Month: December 2012

Christmas has now come and gone and this year was definitely a mixed bag. The good news is that the boys had a great Christmas filled with friends, family and lots of Legos. Bruce limped through with a head cold that was less than ideal. I, on the other hand, got my butt kicked by a stomach bug on Christmas Eve and spent that miserable night and Christmas Day laid up. Thank goodness Jamma stuck around much of the day to keep me company after Bruce and the boys left to celebrate with the rest of the Moisions at the Becks’ house.

But lets back up to the good parts before my stomach rebelled. Bruce and I were fighting off the colds the boys had so lovingly passed along, but things were going fine. We’d finished shopping, I’d made dozens of Christmas cookies, and we were happily preparing for Christmas Eve with Jamma and the Bannings. The boys made place cards for the tables (Ezra insisted on a kids table); Finn did most of the pictures while Ezra wrote the words.

Finn drew something everyone likes on their place cards: Ruby has a horse, Chapin has a penguin, Rob and Bruce both have wood because they do the woodworking class. When he went to do Jamma’s he said, “You know, Jamma just really likes us,” so he drew himself. Then Ezra drew himself on mine since he wasn’t included on Jamma’s. Super cute.

Once Jamma got here we did the annual parade of new Christmas ornaments symbolizing our year: Finn got a No. 2 pencil since he started Kindergarten.

Ezra got a snorkeler.

Bruce got the very hard-to-find (can you say Ebay?) Curiosity rover which was such an exciting part of our lives when it successfully landed on Mars in August.

I got a wolf to remind me of my trip to Washington with my girlfriends. Jamma is so thoughtful!

Pretty soon the Bannings arrived and the kids all went crazy running around, eating cookies and generally having a great time. They settled down for dinner, but still had a good time.

We had a pretty good time at the adults table, too. And pretty soon the kids joined us with the prizes and jokes from the holiday crackers/poppers that Cari brought. Bruce’s crown was, as always, ill-fitting.

The kids also decorated cookies for Santa (thanks to Cari) and wow was that a fun and messy project!

Finn went pretty crazy with the sprinkles.

Ezra was a little more precise.

We opened a few presents — new pajamas for all the kids and books and gift cards — but by then I wasn’t feeling so hot so I didn’t have the energy to go get my camera. Luckily Bruce was a good host, doing a scavenger hunt for the kids and entertaining everyone. I fear I was not.

When it was time for the Bannings to go, we saw them off hoping they would have good luck getting their kids to sleep. Finn was very concerned about Santa coming and therefore went right to bed; Ezra, on the other hand, wandered around the house for at least an hour. I think he did it just to torture me.

Finally, with Bruce’s help the Santa gifts and stockings were prepared and placed by the fire and I crawled into bed miserable but still not anticipating the rotten night to come. By morning I was at least able to reach for my camera and take some pictures from my perch on the comfy brown chair. Finn tore open his stocking and anything else with his name on it.

Ezra was thrilled with the giant Lego set Santa brought. (“Mommy, now you don’t have to get this for my birthday! Santa brought it!”)

They couldn’t wait to show everything to Jamma.

And start building all those Lego sets.

Finn was pretty taken with the Furby that Santa brought him.

And that’s about as far as I got before I crawled back into bed. I send out a big thank you to Bruce and Jamma for entertaining the boys and managing to do some clean up, too. About noon Bruce and the boys headed out for the Becks’ house. He said they all had a good time and he even managed to take a few pictures.

It’s now the 27th and I’m up and about and on the road to recovery. And in the future I’d like to reclaim my title as the member the family who always manages to avoid the stomach bug.

Cari and I took the kids over the Americana for their [fake] snow fall Thursday evening. The kids didn’t give a hoot that it was soap and we all had a great time. The place is, of course, all decked out for Christmas and really quite lovely. The kids made an early stop here to admire the view.

First stop was dinner and when we were done we had some time before the first snow fall at 7:00, so we took a short trolley ride.

After a good game of chase …

… some playing in the mulch …

… and watching the fountain …

… the snow started falling. The kids had a great time jumping up to catch it and just generally running around.

After the snow, we hung out a little longer. Finn met Frosty.

We rode the glass elevator.

Watched Tangled at the Sony store.

Or Toy Story, as the case may be.

We rode the trolley again and decided to wait for the 8:00 snow fall. Again, fun ensued. When it was over we dragged four very tired kids to the car, listened to how they were so thirsty they were going to die (!) and, luckily, provided them with a little water thanks to Cari. The boys crashed when we got home and actually slept until a little after 7:00 — quite a luxury!

I think a trip to the real snow is in order this winter.

We were over at the Altadena Farmer’s Market with some friends yesterday and the kids had a wonderfully good time playing with all the fallen leaves. Ezra also found a perfect climbing tree. When I first saw him from my vantage point up the hill, he seemed incredibly high up and I decided to go down and check out the situation.

He was very happy to be sitting up here.

And I realized that the smaller branches provided perfect notches for climbing and he was safe, so I snapped another photo and let him be.

This morning as I was trying to find a place that could print these square Instagram photos properly, I uploaded a couple of other good ones, so I’m adding them here. First, Finn and his crab and blue ninja.

And second, bath time.

I ordered some prints online, so we’ll see how they look when I get them.

One of my favorite parts of decorating for Christmas is pulling out the bags of old cards I keep and looking at all of the photos of friends and family through the years (I probably have 20 years of picture cards). Of course, it’s also fun to look at my own old cards and seeing how Ezra and Finn have grown, so I decided to scan them in and do a little retrospective.

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

The 2012 version is in the mail!

We did some decorating over the weekend and I’m just now getting around to putting up some pictures. First up was the Christmas Tree shopping.

I was thinking … you know … a green tree would be good. The boys had another idea.

I won. And on the roof it went.

I got lots of help decorating it this year from Finn. Coincidentally, we had a record number of broken ornaments. Luckily, nothing precious.

These two are my favorites. No one touches them except me. This one is from Aunt Claire and is dated 1980 which sounds about right.

This one Janice gave me after my dad died and I inherited his old Rolleiflex, which I loved as a kid.

After a few hours, we were done.

Overnight Bruce put up my dad’s old train which delighted the boys in the morning.

They tried loading up some of their toys on it with varying success.

Sunday we focused on the outside and strung our eight strands of lights between the palm trees. It was another challenge of engineering and math but we made it.

This is my favorite picture of the bunch — a California Christmas.

Friday marked our last woodworking class of the year and it was a blast. This month’s project: Snake Sticks.

First, though, there was some pre-class goofing off while Bruce and Rob pulled things together.

We got started right on time at 4:00 because we knew we were going to lose light. The kids settled down to listen … sort of. Here’s a perfect contrast of the girls and boys during Bruce’s instruction.

But everyone figured out what they were supposed to do one way or another and started working. They had lots of good sticks to choose from. (Thanks especially to Laura for a great supply!)

Here are Amelia and Silvia shaping the heads of their snakes.

Ruby and Ezra, too.

Kai has great concentration.

Sofia chose to use the chisel instead of the rasp.

Finn decided not to make a snake. He just wanted to pass out masks. Safety first.

Next up: sawing the sticks into pieces. It’s a lot of sawing.

Next they needed to drill holes in all the pieces so they could string them back together. After eight classes, the kids are remarkably comfortable using the drills!

With kids at all stages of the project, it was a busy garage!

The last step was to assemble the snake by threading it together with string and beads.

Everyone was finished by about 6:00 and dinner and play time followed. Most of the adults sat around chatting and testing out the various bottles of wine (of which I have no pictures) but Bruce spent most of the evening playing with the kids. My pictures don’t do the scene justice — the kids love him.

Here’s Ezra’s final product. I was happy to see him so engaged in this project, especially since the sawing and drilling were kind of difficult.

I took a lot more photos, so I’m including them all here in a slideshow. What a fun class!

We got the boys’ school pictures back yesterday. While the individual ones are a little painful — would someone please teach these kids how to fake smile?!? — the class pictures are adorable.

Yesterday the boys participated in the fundraising jog-a-thon at school and I went to take some pictures. First up were the Kindergarten classes.

The kids did a combo of running and walking and got their hand stamped with each lap. Here’s Finn going in for a stamp.

He did ten laps.

After 20 minutes they stopped and were handsomely rewarded with popsicles.

The first and second graders were up next. Ezra did not seem to be enjoying himself; he walked around the field, spitting water from his water bottle. Charming.

He doesn’t seem quite as miserable here.

Friends were having a better time. Jack:

Lucy:

Ruby:

Of course, these pictures were taken on the first couple of laps. They looked much less happy after 20 minutes of running. Here’s Amelia, for instance. She did 21 laps!

Finally the running time was over and the big kids got popsicles, too. Finally, Ezra was happy.

And here’s a row of second graders resting up after their hard work.