She celebrated by dancing to a dvd of the Nutcracker ballet at a party with her friends. I made a tutu for each of them, it was pretty cute watching them spin and jump. They ate pizza and cupcakes and then colored pictures of ballerinas and snowflakes.

Nabby’s favorite pizza topping is mushrooms.

Nabby was too nervous to chat with Santa this year, but took a few peeks at him from a safe distance. She smiled with her eyes wide when he waved at her. Oliver was happy to let him know what he wanted for Christmas and won the traditional mini candy cane for his bravery. No line too!

A very nice violin recital/performance further down the hall.

I love Christmas! Just five more days!

We made ourselves a batch of cake pop snowmen.

I’m looking more pregnant.

The ward christmas breakfast this year turned out really great! Relaxing for me and Jas and really fun for the kids. Each sit-down table (two families) was set when we arrived and had it’s own breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, fruit. There were also craft supplies to make snowflakes, paper chains and notes to missionaries at each table. I helped the kids into their angel and star costumes when it was time for the primary nativity and Jas manned the camera.

My brother Kevin and sister-in-law Karen moved here to Michigan last spring (to work for Toyota) and hosted Thanksgiving for us at their house! It was wonderful.

Jason carved the perfect Turkey Karen roasted. And good gravy! she made some good gravy with it.

Nabby loved holding Cameron.

Afterwards I took the kids outside to play red light green light. Then there was a nerf war and we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas movie.

I’d been toying with the idea of moving Oliver and Nabby into the same room upstairs so we could have a guest room for my parents coming at the end of this week. Friday, day after Thanksgiving, I decided it was time to just try it and so far it’s worked out perfectly. We had to take the slide off Oliver’s bunk bed to make it fit, and find places for toys down by the playhouse, but they’re happy and sleeping well.

Turns out we finished all the moving just in time because I started throwing up tons Saturday (hurt like the dickens) and the empty bedroom and bathroom downstairs came in handy to quarantine myself in. Jas is amazing. He took the kids to church by himself (who thankfully don’t have any sign of catching it), cloroxed the house, and kept everything running while I got better. It was just a stomach bug and I’m back to 100%.

More coming soon (like tomorrow) on the new baby!!

I finished this recently and sold it to a friend.

In general my sketches die when I paint them, but this one isn’t all dead. I like the rabbit. It was fun to do.

I’m excited to start coloring everything on the computer or with marker and pencil. I’ve been wanting to put away the oil/acrylics for a long time.

Yesterday morning Oliver made a “Flash Gordan” for Jas with a clothes pin and markers. He wrapped it in construction paper and tape. He was so excited for Jas to see it so we opened presents right after breakfast. Nabby wrapped several of her toys in blankets and had him open them. She was very happy when he said “ohhhh” and smiled at each one. He loved the shirt from his parents and the cards everyone sent! Thank you everyone!

I found a friend to watch the kids and took him out to dinner. I wish I had remembered the camera, we had a really cool place to sit by a model sailboat (classic ship!). He had Swordfish (with rice pilaf and mango salsa) and I had crab cakes (with only a tiny breading and tons of crab) with roasted veggies. It was fantastic. We finished with keylime pie.

Hey, here are some jack o lanterns we carved Monday. Jas roasted the seeds and they were really good. Some had the usual butter and salt. Some had spices(?) and they were extra good.

Nabby fixed my hair while I carved her requested skeleton pumpkin.

Oliver drew a picture of what he wanted his pumpkin to look like. He made a scary face in the photo I took of him holding it to amplify the scariness of it.

This was the first time Oliver jumped around the house turning off all the lights himself.

Imagine Oliver and Nabby jumping like crazy and making sounds (3 and 5 year old excited for halloween sounds).

She had a great time at the party decorating cookies with candy corn and dancing in the dark with glow stick/bracelets to the classical song “the mountain king” (I got to see the dancing part and it was awesome).

I spent Wednesday/Halloween morning finishing Oliver’s party snack prep and then Nabby and I met his class for the Wines Halloween parade. It was cold and Oliver almost died, but then didn’t. Nabby had costume #3 on: the lion, so she was warm enough.

One fortunate (or unfortunate?) student dressed as a really cool robot. It even had lights. I liked the mom/teacher dressed as Malfeasant.

I remember my Dad dressing up for a few years as a grim reaper for halloween when I was little. He’d use makeup to paint a skeleton face and wear a long black hooded robe that smelled like a musty basement. I remember being scared of him every year when I first saw him, but then I was proud he was my dad and loved it. So…I decided to paint my face green and read a story to Oliver’s class dressed as a witch. Luckily I didn’t scare anyone too much and the make up came off in the shower really easily.

Before i took it all off Jas and I went to Chipole and earned our traditional $2 burritos (normally $7). They even included guacamole. This year we didn’t have to come in dressed as something from the farm, we just had to be dressed up. Jas wore his spider shirt and Nabby’s Lion costume hood. It looked good on him! I wish I had a photo of it.

Some of the party snacks I made. There’s fruit salad in the orange-jack o lanterns. Everyone liked the Oreo spiders with twizzler legs. Then there were some “edible eye balls” made with carrots, cream cheese and olives. “Goblin grins” made of sugar snap peas, shredded mozzararella, and red pepper, and “cheese stick fingers” with red pepper nails.

Oliver handcuffed anyone who asked him to.

Several other parents helped and one even brought party bags with erasers, bubbles, a candy necklace, etc for each kid. Oliver liked that.

I didn’t take photos of the accordion leg construction paper spiders I brought for the kids to make. It turned out to be a pretty tricky craft and very stressful for Oliver. He was sobbing and yelling and unfortunately just couldn’t accept help from anyone. It is still SO hard to see him have to deal with the anxiety he’s got.

Oliver felt better after the party and went trick-or-treating with Nabby, Jason and lots of friends from church. They had a great time and got hot cocoa at our friends the Neilson’s afterwards. I stayed home and showered and watched tv and that was very nice too. It was an excellent halloween!

Here they are Halloween 2012 dressed as Rupunzel and a Swat police officer. Oliver couldn’t resist choosing his over a robot when he saw the working flashlight and handcuffs (with key). Nabby took two seconds to pick her dress and when I got it home and pulled out the rather realistic wig I was impressed.

Nabby’s usual express when we ask her to pose.

Oliver’s also came with binoculars, glasses, hat and walk-e talk-e.

Jason’s traditional glued on plastic spider shirt. I was a witch with my blue wig, but don’t have a photo. I’m dressing up again for Oliver’s class party Wednesday to read a story so I’ll try to get one then.

These are some of my favorite costumes others in the ward showed up in. Sedi is “Kevin” from “UP” and her son was Russell and her husband (not in the photo) was Carl.

Siri made her own Arwen and Gandolf costumes for her and Curtis. REALLY awesome and I wish it wasn’t blurry.

Two of our fine upstanding Priests, Taylor and Joe!

Effie Trinket and Seneca Crane from Hunger Games

Brilliant idea for someone like her who’s expecting. Why didn’t I think of it?

The swat officer and Rupunzel colored and ate cornbread with honey. I fed them dinner before we left because I always enjoy the party better when I do. Until they can serve themselves I think it’s absolutely the best way to go. Then they can just have dessert when we get there.

The Chili and cornbread was sooo sooooooo good. There were several and my favorite chili was one with a smoky flavor. My favorite cornbread had cheese and fresh corn mixed in.

Then we took a potty break and then joined the parade and trunk or treating. I hung a paper plate skeleton from the back of the van and played the soundtrack from Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban in the car stereo while I gave out candy. Double Trouble is my favorite halloween-ish song. Jason took the kids around to get their treats.

Nabby’s favorite piece of candy was a chocolate eye ball, Oliver’s was skittles.

and that’s that.

It’s rumored to snow tomorrow and Wednesday. I’m glad we had fun while the moon was full and weather nice.

We spent the evening at Oliver’s school showing off his robot at the science/builder’s fair. He left feeling elated that he was given a purple ribbon with “Excellent” on it. I thought it was wonderful to see him push past his fears and talk to the judges all by himself. He named the robot King Vaner: King of the robots. In preparation we asked Oliver what King Vaner did and he gave us a list to type up. We printed it and put it next to the robot. On the list were things like: it shoots acid from its acid claws at bad robots; it can see where bad robots are on it’s blue tv screen; it rolls around instead of walking; it can make things with it’s eyes (cars or anything else); and it’s eyes can make them disappear when you don’t need them any more.

Nabby suffered through it pretty well and only pretended to have broken legs twice.

The other projects where very cool. Some of my favorites were the skyscrapers, paper airplanes, and super long 2×4 ships. We saw friends from church and Oliver’s kindergarten class and had a great time.

So this has been a good last couple weeks.

We built lego temples while we watched conference. Mine’s the one with swiper. Nabby added a ladder because she had a hard time believing in an underground tunnel entrance. I tried to get a nice photo of Nabby and I (with me holding the camera), but the ones after Oliver jumped in turned out way better.

This morning at breakfast Nabby asked why we don’t eat more feta cheese. She’s also been using the word “probably” a lot.
Nabby: “Mom, probably you like to buy movies at the library best and not the store.” (I’ve mentioned it’s called borrowing or checking out, but oh well.)
Nabby: “Mom, probably kids in China don’t have real treadmills, they just have pretend ones like this! (She runs in place)
She says things like this in a very wise understanding voice.

She has two really good friends she met at church and gets together with them once a week for a few hours. They like to teach each other fake words in other languages and Nabby really comes out of her shell when she’s with them. It’s delightful.

Oliver’s been singing a song he learned from his music teacher at school all over the house.
Oliver: “A hunting we will go! A hunting we will go! We’ll catch a bear and put him in his underwear and then we’ll let him go! A hunting we will go! A hunting we will go! We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box and then we’ll let him go! A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go! We’ll catch a pig and put him in a wig and then we’ll let him go!” There are more verses too.

Things are different (better) I think in public school than when I was little. He has a separate gym, music and art teacher. School lunch looks considerably healthier and yummier too, though he I think he often doesn’t eat much of it because he feels pressured to get outside for recess quickly. He is obedient with only choosing chocolate milk on Friday though and we’re reminding him to try five bites of everything before he leaves. His teacher aims to have his whole class reading on a 2nd grade level by the end of the year and he’s doing pretty well so far!

He builds amazing things with these “wedgits” toys I found at a second hand store. I’m amazed by how his patience has grown in the last few months.

Oh, and Jason grew a beard.