holidays and birthdays part 2

Happy New Year!! I know I'm a little late. I'm still recovering from December as usual. I'm not a fan of years that end in odd numbers unless they end in a 5. Am I alone in this? Okay well maybe a 9 too. That's kind of exciting because it's the last year of the decade...

Heard around here...

Addie: Mom, I've been wondering, do bats pee while they are hanging upside down?

For Addie's birthday she wanted to go to the Aquarium with her bestie. And since Dan and I don't go anywhere on the weekends because of the people that will also be there on the weekends, we take the kids out of school on occasion to go to places like the Aquarium. It was awesome. We had the whole place to ourselves on a Monday morning. Addie and her BFF got to experience the whole place twice before lunch time.

Christmas decorating is SOOO much different than it used to be. I did about 5% of it. The kids and Dan did the rest. I love having big kids that actually want to take over giant Christmas tasks like decorating, wrapping presents, hiding the cursed elf on the shelf and Amazon Christmas shopping. Life looks so much different these days and I'm not sure when things changed but I'm not complaining at all.

We took our annual trip to Great Wolf Lodge to celebrate Addie and Winter's birthdays. The kids are still not sick of the place yet so that's cool.

Angus lost a front tooth which pretty much makes him a whole new person. It makes me sad when he grows up even a little bit. He's the last little one. 

Winter baked her cake for her 12th birthday. She talked me into getting a cake pan so that the kids can make legit cakes instead of casserole dish ones. 

Otter's festive. She's 14.5 and blind and deaf and we still love her to pieces.

Winter and Mya got Target gift cards for Christmas so I took them shopping. Winter was done in about 8 minutes. Mya took about 2 hours. 

Addie is either rolling her eyes at Angus or treating him like he's her best friend. There's really no middle. He just goes with it. She taught him to play Uno and was the most patient Addie I've ever seen. Not sure why.

Angus is having some bro time with the neighbor boy.

Winter was supposed to have a little party on her birthday but I got Covid. So we postponed it until after the kids were back in school. She wanted pizza, an ice cream bar and a make-over table filled with nail polishes and make-up. So we went to the 99 cent store and stocked up on party supplies including decorations, snacks, ice cream toppings, lipstick, eye shadow, mascara and fake nails. I didn't get any eyeliner. That seemed a bit dangerous. We were able to get everything accept the ice cream there. It really was the perfect idea for a bunch of 12 year old girls.

I visited my favorite Palm Springs resident, Karlita. Winter in Palm Springs is oh so lovely as you would imagine. We decided to pull over and take some pics of roadside dinosaurs because why not.

When I left my house it was raining so I forgot my sunglasses. I stopped to get gas and found these stylish babies.

Happy New Year! And if you're not adjusting to the fact that it is 2023 yet, that's okay. I've decided that January doesn't count and February 1st is the real new year. Feel free to adopt my way of thinking.

holidays & birthdays part 1

We borrowed my cousin's daughter for a few days, with permission of course. Elle loved every minute of her time with her big girl (and boy) cousins. Winter thought of entertaining things to do every second of the day. I told her that she should run a preschool when she grows up. She's a professional childcare expert. And Mya made sure everyone had food, and water and stayed safe for the most part. 

It was lovely actually. Everyone got along, the TV stayed off and the kids used their imaginations and actually played with their toys. The house was a wreck but I was so happy to see everyone playing together so nicely. 

Elle has a bandaid on her nose (below) from a wagon accident. Winter may have been running with Elle and Addie in it and crashed, tipping them over onto the street. Elle got a nosebleed and her face was scratched up and so were her hands and I felt terrible. Her mom picked her up a few hours later and Mya told my cousin, "Sorry we're returning her in rough shape." She wants to come back again so that's good. 😊

They were eating dinner on a blanket on the floor because the kitchen table was covered in crafts and nail salon items. We have used this waterproof blanket a TON. I highly recommend picking one up and leaving it in your trunk for impromptu park, beach or carpet picnics.

Winter was so tired by the time she left haha. It was good for her. 😆

It's pizza oven season!

Addie and Angus both won awards at school. It was the first awards assembly in 2 years so the kids were super excited. It was Angus's first time being publically acknowledged so he was fighting back happy tears on the stage and managed to keep it together. 

Mya and Winter both play the largest instrument known to man. The bass. They had their first concert together. It was lovely. Also, the orchestra teacher led the audience in a round of applause for the parents of the bass players for shlepping the basses around. I appreciated that.

My big sis came into town with her family. It was so lovely to spend time with them.

Thanksgiving part 1 was at our Santa Barbara fam's house. It was so much fun and everyone had a wonderful time.

Then Wendy and I headed to Oceanside to see our niece's new precious little peanut. We're in love. She's perfect.

Then Thanksgiving part 2 with more fam in Simi Valley. A wonderful time with wonderful people.

Then we celebrated Addie turning 9! 

Happy Advent season! 

The kids are participating in the Living Nativity at church on Friday the 9th if anyone wants to come check it out!

Click here for more info.