Christmas with Family

We were supposed to go to Hawai'i for Christmas, but the airlines hike ticket prices so much over the holidays that we could save 60% if we went a few weeks later. Bags decided to use miles to go mid-January, so we decided to go then, too. Then we convinced people to come to us for Christmas, and it all worked out dandily.

Coco, Dun Dun, and Antone arrived on Friday, December 22. The girls are really into their little cousin.

Tutu and Papa arrived Saturday morning. We hung out at the house and ran errands. Jim spent much of the day trying to finish a climbing wall on the playset he'd decided to make for the girls for Christmas. Tiny did some incredible snuggling with Dun Dun.

The girls made a gingerbread house with supplies Ever had brought home from school. She'd had to miss the day they made them in class because of illness.

We enjoyed the sunset.

Tiny and Antone got acquainted.

Tutu also took a turn loving on Tony.

The Tiny/Dustin snuggles continued. Dustin multi-tasked, holding a limp Tiny while pillow-fighting Ever.

Sunday, Christmas Eve, we just had sacrament meeting. Tiny, Wrenzy, and Tony were accidentally color-coordinated. Ever didn't get the memo.

Back at home, we enjoyed some time outside. Kringel girl pile:

Wrenzy tried out the new wall.

Antone hung out in the play station and received frequent visits from his cousins. I don't know why Wrenny was topless. Possibly she got food on her shirt.

Wrensington and Jim snuggled up on the couch. She is such a delightful, entertaining little thing. I love Jim's look of adoration.

Tutu and Papa took it easy.

More Kringel/Homer snuggling happened.

That night Jim got both fireplaces going.

Pod worked his magic on the piano, and we did the traditional carol singing by the fire.

We read the Bible account of Christ's birth, but it was so late that we saved The Happy Prince reading for later and got the keiki to bed.

Then the real fun began. Jim and Dustin spent three hours outside in frigid temperatures setting up the girls' big Christmas present: a trampoline. Pod didn't realize the project was happening until about two hours in, but he joined at that point. It was a painful time for the men, but they got it done. 

Meanwhile, the womenfolk wrapped presents and prepared food for the morrow. I have to admit that Coco did most of the food prep. I pretty much failed on that front. In any case, we all stayed up way too late with Christmas preparations.

Ever was very excited Christmas morning. It is believed that she may not have slept at all. The Kindness Elves had made another visit for the 10 days before Christmas. On Christmas Eve, she wrote them a note ("Will you come back next year"):

They left a note for her Christmas morning in reply, but I think in the gift frenzy she forgot all about the elves and never even though to look for their answer.

She got a kid cookbook and lots of odds and ends in her stocking. 

It took a long time for her to notice the giant trampoline in the yard. The kids didn't seem that excited about it, but I have to say - so far, I don't regret the purchase. It gets used pretty regularly, especially when friends come over. If someone gets injured, though, I may change my tune. Jim said that's going to be entirely on my head since the tramp was all my doing. He was always really anti because he knows the injury stats, although I did ultimately get his consent.

I didn't get any pictures of Wrenzy or Tiny. The gift-opening frenzy demanded my attention.

Coco got some good ones of Antone, though. He was amazingly interested in his presents and adept at opening them.

We had decided on a full turkey dinner for Christmas night, so meal prep was extensive. Dee and Shandie and kids arrived that afternoon and stayed for two nights. Tristan learned Solitaire from the master. 

Dinner was amazingly delicious.

Tristan and Betsy joined Wren and Ever in the bunk room while they were here, so Ever's cousin-slumber-party dreams came true.

Before Christmas, a plague came upon us that has still not entirely left us. Some virus or other (or three) has been present in various forms for months. First Ever had a crazy rash, and then Wren got it. It was especially bad on her bottom and back but got her face, too. This was taken on Tuesday, December 26:

Tuesday we hung out at home. The kids spent a lot of time outside. Funcle Dun Dun spent much time with the kids out on the tramp.

Papa played hours of War with the kids, and the camera on my phone started taking incredibly glowy/fuzzy photos that remind me of NCIS cinematography.

This picture tells me we played cards, but I don't really remember doing so. It's hard being prematurely senile.

That night we ate tacos, read The Happy Prince, reminisced, got the kids to bed a little earlier, and enjoyed some Dominoes. 

Wednesday morning we just hung out at home again, and the kids played outside. I made my first batch of homemade hot chocolate before people had to take off. 

Tiny spent a lot of time visiting Tony in the play station.

Then Wrenzy made her move.

He tried to eat her face. 

She was undeterred.

Jim hosted all of the littles simultaneously.

Midday, the Deetrixes left for Shandra's parents' house, and Pod drove the Homers to L.A. to catch a flight to Boise. (Well, Bags drove on the way there, and Pod drove himself back.) Mamo and Pod stuck around until Monday. We are so glad people were willing to travel to join us for Christmas in Oceanside! 

Ever Turned Six

Goose's birthday was on a Sunday this (last) year. Saturday we went to the Nutcracker (see earlier post) and then went late to the ward Christmas party. Sunday we had the McEwans and Wilsons over for ice cream cake. I didn't end up attempting all the flourishes on the cake (I was supposed to pipe whipped cream and hot fudge, which I've never done), but I was proud nonetheless.

Tiny liked it more than this grimace would suggest:

Wrenzy helped with presents.

I worked on Monday so that I could take Ever to a half-day horse camp in Bonsall on Tuesday. Anna Dubrovsky (Leela's mom) told me about it and suggested the girls might do it together for their birthdays. (Leela's birthday is December 18.) Ultimately they decided to sign Leela up for a different camp that week, but Ever wanted to go ahead alone. I love that she's not afraid to do things like that by herself. I think there were just three other girls there. Ever wasn't super talkative when I picked her up, but she liked it a lot - enough that she asked to go again the following week. 

That night we had Leela, Ella, Lelei, Luc, Amelie, and the Karner kids over for pizza, dessert, and a piñata . It was a nice, mellow night.

In keeping with tradition, there was some crying during piñata time. This is a terrible, unexciting video, taken during the happy times. I include it only because of my severe shortage of documentation of birthday festivities.

Ever is sweet, sensitive, competitive, silly, and incredibly bright. By Christmas break, she'd passed off all her "sight words" for the year. During the break, she finished first-grade Jiji math (the math program they use at school). I've been realizing recently just how smart she is. If she asks for something and I say, "Not now," she'll ask later and say, "You said we could have it later!" I have to think for a second and then go, "Wait a second. I said you couldn't have it then, but I didn't say for sure you could have it later." A few days ago I implemented a new procedure: if Ever doesn't get done what she needs to get done and get in bed by 7:00 P.M., then the number of minutes late she is is the number of minutes early she has to go to bed the next night. She LOVES staying up as late as possible, so I'm hoping I have finally found a way to motivate her. I'm so tired of nagging her about unpacking her backpack, cleaning her lunchbox, cleaning up her room, bathing, getting ready for bed, etc., only to have her ignore me, putz around, and then move as fast as a sloth when she finally begins the task. Anyway, the day after we first started this, she was dragging when I needed her to get ready for school. I told her that if she wasn't ready when we needed to leave, then she'd have to go to bed early that night. She responded that that didn't make sense; it made sense for her to have to go to bed early the night after she was up late, but what happened in the morning had nothing to do with bedtime. What six-year-old understands the concept of natural consequences like that? She keeps me on my toes, that's for sure. She's a wonderful big sister, and we're so glad she's ours. 

December Portraits of the Girlies

The last few years, I've given 8 x 10 photos of the girls to Nanny and Papa for Christmas. I don't have a camera or any skills, and it's a struggle for me to get them done. This year I took the twins out back one afternoon while Ever was gone, and I gave it my all. Wrenzy did her best but had a really hard time making normal faces. I took a million shots and got a few cute ones, although the light was bad.

Tiny, on the other hand, was a nightmare. She would not stay still at all, ever, even for a second. I would set her somewhere, and she would just take off as soon as I let go.

She kept running toward the play car, so I finally just started taking pictures of her in it. Eventually I moved the car out onto the grass in hopes of a better background and better light. It was all very pathetic. I got at least one sort of cute one of her in the car in its original location, but then I accidentally deleted almost all the photos off my phone and lost that batch. So this was seriously the best I managed:

 

And this one must be maintained in the files because of her driving posture and cute elbow dimples:

Obviously Tiny gave me nothing remotely frame-worthy, so I had to try one more time a different day. She actually stayed put a lot better (in front of a bad background, but I couldn't deal with going anywhere beyond our backyard). She would not, however, just smile normally. I got about 100 pictures of her with her tongue out.

Better luck next year.

As for Ever, I made her pose outside a house up the street as we drove home from school one day. This was her best shot (with editing by Coco):

Love my girls. 

Little December Things

More of Tyna's "good":

I wanted the girls to help me organize/clean up the playroom. This is their version of cleaning:

California burned. There was a huge fire in Ventura really near Christian and Shandra. Then one started by Bonsall (dubbed the Lilac Fire), and it moved very rapidly straight west toward us. Leela's mom, Anna, called that afternoon shortly after I found out about the fire to tell me that her friend in South Oceanside was packing bags. Anna said she normally doesn't worry, but she was a little freaked out and wondered what I was doing. She erroneously assumed that if anyone would be prepared and on top of an emergency like this, it would be I. I told her I was not at all prepared but wasn't really worried, and we agreed to be in touch when we found out more.

Then I saw Scott Cikanek, our neighbor, and he was making fun of Rebecca, who was inside packing bags, worried about being able to evacuate quickly. She came outside and tried to defend herself, saying she wanted to be ready so that if it came time to evacuate, they could get out quickly before the rush of people. She was planning to take everything they might need (formula, diapers, clothes, etc.), but Scott was laughing that they'd just buy what they needed and stay at the Four Seasons or at some hangar where his company has supplies to last a month.

Maybe a half hour after that conversation with Scott and Rebecca, there was a knock on the door. It was Scott coming by to tell me there was a fire off of Skyline, right by our neighborhood. He and I laughed that Rebecca was redeemed; she'd been right to get prepared. Later Anna sent me this picture of Rafi and Leela watching the fire:

Fortunately, that Skyline fire was contained quickly.

The Lilac Fire, however, kept coming. By evening, a few people in our ward were only a couple miles from the evacuation zone. Derrick Karner took this picture from their backyard (across the golf course from us):

We gathered some important documents and made a list before we went to bed of what we'd want to take if we had to leave in the night. The fire was moving so quickly that day because of crazy Santa Ana winds and dry conditions.

I thought I'd wake up to news of more land scorched and people evacuated, but in the morning nothing had changed. The firefighters got it under control. A little over a 100 houses were destroyed.

The littles like to climb on things on the couch (mainly Jim or stacks of pillows) and fall or jump off.

One Sunday morning, for no reason, Ever got up and went straight downstairs to prepare breakfast in bed for Jim (a bowl of cereal) and me (Grapenuts and yogurt). It was the cutest, sweetest thing. She had to make multiple trips to bring up our bowls, our water glasses, and a whole gallon of milk so Jim could pour it on his cereal. After we finished, we went to get Tiny up and found that Ever had also delivered breakfast in bed to her. 

The kindergartners performed some Christmas songs in the courtyard on the Wednesday before Christmas break. It was not very professional, but they were cute. Here's a sample (Ever and Leela in the back in the middle):

Jim and I took Ever to The Nutcracker (full-length). She claimed to prefer it to the abbreviated, kid-friendly version we attended last year.

Amazon saved our lives this December. Going to actual stores sounds way too hard, and Jim is wild about one-click. He officially buys everything on Amazon. So many packages. So much cardboard.