Luckiest little girl

Last Saturday, we were about to head out on a bike ride.  That is amazing enough, for February.  The weather lately has actually been in the 60's on occasion, so we are trying to take advantage while we can!

While Daddy was getting a tire pumped up and ready to go, a neighbor called and said that their daughter was done with her old Easy Bake Oven.  "Would Kaitlyn like it?"  That was a big yes.  In fact, I just sent Kaitlyn down the street to pick up her surprise without telling her what she was bringing back.  Those things are hilarious- the cake that she made with that light bulb was not totally edible in my book, but the girls had a blast trying out the fondant tools.

And then, the very next day, another friend told me she had something Kaitlyn might like.  She was going to post it for sale for $10, but asked me first if I wanted it.

The Hello Kitty line from Janome has always made me laugh.  They have a $30 one for sale in Jo-Anns that Kaitlyn asks for every time she sees it (and which I wouldn't trust to last five minutes).  But they range up to $500 machines with Hello Kitty still all over it.  This one was a mid-range one, and has fantastic reviews.  Of course, I snatched it from her before I even found that out.  Kaitlyn is on my sewing machine constantly now, so of course I was buying this little one.

As I headed home with the new purchase, I couldn't even decide what else to do.  She just barely had her birthday, with the usual new stash of toys.  This was a big gift to just show up with randomly, but I couldn't wait until next Christmas or Birthday to give it to her.  All I could do was come home and hold it up, watching her eyes go big.  She wanted to take it out of the box and sew with it immediately.

While still wearing the Elsa costume, clearly.

I can't remember exactly what Daddy said (after he picked his jaw off the floor), but it was something like "can you wish for a new four-wheeler next?  I'd like one of those to just show up too, please."

And then today, we got to go ice skating again.

She has been looking forward to that forever.  I wish that the rink was closer to us. And that the $3 kiddie rink time wasn't during school hours.  I am tempted to put her in lessons someday, but we'll see.

She had to re-figure it out a bit, and then by the end she was just about faster than me.  When I showed her that someone had left behind their "walker", she decided to use that to try out tricks.

The arabesque turned out to be very tricky, but she managed it a few times.

Neither of us had a clue how to skate backwards.  I just don't know where to put my weight.  She made it a few feet, but it wasn't easy!  She just is naturally pretty good at figuring things out, though.

What a lucky, sweet little girl.

One last birthday . . .

I have to admit that I am still not fond of my own birthday.  I actually don't care at all about getting older.  In truth, it just comes down to being a socially awkward person.  I get nervous about attention, I panic about people giving me presents because maybe I don't usually give them a present, etc.  I've had plenty of bad luck on my birthday that makes me try to avoid it when possible.  I even tried to change my birthday on Facebook to avoid all of those messages, but it turns out they won't let you!

As birthdays go, however, this one went pretty well.  In my world, that means that I had a quiet day at home and got to do a few fun things with my family.  The company my husband works for had a "holiday party" in Wendover the weekend before my birthday.  There really is nothing in that city but gambling, but a hotel room without the kids is always a good thing.  On the way home, we stopped at a warehouse clearance center and Christopher got me a very random birthday present - an inflatable hot tub was a quarter of the price is it on Amazon, so he snagged that up.  I was nervous that it wouldn't be as good as we hoped, but it has actually been really nice!

We took the kids to see Big Hero 6 that night.  The kids all loved it, including Jasmine, who loved every second until she fell asleep.

I have also been working a bit on what I consider a birthday present to myself.  Or maybe just something that I needed to get done.  For years, my spare fabric has all been stored in a broken dresser in the basement.  I had to rifle through the drawers to see it all, and of course it didn't even all fit in there.  So it started to get piled on top, and slowly started to take over the universe.

Not good.  So I looked up fabric storage ideas, and found that a lot of people wrap the fabric around a stiff cardboard sheet designed to protect comic books and the put the mini "bolts" on a bookcase.  Perfect!

I found a bookcase that I liked on a school surplus sale, and measured to make sure it would fit in the low ceiling of the basement.  But unfortunately, the guy who measured the bookcase to sell it measured wrong and labeled it 85" when it was 95".  Christopher was muttering angry things about that guy while we cut the top off the bookshelf and then put the top back on it, but thankfully I don't think anyone could tell.  If it was summertime, I might have painted it or something, but in the winter, I have no interest in being outside longer than I have to.

Two orders of comic book cards and a few hours of folding later, I am in love!

You should have seen Christopher's face when I had to order a second 100 pack of the cards.  "You have HOW much fabric?" At least I am a selective hoarder! And I do use my stash a lot.  Not to mention that a good portion of what you see in that picture was given to me, or found at a garage sale.

My sewing area makes me very happy.

The day after my birthday, Christopher and I went to a concert that our friends were playing in.  I love bagpipes and Celtic dancers, so it was a great concert!

Happy birthday to me!

Kaitlyn's 7th Birthday

As soon as Tyler's birthday was over, Kaitlyn was anxious for her turn.  "Do you think it is time that we should plan my birthday party?"  In fact, I think she asked me that every single day until I caved. I spent time pricing out all of the options, but when we decided on one and then she tried to add to it I had to remind her that I can't actually transport 7 seven-year olds.  If the party started at a business, we all stayed there, and there would be no going home for cake or out for ice cream or sledding afterward.  That was unacceptable, and thus we planned a party at home.

I'm never sure if I am grateful that I don't have to pay for overpriced parties at that point, or overwhelmed that now I have to plan everything by myself.

Anyway, I always fell better when I have some sort of theme or direction.  Since she was hoping that we would have snow to go sledding a short walk from our house, we called it a "Snow Day Party".

And of course there was no snow in sight, with a high of 50 or so that day.

I follow a blog that I just adore.  She is an amazing seamstress that makes really fun things for her girls, but she also throws amazing birthday parties.  At first I thought she was nuts, but she said something that stuck with me.  She said that the reason she does it is because she enjoys creating and planning everything with her daughters.  In her mind, the party itself was barely important.  She loved that her girls made all of the props with her and imagined all the games and THAT was why they planned the elaborate treasure hunts and such.

With that goal in mind, I let Kaitlyn lead the way on games.  Well, we were both guided by Pinterest.  But she had the final say.  My favorite part was the Penguin toss.

I outlined a penguin in marker and handed her the box of crayons.  I made a pattern for the felt "fish", and she cut them out and sewed them.  She really liked making those beanbags!  It turns out, actually, that tossing the fish is not as fun as climbing under the penguin.

I think the entire party crammed in there together at one point.

I'll admit that Kaitlyn wasn't involved in every project fully, but sometimes I just had too much fun.

The warm weather turned out to be a great bonus, because the kids zipped through all the games I prepped really fast and then just headed outside to play on the playset.  Parties are always a bit of chaos- in fact, this year I was excited to serve sno cones with the machine we got for Christmas, froze half a dozen ice blocks ready to go, and then had the nagging feeling I was forgetting something until everyone was gone and I found it buried behind sprinkles and pizza boxes on the counter.  Oops!  But Kaitlyn had a great time with her friends, and that is all that matters.

On her birthday itself, I told her that I could make anything she wanted for dinner or we could go anywhere, and she picked Arctic Circle of all places.  They are cheaper that McDonalds, but my kids love the play place and the free, tiny ice cream cones.

As a bonus, her class started taking home Ponko the Penguin and writing in the book about their adventures with him, and she got to be the first one to take him since it was her birthday.

So we had to make sure and pose with him all over the restaurant.

My goofy Tyler.

Kaitlyn was in heaven because the nice manager (truly, she is an awesome little lady) saw the birthday hat and told her to pick out any sundae she wanted for free.

We also had cake at Grandma's house that Sunday.

I really should have brought my good camera.  She picked out a Phineas and Ferb cake largely because Agent P popped out from behind the tree when you pulled on one of the branches.  Amazing!

The last part of Kaitlyn's birthday has been postponed a couple of times, but I promised her it would happen soon.  She is really looking forward to going ice skating again, but the "small and tall" ice times are during school hours.  (I would really like to know who on earth planned that.  They didn't even run it during the summer.)  The day after her birthday, we ended up all going to a space center with Tyler's class field trip instead.  And then the next Thursday was the 100th day of school, which has somehow turned into an exciting holiday.  So hopefully this week we'll pull her out of a nice, regular day of school and try skating again.

In the meantime, here are my annual thoughts on Miss Kaitlyn:

*I am constantly amazed by how much she picks up quite naturally.  She can add and subtract two digit numbers, read chapter books, and is pretty good at almost everything she tries.  But she also doesn't have any competitive or driven spirit for it all.  She just floats over to things, does pretty well, and is perfectly content with that.

*She is still a talker!  All day, every day, she wants to talk to friends and tell stories.  Her class has been working on comprehension, but she certainly never has a problem with that.  When I ask her any question after she reads a story, she proceeds to tell me every single detail in the entire story nearly word for word.  Her stories do tend to wander a bit, and sometimes I have to hurry that poor girl along because I need to keep moving, but I do love listening to all of her tales.

*She is truly a wonderful person who wants to be a good friend to everyone she knows.  She does her best to help me and her siblings.  I'm trying to remember the last time she got in trouble for something, and all I can think of is talking when it isn't time to talk.  We took her out of dance class because we realized that she was only there for social time with friends instead of become a better dancer.  And we have a structure with her piano teacher for how she will pay us back if she goofs off and doesn't focus while she is there.  But she isn't doing it out of bad intentions!  She just honestly wants to play and be silly with her friends.

*Sometimes she is amazingly brave, and then sometimes she is my sensitive little girl.  She has no problem performing piano in front of dozens or even a hundred or more people, or gymnastics, or anything else.  But every once in a while she comes into a new situation with people she doesn't know and she just snuggles into my side with these sweet little tears.  I always remind myself to try and see things from her perspective, because often the things that break her seem inconsequential in comparison to things she does without batting an eyelash.

*Her current happy noise is "da!"  It usually means "yes", and she always has a huge, open grin after she says it.  I'm not sure where she got it from, but it cracks me up!

Tyler's 9th Birthday

Tyler's birthday always comes too fast for me!  Actually, the day that Tyler was born came too fast.  We weren't ready for him then, and I always wish I had more time between the holidays and his special day.

Sadly, this year the skating party just didn't work out.  We didn't really have time, the skating place didn't have any deals for the holiday break, and Daddy already had another event planned for him.  I don't think Tyler even noticed, since Daddy's plans were so awesome.  But I missed it!

Tyler is happy no matter what happens, though.  He was thrilled to have the Birthday hat with his green 9 on it.  He was excited about his new dinosaur play-doh toy and the pirate pizza plates we got him.

But the highlight of the day was obviously Daddy's plan.

The company Christopher works for installs and maintains large phone systems.  One of their customers, the Maverick Center where this picture was taken, set up the deal so that half of the payment came in trade.  But in the three years since they made that deal, no one had used any of that trade.  So as the manager, Christopher noticed that and noticed that there just happened to be a Monster Truck show he wanted to see.  That just happened to be on Tyler's birthday.  So he booked a suite for everyone in the company to bring their families to.

I felt a bit guilty about that, but no one he works with was complaining!  They all loved the show and were very glad he set it up.

And our kids have honestly been talking about noting else for days.  Coolest show ever!

I'm glad we got to go early and see all of the trucks up close.  That made it all much more impressive when we watched all the way from the suite at the top.

I don't know why the stands were empty that night, because it really was a great show.  There were monster truck contests (like this wheelie contest here), smaller cars that raced each other (and flipped over a couple of times), a guy that breathed fire and lit himself on fire (Jasmine keeps talking about that one), and a demolition derby at the end.

But between the Freestyle Monster truck contest and the demolition derby, Jasmine just got too exhausted to watch any more!

She has fallen asleep in some odd places before, but this one takes the record.  If you haven't been to a show like this indoors before, the headphones she is wearing are noise canceling because your ears would be in pain otherwise.  The trucks are so loud that the entire place shakes!  But it was bedtime, and out she went.

Tyler loved the Monster truck show so much that we made it the theme for the weekend.  I figured that since we weren't paying for a party for him, I might as well splurge a bit and actually order a cake that he liked for dinner at Grandma's house.

The cousin next to him whipped out his new tablet to take pictures of the event, by the way.  That cracks me up.  It starts so young . . .

My annual snapshot:

*Tyler is still our happy guy.  It is so wonderful to have someone in our house that is cheerful no matter what happens!  He is becoming increasingly concerned about Jasmine, however.  They often have fights, and often neither of them truly know what they are fighting about.  Jasmine just likes to yell, and Tyler wants to correct her.

*Tyler loves to head straight toward any babies he sees.  He will often tell them that he wants to hug the baby "because I love her!"  Some babies are more interested in being squeezed than others, but the adoration in his face it truly adorable.  I just have to make sure he doesn't chase after babies in the store that we don't know!

*Tyler is getting so much better at reading!  It is still a slow and painful process for him, but I have seen a lot of improvement.  He is also remembering events better, which is great.  On Sunday he even answered a question in church that was totally on topic!  That is amazing to me, because most weeks, I don't know if he is listening to a word they are saying.  So when he raised his hand, I wondered what he would say.  But his answer (while very much a Tyler thing to say) actually made sense and was a correct answer!

*Tyler loves scouts!  He was excited about moving up to "9 year old scouts", or Bears.  I am so glad that he has something he gets to go and do, in the midst of all of Kaitlyn's activities.  He isn't into sports very much, but scouts is just perfect for him.

*Tyler has discovered that he doesn't need as much sleep as his sisters.  So when I put them all to bed, Tyler sneaks right back out and heads to the basement to play Mario Bros. with Daddy.  (You can tell who the "fun parent" is in our house!"

One night, I didn't realize he was down there until he came back up to the kitchen for a glass of water.  I told him that he needed to go to bed, but he just paused and looked at me carefully.  "I cannot hear you, Mommy", he said, as he headed back to the basement stairs.  When I told him that I knew he could hear me, and that it was way past his bedtime, he paused again.  "I still cannot hear you," he said in his flat and matter of fact tone, and went downstairs anyway.  I think it is the first lie he has ever told me!  If I wasn't laughing so hard, it would have been easier to punish him.

We love our Tyler!

New Year's

New Year's Eve always comes too soon for me.  I love Christmas break!  The kids have new toys to keep them busy (they spent all day every day on their Kindles, for sure), the tree is still glowing in the front room, and there is no homework to get done every day.  I like our new tradition for New Year's Eve a lot though.  This is our second year hosting Christopher's oldest brother and his family at our cabin for the holiday.  Their kids are teenagers, so they are happy to have a fun place to go as a family away from the parties the older ones wish they at. :)

Usually we spend all of break up there, but Christopher didn't have that much vacation left, so we just headed up on New Year's Eve itself.  We warned his brother that the snow was too deep to drive up to our cabin, but he tried anyway . . . and got stuck.  Everyone laughed, and when I told his family to hop out so I could take them up on the Argo, they abandoned that ship very quickly!

Of course, after some puzzles and Wii time and far too many snacks, it was time for the annual "Martinelli's challenge" at midnight.  Martinelli's is known for making sparkling, non-alcoholic cider, and is the Utah "special occasion" drink.  First one to drink an entire bottle wins!

I had stuck the bottles out in the snow earlier so they would be nice and cold.  But I put them out to early, so they were actually almost frozen solid.  Oops!

It made the challenge even more painful, I guess.

Which is fun only as a spectator.

The next morning we all slowly had breakfast and headed out to enjoy the snow.  Well, David had to head down early to the hospital, since he was on call, and had a hilarious story about how he spent two hours changing a flat tire that was frozen to his car.  The rest of us just had fun sledding!

I am so in love with Jasmine's new outfit.  One big piece means no snow at her midriff, and it was too retro cute to pass up at a garage sale last summer.  Kaitlyn taught her that is it awesome because it has a compass attached, so she now thinks that is what she should tell everyone about.  If only she would keep the cute, fur-lined hood up!

Christmas

I never sleep well the night before Christmas.  I wake up every couple of hours, thinking I heard kids out of bed, and get all jittery and excited.  So I always end up heading down to take a picture in the peace before all the presents are ripped open.

I adore that tree.  The glowing lights bring a wonderful spirit into our home every year.

This year, though, I had an extra reason to head downstairs.  Since I knew what my husband was getting me for Christmas, he let me open it and charge the battery overnight so I could use it Christmas morning.

A new camera!  I told him it was too big of a splurge, but as he pointed out, it isn't like I'm not going to use it.  I have put my old DSLR through everything imaginable.  It looks like my shutter count is at  . . . 21,315 pictures on that camera in the last six years.  It is an entry level body, and at this point, I have actually picked up quite a bit of business taking pictures for people.  My old Rebel has been great, but it does lack some of the new awesome features out now.  One of the biggest ones is that it doesn't take video, so anytime I wanted to take still pictures and video, I had to bring two cameras with me.

Of course, figuring out a new camera is always on a learning curve, but I took it for a test drive once the kids came down to unwrap presents.

It turns out you don't focus while shooting video the same way you focus while shooting still.  I'm still figuring that part out.

Tyler's dreams did come true after all- both of the kids got new Kindles from Santa.  They also got notes from Santa talking about how they should use them to read books and learn, and not just play games.

Jasmine was in love with her new "A-fia a-first amulet", tiara and dress up shoes.  She puts on that dress at least once a week (leaving it on all day), but has wandered the house constantly looking for her amulet.

Kaitlyn loved the fan!  I don't know where her obsession came from for fans, but she makes them all the time out of paper, so this one was a huge hit.

And of course, Tyler loved the blow up sword and other dollar store fodder, but had one thing to truly adore all day.

 He played on that nearly the entire day, but when I inspected it as he went to bed, it looked like he had only used the Plants vs. Zombies app.  The entire day.

Thankfully, one of the things I really liked about getting these new Kindles is that they have great parental controls.  I can decide how long they can play games, or how much educational time they have to put in to unlock the games.  I'll be making use of that soon . . . but we'll let him have his fun for now.

For me, a big highlight of the day was Skyping with my family in Ohio.  My mother absolutely loved the locket I picked out for her, since I put old pictures of her parents about college age in it.  My kids got to open the presents Grandma picked out while she watched, and my brother had a grand time rubbing it in that I bought him a game he already owned.  (I even asked Mom!  She had no idea it was already sitting in her garage when she told me he would like it.)  I was sad that I wasn't with them that morning, but goofing around with everyone really made the day complete.  Tyler even showed off his best impression of the ninja gingerbread boy on his jammies.  I should have gotten a picture of that- it was awesome.  In fact, I picked out those pajamas from a Black Friday ad and stood in line just to get them because they were totally perfect.  They match his sisters' sweet gingerbread girls, but in a very Tyler way.

They stayed in the jammies the entire day, in fact, which is just fine by me.  We played all of the board games we got, and had a nice dinner, but mostly we just let everyone roam.  We did leave the house to go see Great-Grandma Clark, but no one there minded the Christmas jammies with snow boots!

We had a fair amount of snow at home, but of course, there was even more when we headed to the cabin the next day.  I didn't take my camera, since conditions made me nervous, so I apologize for the phone pictures.

When Christopher talked to our neighbor about a huge wind storm that came though a week ago, he didn't quite realize that it would do this.  This tree was the "foot" for our hammock, sadly.  And until spring thaws everything, it is now a climbing gym for the kids.  Later, firewood.

It was too fluffy for a snowball fight, but Tyler didn't let that stop him for getting his sisters covered.

Thankfully, Daddy was able to get the Argo up and running! I have been nervous about that since the middle of the summer when it stopped turning left.  He had a lot of frustrations with it- he would get nearly done and need one more part, or this time he dropped the tiny screw in the snow.  But the girls were excited to head out on the test run.

We've gotten even more snow since then, so New Year's should be a lot of fun!

Christmas prep

This year, we were pretty on top of presents and actual Christmas preparations.  I made our Christmas cards in early November.

I make calendars for my family and Christopher's family, but siblings were very late getting their pictures to me, so I just took it easy on those.  

Somehow, I made my own chaos.  

First, I decided that rather than buy presents for Tyler's teachers, I would make them.  He has ten teachers and aides, so this wasn't a small decision.  They often wear utility belts to carry the radios and pencils and everything else they need, so I thought I would make them.  Honestly, it was an easy project, until you multiplied it by 10, but I did make it.

At this point, it was crunch time for something I hadn't been able to figure out since almost a year ago.  I found red and gold curtains in a clearance bin at Wal-Mart for $1 each.  Naturally, I knew they had to be formal dresses for the girls.  (I know this is not normal.)  At first I wanted to make Easter dresses, but the colors are very Christmas-y, so I put it off.  Meanwhile I collected more fabric.  A gold shimmery sheer was on clearance at Jo-Anns, and a friend gave me a neat red diamond-gathered red from her stash. 

I was having a tough time figuring out how to make the colors work though!  I knew that Kaitlyn's needed to be made from a pattern my mom got for me- Simplicity 2463.  She love dresses that "go all the way to the floor", and this pattern was a princess dress all the way.  Jasmine's pattern was a free one I got online- the Party Dress.  I knew that, since I didn't have an endless supply of either fabric, one dress needed to be gold with red accents and the other red with gold accents.  I had a panic attack when I saw how much the red overpowers the gold on Kaitlyn's dress, but thanks to a quick call to my mom, we were able to sort it out.

I know that sewing is silly, in many respects.  I could buy fancy dresses for . . . $20?  $10 on a great sale?  So yes, I know that the fabric costing less than $10 for everything doesn't make it a great deal, because it took about two days non-stop.  But there is something about a handmade gift that means more.  Even as young as these girls are, they have been treasuring these dresses more than any others in their closet, and part of that is that they saw me working on them so much, I think.  I taught Jasmine the names of the colors, and she was so proud to point out which parts were red and which were gold.  And she constantly asks for her red dress to wear.  Kaitlyn wore it to two weeks of church in a row, and countless times in between.

Well, it was 9 pm Saturday night when I finished Kaitlyn's.  Then I quickly put together a bow tie for Tyler to match.  If there was more time, perhaps he would have gotten a vest, but bow ties are nice and quick.

And when I handed it to Tyler, Christopher said "where's my tie?"  I warned him that if I made him a matching tie, he would have to be in the "matching clothes" picture after Church the next day, but he persisted.  "I want to match Tyler!"

At which point I realized that I would be the only person not matching if I didn't think quickly.  Since I was the one putting in the work, that seemed wrong.  

Whew!  I made it!  I can't tell you how happy I was when I saw this picture.  My kids even all smiled nicely for me!  

Once I got past that day, Christmas preparations were a breeze.  On Christmas Eve day, I even made a to-do list in crayon for the kids to follow along with all the treats to make and such.  Their favorite was the Gingerbread houses, of course.

Tiny ones are always SO elated when you give them free reign.  They get so tired of people helping them, and they don't care if it looks perfect.  They just want to know they did it!  I don't let her do things all by herself very much, but in this case, Daddy helped for a while, and then she was off on her own.

Mostly she squeezed out the frosting and then ate all the candy.  But she was really happy about it!

Kaitlyn was very focused on her little village, though.

And Tyler has his own creative direction to go in.

 In many ways, gingerbread cookies are still the way to go, I think.  They are easier for the kids to decorate, since you don't have to worry about them collapsing, and then you can just eat them afterward.  But tradition is what it is!

Which of course meant that we were headed over to Grandma Skarda's for the biggest party of the year.

The kids got really into their parts in the Nativity play.

Jasmine didn't want to keep the donkey costume on, but I bet she will get into it next year.

Then we had the talent portion of the night, since Grandma didn't want to leave out the kids who don't play instruments.

Kaitlyn demonstrated her crab walk.

And Tyler showed off an interpretive ninja dance of some kind, which was actually kind of hilariously awesome.

Then we got to the music.  Kaitlyn played Christmas Bells are Ringing . . .

. . . Christopher and I played a "O Holy Night" piano and Euphonium duet we worked on, and then it was the annual horn concert.  

Given how much all of them practice, it is partly for laughs.

And then Santa came!  

Other kids jokingly asked Santa for candy or gum for Christmas, but Tyler carefully explained that he needed an iPad, because the other one is dead.

Kaitlyn told me afterwards that she was pretty sure he wasn't the real Santa. "Oh, really?"

And then there was the tiny stinker.  Jasmine told me, in no uncertain terms, that she was not going to go to Santa.  I got angry grunts any time I mentioned that I was willing to carry her, or whatever else I thought would help.  But then after ten minutes of this, Daddy walks up and asks if she wants to see Santa.  "Yup!" she said happily, holding her hands up to be picked up.

Stinker.

Then we unwrapped the Christmas jammies, changed, and headed home!