December 2017

Wild Lights at The Living Desert!

I almost never get you in jeans so I'm in love with this little outfit.

Updated life goals.  Now you want to be a Hawaiian girl, mommy, and teacher.

I've always had this fantasy that building a gingerbread house would be such a good old fashioned Christmas activity.  This year I finally decided we should try it.

You can tell how well it was going by the glue gun in the foreground and the look of complete boredom on your face.

Finally we settled on regular craft glue, which meant it had to dry overnight.  So finally, 24 hours later, we were ready to decorate.

At least it looked cute in the end.  Next time I'm buying the pre-assembled house.

Playing with the stop-motion animation station at the Children's Museum.  I'll admit this is the first visit that I actually figured out what that station was.  Some directions would have been appreciated.

One evening I asked if you wanted to get the coffee ready for the next morning while I cleaned up dinner.  The look on your face when I said you could stand on the chair was priceless.  Now you are my official coffee assistant.  You know how much water and how much coffee, I don't even have to supervise for the most part.

New school sweater.  I wasn't sure how I felt about uniforms when we first enrolled you at PVS, but I'm 100% converted at this point.  Things are so much simpler!

Christmas cookie decorating!  You were a little sick when we did this so I set you up with your own separate pan of cookies to help contain the germs.

When you pick out gifts for your friends, it's not uncommon for you to "play" with them in the boxes until they get wrapped.  Here you are watching Moana with the Moana toys you picked out for Shea.

We've been trying to get you out on your bike more, but when Daddy first took you out on the sidewalks, you didn't like the slope in our neighborhood.  So I decided why not just try riding back and forth in the flat area across the street.  I took you out there one day and that was all it took.  Now you love it.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

The day after your emergency room visit, you brought me this piece of paper with a sad face and a happy face and asked me to draw pictures of good choices and bad choices so you could practice making decisions.  Here's what I came up with.  I thought your idea was sweet and clever and hilarious.

My Moms Club "adopted" a local family in need and bought gifts for the whole family.  They came to our Christmas party and were sent home with a carload of gifts, and new bikes for all the kids.  Here are just some of the things I wrapped.

Some of my fellow moms:  Athena, Kristin, me, Dawn, Audrey, and Melissa.  We all had a great time.

Charlotte, Eliot, you, and Cash looking very festive.

Emmy and Cash, and you trying to steal all their grapefruit.

Who's taller?  You, of course.

Here is the adopted family of 9.

Eliot, Ashton, Charlotte, Grayson, you, Cash, and Katie.

Typical breakfast with Christmas Bear.

Loving your outfit today.  Since you wear uniforms most school days, I pretty much feel like the rest of the week is yours to come up with whatever you like.

Found out from a friend that this house is in the next neighborhood over.  How fun!

We've been making all kinds of fun creations with your new Lego set.

New addition to your bedroom decor.

New Year's Eve activity:  more Legos!

Some great quotes from this month:

"The pillow is sweating me."

"I'm doing so much help."  Sometimes things like this are a good reminder for me of how little you still are.

Whenever someone says "silly goose," one of your teachers always says "on the moose."  So you've been saying that for months.  But more recently you came up with "silly me on the tee."  Then this transformed into "silly me artichoke."  And finally it goes something like this:  "Silly me artichoke.  No not silly me ARTICHOKE, silly me ON THE TEE."

Before we left for LA:
"I'm going to miss you, Daddy."
"Well Honey, I think you'll have fun with your friends."
"Yeah, you're right, I'm going to have so much fun I might forget about you.  All my friends will have Daddys and I'll wonder why I don't."

Lastly, you wanted to pick up a newspaper from the neighbor's driveway to send it to Grandma and Grandpa.  Actually, any time you see any newspaper you want to send it to Grandma and Grandpa.