I've lost my passion for blogging. And I'm pretty sure everyone else did, 4 years ago. In fact I think the word "blogging" went out of style about 4 + years ago too. But yet here I am, doing it for the children. I am a very philanthropic person. I have been delaying writing about Christmas. Mostly because there are already cobwebs on my brain and it takes effort trying to remember what we did. As far as I can remember, I think we had a great Christmas. And if I think really hard, I am relatively positive that we had a fantastic Christmas. Here are some pictures in no particular order because if I try to rearrange them chronologically I will just give up on this entry altogether,
Don celebrated his birthday January 1st this year, just like he did last year. And come to think of it, every year before that. New Year's Eve we were our usual lame selves and Don and I went to Manuels, a 1 minute walk from our house, and ate dinner. There were about 5 other people in the whole restaurant, all above 80 years old. Then we thought about going out and dancing or playing games with friends, but in the end we decided to go to sleep at a decent time. We knew it was midnight when we were awakened from our slumber by the sound of fireworks and other celebratory noises. Hooray for 2016! The year when we permanently screwed up the country by choosing a president from the worst list of nominees since...well since ever.
But nevermind that, back to the holidays! So the morning of January 1st, the girls surprised Don with balloons (that were incredibly difficult to blow up, by the way) and other Target dollar section decorations, put up by Chloe and Macie. And then they came and woke Don up by playing "Celebrate" on my phone. And since Don is the least selfish person on the whole planet, he let the girls pick what we did that day. So we took a bike ride, then went to see the movie "Pan" at the Dollar Theater (and by dollar, I mean 3 dollars), and then we met up with our friends and went ice skating outdoors in downtown Mesa. Don watched Oscar while we all went skating. See what I mean about him being the least selfish person on the planet? After that, we came back and had pizza and played games and had cake with the Pindars and the Himstreets. The picture above is of Macie sweeping the ice, she REALLY wanted to, thankfully the teenager let her help him with his job. This was the 1st time the girls went ice skating. It was rough at first, but they got the hang of it. Chloe made vast improvements. When I tried to skate with Macie she told me to go skate with Chloe because I was "too slow." She only wanted to skate with "Brother or Sister Himstreet."
And here are some of the notes the girls left for Sugar the Elf...
Oh look! Pictures from our Christmas party! I took no pictures, and this was our best Christmas party to date. It was the most fun we had all year. Don had the brilliant idea to add challenges to the white elephant. We put in a challenge that you could win 50 bucks (contributions from guests) by jumping in the pool and swimming across. Baldo stole it, put on Don's swim suit and jumped in and showed off for an un-human amount of time. Later that night, Steffanie then stole the money from Baldo by jumping in herself. I actually walked away with a good gift this year, I got a disco ball speaker and we had an impromptu dance party as people were leaving. We didn't have time for our catch phrase tournament this year because the white elephant portion lasted until after 10. This party will be hard to top next year. I went with an Italian food theme this year which was a success. I made 5 cheese Ziti, salad and we bought Spinato's pizza. There was lots of other yummy food. Best party yet.
So Christmas this year was extra special because we had house guests. Our cousins from Utah came and stayed with us. So the kids had their cousins to play with on Christmas day, could there be anything better to do on Christmas? Our house was overloaded with new toys. The girls got an Elsa Barbie castle and violins and way too much other stuff. I try to not overdo Christmas presents, but it seems like when all is said and done, after Grandparents and my family have given all their gifts, the kids end up with way too much. Every year I resolve to do better, and every year they get spoiled.
Christmas Eve at Kay's house. The kids answering questions about the Nativity. Macie gave the wrong answer this year and went into meltdown mode when everyone started laughing. Macie cannot handle people laughing at her even when I try to explain to her that we just think she is cute. She also is driven to insanity by things like Chloe's humming and singing to herself. Gee I can't think of anyone else I know who is easily irritated....(okay it's me. It's all me.)
If Oscar turns out like his cousin Jake, I will be very happy.
And here is Macie ticked off because she wanted a gingerbread cookie but didn't get one right away.
Chloe took charge of santa's letter and snack.
#3 on her list ...Grandma Mary has some fur that Chloe thinks is really soft and warm and she wanted some too. No idea where I might find that. I've never even heard of that animal.
I mean ^^^^ , heart be still!
5 kids worth of presents waiting for 5 adorable kiddos. The kids opened up their presents together and my family came over after. My brother and his wife headed to Mexico Christmas afternoon so they didn't stay for long. My Dad took them to the airport so we waited a long time for him to get back! we finally gave up and started opening presents without him because Chelsey had been waiting so long.
We watched a movie together that afternoon and I slept through the whole thing. Greg and Kirsten went to Julie's house for the afternoon. When they came back we tried to find an open chinese food restaurant to get take out, which was surprisingly really hard to find.
Oscar thought this was fun. Until it made him throw up. Everyone was laughing...but I was just thinking, oh boy that is going to be a mess to clean up.
Sister Himstreet gave my kids a cotton candy maker. They think it is the greatest thing in the world.
The day after Christmas we took the kids to a trampoline place and then went out to dinner with the Rengifos and Denise. The next morning Greg and Kirsten left back to Utah. And later that afternoon we had dinner at Julie's house and spent some time with Denise and Janae, which is always a treat to get to see them.
More pictures of skating on New Years Day.
Don's Birthday cake. I was proud of how delicious that cake turned out. It wasn't very pretty, but it tasted divine. The girls made me put footballs on the top.
That was the best I could do for candles.
The girls asked when Sugar's birthday was. I don't know why Santa was crazy enough to say her birthday was only a few days after she had already traveled back to the North Pole. I guess Santa felt sad for them that she had to go back to the North Pole so he decided she could come back (too) soon after to celebrate her birthday. Just pull the band aid off Santa! So the girls made her cupcakes with peppermint sprinkles (because she likes peppermint of course).
And we bought her a brand new outfit. Yes. Yes we did. Thank goodness her outfit got here before her birthday. If Santa had just picked a later day for her birthday, we could have avoided that unnecessary stress. Unnecessary stress, you say? Ha that's funny considering the fact that we held a birthday party for an Elf. The girls made her these felt roses, courtesy Target Valentine's section. and then the girls took 57 pictures of Sugar.
And they made Sugar a treasure hunt. I'm glad Sugar likes staying up in the middle of the night to do things like treasure hunts, because I sure don't enjoy it.
And of course Sugar did come back for Macie's birthday. Because Santa is super generous. And a pushover.
But when your kids love their Elf this much, what is Santa supposed to do?
I took this picture of Chloe because I finally went through all of their toys and whittled them down to something verging on manageable. But don't you worry, our house is still a disaster 97% of the time. If I had a hard time getting rid of something I took a picture. I am a hoarder at heart. A picture hoarder. My Mom made this hat to go with our Easter dresses. The girls stole it from my Dad's house where it has been junking up my house ever since. Anything I throw something away that my Mom created or had some hand in, I feel guilty. Even though I know if she were here, would she care? Would she want me to keep it? Probably not. But when someone dies that you love, every small insignificant tangible thing, seems like a monument to them. Sometimes I don't have the emotional energy to deal with these things, thus I collect.
This wasn't at Chrismas time, this was a little after. we took a trip to Ikea and ate a lot of "free" food.
Here is Macie getting a medal at swim Kids. she has been taking lessons for a long time. I think we might be done with Macie at swim kids and focusing on swim team. Right now the girls are doing piano, violin and swimming. They want to do gymnastics too but I don't think there is enough hours in the afternoon. I am starting Oscar in Swim Kids now.
I did the Color Run with Emily and a few other people. I made a goal to get back into running. Aaaaand I haven't run since this run which was like 2 months ago.
I found this letter Chloe wrote to Macie. They love each other. Most of the time.
Here I am at the Color Run, taking a selfie. Because I lost track of all the people I came with. Because I am such a fast runner, I smoked them all.
An average evening in our household. Macie likes to work on "homework" when Chloe does.
Other Christmas activities-caroling with ward members , Christmas lights with Liz and Chelsey, Christmas lights with Steffanie, started our Christmas shopping 4 days before Christmas, Dinner with Rico and Rick's families.
Last weekend Chloe's school had her annual track meet. Chloe won 1st place again this year for long jump for 3rd grade. Macie really wanted to participate and last minute I asked the PE teacher if she could jump in and race with the kindergartners. He was nice enough to let her so Macie raced in pink Minnie boots. They needed another kindergartner for the relay race so she got to do that race too and ended up with a ribbon. watching Macie race, either swimming or running, is one of my favorite things in the world to see. Her face lights up with the most satisfied smile. I love how Macie wants to be included in everything Chloe does.
And the end. I am so glad I am done with this now.
