Monday, December 31, 2018

CHRISTMAS!!! (All the pictures!)

We packed the house to the gills for Christmas this year and it was loud and crazy and so much fun! My brother, sister-in-law, sister, and nieces all stayed with us Christmas week, and then my cousins came up the day after and rented an airbnb down the street. It was basically a week of cooking and running amok, just as it should be.

My awesome friend invited us for cookie decorating and ornament making. Don't they look delicious?!

Festive AF for his Scout party

I met Santa! Outside TJ Maxx. And that's his convertible :) 

I volunteered in Averson's class party. This is the only picture without someone else's kid in it. Also, I was at the cup stacking station and I was NOT PREPARED. Who knew Kindergartner's needed a bouncer? 

I couldn't get them in their jammies but I DID get Atticus in antlers, which is a close second. 


Christmas Eve jammies, play dough, and Googly Eyes. So much shrieking. 



Living her best life. I'm going to have to detox all of them in 2019

Scout was also living her best life

Christmas Eve Ugly Sweater Cookie Competition. I think this is going to be a new tradition. 

I *heart* this mantle so very very much

I also *heart* this guy, even in beard ornaments (the fact that he put them on symmetrically says so much about him)

Who else got a Scruff a Luv? Averson loves it :/

My neighborhood puts up luminarias on Christmas Eve and it's magical AF

Santa brought her the helmet she wanted! 

My step-mother sent them all Build-A-Bear gift certificates so we braved the mall the day after Christmas. I love how different their choices were

The three of them spent most of Christmas here and it was about the coziest thing ever

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I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! This one was a tough one, since we always spent it with my dad, but I think having the chaos here really helped. We have friends coming in for New Years, but I think the next few weeks are going to feel very quiet. 

Saturday, December 15, 2018

The Ballet. With no words

A few weeks ago a friend of mine texted me "I have three orchestra level tickets to The Nutcracker that I can't use. Do you want them?" I normally get all money angsty around this time and wouldn't have bought them, but Averson is SO into dance right now, and we just saw the movie (which is AMAZING by the way and totally worth seeing in a theater, but also not much like the ballet, much to Sydney's dismay.) So today we left Eli's wrestling tournament (where he got gold! but that's for another post), went home to change into our finest, and then headed to the theater.


Averson was literally on the edge of her seat the entire show. She kept raising her arms along with the dancers and when I whispered for her to stop blocking the people behind us, she earnestly said, "I'm trying but my body just wants to move!" Sydney had been dubious given the fact that I was asking her to wear a dress AND there was no talking or singing, but she loved it too. It was a local company but it was a phenomenal production with a full orchestra and incredibly gifted dancers. I asked Averson if she might like to try this dance school (hers doesn't do ballet anymore) and she said, "I want to go to these dance classes every day forever."
Thank you kind seat neighbor for taking our picture on the sly during intermission! 


Afterwards the girls wanted to see the dancers. Both were pretty shy while we were waiting, but soon I was chasing them around, Syd asking for autographs and Averson asking for pictures with her favorite dancers. Syd didn't want to be in the pictures, which made for a couple slightly awkward moments but whatevs.

It was a really great day and I've already promised A that we'll see more shows (I had to to get her to leave.)







Wednesday, December 12, 2018

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

You guys! My house is still an epic mess and we have boxes and piles everywhere, 
but oh I love it so much



Monday, December 10, 2018

While we were in Colorado my mom brought me my wedding dress. Once we got home, I busted it out of it's hermetically (yeah, notsomuch) sealed box and let the kids play with it. Okay, if we're honest I tried it on to see if it still fit (spoiler alert, not even a little bit), and THEN I let the kids play with it.



OMG
So now I have my dress in it's giant box, and I have no idea what to do with it. What do people do with their dresses? Is it wrong to shove it in the back of a closet somewhere?

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Thanksgiving in Colorado

Seeing as how Christmas is SIXTEEN days away, I should probably get caught up on Thanksgiving! At the last minute, we decided to make the sixteen hour drive home to spend Thanksgiving with our families in Colorado. The timing wasn't great, and we had to scramble to get a sitter for the Hellbeasts, but I'm so glad we did it.  We broke each drive into two days (despite my inclination to muscle through, I've learned how we're all a lot happier when we stop if we want to, and we wanted to.) We were able to stay at my in-laws, which saved us a ton of money and let us hang out with everyone a lot more. It was perfect. The kids were hoping for snow and I was... not. My California kids are not well outfitted for snow and I wasn't interested in investing in snow gear for a week. I also wasn't looking forward to trying to drive in storms. Lucky for all of us, it snowed on Thanksgiving day, just enough for a snowball fight (if you're from California and have a low bar for accumulation)






Averson helped make the salad. She said she needed the knife practice for when she studied animals...


Matching owies after an over-enthusiastic hug. Down the stairs.

My brothers! In the same room!

Accidentally getting drunk with my mother-in-law. Oops.

The girls reenacting my experience on the inaugural alpine slide ride almost thirty years ago, when the sleds had questionable brakes and steering and I nearly took out a deer. 

And it just so happened that while we were there, they installed my dad's memorial bench. I'm so glad we got a chance to see it while we were in town. I am eternally grateful to everyone who helped make it happen. He doesn't have a headstone anywhere, so this is as close as we're going to get (and better, if you ask me.)