December 17-19, Part-3

After the gift exchange, we chose a game to play out of all the new ones that were recieved. We were looking for one that everyone could play, so that narrowed the choices down. We ended up playing a game called, "Would you rather..." To play it, you had to decide what the rest of the group would choose when you read the "would you rather..." question. There were also some challenge questions, where you had to perform a task to be able to move on.

One of the tasks that Lois had to do, was to trade socks with someone in the room. The person she had to change socks with was chosen by the rest of the group, and we thought we had chosen the perfect person, when we chose baby Isaac as the one she had to change socks with. We figured there was no way she would be able to get Isaac's sock on her foot. However, she surprised us and got them completely on her foot, I guess they stretch more than I thought they did.

Isaac wasn't to impressed with her socks!

Another challenge, that was done by Denaye, was to try and identify 3 people in 90 seconds, while blindfolded and only touching their heads. We all took our glasses off to try and confuse her, but she was able to do it in her time limit, although she didn't identify me. I was first in line and she hadn't gotten the hang of it or realized that we had taken our glasses off, when she gave up on me. It was a fun game for a fairly large group to play together, lots of laughter and joking around during the game always means it was sucessful in my book.

December 17-19, Part-2

We had our extended family Christmas at my brother's house. This is Isaac, his grandson, who was born in May. He slept during a lot of the festivities.
Todd and Gabe (Isaac's Dad) took turns tossing their sons in the air. Both boys thoroughly enjoyed their flying lessons .
We are just about ready to dive into the food, lots of yummy goodies!
This is my brother, Tim, giving his 2 granddaughters a horsey ride. The horse got pretty wild and both girls tumbled off, but jumped right back on. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you take a spill?

Time to open Christmas presents. We let the kids open all their gifts first, then the adults take their turn. Our theme for gifts this year was games. Everyone was supposed to bring a game or a food item in the $20 range, then we draw numbers and open or steal someone's gift. It's always a lot of fun! This is 2 years in a row that someone brought the same gift that I brought, I always think I'm being so original, but I guess I'm not.

Seth finally started to get tired and took a short (very short) rest. He is one of the most active little guys, I've ever seen. He seemed to like the new toys he got, but they didn't hold his attention for long. He likes to be on the go constantly.

Melia and Kiera looked so pretty in their Christmas dresses!

Here's a challenge! How do you get a 5 yr. old, a 3 yr. old, a 1 yr. old and a 7 mo. old to all look at you for a picture? Answer - You don't, and just do the best you can. This was the best I could do.

December 17-19, Part-1

Thursday, the 17th, I hosted a Christmas party for my MOPS group. We had some yummy food, played some fun games, then had a sock exchange. Everyone brought a pair of wrapped socks, and we played the game where you could unwrap a pair of socks or steal someone else's socks. In this picture we are showing off the socks that we ended up with, you can't tell what is on mine in the picture, the snowman faded out in the flash.
Friday afternoon, we went to Wenatchee for my extended family Christmas get-together. On Saturday, Ken, my Mom and I, visited my Dad at the place where he is having rehab, before going up to my brother's house. Lara and Amy joined us there, and Lara sang the songs she was going to sing for her recital later that afternoon for us. She was all dressed up for her recital and looked so grown-up!
She did ham it up by the Santa for a couple of pictures. Since the Hefner's wouldn't be joining us for the family get-together, they came to my Mom's and got their gifts. They also waited for Todd, Betsy, and Seth to arrive, so they could give a gift to Seth. Just as he was getting ready to open it, we all realized that this would be his first Christmas gift, so out came the cameras.
Seth opening his first Christmas gift.

Saben's Christmas Program

Tuesday was Saben's preschool Christmas program. I'm not sure whether to call it his first Christmas program or not, he was supposed to be in one last year, but it kept getting cancelled because of the snow. I can't remember if they ever did the program or not, I have a vague memory of it taking place in January, but I wasn't there, so I can't remember for sure. The kids got to chose what they wanted to be and Saben wanted to be an angel. As you can see, he was the only boy that wanted to be an angel, even though according to the Bible, angels were usually males. I'm not sure what the girl in green is supposed to be, I don't recall a leprechaun in the nativity story.
Saben did well on singing the songs, but wasn't quite on time with the motions. The angel next to him, on the right seemed to be the one some of them were following.
Annika spent most of the program with her face to the wall next to the pew we were sitting in. She didn't want to do anything other than stand there. Once in awhile, I saw her sneak a peek toward the stage, then turn her face back to the wall.
I couldn't really see his wings from where we sat, so I had him show me his wings after the program was over. He told me later, that he wasn't really an angel because he didn't have a halo.

After the program, they had some snack food and sweets, Saben decided that a donut on top of a cookie sounded like a good snack and ate them together.

Birthday Get-Together and Snow

Sunday we all got together to celebrate Ken's birthday, which is on Tues. It also snowed off and on most of the day, and the roads were getting slippery by the time we got home from church at 11am. We saw an accident on one side of the freeway and a car in the ditch on the other side of the freeway on our way home, so we were glad that everyone was able to make it safely to our house for lunch. We didn't get more than an inch or 2, but it was enough to get everyone excited to go outside, so after lunch we went and played in it awhile.
This snow was wet this time, so it stuck together and we were able to have snowball fights and even make a small snowman.

Annika tried to catch snow flakes in her mouth.

Here is the small snowman that we made, complete with rocks for eyes, a carrot nose and twigs for arms. Saben was so excited that the snow was working to make a snowman, this time, since we couldn't get it to stick together last year to make one.

After the Youngs headed home, we went back inside and watched Seth try to decorate the Christmas tree with ribbon from Ken's gifts. He would put it on, then take it off again. I was hoping he would leave it on the tree, but he didn't. He had more fun taking it back off than leaving it on the tree.

Weekend in Seattle and Monday in Bellingham

Ken was going to be leaving to go to Colorado for business on Sunday morning, so we decided to spend Saturday in Seattle, and stay in a hotel that night, so he wouldn't have to get up as early Sunday morning to get to the airport. Since Ken's birthday is in a week, I decided to get tickets to "The Black Nativity" as part of his birthday present. We had heard good things about it and we had tried at least once before to go to it, but it had been sold out. It was definitely not your usual nativity performance, but it was fun to see it done from a black point of view. It was done with narrators, singers, and dancers, all of which were high quality performers. The second half of the performance was just singing, kind of like songs sung during a church service. It was all very well done and I would highly recommend it to any one that enjoys black gospel music.

Before the performance, which took place at 2pm, we walked around Seattle center, (even though it was pretty cold). This guy was doing an ice carving, that we watched him start, then went inside to eat and warm up. He was finishing the carving up when we came back out and this is what it looked like. After the performance, we went downtown and walked around there. We made our usual trip to see the gingerbread house display, saw the carousel at Westlake, and saw numerous performers trying to play, sing or do whatever they could to get money from the shoppers walking by. The craziest one of those was outside Pacific Place and he was playing the guitar while keeping a hula hoop up. Since I can't keep a hula hoop up without playing the guitar at the same time, I was impressed.

I don't know what it is about things going wrong when Ken leaves. I had put a card out to have breakfast in the hotel room Sunday morning, since Ken would be gone by the time I got up. It didn't get picked up, so Ken delivered it to the desk when he went down to catch the shuttle to the airport. I had asked for it to be delivered at 8am, but at 7:45, just as I was getting ready to take a shower, the phone in the room rang and they said that my breakfast was ready and could they go ahead and deliver it. Since I really didn't want my breakfast to sit around getting cold for 15 minutes, I told them to go ahead and bring it up. They did, but it was missing the orange juice, so they had to go back and get it. When I was ready to go, I went out to Ken's car and tried to open the trunk, which took about 20 presses on the button to get it to open. I was getting really frustrated by then, (it happened again when I got home and Ken told me later that you had to press the button down and hold it to open the trunk). After I finally got stuff in the trunk, I headed out and the card to get the barrier arm to raise so I could leave the parking lot, wouldn't work. No one was behind me, so I was able to back up and tell the person at the desk that it wouldn't work. She re keyed it and said that there was an intercom box at the gate if I still had trouble to just press it. Sure enough, it still wouldn't work, but at least I was able to use the intercom to get out this time. Everything went OK the rest of the day, until bed time, when I discovered that I left my pajamas hanging on the back of the bathroom door at the hotel. Luckily, it was a pair that I was on the point of getting rid of anyway, so it wasn't a big loss, but what's with the crazy way things go when Ken leaves?

Today, I was in Bellingham, as usual, and Annika had 2 pony party hats, which she insisted that we wear, so I insisted that Kari take a picture of us. It was a fun day playing with Saben & Annika.

Things To Remember

I just wanted to post this, so someday I can look back at it and remember it. Annika is almost
2 1/2 and talks quite well. She still calls me Mama, but I heard her say Grandma like Saben does, at least once while they were here on Monday and it made me sad to think that she is almost out of the phase of calling me Mama. I love hearing her little voice say "Mama, look at me!" or things similar, using the term Mama. The other person she has a different name for is herself. She calls herself Gaga. I was surprised to hear Saben calling her that also while they were here. He usually calls her Annika, but I did hear him say, "Gaga, do this or that", and she responded, "OK, Saben". So, she will answer to either name. I'm trying to figure out how she came up with Gaga, it doesn't sound even remotely like her name. Who knows! I took them to McDonalds for lunch while they were here, which means time spent after lunch in the kids play area. It was so sweet the way Saben kept track of Annika and made sure that she was with him all the time. I don't know if he is always that considerate, as a matter of fact, I know he isn't when they are at home anyway. It also may have been because they were the only ones playing there that day, but it was fun to watch them play well together at that moment in time.

Decorating For Christmas

Saben and Annika came and spent the day at our house on Monday. I had gotten a Christmas foamie for each of them to decorate. Annika enjoyed making the snowman and promptly put it on Pumpkin when she came to see what was going on.
Saben, as always, was much more meticulous in decorating his tree. He put stripes on some of the candy canes, then left some white. The big white blobs were supposed to be clumps of snow, he couldn't understand why a tree that had snow, meaning it was located outdoors, would have decorations on it.

The finished product!

We had gotten our Christmas tree the day before and decided to decorate it while they were here. Annika immediately grabbed the angel for the top of the tree and hung on to it. I think it probably reminded her of a princess, with it's fancy dress.

Saben really did well hanging the ornaments. He did get tired of waiting for Papa to put the lights and garland on the tree though. He could hardly wait to get started, even though he had already helped decorate the tree at his house.

Annika enjoyed helping also, but had a harder time getting the ornaments to stay on the branch, which was frustrating to her.

All in all, it was a lot of fun for us to have some helpers, even though we do have several ornaments on one place on some branches. We may have to make arrangements to do this every year.

Thanksgiving Day 2009

For Thanksgiving we had my parents, our kids and grandkids, which was a total of 11 people, including us, around the table. All 3 grandkids were in the same place for a brief period of time, so I got a quick picture of them before they scattered.

Seth looked very handsome in his dressy shirt and vest!

Papa tried to get Seth excited about being up in the air, but he was more interested in chewing on the toy, than the game Papa was trying to play with him.

For some reason, (Kari thought it was a sugar high from the whipped cream and pie) Annika got her hat and sunglasses and became very giggly. It was a fun day, lots of yummy food and lots to be thankful for.

New Glasses

I got new glasses a week or so ago. When I ordered them, I was told that I could get bifocals with no line for the same price as the ones with a line. I hadn't gotten the no line ones before because they usually cost more, so I decided to give them a try, since they were the same price now. I'm still not sure that I am crazy about them, but like Ken said I might as well get used to them because I'm stuck with them for a couple of years. The one advantage of them is that I no longer have to tilt my head back to work on the computer, so that's nice. It was a pain to have to put my head back to peer through the bottom part of my glasses at the computer screen. The thing I don't like, is that I don't have the peripheral vision that I had before. You have to turn your whole head to the side to see things clearly to the side of you. So, there are definate advantages and disadvantages to each type of bifocals. Finally, I'm getting pretty used to the new type and hopefully will start liking them better.

Christmas Cactus

I got a Christmas Cactus (at least that's what I think it's called) last year at the MOPS Christmas brunch as a thank you for being a mentor mom. It was pretty small and had no blossoms, but I found a place for it and waited to see if it would make it. My cats were no help to it, they decided it looked like a tasty treat, so they "pruned" it some by nibbling on the leaves. In spite of that, it has continued to live and is now producing some flowers and more buds can be seen. There are 2 flowers in full bloom, even though it's not Christmas, and many more to come, hopefully there will even be some flowers blooming at Christmas.

I can't believe it actually bloomed and what a gorgeous flower it is!

Disney on Ice

Kari, Saben, Annika, and I went to Disney on Ice last night. Annika was very excited to see the princesses, she talked about seeing them during dinner and was so excited as we walked to the arena that she was dancing and prancing down the sidewalk. When we got up to where the princesses were standing waving at their fans, she went mute and just stood and stared at them.

There were lots of girls in various princess costumes, busily waving to the 2 princesses. One of the princesses was Cinderella and the other one is the new one that will be in a movie coming out sometime soon. I don't even know what her name is, but I had heard that she will be the first black princess, Disney has had.

Annika also enjoyed seeing Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy, but couldn't figure out why Daisy wasn't there also.

Out of the four movies that had characters in the show, Saben & Annika were only familiar with the characters from CARS. Kari had tried to show them parts of the other movies before they came, but Saben has played with the CARS characters and was the most excited to see them.

We were pretty sure that Lightening McQueen and Mater would be there, but didn't know who else would be there. Saben was hoping that Ramone would be there and he was (he is the purple car.) There were some fun characters from the other movies also, but the pictures of them didn't turn out as well. All in all it was a fun night, but got a little long towards the end, especially for the kids since it was way past their bedtime.

Saben enjoyed his sno-cone, also.

A Rainy October

I don't know if anyone else noticed it or not, I actually wasn't aware of it until I totaled up the amount of rain we had in October, but it was a very rainy month. There were enough sunny days that I guess I didn't notice how much rain we were getting. Some of the days and nights that we got rain, it really poured. One day alone, we got 3 1/2 inches, according to my rain gauge. I have been keeping track of monthly totals since 2002 and this Oct. had by far, more rain than any other month. Only 3 months have ever gotten into double digits, Jan. 06 and Nov. 06, had the same amounts of 10 3/10 inches, and Oct. 09 came in with a whopping 12 9/10 inches. I don't know what it is about where we live, but I almost always end up with more rain in my gauge than the person that reports the rainfall for Arlington that is recorded in the newspaper. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, it was a rainy October in Arlington.

Halloween 2009

I thought it would be fun to do something to surprise Saben and Annika when we arrived at their house for Halloween. I told Kari to be sure to have Saben open the door for us when we got there because we would be wearing "Groucho" glasses. Saben wasn't quite sure what to think and Annika stayed in the living room and didn't want to come near us while we had them on. I knelt down in front of Saben, while I was still wearing the glasses and asked hime for a kiss. He started toward me, then abruptly stopped and said "No, way!" I can't say that I blamed him.
We were able to get a picture of Seth wearing the glasses, but barely got it taken before he grabbed them and took them off. A friend that saw the 2 pictures above, said that's the way grandkids look when the grandparents look like that.
Saben was so excited about his alien costume.
Kyle was instrumental in Annika's hair style.

The Mario Brothers.

Finishing touches being given to the punk rocker.

Costumes completed, ready to go get the candy in the downtown Bellingham stores. I have gone with Kari to trick or treat in the stores in town every year for 4 years and this year, by far, had the most people participating. Several stores actually ran out of candy.

The Mario brothers captured the heart of this princess!