Christmas

 This year we had someone doing "Secret Santa" for us. It was something the kids looked forward to each morning as Evelyn would jump out of bed first to see what had been left downstairs. They left candied popcorn, Christmas decorations, cool toys, and more. Evelyn and Jilly wrote thank you notes to them a few times. On Christmas Eve, our friends the Bramwells stopped by and brought out the thank you notes the girls had written. The look on the girls' faces was kind of hilarious as they wondered how in the world the Bramwells had gotten a hold of their notes for Santa. I don't know if Jilly ever figured it out, and it took Evelyn quite a while to, but those 12 days made our Christmas a bit more special this year. 

 On the 23rd, we drove up to Ben's old stomping grounds to eat dinner with his high school band teacher. He's retired now, and enjoyed the company and seeing the kids. He even gifted them a few movies, "Enchanted" and "Finding Nemo," which Gordon is scared of we found out. Then we went to see "Christmas Tree Lane." My favorite part is driving down the gently sloping hill and seeing all the trees on either side of the street decorated with sweeping lines of white lights. This house we took a picture of was outside the neighborhood, but had the light display coordinated with some "Manheim Steamroller" music. The kids thought that was pretty cool.  

Uncle Dan came to visit and stay on Christmas Eve. We had tri-tip steak, potatoes, etc. It was all yummy, followed by the traditional opening of pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa Cows. I got a half-snuggie as a joke from Dan. It's an L.A. Dodgers blanket with attached sleeves. It is nice for watching movies with though. Ben got a set of Lord of the Rings Pez dispensers. (He used to collect Pez dispensers in high school.)

I think the present pile gets bigger each year and we feel more than spoiled rotten just looking at all of it. People do love us I guess. :) We found a recording of a hearth with a fire in it and played that during dinner. Santa left a big bag of Marshmallow Mateys for breakfast, which I loved because I didn't have to make a fancy breakfast. I'm asking Santa for another bag of that next year. (Our kids don't get cereal like that usually, only at Grandma and Grandpa's house).

Flashlights for reading at night. 

Gordon having a light saber fight with Uncle Dan. Gordon got a lot of superhero dress-up stuff, Evelyn got books to read and a few bead kits, and Jilly got lots of Littlest Pet Shop toys and beads as well. And plenty of other gifts. I had all the kids write thank you notes this year for the first time. It's something I've been wanting to do for a few years now. It was a good Christmas. 

minor frustrations

I love my children. I really do. I love the way they fill my life, teach me, remind me, and make me a better person. Each of them is different, and I still feel I am on the road to discovering their differences and unique personalities. Every day is different and interesting in some way.

But.

One of the few personality traits they all share makes me crazy. It seems to provide no end of frustration for them or myself, and that's pickiness. They are all very picky about what they eat, what they wear, what they do with their time, where they're sitting in the car, how they're playing a game, how close, or not close they are sitting with each other. It's just crazy. I don't know if my kids are closer to the extreme end of things, or if they're just normal kids and I need to take a chill pill. Probably the latter. I read a book recently where the author encouraged trying to relabel a negative trait like this into a positive trait. Being very discerning, discriminating, having an eye for detail, knowing exactly what you want, etc. This still is not helping me when Gordon screams that the socks he's wearing don't go as high up his leg as he wants, or the hair clip Jilly's wearing isn't one centimeter higher diagonally on the side of her head as she'd like.

Clothes are one of the biggest battles we fight. I have learned to not care if they match at all, how many layers are worn or not worn, or how they wear their hair. The only rules we have are it has to be clean, modest, appropriate for the event, and on family picture day or weddings, I get full, total, and complete reign over clothes and hair. The girls understand this and were surprisingly cooperative on our family photo shoot this summer. Gordon didn't care yet. Now he does.

Evelyn's favorite clothes are t-shirts, leggings, and a skirt. She'll wear blue jeans when the leggings are dirty, which wouldn't have happened last year in Kindergarten. So it seems she's relaxing her expectations a little (for which I am very thankful).

Jilly has about 6 pieces of clothing she loves to wear, and if I suggest she has to wear anything else, we can be in full nuclear meltdown in 30 seconds or less. She'll wear these favorite things until they are filthy dirty, only then are they allowed to be washed. She'll keep digging them out of the laundry. Don't get me started on fixing her hair.

Gordon only wants to wear blue jeans, even when it's 85 degrees outside. He's not so picky about his shirts (yet), and of all the socks he owns, he only wants to wear 2 pairs of them, and one favorite pair of shoes anywhere. He's my only child that matches most of the time.

This pickiness came raining down on me yesterday when I was getting dressed for church. Evelyn wanted to help me pick something to wear. She would pull something out, and I had an excuse for not wearing nearly everything she pulled out of the closet. That's when I told her, "you know where you guys got your finickiness about clothes from - me."

Ben isn't exactly easy-going about what he wears either. Yay for genetic inheritance!

So beloved children, someday when you have your own kids, and you call me in complete frustration about your crazy children who want to wear the same shirt for a 72 hour stretch (as I have done with both sets of parents), I will listen sympathetically, and wish you loads of patience. When I hang up the phone, I will smile wistfully, thinking on these fun/frustrating days. And be a little bit glad I don't have to deal with pre-school pickiness anymore!

Thanksgiving

I'm about to catch up the blog and I realize that I never posted about Thanksgiving. Drat.
This year Thanksgiving was at Uncle Dan's new house. We (all the the adults) were tired and agreed to make this a tasty, but simply-put-together event. So out came King's Hawaiian rolls instead of homemade ones, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, Costco Pumpkin Pie, and Martinelli's. I did make the potatoes and gravy from scratch, as well as the vegetable side dishes. It was yummy and way too much food, as usual.

 There was something appalling about the pumpkin pie for dessert though. This picture makes me laugh every time I see it.

 Uncle Dan showing the kids his remote helicopter. Then we watched a movie, and then we went home, and then everyone caught up on the sleep they'd been missing since September. The End. Of Thanksgiving.

 Another afternoon at the park in late November, the last pictures from this particular park are over a year old. It's amazing to see how much three kids grow in a year.

 Gordon always plops his head like that on Dad when he rides on Dad's shoulders.

Oh, the power of the smartphone with a YouTube app. Donald Duck cartoons galore! This kid would do that all day if I let him.

Tomatoes in December

 I've been meaning to get a post up of my garden outcomes this year, it being the first time I've done my own garden. And up until mid-September, things weren't looking so great. Everything, except my beets, had really struggled to thrive through the spring and summer. When I got back from vacation, I just about gave up. A friend of ours kept watering my sorry-looking plants, and once the warmth and humidity started to calm down, they exploded with new growth. So these giant tomato plants, with multiple cages to support them, are heavy with ripening tomatoes in our cool fall weather. They are 4 feet tall, and would easily be 6 feet if I had the vertical support they need.

Any one want fresh basil? I'm loaded. There's lettuce growing in the back of the picture, and I just planted a mix of flowers, peas, green beans, carrots, spinach, and broccoli. We'll see how it does through these short sunny days of winter. I'm just hoping the impending rainy season doesn't drown the garden. I would be so sad!

Let Christmas begin!

 We spent Black Friday at home away from retail chaos (I do not enjoy shopping in crowds). As soon as we got home from Uncle Dan's house, where we had eaten Thanksgiving dinner, Evelyn was begging to get the Christmas decorations out. So all Friday afternoon, that's what we did.  Evelyn glowed all afternoon and gave lots of random hugs and when they viewed the Christmas lights we had put up in their bedroom window from outside, Jilly said she felt warm and fuzzy inside. I loved seeing how much the kids were enjoying everything. Christmas is by far my favorite holiday.

Gordon got to stay up for a little while after the girls had gone to bed, and he took a few choice ornaments off the tree (these are both ornaments from when Ben was little). He carries them around like little treasures. My favorite thing that evening was when I was taking Gordon up to bed, and he gave me a big, squeezy hug and said, "I'm happy Mommy. I'm happy." Nothing like that to make your heart melt, and just a simple reminder to be happy with what we have and where we are in life. Jilly asked last night if Christmas was going to be today. No dear, you have a month's wait (thank goodness!) I'm very much looking forward to this holiday season.

Half-way through Autumn

In September, I resolved not to get behind on the blog. Well, that resolve didn't last long. There are 2 new posts below this one. So what have we been up to?

 This poor Daddy has been working a killer quarter, and we really can't wait until it's over in about a month. He's taking three classes and teaching three classes, and between grading and studying, he doesn't have time for much anything else. He still makes time for us where he can, and we've been doing more walking to campus to eat lunch with him. Gordon was snuggling and obviously eating in this picture, just after he'd woken up for a nap. It's about the only time Ben gets a snuggle from his boy.

 Evelyn, I discovered, has figured out how to work my camera (sort of), and about half the pictures I dumped onto the computer were fuzzy images and two second movies of whatever it was she and Jilly were doing. This picture was a good self-portrait. She's continuing to improve her reading skills, she enjoys school most of the time, and keeps getting taller. Her favorite thing is playing outside with friends, running, jumping, climbing and playing games. She's got a lot of energy.

 Our ward had it's first annual pie night last night, and I felt like I should make two pies. I made a pumpkin pie and a banana cream pie. As I was cutting up the pumpkin pie at the serving table, I thought to myself, "something about this pie is different. I wonder if it tastes okay." I've made pumpkin pie more than a few times before. Ben had a slice of it on his plate, and I asked him what it tasted like. Just as he started to tell me it tasted weird, I realized I had forgotten to add any sugar. Thankfully, only one other slice of the pie was gone, and I had a second, complete pie to add to the gluttony. Just after this incident, Evelyn ran into one of the other kids and got her second bloody nose for the fall. I was irritated at this point. A bloody nose is okay for a child who doesn't freak out, but when Evelyn got a bloody nose a month ago, she nearly had a panic attack (not kidding). By the time I got her nose to stop bleeding the first time, it looked like we had both been through the war and there were plenty of people staring at us as I tried to convince a hysterical Evelyn that she needed to try and stop the bleeding. It was beyond ridiculous. Thankfully the second time around, she kept her panic at a manageable level, and we got everything quickly cleaned up. Pie night ended up being a lot of fun.

If you blow up the picture above, you can see some red marks around Jilly's mouth and nose where she had an unfortunate encounter with the sidewalk, skidding face-first. It was her belated birthday present, happening the day after her party. She had a swollen and bruised nose for a few days, fat lips, some gnarly scabs, and a big hole on the inside of her bottom lip. She was pretty mortified about the whole thing, not only that it hurt, but that her beautiful face was all scratched up. I promised her I would put make-up over it until it healed, and that made it almost all better (she loves make-up).

Poor Gordon, as a boy with two older sisters,  he likes to dress up in princess clothes (we have tons of them, and they get used by the girls nearly every day). At Jilly's birthday party, he was dressed up like the rest of the girls, with a pink dress on. Ben was sick of this, so Ben's mom sent the dress-up clothes she was saving for Christmas early so Gordon would have something masculine to wear. This costume arrived today, and he yelled as the box was getting opened that his "Buzz Whiteyear!" had arrived. There was also a Woody costume, and the cape and mask. He spent the afternoon zooming around the house, and wore this for most the rest of the day. Ben sarcastically remarked that we could probably get rid of all his clothes now that he has his costume to wear for the next 3 years.

The class I was taking ended in mid-October (thankfully), and I've been class-free ever since. I continue to teach piano, and we are having our first recital in a few weeks. I've been Christmas shopping, and tending my garden, which is still producing. I need to get out and take a picture of my November tomatoes. I got my first really nice-looking one today. This gardening in November thing is strange, but cool. I am looking forward to Christmas break!

Happy Birthday to Jilly

My littlest girl is five years old. She is smart, mischievous, curious, articulate, and loves all things small and ducky. She is definitely my "pretty girl," who must always look just right, and will take her time getting the perfect look. I see long hours in front of the mirror as she gets older! I think she has a talent for dance; she loves to prance around to music, and is surprisingly graceful as she does it. I wish I had the money for full-on ballet lessons for her, but I'm hoping to come up with another solution for Christmas. 

 We had a little birthday party with a few friends, and they painted nails while watching "The Little Mermaid." She likes that movie because it was my favorite princess movie as a child. 

 She got her own ballerina Barbie (Evelyn has the blond version). 

 She requested Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast, macaroni and cheese for lunch, and homemade pizza for dinner. She wanted a strawberry cake with real strawberries inside, with homemade whipped cream frosting. I used dried strawberries for the inside of the cake, and liked it much better vs. fresh strawberries. 

 She ate all of her cake, yay! It's nearly impossible to get her to finish any kind of food these days except chocolate milk, which is probably why she is still such petite little girl. 

 Her primary teacher brought over these chick cupcakes, because Jilly loves little duckies and chicks. She has some of her other birthday gifts on her lap. 

Grandma and Grandpa Chickens sent Jilly a Littlest Pet Shop treehouse, and she sets up the animals she got for her birthday (the ones pictured). She loves to make "set-ups" as she and Evelyn call it, and is very particular about where things go, who puts them there, the rules go on and on. She is very particular (if you look up this word in a thesaurus using the adjective description, it describes Jilly to a tee. It definitely provides for a parenting challenge!) She is also super-sweet and can be so thoughtful, we all love her. 

October Re-cap

 Time to catch up the blog. October passed quickly, the weather turned cooler, and school kept us busy. The kids were all very excited for Halloween.

 Two moms from Jilly's pre-school group hosted a costume party the Friday before Halloween. A friend took these pictures, because I was the piñata holder. Gordon and I are on the left of the bottom picture. Jilly's in the blue princess dress, it's a miracle she still fits in it. Evelyn got that dress when she was two years old.

 This was also where we contracted the first stomach flu we've had in three years, yay for us! If we're going to be puking, it's in the month of October. Evelyn, Jilly and I got the worst of it. Gordon and Ben came out without spending too much time with the toilet. I was glad, having a puking toddler is absolutely no fun. So as a result of the stomach bug, we had a low-key Halloween.

The only reason this pumpkin got carved is because Evelyn's class hosted a "Pumpkin Day" on Halloween where they weighed, measured and conducted experiments with pumpkins, and then carved them.

This was the day after Halloween, when I decided to cook our Jack 'o' Lantern and chopped the pumpkin in half, making a cool mask. 

We made it to our ward's trunk-or-treat on Saturday night. Evelyn and Jilly were both vampires, and Gordon wore the monkey suit. When we went knocking on neighborhood doors on Halloween night, Gordon charmed all the strangers as a monkey. We have only done neighborhood trick or treating twice before, and I think it's a lot more fun than a trunk-or-treat. We'll definitely do it again next year. 

Summer is over, school is here!

Every member of our family, except Gordon, is in school of some sort. Gordon is kind of put out about this. When Evelyn started school a few weeks ago, he also asked to get all dressed and have a water bottle so he was to "a-go school." He still asks me multiple times a day where she has gone. Then Jilly started her neighborhood pre-school group, and all the neighbors got to hear a good old-fashioned temper tantrum while I half-carried/half-dragged Gordon away from my friend's doorstep. Thankfully that attitude lessened this week.

  Evelyn was anxious for first grade, she didn't sleep well the few nights preceding the first day of school. She was afraid of being bored, having to get up early again, and not knowing who her teacher was (we found out the night before, like everyone else at her school). She did just fine though, and is now in the swing of things. She doesn't come home super excited about school, but doesn't complain a lot about it either, so I guess she's okay with it. After the first day, she was really excited about the prospect of having hot lunch at school. She got her first opportunity yesterday when I forgot to load her lunchbox in her backpack. When I picked her up from the bus stop, I expected her to be happy or excited about the hot lunch she got. Instead, I was greeted by a cranky, stomping little girl. I tentatively asked how lunch was and she said, "It was horrible! I hated it! I never want hot lunch ever, ever again!"

Wow. I have intense children. Does anyone think she was a little disappointed?

She didn't like what was served, only the strawberry ice cream cup and apple juice that came with it. So I'm definitely on the cold lunch bandwagon for the foreseeable future, except on pizza days.

Jilly has a pre-school group that meets twice a week for two hours. So far she has enjoyed it, but I guess this last time there were a few tears toward the end, and she said she was just ready to go home. I'm glad I couldn't send her to kindergarten yet (she missed the cut-off by a week). She enjoys being the big girl in the house while Evelyn's gone, and still needs lots of play time, both alone and with a few other kids. I'm sure she'll be ready this time next year.

Ben started his coursework yesterday, although he's been teaching for nearly a month at another university. He's one busy guy. I should also mention that he was recently put in as the ward Primary Chorister. Really. Now he's got to learn all the primary songs.

I am taking one course at the community college here this fall. After the summer session where I over-loaded myself with classes and had the stress to match, one feels like a breeze. It'll be slow-going to actually earning a nursing degree, but I'll get there eventually.

Gordon will continue his home-school, where he learns how to manipulate mommy into doing what he wants next, building trains and 'castles', riding his bike, tormenting his sisters (namely Jilly), and listening to music (new favorite pastime, we're 'The Killers' fans right now).

Riding Around

At the end of August, Grandma and Grandpa Chickens paid a visit to us for about 10 days, and we went out and did some stuff, but mostly just relaxed. They wanted to check out the Orange County Great Park. 

So they rode the carousel and   

 finally got a ride on the hot air balloon (it's closed a lot). 

 Labor Day weekend, a friend watched our sleeping kids and we went to a concert there featuring a New Orleans-style Jazz band. It was pretty cool. I've decided I prefer outdoor concerts to indoor ones, they are not as loud. This time I rode the carousel too. 

Ben missed his bike while we were on vacation, and was back riding as soon as he could be. He rides with a group of guys who refer to themselves as "The Doughboys." It's mostly a middle-aged group of men who ride together for fun and fitness. On Saturdays, they'll do a long ride usually (30 miles or more), and stop somewhere to eat.

On a recent ride, they stopped at this breakfast joint up in Huntington Beach somewhere, and enjoyed a breakfast like this. You've got to replace those calories, right? 

In cycling, when you ride 100 miles in a day, it's called a century. Ben did his first two weeks ago. He was kind of nervous about it, and I wasn't sure how his body would hold up. It was a ride from the Irvine Amtrak station to the station in San Diego, 100 miles south.

Of course, for the first time in months, thunderstorms rolled in that morning. Some cyclers got pelted with penny-sized hail. Thankfully, Ben's group took off a little later, missed the hail and got only rain.

We drove down to San Diego in the early afternoon to meet him at the finish line, along PCH, near the Maritime Boat Museum in the harbor. Gordon got bored and was trying to wrestle Jilly. 

 Yay! He made it, and he was smiling. His group came in with the first few hundred riders. It took him a little less than 9 hours to complete the ride. The event organizers had 3 rest stops over the 100 miles. Ben wasn't very sore from this event, and had fun, so I see more of them in the future. 

We're all proud of Dad!  

 While Ben changed and got a massage (100 miles on a bike would make me stiff in places too), we crossed the street to check out the boats. The kids wanted to walk on and check them out, but time and money held us back. 

Afterwards, we found a Red Lobster to eat dinner at, with some giftcards we received from Grandma and Grandpa Chickens. 

This is how Gordon rides sometimes. He can ride Jilly's bike now,  so I'm needing to find a bigger bike for Evelyn and bump the younger two up a bike. They all enjoy riding bikes, just like Daddy!

Last day of the epic road trip...

 ...until next summer, if I get my way (insert evil chuckle). This is the last vacation post, and I am not super blog savvy, so they are backwards. If you want to start at the beginning, go down 4 or 5 posts. I've lost track.

After we'd been in the car for about 4 hours, we made it to San Fransisco. I loved driving through the wine country, the vineyards on the rolling hills were so beautiful in the afternoon sun, I forgot to take a picture of them.

 The visitors area for the Golden Gate Bridge was absolutely packed. Bikers, tourists, irritated locals, holy cow, there were a lot of people. And it was super windy, so we were all cold, except Ben I think. We walked up the bridge part way, observing the signs pleading with people not to jump off the bridge. No problems there.

 The girls are packed in tight next to me as to not get lost in the crowd. The skyline in the background was cool, and with that wind, I can't imagine how the view could be marred by smog. We could see Alcatraz as well, and Evelyn was very interested to learn that it had once been a jail.

 In 'n' Out for dinner. Mmmm. This was in the Mountain View area of the Bay.

We stopped in Gilroy to get some 5 hour energy drinks, and have a potty break. We were driving through the night to get back to Orange County. I quite liked what I saw of Gilroy. Too bad they don't have a university there. This is a strawberry field right next to the store. From here, it was another 6 hours home. The kids fell asleep not long after 8 pm, and we drove through the quiet farming corridor of central California without incident. Driving the freeways of Los Angeles at 2 am is wonderful by the way.

Our total mileage for this trip was over 3,125 miles. Almost $700 in gas, and about $300 more for other expenses. We made out like bandits! We couldn't have flown and rented cars for anything near that.

This was the best vacation I have ever had. I felt like I finally knew why people love vacationing. You get to run (fly or drive) away from your problems! It's great! I want to do it more often. The perspective I gained from this trip was invaluable. Anyway. It has been a crazy-fun summer for us, and I was none too excited for school to start. But that's another post.