chimney sweep

First, be sure to wear a white shirt.

Second, gleefully push ash and soot down the opening to your dad who is on the other side.

Third, wear your frog boots. They are best suited to this job. Also, waving your dirty hand to your mom will certainly make her smile and be glad that she decided to take pictures of the event.

Fourth, don't forget to take off your frog boots before you step on the light carpet.

ten years of grace

5 year old vocabulary

Me: "Jimmy, please put your laundry away."
J: "I cannot. I cannot pick up all of my socks. They are missing their dopplegangers."

its my party!

(the following beautiful picture was taken at someone else's birthday party in the summer, but it works for today!)

The celebration began last night. My darling MIL took me to see a stage production of South Pacific. The music was fun and the partial male nudiness was surprising. All in all a great way to move more towards my late 30s.

This morning consisted of Nate staying home long enough to make breakfast and lunches for kids, an emergency trip back to school with a forgotten (and sorely missed) Kindergarten backpack (this small act puts me as a contender for Nicest Mom on the Planet award - I love being a contender), breakfast out, and some good shopping. This afternoon brought some nice laziness and catching up with the children on unwatched episodes of Phineas and Ferb. Next on the docket - a family date night. Tomorrow consists of a for-real-date-night with my handsome surgeon. I'm pretty stoked.

There were many birthdays during those med school and residency years when it didn't seem so birthday-ish. Its nice to make up for all that!

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

protective eye wear

Yesterday this young fellow decided to wear Nate's old lab goggles to school. He informed his class during Share Time they were in fact x-ray vision goggles. His teacher's response, "Oooooooooo." She's the best.

Here is our little man in one of his many photo poses in front of the flamingos at the zoo. I bet you would never have guessed that the flamingo is his second most favorite animal. His third, of course, is the flying donkey. The first favorite seems to change whenever it strikes his fancy.

to party

Right after the holiday swoop we head right into the birthday bang. I'm up first, then Grace, then Jimmy - all before Valentines Day. I'm still in Holiday Recovery Mode. I can't fathom putting together a birthday party, let alone 2 (or 3 if we do a family one too).

Grace is leaning towards a Hogwarts themed bash, Jimmy is gearing up for a Spy Guy soiree. All I can think about is chocolate cake.

1 and 2

The Big Guy did come. He filled our stockings and even managed to lug in a new bike.

Much to Jimmy's chagrin, he also managed to bring some sweet Christmas church duds. That's what happens when you are churchin' it up on Christmas Day.

Most of our pictures of Jimmy on Christmas look like this:

Most of our pictures of Grace look like this:

I love Christmas-ing,

Evidently the children do too. There are no better facial expressions than this on Christmas morning. Do you agree???!

After tearing open up everything from the North Pole, a little biking was in order.

(or scootering, if you were so inclined).

Who can resist a manly man on pink wheels? Not I.

We paused on our Christmas Day and did some churching. Not only did Nate and I sing in the choir, I did a duet with another gal. Talk about sweating bullets.

We rushed home, changed into comfy-ness, and dived into gifting again.

Please note the young scientist and her blur of a brother.

It was a very Merry Day. Hope yours was too!

extras

Our lesson in reading the fine print: no omelette is worth that!

Christmas Eve

Our early Christmas Eve celebrations took place at Nate's parents home. It was full of festivities: Danish delights, a white elephant gift exchange (btw, I got some bumpits, totally), Christmas crafts, and also Nate decided to wear his oldest sweater - I think that has become a new Christmas tradition (if you can call it new as it is old, as in from early high school old).

Upon our arrival at home we discovered the Christmas Elves had visited us. Do they visit you? They come every year on Christmas Eve and bring us new pjs!

It turns out our elves were none other than Lanny and Wayne from Prep and Landing. See, they even left us some landing gear to play with.

They also decided to get mom and dad involved. You'll note I'm sure that Grace and I are darling in our kitten mitten pjs.

You'll also note how fabulously "Animal"-like Nate and Jimmy are.

We some how managed to get the kids to bed.

And then we waited for the big guy to show up!

walkin' in a winter wonderland

We decided to go and find some snow.

Turns out that just over 2 hours from the house,

there is plenty of ice-encrusted snow.

The children were more than delighted.

Nate was delighted to glimpse some wintery birds (who wouldn't be delighted at a prospect like that?!)

We spent Christmas Eve Eve in Prescott, AZ (which is called Arizona's Christmas City)

We got our Christmas on.

The next morning (Christmas Eve), we headed back up into the mountains. Lo and behold we found more snow.

The children helped finish a snowman.

It was dang cold. Like 32ish degrees.

Hats were employed.

Hogwarts scarves were also donned.

An attempt at angels were made; however, once the snow is ice-encrusted an angel is hard to come by.

We had to travel up this high:

But it was well worth it.

Stay tuned, more Christmas posts to come (including Nate's incredible Christmas sweater - YIKES!)