Christmas-ing

It has been a busy holiday season. Lots of here and there's and family. It was a good one. We went to my Mom's house on Christmas Eve and all the cousins were together. We came home, Rand and I did all our last minute "elfing" and went to bed. We woke to a surprise white Christmas. It is very rare here in Western Washington, and so it made Christmas morning feel extra magical. It was Annabel's first Christmas, but being that she is almost 1 she really got to participate and it was so fun to watch all our 4 enjoy the wonder of Christmas. Christmas afternoon we went to my Dad's where we all continued the food-fest from the day before. We ate enough for the whole year....pretty sure.

Teething

Just when the sleep thing started to really make a turn for the better....

This poor girl, she has had her 2 bottom teeth for months. No sign of any other teeth coming in, until now. All 4 across the top and the 2 on each side of the bottom teeth are trying to make their way. I can only blame the last 3 days on that. There isn't any sickness in the house and I can't see any other symptoms except extreme fussy-ness/clingy-ness during the day and non-sleeping, fever-spiking during the night. UGH. She is not a happy camper, despite what the pictures show. I had to take about a million frowny-face pictures to get these.

Kid Quotes::Vol. 51

...despite what his brothers tell him...

Easton: Santa Clause my favorite. Santa Clause real.

Snowy

The first snow is the best....no matter how wet and short-lived. We woke this morning to 2 very wet inches of snow. I told the boys to go get it while they could and they took full advantage. They didn't even eat breakfast and were gone for about 3 hours!!! Needless to say they came in and pounded about 4 pancakes each.

 

 

Cast Removal Day

We have been sooo excited for this day to come! Wyatt has been counting down to his appointment. He broke his arm on November 5th! 5 1/2 weeks of a cast is long enough! Let's not break any more bones, okay boys??

 

 testing the saw on his bare skin!

 

 

 

FIGHT Club

A while back when that movie Fight Club came out, Rand ran across a church that had used the Fight Club idea to form a men's ministry. Lest you be confused and totally shocked, there was no fist fighting involved. Instead it was a focus on becoming real men, strong men, men who were good leaders and good husbands and good dads. They fought against the things that would keep them from being those things and pursued the things that were hard, but good. We thought it was a pretty great idea.

For some reason, at the beginning of the school year, Rand was thinking about that again and we decided to start our own FIGHT club. We've been consistently "fighting" since the first week of school and it has been a really fun, good thing for our family to focus on. We've done 10, spending 2 weeks on a couple of them. Since we only have one car, we spend our Monday morning take-Dad-to-work time talking about our new FIGHT Club theme for the week. The boys are good at applying it to their lives and really seeing the ways in which we all need to FIGHT these things.

Here is our list. Our first 10:

1. FIGHT passivity...persue responsibility

2. FIGHT pride...persue humility

3. FIGHT distraction...persue focus (we did this one for 2 weeks)

4. FIGHT selfishness...persue selflessness

5. FIGHT lies...persue truth

6. FIGHT instant gratification...persue patience

7. FIGHT strife...persue peace

8. FIGHT grumbling...persue thankfulness

9. FIGHT contempt...persue love

10. FIGHT greed...persue generosity.

Annabel::10 Months

It really is fun to try and figure out what she is going to be like now that she is 10 months old. More and more little bits of who she is emerge and we find even more to love.

She loves to dance and sing. She is loud when she yells but she is quietly playing most of the time. She is ambitious, brave and tough. She doesn't get hurt easily, she is more likely to cry when she is frustrated. She seems older than her age. She knows what's going on, she walks like an 18 month old. She's quick and knows where she wants to go. She climbs and is right in the middle of her brothers all the time. It's crazy how UN-phased she is by the noise and wild antics that go on around her. It's like she was born for it. She eats just about any food offered to her. Just 2 teeth still, but several pair of shoes. :) Goodbye, baby. Hello, little girl.

How do you make a hand-me-down from a boy cousin look girlish? Add a tutu, of course!

 

She mastered the last hurdle in transitioning from baby to toddler....Getting to her feet from the middle of the room. There's no stopping this one!

Despite what it looks like, she actually leaves the Christmas tree alone.

 

We've got 6 people at our table for 6. It's feeling much smaller than when we first got it!

Small Town Christmas Parade

Yesterday we went to Shelton and watched the good ol' Christmas parade. I love small town parades, and despite the incredibly rainy weather we've been having, it cleared up and we didn't feel a drop all evening. Fun time, had by all!

I grew up watching the Christmas parade from the balcony over there across the street. 

McComb Funeral Home, baby!

 

my timid, I-don't-like-loud-noises kid

 

and this one...doesn't mind the startling blasts of horns in the least

 

what small (logging) town parade is complete without Paul Bunyan...especially one that limbos under street lights!