Jan 2011

This post seems to ramble on, sorry in advance. The kids are pulling at my sleeve to be finished, so please forgive the poor editing. The end to the holidays and going back to school seem to be a blur and I've only just now stopped to reflect on what we've been up to. The school year seems to dominate a lot of our time, and with only a first grader, I'm starting to understand just how busy I'll be as the others start school. I have a tendency to sign up for a lot of things.

Stella is now already registered for kindergarten next year and is still enjoying ballet/tap, and Sofia just finished her first research paper on penguins and presented it to the class with her patented easel-like report she designed. She has gymnastics now once a week and really loves it, though she collapses in bed on Wed nights. Both the girls are reading (Sofia is reading constantly now) so I got the girls booklights so they can stay up and read in bed at night on weekends, like a special treat. We are baking 3 dozen valentine’s day cookies today for Stella’s class party tomorrow, and Sofia's party is on Monday, more cookies are needed for that. Nico is putting 3 and 4 words together now and is making us laugh a lot. He is using words more to express himself, which is also bringing relief to us all. He’s still not sitting down and eating a ton at meal time, but will pick all day, he’s way too busy. He likes taking things apart and building things, and his trucks. He plays Legos with his sisters a lot now, he and Stella are building something now, which he will soon crash with his truck.

I am doing some contract business analyst work again through April and started my naptime and nighttime hours last night – so hard to do when you’re so tired at the end of the day. But I can’t complain, I’m so fortunate to get to do it from home without childcare. I'm also teaching a children's liturgy class at church and am going to our church's MOPS on Thursday mornings twice a month. Vic is enjoying his job, he is exceling at it as well, and is also active in the Knights of Columbus at church, which he is already trying to reorganize. We are looking forward to some visits from family this summer, and to the gorgeous weather, though it hasn't been bad at all as far as winters go. We are so thankful for everything we've been given this year, and for our families and good friends who keep in touch from Texas.

Rest in Peace to Vic's grandma in France who passed away this past week. We are praying for you and for Vic's mom during this difficult time. She lived to be 99, she would have been 100 in June, and Vic's mom got to visit her in Toulouse only a week or so before she died.

Also, just realized I didn't mention the pictures yet... they are from a park visit, we are still trying to get over how everything stays green here year round. We also had a bowling outing. We've decided we will all stick to XBOX bowling for the forseeable future, as our scores are much much better than when real-life bowling. Did you ever think growing up that you'd have to distinguish "real-life" for things like bowling, javlon throwing, or discus? When we said we would go bowling last weekend, the kids asked, "XBOX bowling or real-life bowling?"

Loving the XBOX

We were very fortunate that Santa brought us an XBOX for Christmas from the Microsoft company store. He even got to use V's discount to get the Kinect camera which makes for no controllers. The camera tracks your moves and then at the end will playback what you looked like while playing the game! The kids absolutely love it, especially on drizzly winter days when no one wants to go outside. Here are a couple of videos, it is hilarious, and amazing how much energy they have -- they will go for hours on the weekend!

We are Godparents!

Sweet little Natalie is our first Godchild. What a sweetie and a blessed ceremony with all the congregation taking part. She ended up being baptized on the Baptism of the Lord Day after several scheduling conflicts. It was meant to be! We had a nice reception back at her house afterwards. Congratulations little Natalie!

Santa, Sweet Snowflake Tapper, and Sisterly Silliness...

...that just about sums up our week.

I think we've done it all...

What an amazing way to top off the Christmas season. This was Snowflake Lane in Bellevue, WA (outdoor shopping district near Microsoft campus) where drummers come out every night at 7pm and play Christmas songs during Dec, followed by an entourage of holiday characters and these incredible lollipops they hand out to the kids (they are, of course, all natural made with pure cane juice, nut-free, and 100% organic. I am learning to expect nothing less in these parts.) :-) They also have a chocolate center, N was nutso for them and the drums. This was one of our most favorite things we've done here, so magical and unbelievably decorated (and free!) They also blew "snowflakes" made out of these light, airy bubble suds during it all. I imagine this was similar to the good ol' days when people went all out for the holiday parades and performances, we enjoyed it.


Drummers marched up and down Snowflake Lane and stood up on pedastals and played (turn sound on). We've played this 1.2 million times for N at our house. :-)

Nutcracker

The girls and I had a great girls night out at the Nutcracker this year. We went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Co. rendition downtown at McCaw Hall. We had nosebleed seats, which ended up being fine because it is a smallish venue and no one was sitting in front of us. The costume and set was designed by Maurice Sendak (of "Where the Wild Things Are" fame). There was a magician for the kids at the intermission, where the girls were chosen to "help" the magician in one of his tricks. After the ballet, we met up with my college roommate KB and her daughter and walked a couple of blocks to Seattle Center for a treat. We are truly blessed to get to do all of these fun things with our kids.

Learning Adventure

We took the kids to a place called Kidquest that is a children's museum. They had a good time and I was impressed with the types of things they had there and that we finally picked something that all the kids enjoyed. They made a bunch of really cool gadgets for the kids to play with, but then explained that it was built using a lever or used hydroelectric power to run things (and play instruments!) N was in hog heaven, he loves gadgets and buttons and lights, and of course, indoor MAC trucks. The girls loved the suction tunnels for the scarves and the wall sized light bright.