Early Christmas present for ME (and Nate too). I got this in the mail last night with instructions to open before Christmas so I can play and be familiar with it on Christmas for best results. Yipee!!!
So here are a few of the 300+ shots I’ve taken since last night.=P
We were taking Nate to the airport tonight and anytime we know we will be in the car for at least an hour nonstop I let the kids watch a movie. So as soon as we were all in the car Gavin asked “Can we watch a movie now?”
My reply, “No. We just pulled out of the driveway, we’re not even out of neighborhood yet.”
Gavin is very aware of his surroundings and can usually tell when we are close to home by what he sees. He knows that when he sees the coffee shop on Meridian, we turn into our neighborhood. This evening, as we pull up to the intersection at Meridian where the coffee shop is, Gavin asks, “Can we watch the movie now?” We are out of the neighborhood now after all. He is too smart for his own good.
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Nate was in charge of putting together the Christmas Party for his work this year, and since we are of no religious affiliation (and Nate hates Christmas anyway) we decided to make it an all inclusive event. The “2009 Holiday Festival”. We had all the bases covered, Menorah and Hanukkah decorations, Kinara and Kwanzaa decorations, Yule log for the Pagans, general winter decorations or Christmas tree for those so inclined, Feliz Navidad sign for the hispanics, and Santa even made an appearance. The only thing that didn’t work out was the Festivus pole.
We didn’t do all of the putting together by ourselves, we did have help from others in the unit and the FRG. However, since they had the planning meeting right before they left for Yakima and the party was for the day after they came back, when I say Nate was in charge of the putting together it was really left to me to do the running around. I have been busy the last two weeks. It has been good for my christmas shopping needs though. All I had to do was say we were shopping for the christmas party, and the kids didn’t pay attention to what I put into the cart. I could but stuff for them too and they never noticed.
The shindig turned out pretty good. There is a BBQ place by where I used to work when we lived here before that will smoke meat for you that you bring to them. The unit was able to get a really good deal that way and the meat we got (turkey) was absolutely delicious. Nate got a lot of compliments and recognition for the event.
We have pictures but you’ll have to check back later to see them.
I got these delivered today. I didn’t even have to open the box to know exactly what was inside. He knows what I like.
Nate has been out of town for 2 weeks (he came back today) but he had these sent for when he came home. He feels bad when he has to be out of town when we don’t really know anyone here.
I took Saedi and Gavin to the movies today. We went and saw Disney’s A Christmas Carol in 3D! It is so much fun to take the kids to 3D movies because they think it is so cool. Pretty good movie in my opinion, a bit creepy in parts for the kids but they held up well. Nothing’s ever too scary when you can hold mom’s hand.
I have a picture of Nate with all the kids at the airport, when he was going back to the war after the twins were born, as the wallpaper on my computer. Every time I turn my computer on Solvei and Nels come over and point at the screen and say “Daddy” and then get mad when I open a program because it covers the picture. There is also another picture at the bottom of our stairs of me, Nate, Saedi and Gavin. The twins like to sit on the bottom step all the time and when they see that picture (which is often) they always point out Daddy.
I have this in our entry hallway.
Today I came into the hall looking for Solvei because she had wandered out of the living room and hadn’t come back for a few minutes. I found her sitting on the floor in the hall squarely in front of these pictures, pointing to them saying “Daddy,” and grinning repeatedly.
Nels has figured out that he can climb onto the chairs all by himself. Now he won’t stay off the furniture. I can not take him into the living room without him climbing on the couch or chair. He is so proud of himself for doing it too. It’s so cute and such a pain all at the same time.
The babies love the Christmas tree. I have to tell them all the time to leave the tree alone. As soon as there were presents under the tree Solvei tried to tear off the paper or walk off with them. When I put the ornaments on I knew they would try to touch them so I hung everything with a wire hanger so that it doesn’t easily come off. Today they discovered that if they pull on the nice shiny glass ball ornaments, the hanger part on the top of it pulls out and they can pull the glass ball part off. After they did this twice and Nels tried to put the top of one of the balls (where the hole is and it could be sharp) into his mouth, I had to take the babies out of the living room.
Incidentally, did you know spit dissolves the metallic paint coating on the inside of glass ball ornaments? Just thought I’d share that one with you.
Nels and Solvei love shoes. Before we got the shoe rack put up in the mud room the shoes would be in a pile in the corner, and whenever they got a chance Nels and/or Solvei would spread them all over the floor in the mud room and out into the hall, trying them on as they went. Now that the shoe rack is there they don’t get out all of the shoes every time, but their shoes rarely stay on the rack and sometimes others are not there as well. The other day when we had to go somewhere at a certain time I got everyone ready to go and then could only find one each of their shoes and neither of Gavin’s (I found the pairs to their shoes in the playroom but don’t know where Gavin’s shoes were found). They love to wear Saedi’s old crocs because they fit over footie pajamas and stay on because they’re light. The last few days, the shoes that have been carried around and tried-on most are Gavin’s rain boots.
This evening Solvei and Nels each got one of Gavin’s rain boots and are walking around the living room in them.
Nels doesn’t normally take a binkie except when he sleeps. Of course Solvei loves her binkie. Most of the time the binkie ends up on the floor under the bed while they’re sleeping. If you tell them to get their binkie, they will crawl under the crib and get it. One way to get Nels and Solvei to go to their room to get ready for bed at night is to tell them to go find their binkie and their blankie. They usually will get their binkie and then pull their blankie down onto the floor and lay on it.
I guess Nels wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet when it was bedtime tonight. I got him into his pajamas and ready for bed as usual. While I was changing Solvei I told him to go find his binkie. He walked over to his crib and crawled around it. I went back to changing Solvei’s diaper, but when I turned around Nels had a toy and was going to walk out of the room. I told him it was time for bed and to go find his binkie. He walked back towards the crib and I put Solvei’s pajammas on. When I was done getting Solvei ready I put her down on the floor just as Nels was trying to walk out the door again. I told him he was a silly boy and needed to go find his binkie.
I walked with him over to his crib, only to find that he had found his binkie, and he had put it in his crib.
Gavin loves to run. As I’ve mentioned he runs almost everyday, to and from the bus stop. He constantly runs around and wants us to see how fast he is, as if we haven’t seen it a million times already. Because of all of this running and too many injury close-calls, we have a “No running in the house” rule. Today I had this conversation with Gavin after he goes running past me.
Me – “No running in the house!”
Gavin – “I wasn’t.”
Me – “Yes you were, I saw you.”
Gavin – “I wasn’t running, I was jogging.”
wadmanclan
Wadman Clan 