Christmas Coming Up

Every year I wish I was better prepared. Maybe by the time my youngest is 5 or so I will be. 

This year the weeks leading up the Christmas the kids were so excited. For some reason they really got into the idea of caroling and could gather the Christmas decorations together and pretend they were caroling.

Then they would find books and carol. Some of the word mix ups made for some fun entertainment.

Then we wrote letters to Santa. 

 We tried the four Santa gifts idea, something I want, need, wear and read but allowed them to give a few options in each and star their favorite.
Here was Henry's list:

Something I want: pirate legos (metal beard), spider man costume, machine dino

Something I need: tooth brush timer, speakers, daniel tiger bedding (he said he put this for Dorothea).

Something to wear: chris and martin shirt, skylanders shirt, church clothes, light up shoes, Harry Potter shirt, robe.

Something to read: fish dictionary, pop up robot, ghost busters, finding nemo, big hero six, animal almanac, boys diary (he saw something like this at B&N...)

Dorothea was hard to pin down with what she wanted so we tried our best to get down what she was talking about.

Something I want: something that plays music
Something I need: toothbrush
Something to wear: clips for hair, shoes, wild kratts shirt, hat
Something to read: books like Choo Choo Clickedy Clack, monster books, animal books, notebooks

Then Henry had to request snowman pancakes for breakfast one morning.

Leo got some Christmas jammies and looked oh so cute.

Then we had our ward Christmas party. 

Henry remembered almost all of the things on his wish and talked Santa's ear off.

Thea was, as expected, still terrified.

Leo was a littler surprised, but, rolled with it and then was happy as usual.

The day after the ward party we went with the youth to the LA Temple lights on a bus driven by our Bishop who works for the bus company. I think this has in part led to to Leo's renewed dislike of driving since we were able to take him out on the bus, he doesn't understand why it can't be like that always. 

The kids were surprisingly good on the trip down and on the way back, Thea slept, Henry entertained the youth in the back and Leo slept.

On the Temple grounds. 

The Christus in the visitor's center.

It was a long trip but we've wanted to see the lights and the kids seemed to have fun too and it didn't hurt that the youth were all really easy and well behaved!

The next week we had a play date with another home school family that has a boy Henry's same age and a girl one year older than Thea. We took them some Christmas shaped rice krispys and the kids each made them a card.

The rest of the week was spent making sure we did some home school work and planning and if I'm being honest, watching a lot of Christmas movies. We only get a few weeks for it, so I've decided not to feel guilty.

That weekend we went to a live Nativity in Claremont which is something we've never done before. It was done by a local Christian church and I was amazed at the sets and all the work they put in to it! There was also a video at the end which featured a sermon by Charles Spurgeon, a 19th century baptist preacher who I looked up and learned his writings are still pretty influential in the non-LDS Christian world. The video had bits of a sermon called, "Immanuel, God with us," that was interesting.

 I wish we could have moved from scene to scene freely but there was a bit of acting so they had us go in groups. We still enjoyed it and the kids especially loved the animals.

Then Sunday we rested and had a sigh of relief that daddy would not be going to work the next day! =)

Leo turns 6 months

On December 5th Leo made it half way to a year.  He is still the smiliest and happiest baby we've had so far and the most mellow overall, though he is working on popping through a top tooth and isn't thrilled about that and is starting revive his disdain for car rides, especially at night. Recently, only the"doop, doop, didder daddum, wannum, choo" song has been capable of keeping him quiet or soothing him in the car, but even one night didn't succeed and he cried so hard he threw up three times on the 90 minute drive home. Hopefully it's just a phase! 

If you call his name, I'd say 90 percent of the time, he looks over at you with this expectant and goofy grin. 

He is still huge. Wearing mostly12 month clothes but I'm not sure of his length or weight, we go to the doctor's on Tuesday for all that.
The below picture is him with Johann's cousin's son, Jackson. He's turing 1 in a couple of days. lol.

Leo continues to be the YW mascot in the ward and this is at Young Women in Excellence where the girls displayed some of their talents/hobbies. One of the girls does drag racing and wanted a pic with Leo wearing her helmet.

He's still figuring out the whole moving around thing. He can wiggle his way around a room but has only gotten up on his knees a handful of times. He is sitting up pretty well but trying to figure out how to transition from sitting to the floor without going kerplunk.
He still loves to be cuddled and loved on. Thank goodness, for the most part, haha.

Everyone has opinions about who Leo looks like so I wanted to do a side by side of him with the other kids at 6 months.

He's still sleeping most of the night in our bed. He does all his napping in the crib and starts out the night in his crib, sleeps for 20 minutes in there then gets up to eat again and hopefully get put into our bed. Sometimes I put him back in the crib for another hour, sometimes he's up with me and Johann and sometimes I don't even try and just put him in the bed with me. Some nights I wish he was just in his crib so I could sleep comfortably all night long but then I remember how much I love waking up to this little face and try to embrace the time while it lasts.

We've given him rice cereal a couple times but it seems to stop him up for a few days which isn't ideal. He loves puffs to the point that Johann mentioned how he reaches up and grabs for them but not necessarily when we come to get him, haha. He does enjoy food though so we need to start giving him more I think, and hopefully some things that don't mess up his diapers.

Happy Six Months, Baby Boy!

Thanksgiving Weekend

The day after Thanksgiving we set up Christmas. The kids were up to their usual antics. 

Henry rearranged the Nativity.

And scarred the living daylights out of me.

Dorothea amputated Santa's hands.

But finally we got everything up and I do love having Christmas decorations to look at night with a glowing fire.

The next day we went with my mom and brother Jacob to the Phelan animal sanctuary. It's in the middle of the sticks but it has about 10 tigers, a lion, some small monkeys, tortoises and alligators as well as about 15 servals, a sloth and the largest collection of poisonous snakes we've ever seen in addition to some other animals.  

 We saw a case of tortoise bullying go down. After it flipped it on it's back it righted it then walked away.

Mr. Leo's first time at any type of zoo.

One of the tigers.

The alligators.

There's a serval just behind us.

Mi madre and brother.

And no outing is complete without grabbing some Lola's. 

Then Sunday came and went and this little one was disappointed to realize Uncle Jacob had left and life was back to normal for another three weeks.

Thanksgiving

I'm far, far behind! So here is a quick summary of Thanksgiving.

Did some crafts with the kiddos. 

Had our the last meeting of the semester with our supervisor from Sky Mountain and then had a Thanksgiving party to celebrate our upcoming week off.

Maybe got a little distracted while pouring in the popcorn kernels.

We watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and ate popcorn.

Then the big day came later that week. 

Leo's first Thanksgiving :)

We had a pumpkin left over from Halloween and so I gave a pinterest pin a try. Not great, but maybe not worthy of a pinterest fail post.  

And the grub.

This year was probably one of my favorite Thanksgivings since Henry was so sick over Halloween, I was extremely grateful for good health in our family. It would be hard to deal with constant sickness or health issues and I'm amazed by families that do it with so much patience and love. It was also fun getting to study about Thanksgiving with Henry and learn about the special spirit of friendship and selflessness that must have been there that first Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we also learned our menu is a bit off and Henry is thinking we need some fish and venison for next year. We shall see. :)