O Tannebaum!

This will be the first year since Zach and I have been married that we haven't gone to one of our parents houses to celebrate. It is both exciting and a little sad. Because we have always been away from home for Christmas, we've never bought a Christmas tree before. And that, my friends, was definitely due for a change.

I love Christmas. It is by far my favorite holiday (following distantly by Independence Day, because I love America and fireworks and I love being allowed to hold sparkley fire on a stick) and one of the best traditions of Christmas is the Christmas tree. It's magical.

They were selling Christmas trees close to our house, so we decided to walk down there and pick one up. We had promised the boys we would go that day, otherwise the rain probably would have kept Zach and I at home for fairer weather. I guess that's Christmas is the Bay Area for you.


The Boys ran all over the place looking for the perfect tree.


Sam, being silly.

We were pretty quick in deciding, since there were only so many trees in our price range and the boys were running around yelling about which trees they wanted (all of them!) and it was raining after all. So we went ahead and picked out our tree and the very nice man let the boys help out with the tree dolly.


Two very helpful 4-year-olds.

This was a great little lot, though they didn't have one of those tree shaker things that gets rid of all the dead needles stuck in the tree (which even freshly cut trees have), so I ended up raking them all out with my fingers and sucking them up with the vacuum (and then getting the vacuum clogged and having to suck them all up again after I cleaned out the vacuum. *Note-wet fir needles clump like the dickens.) Other than that, they were stellar.

We paid and the man asked where our car was so he could tie our beautiful tree to the top. Zach told him that we had walked and that we were going to use the stroller to take the tree home. He just stared at Zach for a moment and then said, "really?!?" Yep. So we strapped it to the stroller, which held it remarkably well, and the man asked if he could take a picture because no one had ever done that before.

As Zach said later, "Doing crazy things is how you make memories!"


Zach and the boys with our Christmas bounty.

We let the boys play in the mud puddles on the way home, which they loved immensely and showed their appreciation by getting completely wet and muddy.


Holly, Jolly Mud Puddle hopping.

We got the tree home safe and sound and put it up in the stand. After some consideration, we decided to wait until morning to decorate the tree since stringing electric lights on a wet tree had visions of fire hazards dancing in my head. And it was much drier in the morning, so good decision.


The boys attacked decorating the Christmas tree with much fervor and gusto.


This is Sam's Santa Claus costume by the way; a santa hat, his big, red shirt and no pants. He often includes a pillowcase filled with toys as well.


Ben and Sam getting presents to put under the tree. Also, for those interested, a belly shot (31 weeks). Lovely.


As you can see, the idea of spreading the different colors of ornaments throughout the tree is something that the boys have yet to really grasp. There are some who go their who lives without really having a grasp on this concept, but I'm hoping I can still instill it in the boys. I've been moving some of the ornaments around, for both practical and aesthetic reasons since we put it up, but the boys keep moving them again afterwards, so it is something of an exercise in futility.


Ben and Sam after triumphantly decorating their first Christmas tree. How lovely are thy branches indeed, Tannebaum!

Boy Talk

Sam: I'm being Santa, so you need to be an elf.
Ben: But my ears aren't pointy.
Sam: Just pretend they're pointy!

Ben: (making up this song in bed) God is true and he's never gonna not be true!!! He will save me all day loooong!!

Sam: (Talking to himself in the bathroom) Uno! Dos! Tres!
Katie: Sam, are you done?
Sam: No, amigo!

Sam: Mom, do you know where my calendar is?
Ben: Maybe you lost it.
Sam: Don't talk to me about losing!!

Ben: (Singing over and over) Mr. Golden sun won't you shine down on me! Mr. Golden sun won't you shine on me!

Thanksgiving Review

Because my brain is not completely working these days (at least half my physical and mental energy is building a small human cell by cell as we speak) I forgot to bring our camera with us on our trip to Washington. But, trust me, it was awesome. The boys had been praying for snow for a while now, and we had told them that there was a tiny chance that it might snow while we were in Washington for Thanksgiving, so they latched onto that. And prayed with all the faith and fervor a four-year-old could muster.

And it came to pass that the wind changed and brought down some freakin' cold weather from Alaska and totally threw the poor residents for a loop (since they are used to pretty mild winters and not that early anyway). Driving was hard, since they didn't have enough salt for the roads yet, but the boys were absolutely delighted and spent a lot of time outside getting frozen.

We got to spend a lot of time with Zach's family, snuggled up in their house with a fire going and hot chocolate and dogs that like to snuggle under blankets with you (until they are jumped on by playful little boys). And we got to see some movies (Megamind and Tangled). I think the boys will begin to associate the movie theater experience with grandparents, since that's the only time we actually go to the movies. And we ate a huge, scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner at Zach's grandfather's house in the Washington countryside. It was lovely!

So, I'm thankful for snow and prayer and family. And hot chocolate. And fire places. And crossing back over into California, where we didn't need jackets anymore.

Project Girlification - Part 1

We have a lot of baby clothes. I would even say that we have a plethora of baby clothes. After the boys were born I was convinced that we were going to have another set of twins and would rue the day we got rid of any of our doubles of baby things. The number of onsies is pretty ridiculous.


But as you can see from this lovely picture of our little one, my preparations were for naught.

So, we haven't bought too many clothes for this baby girl, because we do have so, so many. I separated out the gender neutral things and now I'm trying to girly up some of the other things. We started by dyeing a batch of blue clothes purple.


Before: Blue Clothes


After: Very purple clothes

I wish I hadn't left them in for so long, but my experience with dyeing in the past has always been to leave them in longer for better color. But, sadly, not this time. I still like the deep purple, it's just a little intense.

I did a second batch, and these spent much less time in the dye. I prefer these. Especially the striped purple onsie on the right. It's awesome.



Below is one of the boy's little jumper. The color is neutral enough, but the blue airplane seemed pretty boyish.



So, I covered it up with a red felt heart. I really, really like it, despite my less than stellar ability to sew straight lines.



The boys have requested that we do a pink batch next. I'm also going to make some little skirts to go over onsies. Dressing girls is a lot of fun, by the way.

Quotes

Ben: Mom! (Calling from upstairs)
Katie: What?
Ben: I need help building the coolest robot ever!!

Ben: (while walking towards the bathroom) Here I come bathroom.

(While I was writing down something funny that he had said on a pad of paper)
Sam: What are you doing? Wasting all the things so I can't draw anymore?

(I had told the boys we couldn't go out and play until all the toys in the hallway were cleaned up. A few minutes later Sam showed me what he had done. There were several "foot steps" carved out of the toys)
Sam: Mom, I'm ready to go and I have a plan. The place where toys are you step in the place where no toys are!

Ben: With the power to do nothing I could do nothing. But with the power to shoot, I can shoot! Boom! Boom! Boom!

a little bedtime reading

I went into the boys room the other night to check on them and found Sam like this:






He just loves learning about the human body. According to Zach, he was trying to get Sam to put the book away before bed, but Sam said, "but Dad, how will I learn which bones are in my hand?" Apparently that logic was just too much for Zach to overcome.

A Halloween Review

Greetings All! Back in September we were rooting around one of our local stores that already had Halloween costumes on display. Days before they had both planned on going as characters from Star Wars (Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett). Then Ben saw a skeleton costume and Sam saw a bee costume. And that was that.


Ben jumping on the couch with wax Dracula teeth in. (Thanks, Mom!)

A few days before Halloween we made ghost shaped cupcakes for a Halloween party the boys wanted to throw. In reality two of my friends just asked me to babysit their kids on the same day, but we seized the opportunity to have a two-part Halloween party. So, we made the cupcakes at part one (which I don't have pictures of).


Ghost shaped (really, I promise) cupcakes with chocolate frosting and Halloween sprinkles.


Above mentioned cupcakes being devoured.

At part two of the event we made a scientist laboratory (which is one of Ben and Sam's favorite games). They were making a potion that would kill people. Pretty horrible, really, but all in the name of science.


Ben, Sam and Lucy working hard on their potion.
(on a side note, Sam says he loves Lucy and wants to marry her. Sadly, she has promised her heart to another boy in the neighborhood. Sam is taking the news like a gentleman and a scholar, by weeping openly when asked about it.)


They had a blast. And then Sam and Lucy dumped their potion all over their little kid plastic chairs. I was really glad about that.

On Halloween we carved our pumpkins. The boys didn't really like the feel of the pumpkin guts (I guess they take after me in that), so I let them use my dish-washing gloves. Zach thought it was silly, but the boys did kinda help after that.


All of them kept pulling out the guts and talking about "their braains!" Sometimes it feels like my life is a perpetual boys scout camp.

We didn't get a picture of the finished pumpkins. Sorry. They were cool.

We got some long, black, thermal underwear for the boys costumes and I sewed felt shapes onto them for the bee stripes and the skeleton bones. Very, very simple. I hope they boys always pick costumes this easy.


Buzzy Buzz and Skelley Skel
Those are the names they gave their costumes. They are so awesome.

We went to a ward chili event (where the boys had corn bread and pumpkin pie) and then had "Trunk or Treating" afterwards. It was completely awesome.

Then we went home and ate candy for several consecutive meals.


The End.