Thanksgiving and Christmas tree pics

View of the rec room at Aunt Kelly's house, most of the men-folk.  L to R: David, Ryan (Kelly's friend Ania's son), Fred (Wade's mother's boyfriend), Johnny, and Uncle Wade.

Holiday and Johnny in matching jams.  I'm back in the kitchen (view from standing in the rec room).

More jam action.

They look like 'whos' from 'whoville'.

Hey it's Cindy Lou Who.

Awww...

Just too much cuteness.

Stop the cuteness already.

Cuteness plus Johnny's cheese face = off the Richter scale of cuteness.

Johnny, Holiday and Hally (Uncle Travis's daughter).  Johnny is actually saying 'cheese' by the way.

Snow!

Presents from Aunt Kelly.

Back to cuteness.

Strike a pose...

vogue...

Camera distraction over...back to presents.

There's the elephun for Johnny and notice how Holiday is keeping 'Backpack' as far away from Johnny as possible.

Johnny and Uncle Wade.

Setting up the Christmas tree.

Johnny's helping with the ornaments.

And so is Miss Holiday.

All of Daddy's hard work on outdoor lighting.

We went downtown on Friday for the Figgy Pudding contest.  Holiday liked it but Johnny didn't like being always harnessed in something or other when he'd rather be running through it all himself.  He didn't like being on the merry-go-round either.  That's okay, we can wait on rides.  Yesterday I took Holiday to the Nutcracker at McCaw Hall while Daddy and Johnny hung out.  Holiday was more and more excited with the whole process of walking across the grounds, seeing the lights, then the building, going inside, getting a special cushion, getting a ballerina cupcake, and then seeing the stage.  She kept asking, "Where are they going?  What happens next?  When is it my turn?"  Yep, she just couldn't get it out of her head that she was going to perform as well on that beautifully large dance floor.  I told her they just don't let the public dance on their stage.  "Why not?  Don't they like us?"  "They like us just fine.  There's just too many people to manage that."  "Ohhhhh...they don't like us." (Sounding very sad).  She wouldn't let it go.  She told her daddy all about them not liking us.  But she still had a good time even though she was denied the dance floor.

Some ballet class pictures

Does Holiday like posing for the camera?

In a word...YES!

Whole class with her teacher Miss Alyssa.

Skipping along...

and along...

The teacher has an assistant now since the class is so large just to keep the girls herded together.

Shake-shake-shake

and twist...

and twist again.

David is putting up the Christmas lights outside.  This got the kids really excited.  So much so that they kept banging on the window calling out for him.  It's good to be a rock star.

Catching up on pictures

This was at Ayden's 6th birthday party almost a month ago.

Pretty cool looking cake.

Holiday, Ayden and Grandma Claudia.

Johnny's got a birthday balloon.

Johnny getting a horsey ride from Uncle Chris.

Now it's Holly's turn.

Kids snuggling with the grandparents.

Holiday and Johnny having a 'sleepover' in the hallway.

Too cute.

Now it's 'dump out all the toys so we can climb into the toy box' game.

It's lots of fun.

Yeah...Mommy has gone through the toys since then.

So we're back from our Thanksgiving vacation.  We went to Aunt Kelly and Uncle Wade's house in Spokane.  We had favorable driving weather both ways.  We did have to slow it down a little through Vantage coming home the fog was so thick, but there wasn't much snow driving at all.  Kelly's house is pretty big so we were able to stay there overnight as well as visit.  The house still needs some work, but they've done a lot already and a good job at that.  I tend to be a barefoot walker at home and they had some NICE carpeting and hardwood flooring put in.  We got to meet her friend Ania and her family as well as play some board games with Kelly, Wade and Wade's cousin Olie and her boyfriend.  I think we were making too much noise playing Wits and Wagers because Holly kept coming downstairs wanting to be part of the action.  It took several tries to get her to go to sleep.  I guess Olie sang Twinkle Little Star on a loop till she did.  She's great with kids, but she's one of eighteen kids so she has experience.  Yup...no typo...18.  No multiple births in there either. (Ouch...my uterus!)  She's 23 going to school to be a OB/GYN nurse, I think that's pretty suited for her.  Her oldest sibling is about 40 and the youngest about 10.  It's hard to fathom.  Holiday and Johnny opened Christmas presents from Kelly and Wade so they can see their reaction.  Johnny got an Elephun toy that was a hit and Holly got Backpack, the character backpack from Dora the Explorer.  That was the hit of the century.  Holly was of course excited about it, but Johnny went crazy excited and he kept repeating 'Backpack...backpack...backpack' in a high pitch excited squeal because he recognized it from the show.  It was incredibly funny.  The kids had a great time as did we all but they really didn't want to leave.  

This cold had my name all over it

Yes, as of LAST Monday I've been fighting a cold.  I am feeling much better but it seems to be hanging on much longer than most colds.  At least there wasn't any fever, but it's one of those kinds that sucks all the life and energy out of you so I've been more tired than usual.  So have the kids, it's been much harder to get them up in the morning.  I can't say I blame them, I would like more sleep too.  But they are kids so they are almost always in some sort of stage in the sniffles department.  It's just harder to deal with right before a major holiday and everything is so busy.  I made a point to not do much this weekend and blatantly ignored the leaves in the yard in spite of my to-do list.  David and I got to watch Holiday's dance class but in shifts.  Johnny just can't keep off the dance floor so we had to keep him in the waiting room during the class.  The girls are doing really well and I don't think any of them had a melt down which in the past was a regular occurrence during parent watch days.  Very good little listeners.  We went to the library and then to the Safeway pharmacy for Daddy and Mommy to get their flu shots.  So now we're all up to snuff on our shots.  David put up the exterior Christmas lights on Saturday since it was dry this weekend.  He had a little scare when the whole ladder slipped out of position with him on it to lay flat on the back deck.  But thankfully it was just racked shins and neck whiplash nothing major just a little scary.  The Christmas lights look good too.  We'll probably wait until after Thanksgiving to put up the tree.  I need to get some pre-Thanksgiving baking done anyways.

Johnny's 18 month check up...busy, busy

It's been a little busy lately.  Last Monday the kids saw the doctor, Holiday for just a flu shot and Johnny for his 18 month well child check.  Right when we got there one of the senior nurses gave us all sorts of accolades for keeping up to date on the kids' immunizations.  I guess I really wasn't thinking that hard about being on time, all I know that I was sick a LOT as a kid and if I can prevent my kids from going through that I will.  From my point of view, why be sick when you don't have to be?  It struck me kind of funny that the nurse reacted that way, I wonder if they have a lot of patients that decline immunizations.  Doctors can be pushy about that sort of thing.  But of course, the kids weren't that happy about shots.  Holiday had hers first.  Then Johnny had his check-up and his development is just great.  Last time they were impressed with his strength, this time his walking stability.  He's around 60th percentile in height and weight and 99th with head circumference.  Then Johnny had his shots and Holiday was pretty tense about it.  When we told her that he was going to have three shots she thought that meant he was going to cry three times.  She cried as hard as he did during the shots.  "He doesn't like it!"  "No one does Holly."  Poor sensitive little girl.  We did some Christmas shopping this weekend so Grandma Claudia and Grandpa Jet came to babysit.  When I handed Johnny a snack he wanted, he responded in his sing-songy kind of way with a 'thank-you'.  Grandma really liked that.  But we put the kids down for a nap and then power shopped because the sale was over at 3pm so we had to jam.  Yesterday we had family pictures done.  Johnny is still in the middle of his uncooperative picture-taking phase while Holiday seems completely over that.  So maybe in three years Johnny will be too.  We noticed that the Southcenter Santa was already in full swing.  Yep, it's the Christmas season folks and we haven't had Thanksgiving yet.

Couple more pictures

Johnny and Holly sitting in the kids chair.  That's best 'cheese' face ever.

Here I am playing House on Haunted Hill with David.  He's replaced the figures with characters from Scooby-Doo since we're exploring a spooky old house.  Shaggy was the one who went crazy thus becoming the bad guy.  In the end Velma and Daphne were killed by Shaggy's Shagenstein monster, but Scooby-Doo (me) won because I threw enough torches at the Shagenstein monster.

Now Holiday draws her stick people with hands

Left to Right: Johnny, Mommy, Daddy and Holiday

Happy Halloween/Happy Birthday Daddy!

Oops...Johnny made a mess.

Balancing act.

Now in tandem.

Holiday all ready to go to the school field trip of the pumpkin patch.

Full shot of the Dora backpack.

Johnny all tucked in playing with his tool set.

Fairy wings and kitty ears.

New cowboy hat and spiderman pajamas.

He really does ride that horse pretty hard.

I spy my little eye a Johnny shoe.

The kids really like to wrestle.  People have made note that they play rough.  Maybe it just seems that way because they're loud.

Carving jack-o-lantern time!

The kids are watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". 

The kids loved the jack-o-lanterns.

Hanging out in the hallway, relaxing...reading books.

They are so funny.

Holiday in her Disney Princess Rapunzel costume.

With Jack-o-lanterns.

And Johnny in his Superman costume.  That was pretty cute.

The other day when I was getting picked up after work I could see that Holiday was wearing an eye mask that she had made at school.  She pulled it up off her little face and said, "It's okay Mommy.  It's just me." And then proceeded to laugh really hard.  That was hilarious.  We went trick-or-treating last night and filled up her little pumpkin carrier as seen above here in the picture in about an hour.  The weather was great, no rain, not cold...and Johnny didn't get too bored rolling around in a stroller.  I gave him the Dora flashlight to play with.  People were giving out handfuls of candy and several of them said we were their first ones of the night.  There was one case where we weren't sure if what was seen in the distance was a cat or a raccoon.  So we were holding position when it moved into the light and it was clearly a raccoon.  We skipped that house.  Wait...I guess I should be clear and say a real raccoon, not a kid dressed as a raccoon.  It was pretty big.  The kids had a good time trick-or-treating and we stopped by Toni and Drew's for a few minutes and even got the kids home at a decent hour.  Early enough to pass out candy to a few kids at our door.  Everyone was tired this morning though.  It's David's birthday today.  He's 42 (It's the answer, heeheehee).  We'll give him his present when we get home tonight.  Then we'll take him out to brunch this weekend.