Christmas Afternoon and Evening

After we had lunch at our house, we went over to Christine and Eric's house for the Williams Christmas.  Mark and Barb and their three daughters are in the same place very often, so we tried to get some pictures and ended up with some pretty nice ones, including one with them and their three grandchildren.

Eric and Christine prepared an awesome meal for us, and after that we exchanged gifts.  Joshua especially liked his military set with a tank and some Army guys.

Mark and Eric stayed upstairs to chat, but the rest of us headed downstairs to have some game time.  Hannah, though, couldn't stay awake and crashed on Meghan's lap.

We played Taboo, which is kind of a retro game at his point, but it's a favorite in our family.  Michelle and I emerged victorious, and the Taboo champs are memorialized here in this photo that you know is from Michelle and not me, because it has some sort of filter on it, and I'm not young enough or cool enough to do filters.

Joshua and I had on similar shirts, so I wanted to get a picture of it.  He was whispering something in my ear here (I don't remember what), but he apparently found it to be pretty funny.

When we got back to the house, the kids had a little bit of time to play with their toys before bedtime.  Hannah was excited to wear her new ladybug jammies.  These are notable, because they are perhaps her all-time favorite jammies from when she owned them in a smaller size (two or three sizes smaller than these), and she wore them even after they were way too small, but at some point it was just too much.  But Meghan was able to find the same exact ones, but in Hannah's current size, and she's super excited to wear them tonight.  Another fun gift she got was a motorized tricycle for Chicken Baby.  You can actually prop Chicken up on it, press a button, and it will drive around the floor, giving Chicken a chance to be a big kid who rides trikes.  You're growing up so fast, Chicken!

The next night Michelle came over to hang out with us and the kids, and she engaged in a lightsaber, er, space sword fight with the kids, and by the looks of it, I don't think she was winning.

Anyway, we had a really fun time at Christine's house with the whole Williams crew, and I don't know if it'll work out next year, but I think it would be a fun new tradition if we could make it happen in future years.

Williams Family Lunch

This morning we went to do our annual tradition of delivering Christmas gifts and food to families through City Union Mission.  As I mentioned last year, this is an important value in our family.  But this particular event has increased in popularity, so this year they only had one bag for us to deliver, and unfortunately that family wasn't home.  So we said a prayer for that family and dropped off the gifts and food back at the main office.

We then headed home briefly before going to lunch with Meghan's extended family. Mark and Barb are in town for Christmas, and Michelle is too.  We met with all of them, along with Eric and Christine, at Chapala for a nice lunch.  We'll see them all on Christmas afternoon at Eric and Christine's house, so thankfully this wasn't our only chance for interaction.  But it was great to see everyone, and we're looking forward to the main event on Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We started the day with cinnamon rolls, which is always a popular way to start the day.

 Hannah wasn't about to let the cooler weather dampen her summer style. She is very specific about her clothing choices and this is what she was insistent on today.

Clara enjoying her Thanksgiving feast.

Christine was able to make it to celebrate too. We had a nice meal.

Hannah's 4th Birthday Party

This year we were able to have Hannah's birthday party on her actual birthday.  We hosted the part at our house and in our back yard.  We usually try to let the kids choose their own theme, and Hannah chose "Rainbow Dora".  Dora is of course Dora the Explorer, which Hannah loves.  She also loves rainbows.  So she just combined those two.  So it should be noted that "Rainbow Dora" is not a thing.  She just wanted a party with rainbows and Dora.

But I think we pulled it off.  Meghan made a spread of rainbow-colored food, including rainbow Oreos, and six-layered Jello cups with each layer being a different color (though you have to hold them up to the light to see them).  We also were able to rent a bounce house with both rainbow colors and Dora, which was fortunate.

I asked her what she wanted on her cake, and she told me she wanted Dora, and a rainbow, and a bounce house, and glitter and sparkles.  So... yeah.  That wasn't going to happen.  I briefly looked into how I would make a fondant bounce house on a cake before I realized I should just try to do my best and not make her exact request.  So I made a cake that focused on rainbow colors and Dora.  I acquired three Dora figurines (thanks, Craigslist), and came up with a simple design that would let me have a lot of rainbow colors without having an actual rainbow on the cake (which is surprisingly difficult to implement).  My figuring positioning idea was to have Dora and Boots on top with Swiper the Fox doing his normal sneaky fox activity by sneaking up on them from behind.  However, this was way more difficult to implement than I imagined, as I thought I could just jab him into the back of the cake, but it turned out he was too heavy for that.  So (in the middle of the night before the party, of course, because that's when I do cakes) I engineered a solution involving a harness composed of cut bamboo skewers, dental floss, and super glue, and that allowed me to position Swiper exactly where I wanted him.  It was the first cake I've done that didn't involve fondant, but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.


The weather was perfect, so people were able to enjoy the outdoors or hang out indoors.

She was actually slightly disappointed there wasn't a bounce house on her cake, but she got over it and was overall pleased with it.

After cake, we did presents.  She was excited to get her gifts, and Benjamin was excited to be the one to bring them over to us to open.  He tried to predict what each one was, and each time he guessed it would be a "race track", but it turns out he wasn't quite right on any of them, as no race tracks were received.  But it was cute that he was wanting to be involved.  We had a really fun party, and we were thankful to have our family and friends there to celebrate with us.

Early August

 Hannah has major third-child syndrome. Which means she is always looking around to evaluate how she is getting the short end of the stick. In today's episode, she learned that she is currently the only child in our family without an apron. She didn't want to miss out on cooking, though, so she wore her cape backwards to function as an apron.

The kids really enjoyed painting. After they were done painting inside, I cleaned the brushes and they went outside to paint the house and deck with water.

Michelle came into town for a reunion of some college friends, so we had a sisters' dinner out.

She also came over to the house to see Jason and the kids. Clara took over her phone for awhile and got some pictures of Hannah.

Clara has been enjoying playing Sheriff Callie of late. Here is riding her horse, aka Jason's leg.

We went to open gym. I have been trying (and succeeding) not to spend money lately, but we did spend money on this because I wanted to do something fun with the kids on my last day of being a stay-at-home mom.

Clara is so social. She makes friends wherever she goes, usually boys. This was her best friend at the gym. They played together most of the morning and she immediately decided he should come to our house (she and Joshua both ask almost everyone they meet to come over).

Hannah has really gotten more adventurous. She is willing to try more and more. She was doing flips "like the olympics" (she meant the divers as that is what she most recently watched) and did the balance beam.

She also tried climbing the tower. She didn't aspire to higher than the lowest level, but that's very daring for her.

She had less luck with her attempt at the climbing wall. She never got off the ground, but she tried it and that's something. We had a great time at the gym and I was glad we went.

And then, the next day, on the 10th, I started at Sprint. Or perhaps restarted is a better way to think of it. I am going back to my same group, with many of the same people, to work on the same problems. However, a lot has changed too, so there should be plenty to learn. It's a big change for me since I've been away for seven years.