8th Annual Christmas-Costume Party

This is NOT another "tacky sweater" party. Oh no. A lot of the people who come wear sweaters that they would actually wear out in public and I certainly don't want to offend anyone by calling their clothes tacky.

Instead it's a party where you can wear your beautiful festive sweaters or think outside the box and come up with a Christmas-themed costume. And eat from a chocolate fountain.


Here are some of this year's best:

Mr. Peppermint:

A gift to God:

Christmas Sweater Gigi & Sugar Plum Princess Emma


A gift to Lee (and Lee):(this was great because Billie couldn't move her arms in the box so she had to drink from a straw and have her husband hand feed her the whole night!)
The winners: Reindeer Family
Rudolph, Dancer, Vixen & Prancer

aaand, of course, Grandpa Vern dressed as Santa:


George & Father John
Christmas Tree & her boy!

If you didn't make it this year, you should next year. For realz.

Empathy

My kids have had a whole slew of health issues this year.

I'm not really sure why but between the three of them, there has been multiple cases of pink eye, lots of double ear infections, some random rashes, a broken foot, a stitched up chin, and ear surgery.

Unfortunately for my kids, I have never personally experienced any of these issues so I can have sympathy for them, just not empathy.

I could tell Grady that I felt bad that he had to wear a cast, but I couldn't speak from experience and explain to him that it wouldn't hurt when they sawed it off his leg. And I can assure Emma that she'll still be beautiful with a little scar on her chin, but I couldn't really understand why the stitches itched so bad. And poor little Landon- I have no idea what ear infections feel like and why they kept him up at night so I could only give him some Motrin and pray that he could go back to sleep.

Since I'm a mom, you'd better believe that I'd willingly take on any of these ailments just so my kids wouldn't have to go through them, but for whatever reason, that's not the way things work, and my heart gets broken for them each time.

Well, folks, FINALLY this week, I was able to have some empathy for one of my kids:

I don't know what it feels like to have your ear drums cut open and to have tubes inserted. And I don't know what it feels like to wake up from general anesthesia in the arms of a strange lady. Heck, I don' t even know what Tylenol with Codine makes your head feel like.But I DO know why Landon was crying when I took this picture. I know how he felt when we put this little hospital gown on him. I understand what it felt like to have his diaper hanging out the back of his gown for all the world to see. (At least he got to wear cute little diapers with his gown and not stuffed mesh underwear- right ladies?!). I know how drafty and stiff and uncomfortable those gowns can be. And to Landon I can honestly, empathetically say that I hope he never has to go through that again!

Christmas Cards

Well, here we are, well into December and we finally attempted to get a decent family picture for Christmas cards.

Sure, we have some great pics that our dear friend Dan Ramming took of us, but those were way back in May and since Landon has changed so much since then, I thought we should try for a more current picture.

So this morning, I dressed my family in coordinated-ish outfits (except for Emma because she owns NOTHING neutral), grabbed our camera, the tripod, and headed off to the beach to take some pictures of ourselves. Aaaaaaand that's when the problems started.

Problem 1: We don't live near the beach so we have to drive for over an hour with Emma asking every two minutes, "Are we there yet?" and Landon missing his morning nap because we're in the car and he has way too much fun in the car to fall asleep.

Problem 2: Once we got to the beach, our kids wanted to play in the sand and waves and not sit still for pictures. And we were using the self-timer on the camera so we had a lot of sitting still to do.
Problem 3: We didn't have anyone behind the camera to get Landon's attention so in most of the shots, he's looking/lunging at the sand.
Eventually, we gave up attempting to look like a pulled together, sane, happy family who can sit still for more than .5 seconds.

Fortunately, once we let them loose we got some great shots of them playing so even though our Christmas card pics will be a bit unpolished, we now have some great photos to hang up around the house.
Does anyone with that fancy photo editing software want to edit them for us?

It's that time again.....

click on the picture to make it bigger and better.

and if you're thinking that this would be an awesome party to come to but you're not really sure if the invitation is for you, well, it is. you should come.

Brave and Not So Much

I have a 5-year-old daughter who is very, very brave.

This afternoon she was standing on a stool in front of the window awaiting the arrival of some dear friends when the stool slipped and she flew off with her feet going high into the air and landed on her chin, splitting it open.

Yes, she cried.
Yes, she panicked when she saw blood.
Yes, she cried even harder when Grady ran and brought her some Barbie bandaids and an ice pack to fix the hole in her chin.
Yes, she cried the whole way to the hospital while holding a washcloth to her chin to stop the flow of blood.
Yes, she panicked when she heard she was going to get stitches and asked if they were going to use a sewing machine on her face.

But when those saintly ER nurses started asking her how old she is and if she's in kindergarten and if she has her driver's license yet, the tears stopped flowing and she was able to tell them all about her life. And how she fell. And ask if they had pretty bandaids.

Then the ER doc came in, and with Dylan and me holding her still, he stitched Emma up while she asked him questions about what he was doing and told him if what he was doing hurt her or not and asked how many more minutes it would be until he was all done and what color of thread he was using.

As soon as the doc finished with his 4 stitches and my very brave 5-year-old sat up, Dylan announced that he wasn't feeling so well. Immediately the doctor had him lay down on the bed and a nurse hurried in to ask if he needed some water or anything. Never mind that it wasn't his chin bleeding all over the place or getting sewn back together with ugly black whiskery thread. The nurse explained that it was very common for male patients to get woozy from the sight of blood and that what Dylan was experiencing was totally normal. Whatever. He's seen 3 live births and that was a LOT more graphic than 4 measly little stitches.

Anyway, once Dylan was feeling better, we checked out of the ER and took Emma straight to Yogurt Park, even though she hadn't had dinner yet. She even got to pick out 2 toppings for her pink frozen yogurt, since she was so brave. Dylan didn't get any.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Thank you to Grandpa David for taking all 16 of us to Disneyland!
We had SO much fun!!!!!

Emma's favorite part: Thunder Mountain Railroad and Soaring Over California

Grady's Favorite Part: SPLASH MOUNTAIN!

Landon's Favorite Part: Going on rides with his dad that his mom wouldn't even go on

Dylan's Favorite Part: Having fearless children to go on rides with him

Julie's Favorite Part: Having fearless children to go on rides with Dylan so she didn't have to!

Just another day in paradise...

Some things that happened around here today:

1. Grady woke up at 6:30 am and made everyone else's lives miserable until we let him out of bed at 7. I've felt like a train hit me ever since.

2. I took Landon in to get his ears checked, again, and he has double infections, again. So, the doc finally referred him for ear tubes surgery. Bummer about the surgery. Good about (hopefully) not having infections anymore.

3. I tried to take a nap. But, UPS, FedEx, OnTrac and Lucy's least favorite of Grandma's caretakers came. Which meant a lot of barking. Which meant me getting out of bed to come quiet her down so that she wouldn't wake up the kids. 4 times.

4. My daughter bought me flowers (with Grandma Jackie's help) because she said that her mommy smiles when her daddy brings her flowers. She wanted to make me smile :)
She also made scalloped potatoes (one of my favorites) with Grandma Jackie today and brought some home for dinner so Dylan didn't have to cook!

5. I left (an hour late) for my weekly-ish blissful evening off. Dylan left with the kids because he doesn't like to be home alone with 3 kids. Grandma Phyllis escaped and was found by a neighbor who didn't have our phone number. She tracked Dylan's sister down through a friend who had an old church directory. The neighbor brought Grandma in and waited with her until Dylan could get home with the three kids. Thankfully we had Bible study here last night so the house wasn't totally destroyed and there were some unhidden chairs for them to sit on while they waited.

6. 13 hours after this morning's wake up call, the kiddos (and grandma) are all in bed fast asleep. And now we can go watch last night's episode of "The Middle" and eat a carton of Ben & Jerry's new flavor, Mission to Marzipan which I found at Grocery Outlet for only $1.50.

Good Night.