Holiday week

Jake got a week off of work last week and we enjoyed having him home. Thanks to my little brother we are going to be looking for a bigger house soon (we had planned to wait until we could break even before buying a house, but Todd inspired me to look into it now and it turns out we are way closer to breaking even than I thought, like if it weren't for realtors getting a cut we could probably break even). Woohoo! So I spent some of the vacation time starting to pack and prep the house. Our freezer is moved to the garage, a big bookcase in the girl's room is emptied and in the garage, and lots of toys and books are packed up. Jake kept telling me to enjoy my vacation (like moms ever really get a vacation), and I tried to tell him I was enjoying myself. Getting things done at least 3 times faster than they would be done were I the only one home having to split my attention between watching and taking care of the kids and getting some work done was a definite plus in my book. It was so much easier with Jake there to entertain the kids.
But I did take plenty of time to relax and enjoy myself, too. Jake and I went to the Hobbit on a date one day, and most days we enjoyed some time outside, even if it was a little cold for us Arizona wimps.
Tackle Dad!

 We also jumped our back fence almost every day to go play on the playground at the elementary school. The last day we took a camera to document the fun.

 Ryan got pretty darn good at climbing stairs, and is totally fearless on the slides. On the colder days he'd had socks on his hands for mittens and discovered how fun it was to slide down head-first. When we went on a warmer day it took 2 or 3 face plants before he learned to lift his hands up to slide down fast.

 He also loves (eating) dirt. We try to plug the mouth, but it only lasts a minute or so before he decides he must taste this fascinating stuff and spits out the binky.

 Rachel and Annie had a blast chasing Dad. He's a good Dad to play along for so long. "Come and get me, Dad!" "Get me again!" "I'm going to get you!" All up and down and around the playground equipment.

 Some of our attempts at a cute picture:

 And proof I was there:

 We have some cute kiddos.

It was a fabulous week full of fun. We were sad to have Jake head back to work. As for progress on our house, this week is the week of painting and new carpet and, once the carpet is in the girls will finally get their bunk bed, which Rachel is getting more and more excited about... Thankfully my parents are visiting Todd and Savannah in Seattle for the week, so we get to use their house as home base for a few days while our house is discombobulated with the work being done. And it looks like we're on the way to putting our house on the market maybe by the end of the month. We hope to stick close to where we are. We like our ward, like the schools, and don't want Jake to have to drive any longer than he does to work. We'll see how things work out.

Christmas morning

On Christmas Eve Rachel (not surprisingly) had a real hard time falling asleep. I finally had to sit on the floor of her room to keep her in bed long enough to fall asleep, and then she was out in less than 10 minutes. Amazing what staying in bed for just a few minutes will do for a tired kid. I was expecting a 3 or 4am wake up call, but she made it until 5:00, then laid next to me in bed until 5:30 before she got too wiggly for me to stand it, so we both got up to wait for the late risers. By about 6:15 or 6:30 we were ready to see what Santa had brought. I crocheted beanies for everyone, matching for the boys and matching for the girls. Annie wasn't interested in wearing hers for long. But she was interested in candy. She LOVED her stocking full of goodies. She could have done without all her gifts. Between her stocking and Ryan's gifts she was in heaven.

Ryan was happy that Santa brought him a lollypop, too.

Rachel's one request from Santa was a cake pop maker, and she got it. She got Grandma to help her put it together right away and got to work making some cake pops.

 

Once Ryan was done with his lollypop, he found a flashlight from his stocking to substitute.

After we got the mess cleaned up a little and Ryan got his morning nap, we headed in to Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house. Rachel wanted to open those presents right away, and was not too happy when we told her we were waiting for Peyton and McKenzie to get there before we opened any presents. Luckily they got there relatively soon after we got there, so there wasn't too much waiting.

The kids raked in some cool loot, including a big art easel from Grandma and Grandpa Knight that they love. All the girls got baby dolls, and McKenzie and Peyton each got a stroller to go with them, which, combined with the sleep deprivation from staying up too late and getting up too early, pushed Rachel over the edge. "I'm just so jealous of them!" she told us as she was hiding in the corner crying. She had of course forgotten that back home she had her own stroller and grocery cart to push her baby in. By lunch time she had declared this "The Worst Christmas EVER!" After a nap that afternoon she was much more agreeable and enjoyed the rest of her Christmas. When I asked her at bedtime if it had been her worst Christmas ever she said no. We'll chalk that one up as a win. 

The next day we stayed home to recuperate and play with the new Christmas stuff. The girls made some really cool works of art.

 

Annie got a big kid mattress, which means the girls finally get their bunk beds put together. Sometime... It's not done yet, and surprisingly the girls are okay with that. I thought we'd have them begging to put it together before bed Christmas night. They also got new Hello Kitty bedding and Annie asks occasionally if she can sleep in her new Hello Kitty bed, so one of these days we'll have to get around to putting it together. Maybe this weekend. In the meantime, we had the mattress just sitting in the front room for a few days, which the kids loved as their very own indoor trampoline.

 

It was a fun Christmas and so nice having Jake home all week. 

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve growing up we would always read the nativity from Luke 2, drive around looking at Christmas lights, then come home and open one present. We kept the tradition alive this year. We got the kids some "costumes" (ie towels and scarfs) and they got to act out the nativity story. McKenzie and Peyton were more interested in watching than participating, but maybe next year they'll be more active participants.
Here's Peyton as a shepherd:

Our non-SLR camera that fits so nicely in my purse is broken, so we didn't have a camera with us. But we did have our iPad. Unfortunately it's the iPad2, not 3, so the camera's not great, but at least we got some pictures, even if they are blurry.

Here's Mary (Rachel) and baby Jesus (Ryan) and I think Annie was Mary, too.

Annie still will randomly say, "I Mary, Ryan baby Jesus." Or some variation. Yesterday she told me, "You Mommy Grinch. I Annie Grinch. Ryan Baby Jesus."

Here's a portion of our evening captured on the iPad. Maybe next year we won't steal from baby Jesus and the kids will be able to actually act it out a little on their own. :)

Preschool Christmas Party

On the last day of preschool before Christmas Rachel's class had a little party. Here's the video of the class singing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Rachel's teacher is hard of hearing, so she teaches the kids sign language, and Rachel really enjoys it. She's learned a lot of signs.

Miss Heather told me that Rachel is a real peacemaker and problem-solver at school. When other kids are arguing or fighting over something Rachel will come and help resolve the problem and try to make everyone be friends. Here she is with her teacher:

pre-Christmas photo shoot

Ryan was digging in the dirt with the shovel and trying to get it in his mouth before the dirt fell off the shovel (mostly unsuccessfully). I grabbed the camera to try to capture the dirt-eating moment, and of course the girls flock to the camera like a couple of models.

The Sunday before Christmas we tried to capture the kiddos all dressed up for Christmas.

Someone always seems to have their hand in their mouth. :)

Ryan's favorite place to scavange:

He found a chip.

After church everyone came over for Sunday dinner so my mom wouldn't have to come up with dinner for 3 days in a row, since we'd be spending most of Christmas Eve and Christmas at their place. So we snapped a few of Peyton and McKenzie while they were there, too.

Peyton loves Ryan. They're going to be best friends one day...

Rachel was not too excited about a cousin photo shoot.

Until she got to hold Ryan.

We're happy to have some cousins close by. It made for a fun Christmas. (More to come on Christmas one of these days...)

December

The month of December is more than half-way done and I haven't posted at all about our many activities. We've been keeping pretty busy. The first week of December I spent my free time finishing up wrapping presents and addressing Christmas cards (if you didn't get one, I need your address!). It feels good to have everything, including stockings all ready for Christmas so now I can just enjoy the Christmas music and fun.
Last week was my baking/candy making week, so I made fudge, caramels chocolate dipped pretzels, and candied pecans. Then gave most of it away. (You know, 5 for them, one for me, 5 for them, one for me.) We also headed in to decorate Christmas cookies with Grandma on Friday. Rachel is the only one who actually gets in to the decorating part. Annie was excited about the frosting: spread a little on the cookie, lick a little off the knife, now lick the rest off the cookie. Repeat.
Somewhere in there we had both our ward Christmas party and Jake's work Christmas party. Fun times. Our ward party was service themed--we were Santa's little helpers, so we made elf hats and did some service projects. Here are the girls in their elf hats:

And of course we had a visit from the big guy himself. I really liked how they did it this year. Instead of having to wait in line for every kid to sit on Santa's lap and get a picture and a candy cane he just came in, read I Believe in Santa Claus, then handed out candy canes to all the kids. Luckily Rachel had written her letter to Santa earlier that day, so she just handed it to him, got her candy cane, and left happy. And now there is no turning back on her request for a cake pop maker.

Here are the girlies in front of the Christmas tree.

Annie is quite a little character. She always has her hands full (as in the picture above). Usually with at least two toys per hand. We have a Little People zoo set that has lots of little animals, and the other day she had the ostrich and the sheep (I just noticed she has these in the elf picture above--always got to have something in her hand) and she was playing with them, doing their talking for them:
Ostrich: Why you have a time-out?
Sheep: 'Cause I push Ryan over.
Can you tell what kind of issues we're dealing with these days? When Ryan gets near her most of the time she pushes him, hits him, or steals whatever he has in his hands and yells at him. Such sisterly love for her little bro. Rachel tries to make up for it by being super sweet to him. He loves them both. Most of the time when one of them walks into the room he gets a big grin on his face and wants to be near them. Unless Annie is on the prowl, and Ryan knows it, in which case he starts crying when she gets anywhere near him.

We've kind of been letting our garden turn into a jungle lately. Rachel picked a carrot the other day that was almost as big as her head.

But notice behind her, on the orange tree we actually got oranges this year. DELICIOUS! They're Cara Cara oranges--the ones that are pink and oh-so-tasty inside. We have about 6. Better than 0 that we had last year.

Annie is full into her "I do it myself!" stage. She is overly proficient with a stool and it is a constant battle to get the stools to stay in their designated spots: the bathroom sink, the piano bench by the piano, and put away out of Annie's reach in the kitchen. If it's on the counter she wants it. And if she sees food she wants it. And often helps herself if she can reach:

I am learning patience.

Ryan just turned 9 months old on Tuesday. He is into everything he can reach (which is thankfully less than what Annie can reach). If he sees an open door he runs (crawling-style) to it. And if it closes before he gets to it he has a total melt down. He loves to be outside. He is also getting very proficient at cruising and will pull up to stand on anything, and move along towards his goal. He often will push around the stool that Annie brings out of the bathroom ALL the time. It's his version of a walker. So we got out the little car that turns into a push toy yesterday and he immediately took to it. He can push it around walking almost like a pro. But occasionally it'll run into something, or he'll pull up to standing on the side, instead of the back, so it doesn't move like it's supposed to and he'll get really frustrated. Yesterday he was standing holding on to it and he was so frustrated he just let go of it and yelled for probably 5 seconds, all the while balancing standing up. Looks like the kid is going to follow in his sisters' footsteps and take his first solo steps in the next few weeks. 

At Grandma and Grandpa's house Annie took her nap the other day, then woke up and found something to do.

A package of Grandpa's latex gloves he uses when he's doing his art projects was close enough to reach. You'd think we would have learned our lesson a while ago when Annie completely emptied my mom's top file drawer of all her files while she was supposed to be napping. Nope.

The day of that fateful nap we had actually gone in to G&G's house to decorate Christmas cookies. Rachel got in the holiday spirit (the wrong one) and found this bow. She thinks she's so funny. And she is.

Grandpa made this reindeer out of a part of a palm tree, and some mini gourds he has. Pretty cool, huh?

Lastly, as far as pictures go, Ryan has been introduced to the joys of pickles. His first taste produced the classic sour face, but then he immediately reached for some more. We have a pickle aficionado.

Ryan and Annie aren't always enemies. For a week or so one of their favorite things to do was to play chase. They'd both be crawling and one would chase the other, both squealing in delight, then the person being chased would turn around and start chasing the other one and they'd squeal in delight some more. It was so cute. I guess with Ryan's efforts to learn to walk he's forgotten that game for the most part because I haven't seen him doing much it the last week or so.

The last thing I have to document for posterity's sake before I forget is Annie's lovely sacrament meeting a week and a half ago. She is doing pretty good at potty training, though she does have her days where she has an accident every time. But she also has days, like today, where she has no accidents. I like those days. Anyway, we were at church and the Sacrament prayer on the water was being said when Annie decided she wanted to leave our aisle, which she tries to do about 100 times during the hour-long meeting. I told her she needed to stay with me. The following discussion ensued:
Annie: I need to go diarrhea.
Me: Shhh. It's prayer time.
A: I need to go diarrhea!
M: Shhh! Can you wait?
A: No! Not wait! I wanna go diarrhea now!
The sacrament prayer ended somewhere in there. Annie does not have a quiet voice. We entertained many around us that day. And no, she didn't have to ask again. I got up and took her out right then. Of course she just had to pee. Someone *ahem, Rachel* has helped Annie to expand her vocabulary. Not surprisingly Annie thinks diarrhea is one of the funniest of the potty words available. So she uses it often. We love our little Annie. :)