Christmas prep

We went to see Santa when he came visit at Long Realty this year. It was a short-ish wait and the kids could color while they waited. The kids had written notes to Santa. Rachel asked for Wheeleys (shoes with a wheel), Annie asked for a Pinkie Pie Pony, and Ryan asked for a car.

All the kids were happy to see Santa. Maybe next year we'll have a crying with Santa picture. :)

Rachel got to participate in her first grade Christmas concert at Vail Theater of the Arts. There were limited tickets together, but we got to be one of the lucky few that got two extra tickets so Grandma and Grandpa Knight could come with us.

The first song was "Concert Etiquette Rap" and all the kids had sunglasses and looked so cool.

Here are a couple excerpts of a couple songs.

In preparation for Christmas, my mom came over one day to make Christmas candy with us. Annie loves to help in the kitchen, even when she doesn't get to lick the spoons, but ESPECIALLY when she does get to. She liked the leftover marshmallow creme for the fudge.

More than 5 pounds of sugar and about 2 pounds of butter later, we had 3 batches of caramels, 3 batches of fudge, 2 batches of candied pecans, and one batch of divinity.

We'll call that a success. A week later we also made some gluten free gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies. We're fully sugared up and ready for Christmas.

Random pictures

With how much the kids like taking pictures, we have a lot of surprises when we unload the camera onto our computer. And, since we hardly ever remember to get the pictures from our ipad. So here's a collection of new and old pictures that have no rhyme or reason.

Rachel put a crown on Megan and made her smile. And took 20-30 pictures.

 McKenzie LOVES her baby cousin and asks to hold her all the time.

 Pictures with the grandparents:

 Jacob's Aunt Helga (I think, unless it was his cousin) crocheted these cute cupcake purses for the girls. They LOVED them. Rachel is also wearing my old dress from when I was 7 or 8 years old.

 Pictures from when Megan was brand new:

 A little more recent...

And more recent still...

 Megan loves bathing in the regular bathtub with just an inch or two of water. She splashes and squeals like it's the most fun she's had in her life.

 The first few times she would automatically try to turn onto her tummy, like she does any time I lay her down. She's gotten a face full of water a couple of times and didn't much like it, I guess. Now she just lays on her back happily kicking and splashing. And when I do put her on her tummy to wash her back, she immediately tries turning back onto her back.

 Annie manages to get her shoes on the wrong feet about 90% of the time. She's got some kind of skillz.

 Megan loves talking to "that cute baby in the mirror."

Growing up

Rachel is a great speller, nearly every week getting 12 or 13/10 on her spelling test. So she gets all the regular words right, and gets the vast majority of the challenge words, which are harder and not on her study list, right. So it was not a huge surprise when Rachel won her class spelling bee and got to compete in the school-wide spelling bee.

 She did well, but nerves got to her and a few rounds in spelled jump g-u-m-p. Spelling in front of 300 people is no easy feat.

 We're proud of her.

In the last week or so Ryan has taken to sleeping on the floor again instead of his crib. A couple days ago I pulled his mattress out for him to sleep on it on the ground. His last stage of sleeping on the ground/mattress ended after a month or so when he decided he still liked the security of his crib. Figuring that Ryan will be turning 3 in March, we kind of figured that it's probably time to get him a real bed, but decided to put it off until our Christmas spending has been reigned in a bit. So January/February. Then yesterday I realized Ryan's crib actually has one of those drop sides that have been banned and was designed to be made into a toddler bed by taking off that side. So we converted it and he is SO excited to have a big boy bed. And since we waited until he was almost 3, the bedtime battle is mostly nonexistent. Way easier than it was with Rachel--she was not even 2 when she got a big kid bed, and Annie was about 26 months. It seems that 3 is the magic age.

Annie was rather excited about the new development, too. She and Ryan played in his room with his bed the rest of the day.

Megan has taken to sticking her tongue out all the time. Especially when she's smiley. It's the cutest thing ever.

Megan also has figured out how to get from point A to point B by rolling and is very happy with her new found mobility. I was talking baby talk to Megan saying how now that she's rolling and won't stay on the blankets we lay her on, we'll have to vacuum and sweep 10 times a day. Annie piped up with: "Yeah! And now she's going to eat our socks and underwear!" Um... I hope not.
Annie had another pearl of wisdom this week that made me laugh out loud. She is learning how to read and every day before she is allowed to watch a show during Ryan's nap she reads a Bob book and go through her set of sight words, including "but." She must have had an epiphany because she said to me, "There are two butts! Butt is something you poop out of and it's something else, too: a word!"

Ryan is up to his regular shenanigans. Markers are great for faces, bodies and walls. In his world.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we headed in to Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house like we usually do. McKenzie has a deep love of kites, so Grandma had promised that we could go to the park and fly kites that morning. First thing McKenzie said when she walked in was asking to go fly kites.

Unfortunately there wasn't much wind. After much running and marginal success we convinced the kids to go play at the playground instead.

They worked up a good appetite down at the park and came back just in time for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at lunchtime.

We were in charge of the pies. We had Pumpkin Treat, apple pie, chocolate pie, banana cream pie. We had several slices over the course of the afternoon, then went home and had pie for dinner.

We love having family close by to spend holidays with. We're just waiting for more family to move to Arizona so we can enjoy more time with them. ;)

Christmas decorating

Annie has been asking since September if it was time to get out the Christmas decorations. Once or twice a week when we'd pull into the garage she'd see the storage boxes and be reminded again of Christmas. I told her we couldn't get out Christmas until after Halloween was over. So November 1st she was ready to decorate for Christmas. I managed to hold her off until a week before Thanksgiving. We pulled out one box and put up the trees. Annie decorated and redecorated.

 Then the Saturday before Thanksgiving we got out the ornaments and did the official decorating of the tree.

The kids get a new ornament each year, Here Annie and Rachel and I were going through their boxes as I told them (or they told me) about their various ornaments.

 Ryan would push the button on this favorite oversized ornament and Megan was excited to see the lights and hear the music.

 After checking our blog from last year to see whose turn it was to put the star on, Rachel got to top the tree off.

 The finished product:

 While the decorating was going on all morning, friends were dropping off pumpkin pies. A friend/neighbor of mine organized a Thanksgiving dinner for 300 low income/homeless, so I volunteered to gather 75 pies from church friends for it. It took 5 coolers and 2 boxes to transport them all. Ryan had a blast with the coolers. They apparently make for a good climbing toy. And a perfect platform for a performance.
Ryan has been doing this singing nonsense at the top of his lungs quite a bit lately. It's hilarious.
Here are the pies all loaded into the car:

Rachel and Annie went with me to deliver them downtown to the church where the dinner was to be held. They have a program going where homeless people, after a background check, and agreeing to terms and responsibilities, can stay in a kind of elongated cupboard, then after a month of that, if they do their jobs with helping serve lunch 3 times a week and helping with security, they can move to a tent, then after a bit longer still keeping all their responsibilities, they can move into a hut, about 8 ft square that they help to build. It's a pretty good little program.

Anyway, back to the decorating, on the day after Thanksgiving we started putting up our outside Christmas decorations. We got a late start, and by 12:30 or 1:00 we were dying of heat, so we packed it up to finish on Saturday. Saturday morning we got to work right after breakfast. The kids had a blast riding bikes while we worked. Here's Ryan on a quick food break:

We finally finished Saturday morning outside, then pulled out the rest of the inside Christmas decorations and put those up, and we were officially done with Christmas decorations. And now we get to sit back and listen to Christmas music and enjoy the feel of Christmas all December long. It's my favorite time of year. And now that we've put up a countdown to Christmas chain Annie has stopped asking several times a day, "When we go to sleep and then wake up is it going to be Christmas?" We all love Christmas, but Annie has a special case of Christmas excitement. :)

Siblings

We have a lot of screaming and teasing and hitting in our house. But we also have a lot of laughing and imagining and wrestling (while giggling) and making Megan happy. The sibling love is there. I love it when the kids get along and are happy and helping. And the best thing about having a baby that can't crawl (yet) or steal toys is that everyone still loves her all the time (except when they want to be the sole occupant of my lap). Now that Megan is eating, all three of them like to have turns feeding her.

 We have big Christmas ornament thing that plays music and has a train go around in a circle when you push the button. It also has lights, so Megan likes to watch it. Ryan believes that it belongs to him, so here he is showing "his" toy to Megan while Rachel holds her.

 We got a picture of everyone looking at the camera and almost everyone smiling. Success!

 Annie and Rachel both got new dresses for their birthdays. They love matching (for now) and were so happy to both have beautiful princess dresses.

 Ryan, is not one to be left out.

 All 3 kids take turns doing peek-a-boo, crouching down, then popping up to surprise Megan when she is in her high chair. She almost always jumps and rewards whoever it is with a big smile. She will laugh occasionally, too.

We're happy to have kids that are happy. Except when they're not. :)

Tickle Megan!