birthdays and bums

Well the big day is almost here. I've had a pretty mellow attitude these last few days. It's probably due to the cold medicine I've been taking. It makes me slightly lightheaded, but it knocks that cough right out.

We celebrated the middle childrens' birthdays together last week. They're both holiday babies, one near Thanksgiving and one near Christmas, poor girls. They didn't mind sharing the day though. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's as a family and then invited the neighborhood kids over for an explosion of noise and chaos, and cake and icecream. They loved it. Usually I'm so tired by the time it's Winter's birthday celebration that I just get some cupcakes and balloons and call it a day. This year I took it a step further and bought "Pin the Carrot Nose On the Snowman" on Amazon. It was a hit. And it made the "party" feel more like a real party. And I found a Barbie camper van that a mom was selling on Facebook for $12. That thing is like $100 new. They screamed when they opened it. Winter hurt my ears. 

This is the only picture I have from Chuck E. Cheese.

Sometimes I take these two to the park while we're waiting for the big girls to get out of school. They have the whole place to themselves usually and yet they always sit in this spinny thing together or they fight over who gets to sit in it alone. 

Angus has been falling asleep ON the dog lately. She is pretty soft and warm so I guess I understand... It helps that she's pretty lazy now that she's 10. She never would have let anyone sleep on her a few years ago.

Angus has been working on pulling his underwear and pants up by himself after he uses the bathroom. It's a bit tricky for him for some reason. The girls never had a problem, but he struggles. The other day, he came over to me after he went pee. His shirt and pants were missing but he did manage to pull up his underwear. He was super proud of himself and jumped in front of me with his hands up high and yelled, TADIIIIZE!! It's like tada and surprise, I think. He says it when he does anything amazing. It made me belly laugh because his little weenie was sticking out of the top of his underwear but he was so proud.

A few days ago I was at Target and needed to go to CVS afterward. I decided to walk because it was a lovely day and it was only about 100 feet away, or 100 yards. I don't know distance. When Siri tells me to turn right in 500 feet, I usually miss it. But that's not part of my story. So I walked to CVS and got what I needed. I had to wait for the metro to go by before I could cross the tracks and walk back to my car.

As I was waiting, I noticed a super sketchy looking homeless person standing on the other side of the metro tracks waiting to cross my way. He was arguing with himself. He was carrying what looked like a shiny blue roll of wrapping paper. I thought it was interesting that a homeless person on drugs would need wrapping paper but I thought, who am I to decide what homeless people should or shouldn't carry with them?

After the metro went by and we were able to cross, I noticed that the wrapping paper was actually not wrapping paper but a metal bat. I had to make a quick decision. Should I keep crossing and pass by the scary man with a bat or should I turn around and walk back to CVS and wait until he was far away?

I said a prayer and kept walking forward, way on the other side of the crosswalk, a good 10 feet away from the bat druggie. I kept my eye on him making sure he didn't turn around and come after me. He didn't. He just kept arguing with himself and walked down the street. I hate that the Metro has brought bat carrying homeless people to Azusa. We never used to see people like that. We do have one older homeless gentleman that looks like Santa living here. He's been here for decades I hear. He's nice. I like him. I tried to convince the girls that he was in fact Santa. They thought about it but decided that he was definitely not. I actually have a picture of him that I took a couple years ago. I love that he always has his flag up. Maybe he fought in Vietnam.

Dan has been taking elf responsibilities pretty seriously this year. I basically move the elves somewhere new and call it a night. He makes sure there is a story to be told behind the shenanigans. This was a good one. It made me slightly jealous that I couldn't zipline from the chandelier to the Christmas tree. 

It was festive hat day in Addie's class yesterday. My Texas BFF Annie made two of these several years ago for Mya and Winter and the kids still love to wear them. 

Also, Addie discovered that it doubles as a unicorn hat.

Merry almost Christmas! Thanks to those of you who have sent us Christmas cards. I so enjoy them. And one day, maybe I'll get it together and send you all one.