'Tis the Season

Phew! Is it weird that I feel a little relieved that Christmas is over? I felt like every night my house (both kitchen and living room) were complete disasters. Now that packages and Christmas cards have been sent and mass amounts of cooking has been done, I can finally see my kitchen counters again!  The living rooms still needs a little work though...

Our Christmas season was really great, we kept busy with lots of fun activities:

We took the kids on a walk to see Christmas lights, yelling "Yay Christmas!" whenever we saw some.

The kids' favorite part was the popcorn.

As one of our advent calendar activities, we made marshmallow snowflakes.

It ended up that I made the snowflakes, and the kids ate the marshmallows :)

We heard lots of good music and saw Santa at the 3rd MEF Band Christmas concert.

Funny story about the concert- After the orchestra played lots of holiday music, the curtains closed and the lights went down. I though it was over, but then this guy came out of the back corner playing an electric guitar. He was pretty awesome, seriously rocking out while he made his way up to the stage. Once up there, he was joined by another guitarist and a guy partially dressed as Santa came out and sang Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" changed up with Christmas-y lyrics. I looked over at Spencer and said, "What the heck just happened?" After that they sang Queen's "We Will Rock You," followed by a pretty funny bit with marines dancing to "Gangnam Style." For days afterward, Sydney didn't request any of the Christmas songs they played, but instead wanted to hear "We Will Rock You."

Christopher the Elf made his first appearance, bringing a letter from Santa and some snowman donuts for breakfast.

They were a hit with the kids!

Every morning after that, the first thing Sydney wanted to do was go downstairs to see where Christopher was hiding.

Sydney and I decorated a gingerbread house that some friends brought us.

I just had to include this picture of her crazy face- ha!

My side.

Sydney's side. 

I think 1 out of every 10 pieces of candy she picked up actually made it onto the house. There was a lot of snitching going on (myself included)!

She did pretty good with the frosting. Check out that focus!

Sydney participated in her very first school Christmas concert.

Her class had about 6 kids show up for it, and when they got up to do their part, Sydney wasn't really singing or doing a lot of the motions. Afterwards I asked her why and she said, "Well, I didn't really want to because I was tired and my hands were a little bit sweaty." 

Afterwards, all the kids got a turn to sit on Santa's lap and say what they wanted for Christmas in the microphone. 

Sydney got to go first, and all the parents in the crowd laughed when she told him she wanted a camera.

We met Santa again when we went to the Ocean Breeze for family fun night. Sydney wanted nothing to do with him (as in, she was hiding behind me before we even got through the door). Despite my warning that Shawn would most likely scream, Spencer still wanted to put him on Santa's lap.

Turns out I was right.

A few days before Christmas, we caravanned down south with friends to check out the lights at Itoman (otherwise known as the "Itoman Peaceful Illumination").

Gavin found some balloons, and Shane gave one of them to Shawn. He held onto it all night.

The display was different than last year, but still totally awesome.

This year the background music playing over the speakers was "The Phantom of the Opera" and the performers on the stage did a number by Lady Gaga followed by some hula dancing. We all got a good kick out of that.

Growing, Growing

Just after Thanksgiving, we had a double whammy doctor appointment where both kids were scheduled to get well child check-ups. I'd been prepping Sydney about it for a while because I knew she was going to get several shots. They both did great during their appointments, but we had to wait for quite a while between the Dr. being done and the shots being ordered. I'd say we were in the room for a good 45 minutes after the Dr. left, with someone intermittently coming in to have me sign paperwork. Sydney was hiding under the desk for a majority of that time, trying to escape the inevitable.

When the corpsman finally came in to do it, I had her go first. I had to pull her out from under the desk, and she immediately started crying. Not a fighting cry though, just a scared of getting hurt cry. And while she cried every time she got poked (4 times total, poor kid), I tried to be positive that it was done! Wohoo! The worst was over! No more shots for a long time! But she still cried all the way to the car and for about 15 minutes at home that her legs still hurt. Someone is a little dramatic about injuries. Shawn took his two shots with screams, but recovered like a champion. He's a pretty tough kid.

Princess Sydney at 4 years:
Weight: 37 lbs. (63rd percentile)
Height: 42.13 in. (89th percentile)

Syd also got her first legitimate hair cut! It is 100 times easier to brush now.

Super Shawn at 15 months:
Weight: 23 lbs. 5.9 oz (30th percentile)
Height: 33.5 in. (95th percentile)
Head Circumference: 47 cm (92nd percentile)

This was haircut #4 for Shawn. He has no idea how darling he is in those awesome pj's!

Family Picture Outtakes

Last year was possibly the most newsworthy year of our lives: Spencer graduated from dental school, I earned my CCC-SLP, some of my thesis research was published in a journal, we moved to a foreign country, and we had a baby. Although it crossed my mind a million times, I never sent out Christmas cards. I certainly love opening them and getting updates about family and friends, so this year I was determined to take part in the tradition. Unfortunately I was still a bit of a procrastinator with the whole thing, and my cards shipped to me on December 3. As delivery from some companies in the states can take a while (it took Shawn's birth announcements a good month and a half to get here), I'm mentally prepared for the fact that stateside recipients may not get our Christmas cards until February. Oh well, better late than never.

So, without further ado, here are our Christmas card outtakes (the good and the bad):

Almost perfection. Almost.

Spencer was giving me a panic attack holding Shawn like this. All I could hear in my head was my Dad's voice imitating a Michael Jackson sketch on a late night show saying, "I am so livid. I could just dangle a baby over a balcony!"

The following two pictures, although cute, were quickly nixed because they broke my #1 rule: I must not appear taller than Spencer (who, I might add, always slouches in pictures).

Note: I didn't post the one we used on our card, so it will still be a surprise when you open it around  Valentine's Day :)

Slide Park of Death

Last spring a friend threw out an invite to a bunch of moms from our church to meet up at a newly discovered slide park. Several of us caravanned out and got lost a few times getting there, but the payoff was huge. There were swings, a fun kiddie area, and tons of slides. I even recall going down the massive concrete slide with Shawn (who was then a little baby) and Sydney in my lap. As far as I can remember, all adults and children were unscathed by the experience.

Enter November 24. With cooler weather that is pretty much perfect for spending the day outside, I suggested that we revisit that very park. And since stuff like that is always more fun with friends, we invited the Jenks family to join us.

Our trek from the car to the park led us to the top of the concrete slide. It doesn't look very daunting in pictures, but when you're at the top, it is a loooooong way down. Sydney and I were the first to take it on, and I'm not gonna lie, it seemed a lot faster than I remembered it.

We had our plastic butt protector things for the roller slide, and Spencer and Shane decided to use those on their way down the concrete slide. They were flying! Spencer wiped out at the bottom and his bum was covered in dirt. Shane was able to get on his feet at the end, and ran right onto the stairs of the kids jungle gym that was about 15 feet from the bottom of the slide.

Then Shane went down again, and his landing wasn't so pretty. He tried to stand up at the end and couldn't slow himself down, and slammed his head and arm into the stairs of the jungle gym.

Shane, moments before the crash.

He couldn't move his arm afterward (I was so nervous it might be broken!), and his head was cut a little bit, but he was tough and walked it off. Moments later I looked over at the swings, and Jayden had fallen backwards off of it. His foot was caught in the swing, and he was lying in a muddy puddle below trying to get free. I officially felt like the worst friend ever for inviting them to what I now call the Slide Park of Death. Luckily everyone recovered (whew!), and we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with no accidents.

Sydney, Tanner, & Jayden. Syd sure loves having the attention of these boys!

Shawn had a great time taking turn going down slides with Spencer and me.

Afterwards the Jenks led us to a restaurant down south and we enjoyed some delicious Japanese curry.

Sydney, Gavin, & Jayden chowing down.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was lovely. Stacey hosted, and we were wowed when we walked in the door and saw the table settings that she put together. The girl's got a knack for stuff like this, everyone was totally impressed.

The pictures don't do it justice. It really looked like it came right out of a magazine.

I loved the rosette things that went around our napkins. So clever!

The kids' table was well suited for the kiddos to do lots of coloring while we finished putting things together in the kitchen.

Jack & Sydney

Sometimes I still can't believe all these friends from our years in Cleveland are here with us. I'm certainly thankful for that!

Justin's assistant Emily, Stacey & Justin, Adam & Hollie, Camron, Blake & Amy, Spencer

We had a good time stuffing ourselves with lots of delicious food. Over at the kids table, Sydney cleaned her plate too.

She even out-ate all the boys. I've certainly been blessed with good eaters! Plus it helps that she is highly motivated by treats, and there were lots of pies to serve as bribes for eating all of her dinner.

Last one standing. 

That is not an unusual sight when eating with other families. She's usually at the table long after all the other kids have finished and gone back to playing.

Amy, Me, Hollie, Stacey

Justin, Camron, Adam, Spencer, Blake

Cutie pie Shawn.

Tess & Sydney

Happy Thanksgiving! On to Christmas!