clothes for birthdays and toys at Christmas. So when he tore into his present and saw these cool Spiderman pajamas, he said, "oh. clothes." I was mortified! But later, when it was time to get ready for bed (we left after supper on Saturday evening and put the kids in PJs before leaving), he was swooping around with his webbing under the arms of his jammies. He thinks they're pretty cool now. He also got a Transformers shirt that he really likes.

Sunday after church (I'm insane), we had the party for the boys. It was a Bionicle Barraki theme. If you have any interest in learning what this is about, click here. Bionicles in general are Xander's passion.

What a sad cake. I should have just bought one. It tasted good...

Anyway, we had 8 boys and Maia at the party. It was very active. Last year, I was really worried because we invited all the boys in Xander's class (17), and I was a little scared of how to handle them for an hour and a half. I planned a lot of games and activities, and had a lot of help with execution, and things went so smoothly, I was surprised when parents started showing up.

So this year, I figured, "That wasn't so hard. I'll plan a couple of games, have a lot of space for them to run around (we had the party at church, not our house), let them play with Xander's Bionicles, have cake, presents, and we should be able to last a couple of hours."

Yeah.

If I learned anything from this year's birthday party, it's that structure is important. When you let 8-year-olds just run amok, they are really hard to reign back in. And an hour and a half is plenty of time for a party.

(Notice how blurry everyone is. They're moving really fast)

I did plan a few activities. I thought this would be pretty fun, and I was proud of how cheap and creative I was. Back-story: Bionicle Barraki are underwater creatures, and their weapon is a "squid launcher," so how about if we have a slingshot and launch little rubber "squids" out on the lawn? I made the launcher with free stuff that Matt got at Exercise University (work training) the week before. This is a Pilates Magic Circle (which the two boys are holding on the sides) and some short exercise tubing. Some of the boys were really good at it! They all tried hard.

The other thing I had planned was decoding the place mats using the Bionicle coded alphabet. Some kids had more patience for this activity than others.
But Xander got some great presents, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves.

After THAT party was over, we cleaned up really fast and headed back to our house for the family party. (Did I mention that I'm insane?) I had made a pot of chili and some apple crisp on Friday before we left for Morrisons, and we had relishes and dips. Mom, Jim, Rena, Lexi and Dad came over and we had a nice evening. Xander & Lexi disappeared (as usual), the rest of us ate for a while, then adjourned to the living room and talked for a nice long bit.

It was really cool. Everyone was relaxed, my mom & dad were telling stories about when they were married, and nobody was in a hurry to leave. I thought, "How amazing is this? Only God could heal this family." And He has. Sadly, Marie was not feeling well and didn't make the trip, and we missed her.

I'm thinking I might have everyone here (both sides of my family) for Thanksgiving...
Revolutionary.

Genetics!

OK, so for the longest time, I've said I was genetically a blank carrier for my children because they both look so much like Matt, but I was cleaning out my closet this week, and I finally found all my scrapbook supplies (temporarily lost for the last 2 years since we left Indiana). Check this out (especially notice the teeth):

Xander at age 8 (this year's school picture)

Me at age 8

See? That's the problem, I don't look anything like I did as a kid.

Yep, those big ol' bucky teeth are a gift from me. The dentist says there's enough room for all of them in there, and he probably won't need braces. Fortunately, my teeth are pretty nice looking now, so I could have given him something worse... like his attitude about mornings, or lightning fast temper... oh wait... he seems to have inherited that too.

I was telling my mom this, and she said that poor Xander is about to enter a long, awkward stage until he grows into those teeth. Sadly, he does NOT have genetics on his side for this one. Matt & I were both really ugly middle-schoolers.

Really.

And I'm not posting pictures. Some things are just better left to the imagination. (OK, most of you who read this blog remember the truth and won't argue anyway)

Anyway, I think Xander's pretty cute right now!

Halloween Fun

We had a fun night of trick-or-treating. Here's the costumes. These pictures were taken last Friday when the weather was a little warmer, and the kids went to Xander's school for the Fall Festival.

Here's Tinkerbell

and a Bionicle (again)
Activities at the Fall Festival

Last night, we got to have my niece, Lexi go out with us, then we went over to our friends' Hal & Martha's to have some chili, then bum around their neighborhood for a while. Martha said she had NEVER been trick-or-treating before. I told her she was missing out on an entire slice of Americana! Dressing up and begging candy from the neighbors. It's tradition, man! Their kids were so cute. They were dressed as Superman and a pumpkin (I didn't get pictures).

Obviously, we had to bundle up a bit more for Halloween evening than the previous pictures.

Once Xander hit the sidewalk, he never stopped running. This was as close as I could get to a picture of him!Here's the kids at a doorstep begging for candy.

Eventually, Maia wound up riding in the wagon that Hal was pulling (originally meant for Charlie- age 1). We thought it was funny that she was "flying" in a Radio Flyer. She was content with visiting about 6 houses. Xander wanted to press on for quite a while, but when Lexi wore down we decided to call it a night.