Happiness and Cheer

Christmas is so fun with kids, even if they are both a little suspicious these days about the plausibility of Santa's transcontinental trip in one night. This was our best Christmas yet, and the first with Jay.
They got new jammies on Christmas Eve night from Grandma and Grandpa Rutman.

Here's the spread status post Santa's visit.

Ada got a bunch of art supplies including an easel and large paper pad, watercolors, colored pencils, markers, sketching pencils, and a box to keep it all in.

Seth, stoked about his remote controlled helicopter.

Taking from the pile.

Confused about the wrapping paper on his first Christmas.

Tasty.

Wood blocks for Jay.

Ada was excited about the hair chalk to color stripes in her hair.

Seth's favorite gift, a Pokemon card set, Megacharizard Y! Whatever that means.

They love games, and racked up a few this year, including Operation, Blokus, and Set.

Lindsay got a new and improved thermometer!

Jay is interested in something.

My gifts to the kids were t-shirts. Seth got a Steph Curry jersey shirt, and I made Ada a shirt of her favorite singer, Ryan Adams (since it's not possible to find kids size shirts of alt-folk singer songwriters).

The damage:

We started a new tradition too, of making a buche de Noel, which is a French dessert served at Christmastime. 

It's basically a sponge cake that is is rolled to look like a Yule log. Lindsay and I went all out and not only did it look cool, it was delicious.

We'll see if we want to go to the effort next year.

Christmas Cookies

The kids love this tradition every year. We make sugar cookies, a bunch of different colored frostings, and see who can make the best cookie decorations.







Messy Ada.

Christmastime is here

We had Grandma and Grandpa Rutman as well as Uncle Nick for Thanksgiving. A couple days later we made the trek to Home Depot to cut down our tree from the lot. It was strangely cold and even briefly snowed.

As usual, I struggled to put the tree up, Lindsay put the lights on the tree, and the kids enjoyed decorating the tree.

Jay was excited to hang out with Grandma.

And Seth was excited that Grandpa brought about 12 different electronic devices

Jay liked all of the reachable branches and ornaments,

and even tasted them.

Fun fun fun.

Futbol

Another year of soccer has come and gone.

He loves it, and takes it pretty seriously, even if no one else is keeping score.

He's made a lot of progress with ball control.







Pretty glad the year is over so I don't have to sit in the cold and mud anymore.

Halloweeny

Halloween was fun. It has always been my favorite holiday.

The kids are getting older, and this was the first time that they didn't do a group costume. Seth wanted to be his favorite baseball player, Hunter Pence of the San Francisco Giants.

Here's what he looks like in actuality.

He's an endearing character.

So endearing, that opposing teams make fun of him with these weird good-hearted signs.



We made one for Seth.

Please note the fine details that are a shoutout to the truest of Pence fans-- the one orange sleeve, the beard, and the socks that go above the knees. Not sure why his beard looks so red in this photo. It looked pretty sweet in person
 
and impressed a number of kids who thought he had the ability to grow a beard at age 7.

What a man!

Ada wanted to be a warthog.

This was intentionally obscure on her part. She's as in love with Frozen as most 5 year old girls, but she really loves this book:

The main character is tired of all the girls' princess costumes that look the same, so she shows up at the class Halloween party dressed as a warthog, hoping to make a statement.

Olivia says "It was very effective."

Ada told me she wanted to be very effective this year.

Making this costume was a fun challenge. I appreciate the puppet and stuffed animal bloggers who gave me great ideas for how to make wire-y hair that pokes out of the ears and head. I'm also happy we gave her hooves. Ada was pretty proud as she presumed she was the only kid in Seattle who dressed as a warthog. Way to be effective!

Then there's baby Jay.

As much as I love the challenge of making unique costumes for my kids at Halloween, I have to maintain some sanity and recycle the good ones (or embrace the ease of Seth wanting to be a baseball player). Jay is the final baby of our Stay Puft dynasty. (The giant marshmallow man from Ghostbusters)

It's fun for us to compare our kids (who have all been around 7-8 months around Halloween).

Baby Ada.

Baby Seth.

Happy Halloween!