Kid Stuff

Chloe is convinced she needs glasses.

And she might be right.  I have to admit, she didn't do too well on our rudimentary homemade eye exam.

She seems excited by the prospect of glasses as it will add something "new to her look."

I on the other hand, couldn't help feeling a slight twinge of sadness. Our children basically have no chance of getting through this life without corrective lenses being that there is a long line of nearly blind people in the family. But I was hoping it wouldn't start to be a problem at age 6. Who knows. Maybe she just really wants glasses and is exaggerating. She did create her own eye exam, the alphabet in order.  She didn't get what we thought was so funny about it.

Also Chloe is back to her obsession with "Girls Club."  I allowed her to keep her signs up, but took down the fort that was taking up half my family room.  She will be having Girl Club in a couple days, if any of the girls invited can actually come.  Chloe intends for Girls Club to be a standing order though. EVERY THURSDAY at 3-5 PM. And she created a behavior chart for her friends. You can be put in "grat job, good, or (my favorite) grat in whole wide world."  Chloe has already put Macie in the "grat in whole wide world" category, which I think was nice.

 

Also, we flattened our front yard in preparation for grass and trees.  There was a couple weeks where Don had created our own dirt derby track (like I know the technical term for any of that) for their Princess Jeep, and I was sad to see it go.  But the neighbors probably thought it looked a little low class. (Some people just don't get how much we love motocross. That's a joke. I hate dirt. And races on dirt.) Anyway, stay tuned for the finished product, which should happen in oh about a year.

Macie took dance lessons which was the cutest thing I have ever seen.  She loved it and did a fantastic job following directions. Now if only she would follow my directions and use the potty.  Once again I have another child with no interest in using the toilet.  She has told me that she was scared of falling in.  So I got out our small training potty, which I detest because really, why would I want to clean out a bed pan multiple times a day?  She looked at that potty and told me, "That potty too little for my bum."  So one is too big.  And one is too small.  I think she knows exactly what she is doing.

This was the day that Chloe decided to turn Macie into her Princess makeover subject.  You can't tell from the pictures, but she had her all dolled up.  Macie enjoyed the attention and Chloe enjoys being the big sister.

One night I came to my Dad's house to pick up the girls, and Chloe had turned his entry way into an iceskating rink. The sign says "you can skate."

Family Pictures December 2013

More Christmas

So my Dad is holding up my lousy Christmas gift to him. I asked Liz what he needed.  And since she is redecorating his house, she told me "book ends." So I bought him the only book ends I could find.  These crappy miniature chairs.  You know it's bad when my Dad makes fun of something.  He just kept looking at them with a sort of puzzled look, and made a few comments like "Well I hope no one gets mad and throws this."  (Those are my Dad's kind of jokes)  Then he tried to make me feel better by saying he would use them.  Whatever. I took them back to the store.  They really were a wretched gift.

Here are pictures from Christmas eve and the grandkids annual Nativity Quiz:

There I am sitting like a man with a guitar.

Chloe read a poem for the program that she wrote herself.  we were so proud. Here was her poem:
Christmas is here
people do not tear.
Kids play with their mits.
Kids play with snow.
what is that sound?
ho ho ho!
It's santa!
Mantha sits on santa's lap.
Santa gives a cap to Mantha.
The End

The other day we drove by the building Chloe used to take swimming lessons. I asked Macie if she wanted to take swimming lessons now.  She said , "yes!" last time we tried she screamed for the entire 45 minute lesson.
Later that night she had fallen asleep, all of the sudden she shot right up and said to me, "I ready to take swimming lessons!"
So I guess I need to get her in swimming lessons.

Other things that happened over break?
Gosh I don't even remember.  I think I will look back at this Christmas season as a blur.  I did what I had to, but I spent a good amount of time napping.  A good rule to follow is to not do a first trimester during the holidays.  It kind of puts a damper on things.  Yes that's right, I am almost 13 weeks now.  I feel very grateful.  It has been a journey to get this far.  It was a year ago I had a miscarriage.  And then I had another one a few months later.  That pretty much was lousy. And really depressing. And frustrating. So I don't take this blessing for granted.


Don had a birthday on New Years Day...we had hot dogs with some friends at our house.  It was a classy affair.

I think one of my best moments from the season was singing "O Holy Night" with the Ward Choir at our Sacrament Meeting Program.  It was surprising to me too...ward choir? usually Ward Choir is one step above carolers at your front door...or one step down.  But we sang it with the organ and the piano and then the whole congregation joined in...and there it was...I found the true meaning of Christmas.  Funny how those moments usually happen at the times you least expect them and in the simplest ways.

Christmas and Such

Usually when the Holidays are coming to a close, I feel a little sad.  But this year, I feel ready to put away the tree and happily move into January.  Not that we didn't have a nice season, it is just that there are some great things coming in the future that help me not be too nostalgic for Christmas.
Well some exciting news is that my brother got engaged!  They are going to be getting married the end of May.  They have been together for over two years, and she is part of the family already.  I am glad it will be official.  He picked well, she is a classy, smart, and extraordinarily kind.  And she treats everyone in my family like gold.  She is good to the core.  And I love weddings.  I am excited.  And you know I can always use a good excuse to buy a new dress.    

So Christmas in a nutshell:
Chloe (and Macie) got a Jeep.  I realize this is what spoiled kids get for Christmas. And well, I guess they are spoiled.  But don't look at us.  It was Santa's doing.
It is a pretty awesome toy.  I would know because I have had to drive it 2 blocks home.  I can walk faster than it drives.  But I can't push it and walk faster than it drives.  Luckily I am under the 130 lb weight limit. (cough) 

We are getting rid of our gravel out front and Don has turned our front yard into a race track of sorts.  If I was a kid I think I would be in paradise.

Grandpa gave Macie an Elsa doll from "Frozen."  She is clearly ecstatic.  Grandpa also gave Chloe a Frozen doll, but the Anna character.  And she sings the same. thing. over. and. over. again.  She is ear piercingly annoying.  The girls saw "Frozen" twice over Christmas break.  They loved it.  And Chloe when she is in the mood, sings along to "Let it Go" 45 times in a row.  Which she told me she thinks she sounds exactly like Elsa, AKA Broadway star Indina Menzel.  I tried to explain that everyone has a different voice, which only made her mad at me.

Christmas morning my family came over and brought a second onslaught of presents.  Don made burritos as tradition required.

Whoa look it there, somehow the Christmas tree lights are sparkling! I did not do that!

This was our Christmas, pre-Mott family arrival.  Don and I stayed up uh....waiting for Santa...and of course Chloe came in at 6 AM and woke us up.  We tried to get a couple more hours of sleep, which I know was torture for Chloe.  Macie still slept though.  We heard from our bedroom Chloe run out to the tree and exclaim that Santa had brought her a car.  And then we tried to make her keep it quiet until Macie could go and see it herself.  When Macie finally got out there, Chloe told her Santa brought her (Chloe) a car (conveniently leaving Macie out of the sentence) but that she had got a bike! Macie went straight to her bike, and fell instantly in love.  Those were their main gifts, Chloe also got a razor scooter, which was at the top of all of her wish lists.

Christmas Eve we went to Kay's house, ate an amazing Mexican dinner and had a family Christmas program.

Don got his brothers to participate in a push up contest.  He has been doing push ups daily for a few months now, and I am proud to say that he tied with his younger brother, a former BYU football player.  Too bad he couldn't pull out one more for the win.

Macie acquired  some Princess shoes through Grandma and Grandpa who give a scriptural quiz based on the Nativity story.

And she found all the sugar in the house that she could.

I found this scooter on Craigslist a couple months and had intended to give it to the kids for Christmas, but then we decided to get the Jeep instead.  I tried to sell it on Craigslist to no avail.  So as I was trying to take a picture, Macie caught me red handed.  She freaked out when she saw it, she just kept hugging it and saying, "You wuv me so much, tank you, tank you..."  So I let her ride it. But she thought it was "scawy" so then she just sat on it, with just as much admiration.

Here is a picture from Chloe's school reindeer run, which of course was moved inside to the gym because the one day a year it rains happened to be on the day of the outdoor reindeer run.  So we walked around a small gym in circles for about 15 minutes which was SUPER fun!  And while I know it is not PC to laugh,  it did tickle my funny bone a little bit, that Santa was latino.  Macie was very excited to see him.  She actually was, even though she never looks it in pictures.

We had our annual Christmas party a few days before Christmas and had a fantastic time with a bunch of really great people.  The highlight is always the white elephant exchange where there is absolutely nothing anyone actually wants. Well except this year someone brought movie tickets. Which we did NOT get. (I think the hosts should get the good gift by default).  Instead we ended up with the Poopouri, a product which makes using the loo a little classier. ; ) I started out with a stack of Cardinals plastic cups which I was able to make someone take pity on me and they were gratefully "stolen."

Other highlights included our Catch Phrase Couples Tournament, the Wests did a Christmas rap, and we had plenty of delicious food, including a burrito bar and tamales, coco, and apple cheesecake caramel bars. 

Also, that was the day I got a floor lamp and when I took the box home I realized they had given me 2 lamps for the price of 1.  Well of course I took the lamp back and had hopes that I would be rewarded for my outstanding citizenship, with like a coupon or something! But none such reward was received, except for a clear conscience which is reward enough for me. (And yes, that is supposed to sound self righteous. I wanted a coupon. ; )  )

I almost forgot...Don received a bottle of glitter labeled "Edward Cullen's Ashes."  The next morning when Chloe saw the bottle of glitter she was amazed at the wonderful treasure we had procured.

She brought the bottle of glitter to church with her, and as we were driving she said, "Mom? Who gave you this bottle of glitter?"  I said, "I don't know, it was a secret."

And she said, "Wow...it's a reaaaaaallly nice gift."

And yet another reason why I love my Chloe.

Speaking of glitter and Chloe...in the days leading up to Christmas, she asked me several times a day if Santa was going to bring her pixie dust...if pixie dust was real...if it actually can make people fly....and she knows it is real, and why don't I believe it...and if I only believed, I could fly...etc. This I blame on every single Christmas movie marketed to children on Netflix.

I hated these questions.  Because they just led to more questions that I didn't know how to answer.  And the problem being that there was no way in the world that I could come up with some creative way to give her the gift of flight.

Except on southwest.com.  

I tried several things like, well Santa can't give out Pixie dust because then kids would be flying around in the sky and that would be too dangerous, there would be all sorts of accidents.

To which she said, "Well I just want to fly around the house."

Shoot.

Then I tried the intellectual route. "Actually Chloe, we can fly! And if you think about it, the fact that someone figured out how to make a plane that can fly in the sky really is magic! Really all magic is, is really advanced science! God inspires people to be able to figure things out scientifically that let's us do really magical things! Like talk on telephones, or use computers, or fly!"

She didn't care about any of that stuff.

So then I just stuck to, "Go ask your Father."

Which he was never home when the questions arose so that wasn't helpful either.

Finally I got a good suggestion from a friend that seemed to put the discussion to rest. "Only fairies know how to make pixie dust. And it is elves that make the Christmas toys so the elves don't know how to make the pixie dust."

To which she replied, "Oh. Well Fairies aren't real!" (Which I guess I have told her in the past.)

I really can't keep track of which mythical creatures are still perpetuated among our household.

I guess I told her Fairies weren't real because minuscule humans flying around, don't fit into our Mormon Theology of the Plan of Salvation, so I just had to cut them out.  

Fairies and Mermaids.  And also the half humans, half horses.  They're all out.  Cause there is no sub-category in our theology for half humans.

But Santa is a human. So he made the cut.

And the end.