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You’re a great Papa and we love you!

The girls and I turned our patio door into a giant, surprise Valentine’s Day card for Chris while he was working on Saturday. It was fun and super messy.

(**note: no picture as of yet since I’m having trouble getting them to upload… I know they’re here somewhere…)

Well, we made it through the week of Christmas… it was lots of fun, but I can’t say that I’m not ready to have a nice, calm week!

We had a great time with all of our various holiday activities. I spent much of last week cooking and baking in preparation for the fun family gatherings. Chris and the girls did a great job helping with the cookies and amusing each other while I wrapped presents. CareBear and LiliBee “wrapped” some of their toys up for each other and for Banjo. It was very sweet. We even managed to pick up a few surprises for Chris, which isn’t easy.

CareBear was very excited about Santa this year and directed us to leave cookies and milk on the fireplace for him. She and LiliBee went to bed very nicely on Christmas Eve since they knew that was one of the “rules”… makes me wish it could be Christmas Eve more often! We had a very nice Christmas morning that began with CareBear running through the house yelling “wake up, sleepy heads!”… but at least she remembered that she had to wait until it was light out first. The girls made short work of their presents and enjoyed checking out their new stuff.

We had my family over for brunch on Christmas. I made some tasty food, if I do say so myself. LiliBee discovered that she is a big fan of ham and CareBear ate mostly fruit. As usual. CareBear received her first pair of roller skates from my folks and wasted no time in trying them out. She’s getting the hang of it and, surprisingly, isn’t getting too frustrated. LiliBee was a little put out that she can’t skate too, but she has more than enough to distract her in the meantime. It’s so fun to see them excited about every little thing.

We also headed down to Olympia for Chris’ family Christmas. Cousin H told us all about her Christmas and the girls got even more fun new stuff to play with. We had a great visit with the extended family (it’s always nice to know we’ll see them at least once a year). I was getting pretty tired from the long week by then, but the kids had no problem keeping up with the holiday festivities! They ran around with the cousins playing hide and seek and everyone got along for pretty much the entire visit.

In non-holday news, we had another ultrasound last week. Banjo is still measuring right on for dates and looking good! I guess we’ll be starting our non-stress tests in about a month, but otherwise all is well.

CareBear decided that the day after Christmas would be a great time to get her first urinary tract infection. It was a lot of fun convincing her that we had to collect a sample for the doctor, especially since it was so uncomfortable for her, but at least her medicine is pink. She told the pharmacist that pink was her favorite color so it must be good medicine. She’s feeling much better after a couple of days of antibiotics!

This week is going to be mellow. We have no school, no farm pick-up, no appointments, no obligations. Chris is only going in to work a couple of days (between his monthly work-from-home day and the holiday, it works out nicely!) and I’m hoping to get Lilia back on a more regular nap schedule. I certainly could use the rest!

Happy New Year!

Once we got the tree into the house, the kids got to direct the decorating. And redecorating. And more redecorating.

The finishing touch.

Papa and LiliBee lead the way into the trees.

CareBear refused to wear a coat at first.

But finally agreed with us that it was cold after all.

LiliBee makes some unusual choices.

But we eventually find one everyone agrees on!

Papa does the hard work.

And off we go!

A pretty table.

A little playing.

A little snacking.

With chocolate.

And more chocolate.

A little pie.

 A little bouncing.

 A little landing.

A little story telling.

A little lollipop time.

A little snuggling.

A very good holiday.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Ours was quite nice and very mellow… or maybe that was just the effects of turkey and pumpkin pie!

We spent the day at my folks eating good food and playing with fun toys. I think LiliBee snacked for 6 hours straight, she’s quite a grazer. CareBear is a bit pickier about what she eats, but she had quite a variety of fruit to enjoy. We’ve been pretty busy lately, so it was nice to have a day “off”.

We had another ultrasound to see Banjo last week. Apparently, that’s going to be a monthly event now that I’m both old and showing signs of gestational diabetes. It’s always fun to see the little hands and feet waving around! They got the pictures they needed of the heart and face and everything looks good. Banjo is measuring right on target for 22 weeks and still has everything in all the right places.

There was more remodeling over the weekend. Chris’ folks came up Friday and Saturday to help with molding and baseboards… it’s all so pretty! Parts of our house look like a real home again. The puppies and kitties are sure happy that things are getting back to normal.

The day after Thanksgiving, I came down with a cold… Chris had it a couple of weeks ago, but it took it’s time passing on to me. On the bright side, at least it waited until after LiliBee’s birthday party and the holiday! Also, at least it’s not the flu… On the other hand, the kids don’t let me rest enough as it is! Still, I seem to be much better today, which is good since I’m supposed to go to school with CareBear tomorrow.

This week should be fun, assuming I’m on the mend. We don’t have any doctor’s appointments (which is getting to be more rare now that I’m all “high risk”) and I get to be “art mom” at school, which is the most fun parent helper in my opinion. We’ll be visiting the farm as usual and might even do a little Christmas shopping. The girls love all of the twinkly decorations around right now.  And I don’t think we have anything actually scheduled for this weekend yet! That, in itself, is amazing.

We headed off to Spooner’s Farms in the valley last week with CareBear’s preschool class. It rained something awful the day before, but we lucked out with a sunny (if somewhat muddy) day!

Tractor ride to the pumpkin patch!

CareBear got a little splinter from the stem of her pumpkin.

LiliBee is very proud of her pick.

Ride ’em, LiliBee!

Into the patch!

Pumpkin heads.

We meet a big spider…

And play in the rope maze…

And do a bit of sliding.

A good and muddy time.

I love Halloween, so everyone gets to look at pictures of our decorations! I didn’t get pictures of some of the big spiders or the stuff hanging in our trees, but you get the idea…

The yard:

The porch:

Pumpkin decorating!

LiliBee likes the eyeball stickers.

CareBear is putting on her face.

The finished pumpkins.

Darth LiliBee.

CareBear heads off in search of candy.

Come on, LiliBee!

Trick or treat!

And we’re off again.