Day 309: I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas 3.0

We drove over the Cascade Mountains today to Leavenworth, Washington, to visit my mom and my grandparents for a few days. Luckily, it's a complete winter wonderland over here and we packed the neglected crate of snow gear all the way up to California and the kids got in some good snow time. 

It was also Christmas 3.0 over here, and the kids got to open their last Christmas present of the season from my parents: new bikes! After 3 months of being bike-less (a truly serious condition that in the world of kid-dom is borderline child abuse), they are finally riding pretty on brand new (bigger) shiny bicycles. Calen got his "Seahawks bike", which is navy blue and neon green, and Cam got a bright orange big boy bike. 

Neighborhood boys, rejoice. 

Fancy new bikes for the boys!

Day 308: The Generation Gap

We're still up here in Washington, and spent the earlier part of today visiting one of my best friends and her kids (whose son is Calen's BFF). We took the kids to a local trampoline park in Marysville to burn out some energy.

Fun fact: the new trampoline park is at the same location where the old Blockbuster used to be. As we pulled in to the parking lot I made this comment out loud, prompting this dialogue between me and Calen:

Me: This used to be a Blockbuster! I went here all the time!
Calen: WHAT is a Blockbuster?!
Me: It's a store we used to go to, and it had all these movies on the shelves, and you got to pick one or two to borrow for a few days, and then you'd bring them back. 
Calen: WHY would you return them?? Why did you have to go to a store? Why don't you just watch them on Netflix? 
Me: They didn't have Netflix
Calen: Why didn't you use Amazon Prime movies then?
Me: They didn't have Internet, Calen. It didn't exist. 
Calen: Then what did you DO with your life?!
Me: Go to Blockbuster!!

Oh, the generation gap at it's finest. 

After the kids jumped for a while we went out to lunch at Red Robin and then parted ways. Even though we only see each other a few times a year, we remain close. 

These 4 have been together since they were born. Cameron (8), Calen (7 1/2), Kendall (10), Camden (5)

Best friends since birth! Cameron is six months older and practically 6 inches taller than Calen

This evening we cashed in our Christmas present to Brad's folks: tickets to the Everett Silvertips hockey game. The 'Tips are a team in the junior hockey league, kind of like minor leagues for the NHL except these kids are 16-20 years old. The kids LOVED watching the hockey game and Tips got the win. 

Super awesome fun day. 

Everett Silvertips! "Let's.Play.HOCKEY!" Camden is so in his element.

Family night with Grammy and Papa!

Day 307: Washington Family Christmas Day

It's our first full day in Washington and it's officially Washington Christmas Day! Didn't Siri remind you? No? Well it was Christmas at Brad's parents' house anyways. 

You know the drill. Presents, wrapping paper, etc. 

At one point, Camden and his three year old cousin Brooks decided to completely scuba dive into the massive pile of wrapping paper, boxes, bows and tissue, and completely disappeared. 

Two cousins. Can you find them?

The boys spent the afternoon here at the house running rampant with Brooks. If I could bottle their energy and sell it on the street, I'd have a new car. And a new house. And my own private tropical island complete with butler serving me drinks in coconuts. 

Great day spent with family. 

Camden and Brooks terrorizing the house while Calen built Legos

Day 306: Travel, Travel, Travel

If I never sit in a car again, it'll be too soon. 

Famous last words, of course. 

We got up at o'dark-thirty this morning (2am, to be exact), loaded up the car and drove the 700+ miles north to Seattle to visit family for the next 10 days or so. The drive itself is a solid 14 hours long after traffic. 

So, we got here, ate pizza, and promptly went to bed at 8pm. The end. 

Tomorrow will be more exciting. 

Day 305: Christmas!!

It's Christmas! Need I say more?

Christmas morning we did what every other family in America was doing: up before dawn sitting on the living room floor devouring presents. Santa brought the boys each new scooters and one gift that they asked him for. After presents, we had our traditional cinnamon roll waffles and sausage for breakfast, and spent the day watching A Christmas Story and building Legos. We hosted Christmas dinner with our Coast Guard family, and that was that. Quiet, simple, no drama, surrounded by people we care about. Just how Christmas should be. 

Photo dump!

Breakfast of champions

Camden's coveted gift: The Millenium Falcon

Day 304: And To All A Goodnight

It's Christmas Eve!! The best day of the year (for parents), watching our kids wallow in the excitement in the seemingly infinite minutes that is the day before the biggest day of the year. 

In the words of my friend, it's also International Keep Your Kid Busy Day. 

We kept them as busy as possible. A craft here and there, a Jenga Quake tournament, and checking in to the Norad tracker once in a while so see where Santa is in the world. And of course we had to make and decorate Santa's cookies. All with an endless stream of Christmas movies and music. 

Checking the Norad Santa tracker!

Today's masterpieces

This evening we dressed in our (almost) best for the Christmas Eve service at the base chapel. It's not a full service, just a time to come together, light the candles, sing Christmas hymns and hear a brief message. 

Dressed to impress for Christmas Eve service!

Little church boys

Let's take a moment to appreciate the fact that Calen added a little Seahawks flair to his church clothes to represent during game day. 

After church we rushed home to change into pajamas and watched our annual Christmas Eve showing of the Polar Express while drinking hot chocolate, then reading the Night Before Christmas before the kids ran as fast as they could into bed. 

Polar Express!

One more check on Norad! He's close!

The kids DEFINITELY heard sleigh bells outside in the back field. As I hid in a dark shadow 200 feet from the house I could hear their screams of joy from an open window, then suddenly their bedroom lights shut off. Christmas magic. 

Santa came tonight and left some solid evidence too. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Day 303: Christmas Eve Eve

It's the day before the day before!! Are your kids bouncing off the walls yet? Because mine are. 

To spare them the grueling infinite minutes of the day before Christmas Eve, we let them play video games basically all day while Brad and I watched Christmas movies all day. 

We couldn't stop now from doing our 25 days of Christmas stuff, but I've basically drained Pinterest dry. So, we called the kids downstairs and I literally emptied the craft bin onto the table and we invented a craft using what we had abundance of: glitter, pom poms, lunch bags and popsicle sticks. 

Here's what we came up with. 

Hey, it at least kept them busy. 

We finished off the night with a rousing game of Star Wars Battleship, and that was that. 

What can I say, we weren't that exciting today.

Day 302: There's An App For That, and The Ambush

Today was supposed to be the last (half) day of school until winter break. But really, we needed to rest and make sure we are ALL healthy for Christmas. So the kids played hooky and we stayed in pajamas until 10:30 and had a Christmas movie marathon for the majority of the day (Scrooge (1970 with Albert Finney), The Grinch, Elf) while playing with glittery salt dough playdoh and coloring in their big advent countdown activity books. 

At some point, I accidentally hit some button on my phone and an app that I didn't know I had opened and my camera turned on (self facing...hello 17 chins) and I looked like a reindeer. I'm not sure how I did it. But it was a great accident and the kids and I spent the next half hour turning ourselves into reindeer and crazy goggle-clad Santas and anything else we could find. 

That was stupidly fun. 

A week or so ago, I discovered these packages of 6 fake snowballs in the "stocking stuffer" section at Target. They're made of some type of polyester and are lightweight and fluffy but almost have that snowball "crunch" to them when you squish them. And since we're never going to have a real snowball fight at our California home, I obviously bought 3 packages and hid them away. 

Tonight, when we were about to call the boys downstairs for dinner, Brad and I snuck up the stairs and split the snowballs into two buckets. Brad sneaked a bucket in front of Calen's door and we held the other one at the end of the hallway. When I called the boys down for dinner and they popped out of the room, we struck like the ruthless parents we were, hailing a volley of snowballs at our defenseless kids' heads. Once they realized they too were armed, the snowball fight officially ensued in the hallway. It was violent and ruthless and fantastic. One snowball somehow plopped down the stairs and Sonic ceremoniously ate it, so now we are down to 17 snowballs. But really. Do yourself a favor and go to Target and buy no less than ten packs of these. They are fantastic. 

Blurry picture because we were under attack!

Day 301: Christmas: The Musical

Today was the Holiday concert at the boys' elementary school. Personally, I've been looking forward to this all year. It's my favorite thing that the kids do at school for a multitude of reasons:

1. It's shamelessly ADORABLE. 

2. It's a Christmas program. The school isn't afraid to allow the kids to sing Christmas music, without wallowing in fear of being P.C. Sure, they kept most of the classic hymns about Christ out of it. But at least they weren't afraid to sing "we wish you a Merry CHRISTMAS", like some schools.

3. In San Diego we were completely jipped of a music class at all, let alone a concert. So we appreciate it all the more. 

4. Watching the oldest grades (5th and 6th) is hilarious. The boys are way too cool to be up on stage singing about snowmen and the 12 days of Christmas and they are just mortified that we are all watching their cool meter dropping below 95. 

5. Since there's only one classroom per grade here at this tiny school, and 70% of the kids are Coast Guard kids, we know kids in each of the grades that sung. 

Calen's 2nd grade class recited a poem about building a snowman friend and keeping them in their house, and then sung (Sung? Sang?) Walking In A Winter Wonderland and even did a little dance to it. Calen was beaming from ear to ear the whole time and it was adorable. 

Love this picture. Calen and his two favorite friends (Spencer and Nick) all smiling ear to ear after their song.

Camden's Kindergarten class sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (twice: the traditional version and the funny version - "like a lightbulb!"). All the kids were wearing hand made reindeer antlers (which the antlers were their hands cut out) and red noses. Cam apparently took it very seriously because he didn't crack a smile at all until the end. 

Camden is so serious! I expected to opposite.

Seriously loved the overload of cuteness. One of those "that's so precious I think I'm crying" moments. 

Dressed to impress!

Day 300: And THAT's How You Do Christmas Lights

For a brief, singular moment in time, we're all *basically* healthy. 

By healthy I mean I'm still hacking up a lung and Calen is showing signs of catching the cold, but we are all well enough to put on pants and become functioning members of society. 

Maybe that's not actually a good thing. Putting on pants. Hmmm.

First of all, we hung outside in the dark for a little bit this evening because rumor has it Santa himself was going to drive through the neighborhood on top of the Coast Guard fire engine. 

And seriously, there is nothing better on this planet than watching fifteen grade school kids hopping up and down in pure sugar-laced glee, singing Jingle Bells at the top of their lungs and screaming with excitement as Santa rides down the hill towards our house. 

Best.Moment.Ever.

Anyways, after dinner we headed out to see the basically world famous Weaver's Wonderland, the winner of last year (and the year before?)'s Holiday Light Fight contest on ABC, which happens to be in the next town over (not half a mile from where the boys play baseball). 

The pictures don't do justice. This house is AMAZING. If you can call it a house, because you can't actually see the house. It's completely covered in wood cutouts, castle turrets, snow machines, lights, lights, and more lights. The garage was refurnished into a gigantic Christmas village. There's a moving magic carpet. And it's so bright you can probably see it from space. 

Imagine being THEIR next door neighbors. 

I couldn't even get it all in one picture.

The garage, you guys. 

The best part about this place is since it's a guy's house, it's FREE to just walk up to it and stare at it for a solid 30 minutes (because there's so much to take in) before calling it a night. 

We also walked a few blocks over to another super awesome house that features some of the wood cutouts that the Weaver's made for them. Like a 20 foot tall abominable snow monster. Because obviously. 

The people in this town know how to do Christmas lights. 

Day 299: You're A Rotter, Mr. Grinch.

Round 3 of the sickies has hit the house and now Brad has some sort of stomach bug. 

This does end at some point, right? Right?!

I don't deal with barfing well. Or other people barfing in my house. So, I spent the day NOT at my house. I went to Target. I went to the post office and wasn't even mad that the line was 30 minutes long. I cleaned out the car. And the garage. And swept the front porch. And once I HAD to be inside, I bleached the bathroom. I tried not to breathe the germ-infested air.

So, the kids and I did our best to avoid being within hearing range of Daddy blowing chunks upstairs  disturbing Daddy as he sleeps, so once they finally came inside from an extended outside playtime (i.e. once I ran out of outside chores to do and had to face the music inside), I did what every good parent does and threw their asses in front of the television. 

They watched Mickey's Christmas Carol and the Grinch tonight, while I scoured Pinterest for something easy to do to keep on with the "25 days of Christmas" nonsense. And aha! A quick craft that only involved paper, glue, scissors and cottons balls. 

Behold, their own personal Grinch's. 

Christmas rocks. It's so easy to find things for them to do. 

Day 298: A Couch Potato Weekend

It's been a rough few days of this head/chest cold thing. 

Cam and Brad are on the mend but I'm still full blown knocked down from this thing. So, the weekend was declared a wash, and we layed low again to try and recover before the big week of Christmas. 

I tried my best to drag myself off the couch here and there to still make it a fun Christmasy day for the kids. I made reindeer sandwiches for a picnic lunch in front of the TV while they watched Rudolph, and we painted a secret project that will be a gift to a family member, and had a Home Alone movie marathon. 

My sad attempt at reindeer sandwiches

After dinner (and an hour of waiting for Cam to pick at his roast beef), we all sat around the dining table and decorated two premade gingerbread houses (because who actually wants to build a gingerbread house? Thanks Costco). Calen and I decorated one together and Brad and Cam decorated the other. The kids did a great job and by the time they were done (and had consumed half the frosting), the kids were climbing the walls like wild baboons. 

They belong in a zoo anyways. 

And then I went back to my spot on the couch and hacked up a lung like a good sick person. 

Nevermind Cam's creepy eyes

7 days until Christmas!!

Day 297: Sick Days and Ninjabread Men

We're still pretty sick around here. Cam was barfing this morning and Brad had a migraine, so Calen (the only one who isn't sick...yet) and I decided to go into town and treat ourselves to a coffee and a kids hot chocolate at Starbucks, and let Calen pick out a gift for his brother and teacher. 

Once we got home Cam was feeling a little better so we decorated some Ninjabread men that Calen and I had made a couple days ago. 

Yes, NINJA-bread men. Because in my house, gingerbread men just won't suffice. 

Also, don't eat any ninjabread men from our house this year. Because germs. 

Tonight was also the big housing Christmas lighting contest so we bundled up after dinner and walked around and did our own judging of the lights. There are some really cool houses in the neighborhood but really, our house was our favorite. 

We tried to keep it as low key as possible in hopes that maybe, just maybe, we will actually be healthy by Christmas.