All I Wanted For Christmas Was That Front Tooth OUT

I've come to the conclusion that Campers likes having a loose tooth around. He also knows that I don't like him having a loose tooth around, which makes his joy utterly complete.

Take a look. Christmas Day, circa 2008. Loose tooth. Hanging on for dear life.

Well today...Zig, BLESS HIS EVER-LOVING HEART, got to wrestling with Campers and accidentally bumped him in the mouth.

OH PRAISE YOU JESUS.

And although I was glad for the "injury," I WASN'T able to look at that mouth.

Ew.

But it got better.

Much better.

Handsome devil of a baby boy.

Hope you enjoyed the gore.

Merry Christmas.

(Also. It's good to see that it's one year later AND I HAVEN'T CHANGED A BIT. Although my baby sure has.)

Christmas Day: Part 3

I'm going to do a little flashback here...to Christmas 2007...

See that baby girl? She's doing a little trick we like to call "Sitting Still."

Maybe you've heard of it? Experienced it?

Maybe you have children who do that amazing little feat?

If so, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.

Moving on.

Christmas 2008.

I took each of the boys on a separate trip to Goodwill to buy presents for the other two siblings. It was a raging success, cheap to boot, and look what the Zig brought home for his sis:

Pom poms.

Perfectly, gloriously, spastically suitable.

Do you think she likes them?

Christmas Day: Part 2

"Look at me, Ma! I've got these itty bitty hands, but I can open my own presents!"

"Is this what I do with this?"

"No? How about this?"

"Oh! This?!? Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

Insanity often comes in some pretty small packages.

Christmas Day: Part 1

Eating cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning is a family tradition of ours that goes waaaay back to when *I* was a kid.

So, you know. Nearly sccchhhhhffffoooouurrr decades ago.

The cinnamon rolls are always made from a can and the frosting is always brightly colored.

Don't mess with tradition, people.

And while I was busy doing who knows what -- pretty much creating the show and holding it up at the same time -- Pa kept the kids busy with the camera:

(You'll notice that someone continues her role as Showboat and someone else has yet to pull that blasted front tooth out.)

We continued the morning fun by reading the Christmas story. Funny thing -- each year the story keeps getting shorter and shorter. This year?

"Baby Jesus was born!"

Okay. So it wasn't that bad. But we've all got our limits.

Campers got to pick the story book this year, and he read to the rest of us.

(Oh! The glory of having a seven-year-old.)

Suz then made sure to get a good look at the (pages fully-intact) book:

And then we fiiinnnnaaaaallly moved on to the presents...

After they were sorted, counted, and laid out in present-opening-order.

Don't hate.

More to come.

True Loves

Oh, you know. Pa and I are meant for each other. Yada yada yada. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about THIS:

Oh, holla!

THE FIVE-HOUR VERSION OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, PEOPLE.

IT IS ALL MINE; YOU CANNOT HAVE IT.

I WILL WATCH IT EVERY NIGHT UNTIL IT'S BURNED ON MY RETINAS.

So, if I put the watching of that movie alongside my addiction to PathWords, I can pretty much guarantee I will never have another productive day the rest of my life.

Meanwhile.

Continuing in the category of "gifts that feed--the--soul," we have Pa with his Christmas loot:

The man said he wanted chocolate for Christmas. So that's what he got.

Can anyone top a pile of gourmet chocolate and Colin Firth?

The Calm Before The Christmas Storm

There's usually one block of time every day where our house can be described as "calm." It's the 1:00 AM to 7:00 AM slot, but even that is regularly interrupted with a stuffed-up crying 2YO.

Pa can never figure out why I stay up so late at night, and I tell him it's because I enjoy the quiet and I--can't--really--enjoy--the--quiet--while--I'm--asleep.

SI-UH-LENT NIGHT! HO-UH-LY NIGHT!

So.

Christmas!

I'd like to say that Christmas Day is a beautiful time of celebration and meaningful moments, but it's a whole lot more like herding cats.

Pa's words.

Fortunately, the motivator of "presents" does wonders for the kids' behavior. For one day out of the year, they are super-agreeable about taking a bath, getting dressed, brushing their teeth, and posing for pictures.

Yes, we make them do all that before opening presents.

IT'S THE MOST! WONDERFUL TIME! OF THE YEAR!

So.

It's amazing how "smiling for the camera" is a breeze when it's linked to "presents being opened."

I am not exaggerating when I say that shot was the first one we took.

See?

Bribery works.

And most delightfully on Christmas Day.

Ho, ho, ho.

Lots more Christmas stories to come.

Merry Christmas

May your day be merry and bright.

Arctic Blast 2008: Snowtem Pole

It started out being THE BIGGEST SNOWMAN EVER, but looking back, I see it's more of a Snowtem Pole.

Regardless, the boys and I had fun. The temps were perfect for playing outside today, and I even kept from hurting my back when piling on the top few blobs of snow. (Hello, mid-thirties, when Not Injuring Yourself becomes The Goal.)

(Look, Dad! I even gave the Snowtem Pole legs, just like the huge Snow MAN we built many, many years back.)

Zig built his own baby snowman...

Which he promptly kicked to death soon after he got frustrated over not being able to stick on the eyes.

The memories, they are always in the making.

Arctic Blast 2008: I Surrender

The "Arctic Blast 2008" has now become the "Snowpocolypse" and "Snowmageddon."

I shook my head back and forth for at least 187 minutes this morning.

Could. Not. Believe. It.

I have yet to see a snowplow, a snowblower, or even! A shovel.

No, correct that. I DID see my neighbor cleaning off her steps with a garden shovel.

Classic.

We Pacific Northwesterners know how to garden! But we don't know a thing about snow.

Especially when it starts to bury cars:

Pa worked from home today. (Translation: Locked himself in the room with the computer while the rest of us "kept quiet.")

Boys got to play outside for a bit:

Meanwhile, Sister Suz was stuck inside, watching the excitement from the window:

Since the movie rental box is not too far from our house, we've rented four* DVDs in the past 24 hours. McDonald's has closed. Trash pickup was canceled. The mail can't even get through! (Whatever happened to "the mail must go through...the mail must go through...no matter if it rains or snows...the mail must go through?")

Stay tuned for even more boring weather reports ahead. There's supposed to be more of the same for the next week. Week!

(PS: To add to the drama, our e-mail hasn't worked since Friday. Friday! Four days! I can't even be cooped up with my messaging addiction, hellloooooo, H A L P!)

(PPS: Dad: Please bring your snowplow over and clean out our driveway. And the roads in the rest of the city. I don't ask for much, just that. XOXO.)

*Horton Hears a Who, Hancock, Prince Caspian, and Mamma Mia

Arctic Blast 2008: Eating Crow, Er Snow

Okay. So it finally snowed. A lot. Like 8-12 inches. The whole Pacific Northwest is in shock.

Kids love it, though. Here's Zig peeking through a few thousand layers:

("I can't put my arms down!")

It's cold. It raining ice. It's blowing snow.

We left our snow shovel behind in the Midwest because we were told "It doesn't snow out here."

Mmmm-hmmm.

Okay, so I've lately been told that it hasn't snowed this bad in 25 years.

Pa and I ended up "shoveling" the driveway with an Ikea table top and a dust pan. I have no doubt we gave the neighborhood a fine, fine laugh.

Speaking of Sunshine and Roses...

We've all been snowed in for a week (our entire city owns four snow plows, so I've also been told), so some of our friends called and invited themselves over for dinner. Those boots you see belong to the Mom. Someone thought she was being cute and funny.

Well, she was.

Meanwhile, we're testing the limits of Cabin Fever and drinking hot chocolate by the gallon.

Also: I'm dreaming of a green Christmas, and eating crow.

Arctic Blast 2008, you win.

The Singing Christmas Tree

Recently, Pa was given a couple of free tickets to the downtown performance of the "Singing Christmas Tree."

And may I just say: We got our money's worth. The human tree--in its 46th year--had its heyday about 20 years back.

But let me digress.

I had arranged two separate sitters (hello! three kids!) for our Big Date. Then we drove in the (quiet! too quiet!) van part way and waited for a bus to get us the rest of the way downtown.

Because, hello. NO ONE wants to drive or park downtown.

So I stood at the bus stop, all whimsical and relaxed.

It might have been because I was not living in fear that one of my kids was going to run into traffic, yell something embarrassing, or throw a huge fit about how he got to hit the button and he always gets to hit the button and it's not fair and I'm not crossing the street until I get to hit the button too.

That paragraph pretty much sums up my whole life, right there.

Well, anyway. All my whimsy went flying out the window after about five minutes, when both Pa and I realized that WE WERE AT THE WRONG STOP, YOU'RE AN IDIOT, IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT AND YOU KNOW IT.

We picked up these relational skills from our kids.

So.

We played a little Frogger to cross about three streets, and made it to the Singing Christmas Tree just in the nick of time.

AND IT WAS A GOOD THING, BECAUSE WHO'D WANT TO MISS A MINUTE OF THIS?

Okay, so it was slightly impressive. The quality of singing was good, at least what we could hear from the nosebleed seats. As you can see, Pa had his camera on--AGAINST ALL THE RULES, IN FULL VIEW OF THE USHERS. The stress of it all was just like having one of the kids around.

Well, except Pa's jokes were better, which made the whole two-hour experience a bit more bearable.

Just when we thought the nightmare program was nearly over, the emcee pranced across the stage and said, "After the 20-minute intermission, we'll conclude with the SECOND HALF of the show."

OH MY HOLY SMOKES!

We cut tail and run.

I mean, I suppose if there weren't two sets of desperate sitters waiting for our arrival we might have stayed to watch a couple more painful hours of handbells and choirs. But as it was, we thanked the Good Lord once again for our children, who gave us a glorious excuse to leave one kind of misery just to enter another.

And that's how we started our holiday season.

Ho ho ho.

Arctic Blast 2008: The Sequel

The Arctic Blast continues. I mean, JUST LOOK AT IT.

An eighth-inch of snow!

2 mph wind!

Smiling elf-type goofs showing up on my street!

I hope we survive.

Thanksgiving 2008

Since Christmas is just a week away, I thought I'd better pull out the Thanksgiving pictures before it's November TWO-THOUSAND-NINE.

Each year I make Pa drag out his camera for our family picture. By some act of the god* Canon and his goddess cousin Tripod, we got this:

Four out of five of us smiling! A record!

So anyway. My neighbor-friend and I decided (read, "I did a distinct amount of bossing") that *she* would clean house and host and *I* would trash my kitchen with a slight majority of the food prep.

HELLO, FABULOUS IDEA, if I say so myself.

Seeing as I would have needed to call in a dumpster for the crumbs under my table alone...it was good to just pick up and go next door to find this:

Lovely! Just lovely!

Oh!

And the people were nice too. Besides the Ma and Pa clan and our neighbor-friends, we also dined with another mom-friend and her boys. Total adults: 5. Total kids: 7. All four-and-under except one.

Good friends, good food.

And since Pa didn't include any Thanksgiving food porn pics on his site, I'll do that here:

Apple Crumb Pie.

Mmmmm.

(I had Paula Deen's apple butter pumpkin pie as well.)

(Ahem.)

Anyone have a favorite Thanksgiving dish that they still remember eating three weeks ago?

* We've been studying Egyptian gods for a few weeks now, and just today we moved on to the Greek gods. So now it seems that everything I type is either "god" this or "goddess" that. Don't hate.

Merry Go Round: Score

This is one of those obnoxious posts where 99% of you end up saying, "WOW. THAT GAL IS A JERK."

And yet I write on.

When Papa was around, the kids got to ride the "ride" at the mall.

OH, THE EXCITEMENT.

And I'm talking about me! I thought to myself, "What a deal! All three kids can ride for the price of one!"

Once I got past that epiphany, I moved on to the possessively proud stage.

"Look at that. Those kids are mine. ALL MINE. I DID THAT. I MADE THAT CUTE LITTLE COLLECTION OF KIDS RIGHT THERE."

Oh, I know. "Pa" and "God" and "adoption" and blah blah blah.

But they're mine. All three chicks on a cute little ride at the mall.

Don't ruin my joy.

However shallow it is.

Christmas Lights With Kids

No, we haven't actually gone to see any lights yet. We've just wrote about doing that. "We" being "me," with Pa manning the cam.

See the full article over at katu.com.

Meanwhile, I'll see if I can get some Thanksgiving photos posted before Christmas comes around.

Arctic Blast 2008

I woke up Sunday morning to this:

No. Not the sound of the snow, gently falling to the ground.

The sound of two boys, whooping and hollering like a couple of monkeys let loose from the zoo.

Early morning.

Hence, the pajamas.

BLAME THE PA.

So!

Snow! In our city! Is unheard of!

And no one owns shovels or snow blowers, and the city doesn't have the equipment to clean the streets. So...church was canceled (for a light dusting of snow!) and the kids got to play outside. A lot.

Who knows if Campers owns a hat or his own pair of gloves. Seems he just borrowed mine:

Pa spent a good deal of time outside, building a snow castle with the boys:

And you'd never guess what Little Miss Who Has Never Seen Snow thought of it all.

Mmm-hmmm.

Joy. These kids bring me such joy.

(The title, "Arctic Blast 2008" is what the news stations were calling the snow "storm." Ha ha ha.)

Cheap Fun

More fun at BB&B.

We convinced Zig that this was a head massager:

When in reality, it was Pa who was wearing the head massager -- which looked more like a scalp torture device -- but what do we know?

No, we weren't asked to leave the store, if that's what you were just wondering.

Papa's Visit: Part 3

As you can see, the kids know just what to do with an object not-in-motion:

Pile on.

Why is it that parents have the complete inability to sit still and grandparents have that skill completely mastered?

I'd say something about "old age" or "being tired" but there'd go my inheritance.

All 57 cents of it.

Anyway.

Papa happened to come on "build something for free at Home Depot" Saturday, so he got dragged out of the house for that.

(See? We can't sit still.)

I'm not sure if Zig was listening for horses, sleeping, or just gazing intently at Papa's woodworking skills.

Probably all of the above.

The boys made a leaf press, complete with leaf:

And since we were in the mall, we decided to do some shopping, the best way we know how:

As a big bunch of worn-out, few-french-fries-short-of-a-happy-meal folks.

I'd like to say we just posed real quick for a picture, but that'd be a lie. We enjoyed our free massage, compliments of Bed, Bath & Beyond for at least ten minutes.

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

Our parents, what a blessing.