Christmas

We spent Christmas with Laura's parents and Boyd and Amy's families in Bellevue. Christmas Eve featured a Christmas talent show, which is becoming an annual tradition, and lots of good food. The kids spread out sleeping bags in one room and we all squeezed into the house for the night. Christmas day for Carina began at 6:45am when she came into our room to wake us up. Unfortunately, Christmas for Natalie started at 2:30am when she woke up coughing -- she has been fighting a fever for several days now. Natalie was awake for about two hours in the night and was not ready to get up at 6:45 with everyone else. She was cheerful for a few minutes and got through her stocking and a couple presents (a new easel and an easy bake oven), but then her fever spiked to 104.5 and she melted down and fell asleep on Laura for a couple of hours. Natalie's fever dropped later in the morning, and she perked up enough to finish opening her presents in the afternoon. (And she is feeling much better today.)

This is what Christmas morning looked like inside:

This is what Christmas morning looked like outside; it snowed most of the day!

Carina and Natalie opening their stockings:




Carina's first artwork on the easel she and Natalie received from Santa. She wrote "I Love Crismis and My Famle."


Carina enjoying her new bean bag chair:

Natalie passed out on Laura:

Carina and her cousing Emma dueling with Easy Bake Oven tools:

Carina showing off some gifts from her Grandma Linda and Granda Terry:

Carina's thoughts on Christmas, after having opened all of her presents:

Natalie taking her medicine with "magic sparkles" added:

Natalie, feeling much better, admiring a musical doll from Santa:

Doctor Natalie enjoying her new doctor dress up clothes and tools. Laura made the lab coat. And, yes, she is taking the camel's temperature.

Natalie in her Go, Diego, Go animal rescue outfit. Laura made the jacket.

Natalie opening a present from her cousin Luke:

We're Having A White Christmas

It has snowed 5 or 6 inches in the last few days. We are enjoying the snow and I'm enjoying the time off from work. People in Seattle generally go into hysterics at the thought of snow, which is why Carina's school was cancelled on Wednesday because "it might snow," even though it never did on Wednesday. Last night the forecast was actually for a blizzard with sustained winds of 50-75mph and gusts of up to 90 mph, but the forecasters were wrong: a few inches of snow fell and there was a light breeze.

The weather should stay under freezing for the upcoming week and more snow is in the forecast, so it's looking like a white Christmas! Here are some shots of us sledding in the front yard and building a 7 foot tall snowman .

Natalie is wearing rain boots. We don't get much snow here...

Natalie "looking for snow"

The masterpiece

Christmas Party

We had our ward Christmas party last night. Santa made his annual appearance and unlike last year, Natalie was delighted to see him. She ran to him with both arms outstretched and hopped onto his lap. When he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she pointed to the basket of candy canes sitting next to him and asked for one. Easy to please.

Carina's Birthday and Other News

Carina turned six yesterday and had two parties, one with 6 of her friends from kindergarten and her little sister ("because she's my best friend") and another with family. Laura actually offered Carina $20 to forego the friends party, but Carina knew better than to sell her birthday party for the monetary equivalent of a mess of potage. They started the party playing Hullabaloo and pin the tale on the donkey, then they had pizza for lunch. Instead of the usual cake and ice cream, Carina asked for a Krispy Kreme donut cake (i.e. buy 18 donuts and stack them in a big circle) and orange sherbet. A little weird, but the kids all seemed to love it. After that they opened presents and then attacked a unicorn pinata. Some pinatas break after a few hits; this one refused to give up. The kids each got 4 or 5 turns taking three shots at it each (which adds up to about 100 hits), and about half way throw I "tenderized" it with a paring knife, and it still didn't break, so in the interest of getting the kids out the door on time I finished it off. Perhaps the most striking part of the party was the sheer amount of noise 7 kindergarteners can make. Very loud.

Carina opening a gift.

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A candid moment of Natalie and Carina's friend Will laughing at the party.

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Carina tenderizing the unicorn. Or, as she put it: "We fed her with candy but then we had to spank her."

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Other news:

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1. A few days ago Carina lost her second tooth. She can now sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth."

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2. Carina and Natalie are now sharing a room and have bunk beds. They love their new bunk beds and love sharing a room. We moved Natalie over early so she would have plenty of time to adjust and wouldn't feel like she was displaced by the baby, but it looks like we had no need to worry. Perhaps the best part about it right now is we no longer get woken up every morning by Natalie yelling: "Momm!!!!!! Daadddd!!!!! Open the door!!!! I need to go potty!!!"

Carina's friends at her birthday party playing on the bunk beds. It reminded me of the story "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," though with fewer broken heads.

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3. Carina is really big into writing and she has her own way of phonetically spelling everything. She also likes to type on the computer. The other day I walked in to use the computer and found the following gem typed in one long unpunctuated string into the search box on google: "i love my mom and my dad thea r my best peras i hv evr had an my hol an tir lif i love my mom and my dad thea r col i love my perass thea r the best and thea r rafc i love my peranss thea r the best evr i love my mom and my dad wen i m 8 i will b babtist wach the hole gost i will b blest i will b a mebr uv the chrch love will sdracchan my bod i will chec av jeszs fore vr aand evr af i oba the cmamans i will hav the hole gost a gen i will red the sgrapsrs and i wiav the sgrapsrs and oba the maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanmans and oba my mom and dad and oba jezas and gat the hole gost the end"

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For those of you who can't read Carina, she wrote: "I love my mom and my dad. They are the best parents I have ever had in my whole entire life. I love my mom and my dad. They are cool. I love my parents. They are the best and they are terrific. I love my parents. They are the best ever. I love my mom and my dad. When I am 8 I will be baptized [with?] the holy ghost. I will be blessed. I will be a member of the church. Love will strengthen my body. I will [????] Jesus forever and ever and if I obey the commandments I will have the holy ghost again. I will read the scriptures and I [????] the scriptures and obey the commandments and obey mom and dad and obey Jesus and get the holy ghost. The end."

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Wow! I'm not sure where that came from because I've never heard anything like that from her lips but it sure warms a parents heart. And just in time for Christmas too...

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4. We had a family home evening lesson a couple weeks ago and talked about our bodies and how they grow. As part of the lesson, we sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” Natalie must be accustomed to singing this at nursery when she is wearing a dress because when we got to the knees part she looked down at her pants and up at us and down again with a bewildered look - “ I don’t have any knees!!”

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5. Natalie has a new favorite phrase. "My heart says...", "My heart likes..." or "My heart tells me..." I'm not sure where she got it from, probably some disney movie, but it has been funny to hear her say, in her squeeky little voice, "My heart says its time for dinner!" or "My heart says it needs some chocolate."