the littlest gids: Tis' the Season

Our home has been Christmasized. Christmas music is constantly blaring from Pandora (I even caught Aric playing Christmas music with his football game on mute!), matching PJ's, homemade decorations fill the tree, half eaten candy canes stuck to the couch, nightly Hallmark Christmas movies nights (it goes like this- "no, we are going to watch Elf again, your going to love it"),Gingerbread house is complete & adorned with stale Halloween candy, and of course, Chippy, our elf, has come to visit. We have had multiple Santa sightings, including REAL reindeer.

We had lots of parties and the parties continue through Christmas. Today Drew is heading to a friend party. Yesterday he had his first friend party, his little girlfriend from school. Today is his second friend party, at "Pump it up". Two in one weekend, whew. Friday we went to a Christmas Party and S.A.N.T.A showed up. It was awesome. The G kids were not brave enough to sit on his lap, but they listened to a story and Kate helped Mrs. Claus hold her books. He even gave them an early present. Then Saturday we saw REAL reindeer at Gpa's work. It was amazing. We think the Santa was the real one too, even though his beard was 4 inches longer then the Santa from the night before. Drew is pretty clever at figuring out what Santa's are helpers and when he sees the real one. He is certain that he grew his beard overnight. (Santa had to shave his beard in October for his daughters wedding). Then to top off Kate's weekend, she saw Santa at Target shopping. He just happened to have a candy cane in his shirt pocket to give her. I guess if you have a long white beard, are mildly obese and wear a red stocking hat to Target the week before Christmas, it is expected you bring a supply of candy canes with you.

Let's wrap up October, cruise through November, then talk about the present. I updated some configurations on here so I could view the blog on my iPad. In doing so, I messed up something on the "real computer" layout. Oh well, someday I will give this blog a make over.

This was Drew's Harvest program. Can you spy Spiderman?? They were missing one boy, he "frew up all over the blocks" right before the program. The princess is the only girl in his class.

Getting ready to head out.

The kids went to Aunt Susie's neighborhood again. Grace came along, we are way cooler then her friends.

Spooky

Yes, we had the 2 year old pull the beer cooler. It was light, and she insisted.

Thanksgiving morning. I just love this dress, it reminds me of 1983.

Once again, we are giving Kate mixed messages about were to color when we give her a paper tablecloth and crayons. Kate has had her share of "color bans" this fall. Her longest stretch was one week with no writing sources of any kind (besides the Magna doodle). She is a graffiti artist. We always know it is her as she writes "k" and "t" everywhere.

Drew wasn't interested in having his picture taken.

It snowed on Thanksgiving Day-- just a bit, but enough to put on a fleece jacket!

On to December
How do you know its December? Pandora is blaring Christmas music at an obscene volumes and it looks like an elf decorated/destroyed my house

This is Manger Scene perfection. Drew's doing of course. Yesterday Kate was scolding baby Jesus ("Naughty Jesus, no no, time out"), Drew marched up to her and put his hand on her shoulder and said "Kate, Jesus isn't naughty, he is kind and loving." She says-- "oh". Whose kid is he anyways?

Art time (this must have been a brief moment when Kate had her writing privileges)

Drew taking the stage for his Christmas Program (he is in red in front)

He started quiet, then got his confidence. We could hear him from our seats belting out his tunes.

Decorating cookies afterwards with Aunt Annie.

The big "5" This is the Stars Wars cake Drew picked out. The days of me making his cake is gone. Of course, all the cakes I made were when we had egg allergies and they all tasted like sand. I can make a good cake given I can use the right ingredients.

Can you figure out the party theme?
Yes, you are correct if you guessed Pirate/Star Wars. Kate added her own element of Cinderella.

The gals doing their nails.

Everyone has extra squinty eyes.

They lit up!

And so it began...the hours and hours in his Lego Lab. He spent the entire next morning (hours) making his new fire fighter airplane. Then he moved on to his Lite Brite, which took him 3 hours to make a scene. This kid has some serious focus.

Then it snowed. The snow forced him to take "activity" breaks to go outside to shovel. It wouldn't be a Drew birthday weekend without a blizzard, now would it?

Round 2 of shoveling, Kate stayed inside with momma and made cookies. She measured, poured, sneezed, sprinkled.

The Real Birthday day. Momma took the day off and we went to his school and had a breakfast party with his friends, had lunch with Grandma and Aunt Susie, then played Legos ALL. DAY. Miss Kate got Drew 2 NASCAR cars-- he was super impressed.