For New Year's Eve we got together with our neighbors for a little party.
Kid friendly and no driving!

I'm glad I wasn't totally in charge of the food, because the main thing I made turned out to look like creamy vomit in French bread. Celery sticks turned out all right, and the pre-made things too.

Julia just about took my hand off grabbing this rib from me



Antonio was downstairs happily playing with the other kids all night long.
He came up for food often enough for us to know he was okay.



Happy New Year!

Antonio puts a Bionacle to good use



Julia gearing up for a New Years Eve party

Today we took a road trip to Hurricane Ridge to see some snow.
I didn't realize they had tubing and skiing, perhaps I could have checked the website.

Anyway, we played for a little bit, but then it started to snow (!) and I got sketchy about the roads down.

Here is Antonio making snow Angels



Julia thrilled at something new...




Once safely down the hill we cruised through the old neighborhoods in Pt. Angeles and admired the sweet little sea cottages.
Then we ended up at a park and checked out the cool Coast Guard boats.



On the way home we stopped by the Olympic Winery and while lounging around tasting wine sounded awesome, that's not the coolest thing to do with kids in tow. I did get a few bottles to taste later on.

About 20 minutes down the road and a good hour away from home yet, Julia went into meltdown level 4 while Antonio hovered at level 2. Almost in the middle of nowhere and out of string cheese, an Indian casino that promised good food saved us.

With happy full kids, we made it the rest of the way home, without further trouble from the two in the backseat.



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Antonio smuggled tents into his room for a campout.
Dad helped him squeeze them through the doorway.

Since Antonio's a bit bigger than the tent, they connected the two and then applied a rain fly, since, you know, we're in Washington...



The next day he said he slept good except for being kinda cramped in there.

While the tree in the house is nice, I cannot wait to get it down.
This year I made it to December 26th before I gave it the eviction notice.

Dad didn't know that gingerbread boys get better with age & tossed them in the trash.
Julia is tall enough, and nosy enough to check the trash on a pretty regular basis.

It was on the top, no digging was involved, and she had snuck off and ate half of it before I caught her.



We got the kids this two tent connected by a tube set up. Antonio has been into building forts lately & since the rain keeps them inside so much, we thought it would be a fun thing for them.

Here's tent 1 set up, but bigger than they looked on the box.



Julia in the tube that connects the two tents, her, and the cat's favorite hidey spot.



I'll get tent portion two later, it's too big..

Christmas morning, it is cool to open stocking presents before parents get up.
All other presents are off limits until said parents are bribed out of bed with the smell of coffee brewing. This is a great trick I learned from my mom's family.

In years past, and as far as I can remember in my own childhood, Santa has always brought an orange to put in the toe of the stocking.

Santa brought Antonio a coconut this year.



And what else would have been better for Julia



Although she seemed to think it was really surprising to not only have a giant sock, but one with a banana in it. She rolled with it fine.

I don't think we'll have too many more mellow Christmas mornings, so I thought I'd take a picture of one to look back on when they're older.



After presents at our house, we packed up and headed over to Grammas house.
We enjoyed a fantastic breakfast, had more coffee, and opened more (!) presents.

There was a cotton candy maker gifted, but as cool as it is, it gets to stay at Grammas house for future jammie parties.

Instead of a formal dinner, Gramma had the perfect suggestion to have enchiladas for dinner. Easy, tasty and not too rough to make.

Although Antonio totally wanted to stay the night, we lured him home with the promise of PS2 games until his eyes melted out of his head.

The eve before Christmas eve we packed up our umbrellas and headed over to the fairgrounds for their light display and with the promise of seeing real reindeer. (they're tiny!)

My favorite part is the carousel

Julia who was placed on a pony screamed and was held by Dad the rest of the ride who stood dangerously close to a pony, but no more screaming.

Antonio didn't dig the ponies.
at.all.

"All of the up and down and round and round, ugh!"



Much better...



Wanted: friend to ride the carousel with me so I don't look like a looser up there by myself...

Ramping up for the Winter Break is no good unless it's fueled on sugar, candy, frosting and sugar.


Antonio came home with this gingerbread man today




And, Timmaayyyyy! The reindeer

Can you believe it?

Snow!

In December!!!





Sadly, this was all gone by the time I woke up in the morning...

This afternoon, Antonio came home with Charolette's Web borrowed from his Kindergarten teacher.
Seems she was really excited about reading it to the class then watching the movie, but the kids couldn't hang. He was the only one following along, so she let him take it home for us to finish.

We plan on starting that next week, since just yesterday we made a trip to the library. We checked out enough books so Antonio has a new story every night until Dad comes back from being out to sea. Visiting the library is relatively new to us.
Last week kids and I tagged along with my best girlfriend and her boys on a trip to the library.
While I have always loved books, the library was a quiet haven for me when I was in school. Since having kids I've been terrified of bringing them to such a quiet place.

Antonio was great and totally got it. I think it's a new favorite place
Julia could have screamed and ran away a little less...
I've never worked up a sweat in a library before, but wrestling the girl and trying to remember how the hell the Dewey Decimal system works, and then remembering my number that is now on a wadded up piece of paper. Just magazines began to look good.


This weekend as I hauled down Christmas boxes from the loft in our garage, I found Antonio's little rocking chair. Which is now just the right size for Julia, or should I say Julia is now just the right size for it.
Since then, in the evening she takes her half banana in her chair, beside the Christmas tree.

Monday morning after getting himself all ready for school, Antonio was rocking in it, but as I tried to gently explain that he was too big, he said, "Like Goldielocks and the three bears, right? This one is too small."

Exactly!

Today is the day to go visit Santa.
Gramma was here for a day visit, so I figured between three adults we could get two kids cleaned up, dressed nice and presented to Santa mostly kept together.

Julia dressed up and ready to go.
Today, the pigtails were the biggest battle.
Getting into the tights and dress were no problem.





This is the Santa we've been visiting since Antoino was a year old.
Antonio was excited to see him and have a moment to talk shop with him.
Julia, who is usually pretty leery of strangers, was totally fine hanging out with him.




After the Santa visit, we headed off to find a tree.
We used to treck out to a tree farm. March through wet grass and mud to find and cut down our own tree.
Maybe in a few years we'll start that again, if we don't start just getting live trees to use for a few years and plant in our yard.
In the meantime, warm, dry Lowe's is as good of a place as any to find one.

Julia delighted to see that there's a tree in her house!



Antonio, with the help of Dad has always put the star on the tree.
Next year, we might find him a tall chair and hold his hand.

This weekend we rented the Lemony Snicket movie, A Series of Unfortunate Events.
The baby in the movie doesn't talk yet, but she's subtitled.

Since we watched it the first time, when Julia is acting like she could use a snack, I'll swoop down and ask in a spooky low vice, "Do you want a banana?" similar to the character that Jim Carrey played.

Dorky, yes.
But, Antonio and I, and well, Julia too are totally and endlessly amused.

Last night, around bedtime, I asked Julia if she was hungry.
She met me with a semi-blank stare.
Reaching for the fruit bowl, I asked her if she wanted a banana.
She replied, "Na-nuh?"
Then when she saw the banana, she got louder "Na-nuh!"
"Na-nah-nuh!!!"
Then I clued in that she was kinda talking.

The Man is playing out to sea, so I called Gramma.
Julia, between bites, repeated her variance of banana as many times as I asked.
Then it dawned on me (with Gramma's suggestion) that I could leave a voice mail for The Man and he wouldn't miss this.

Bribed with bites, she said nanahnuh towards the phone.
We'll see if it worked out next time we talk to him.

This morning I told Antonio that Julia said banana last night.
He replied,
"I know mom, you guys said it, like, 100 times while I was trying to go to sleep."

This afternoon, my neighbor had to take a final so I hung out with her super boys and my own until her husband came home from work.
They were outside playing and running off yah~yah's so it was like a usual afternoon, but without the girlfriend to natter with.

It was cold out, so I sent Julia in to hang with Dad, and did some clean up in the front flower beds. The air was crisp & it was nice to have some time with the flower gardens I'd been neglecting.

Tomorrow is The Man's command Christmas party, so we needed to go find something nice-ish to wear. Apparently 'they' frown on jeans and t-shirts for this occasion.
Feh!

The Man, wanted to clean up a bit and tried to hand off Julia to me so he could shower. I let him know it was too cold, and told him to just keep her in the bathroom with him.
He just looked at me with a blank stare.
How, in the hell, did I ever manage to shower while he was gone?
C'mon, there's a basket of toys in there for a reason.

I went back out to hang with boys, and when the neighbor got home, I herded Antonio in so we could get ready to go. I checked on The Man to see if things were working out okay.
As I walked into our bedroom, I was greeted by Julia happily eating dinner in her highchair parked in front of the doorway to the bathroom.

Now, that's clever...