Merry Christmas!!...

Merry Christmas everyone!  We had a wonderful week!  Niki came out to visit and spend Christmas with us, and she brought us elf pajamas!  There were even some for Jelly, though we never got them on.  It's the thought that counts, right?

Grayson has been super smiley lately.  Look at that big chunker smile!

The girls did sidewalk chalk, probably on Monday.  They had a great time out there and were very excited to show me all the great picures they drew.

That night they helped put away their laundry while we got ready for bed.  Winry was singing and dancing and rocking her clothes into her dresser!

On Tuesday (or Wednesday,..) Winry walked up to Monica and said she wanted a hair cut!  So Monica gave her her first ever hair cut.  Not a ton, but it looks great!  And Winry did a great job too.

We got Red Robin for dinner on Wednesday.  When I got back after picking it up Winry noticed that her container had windows to see her food!

Niki got here on Wednesday night after the girls went to bed.  They were really excited to see her the next morning when they woke up though!  We had a lot of fun together on Christmas Eve.  There was a lot to do, like decorate cookies, play the Christmas Mario Maker level I made, and cook a special dinner.  Here we are decorating cookies!

At night, right before dinner, we watched a Nativity video from church, and sang some Christmas Hymns together.

Niki moved into the girls room for a Christmas sleep over party!!  Don't worry, they must have fallen asleep because Santa came!

Christmas morning was great!  The video is a bit long, but the girls had a lot of fun and were very excited about their toys.  Winry got some finger puppets of the Rudolph characters, which she is showing to Niki in this picture.

I'm not sure what Brooke is holding and it's completely hugged, but she loved everything!

Here's Grayson with his stocking and and presents from Santa!

I tried to let Jelly open her own present.  I dumped a bunch of cat nip in it first, but she mostly got cuddly with her present, so not the desired effect.  Eventually I helped her get it open, and turned on her fish!  I thought that when it moved at first she'd run away and hide, but she was much more willing to play that I expected!

The girls dove into their candy for breakfast, and didn't have real food until 10:30 or 11...  Good thing they got a picnic table to eat their candy at!

Brooke gave me this amazing sweatshirt that has a pouch in the front for a cat!  Jelly is... okay with it.  I don't think she usually loves it, but she doesn't fight to get out.  She'll grow to love it!

We had a video call with Monica's parents so they could watch the girls open their presents.  It was a lot of fun.  I opened both of the presents I got from my parents for them too because I misread the labels.  Brooke is at the age where she can write all the letters, but location, especially relative to other letters, isn't important.  So I saw some G's and A's, etc. and was in a hurry and thought I got the right one.  Oops.

Winry finally got her scribble scrubbies!  She's been dying for them since Brooke got some for her birthday.

Here's Niki, have a wonderful time.  She sure loved hanging out with the girls.

Winry got her own chapstick, which she LOVES!

And Jelly got a couple rides in the sweatshirt.  I even let her play with the fuzzy balls on the strings.  Gotta be careful with that game or she'll scratch me!

Here's Grayson in his Christmas clothes (had a blow out in his elf pajamas), ready for the rest of the day!

When we finished opening presents we headed to Tyson and Tina's house.  We checked, and no one was sick (which doesn't happen in a family of 9) so we took advantage.  My parents were also there visiting them for Christmas, which means my Mom got to hold Grayson, and she held him all day!  My dad tried his darndest to make Grayson laugh, and Grayson loved it!

Tyson and Tina got a karaoke machine for Christmas.  The girls loved it and sang with their cousins.  It was used off and on, but definitely peaked right before we left.  Everyone had to get in their last song of the night.  Brooke even showed off her sweet dance moves in the middle.

We also played pictionary air, where you draw in the air with a light pen thing.  It was a lot of fun, and the girls love to play it as well.  Tyson and Tina's family gave it to us for Christmas, so that's pretty exciting.  We've played it a few times since and had a lot of fun.

We let the girls bring a few presents to play with while we're there.  Winry had a lot of fun sprawling on the floor and playing with her new legos while they were just in reach.

The next day we surprised everyone with a trip to the zoo!!  Here's Grayson getting his diaper changed.  He looks like he's very concerned about the lack of monkeys on Monkey Island.  Don't worry bud, they'll be back when it's warmer.

The girls were having a blast with Niki and were so glad she was there!

When we saw the birds everyone stretched out their arms to see if we were as big as the condors.

Here's Niki talking with the girls and helping them get their snacks!

There were even ice sculptures.  They were quite melted when we got there, but you could still tell they were Frozen characters.  When we were walking away the music took over Winry and she just had to dance!

The Hippo was pretty fun to see again.  I got a picture of it with it's mouth open this time!  It's not facing straight at us, but it's still a cool picture!  Also, the time on our nice camera is off a little, and so the pictures are bouncing back and forth in time as the images are swapping between my phone and the camera.

We also found this unoccupied exhibit on the side of the path.

Our last stop was the porcupine.  It was in a different part of the cage, but walked right up next to us.  Turns out there was a green pepper piece next to it that it really wanted.  It was walking closer bit by bit, stopping to sniff the air.  It gobbled the pepper up right in front of our eyes.

We got some bluetooth karaoke microphones from Niki for Christmas, and the girls were really excited to use their pink and gold mics.  We got to set up our own karaoke system at home for the girls to sing!  The microphones can also echo your voice (it's labeled as an enhancement), and the girls were trying it out between songs.  It was really funny to listen to Winry list off random words!

Here's a really great picture of Grayson taking a nap and grabbing his melon!

The girls got a new swing for Christmas, and we put it out back yesterday.  Brooke had a lot of fun testing it out.  It's big enough for them to swing together, but Winry didn't want to go out.

Last night right before bed we made a chocolate snow man.  It was a Hershey bar, and each of the pieces had a different thing on it.  I head, and hand, a hat.  The girls had fun putting it together, and eating it too!

We had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope everyone else did too!  I am grateful for our Savior, and his wonderful Atonement.  I am grateful for the Christmas season in which we can take time to focus and celebrate the wonderful gift He was to the world, and each of us individually.  May His spirit stay in our hearts for the rest of the year! 

Winry's Winter Showcase

Howdy howdy all and all!  And Merry Christmas in this upcoming week!  This is my last chance to wish everyone a Merry Christmas before the day arrives!  Are we excited?  Yes we are.  Why?  Because Niki is coming, which will provide us with a 3rd back to break holding Grayson all day...  But really, we've been holding him a LOT lately.  He had a doctors appointment on Thursday and has been a bit of a grump since.  We've never caught him with a fever, but he's a lot more fussy than usual, so hopefully that goes away soon.  In other news, here is our yearly family picture in front of the Christmas tree!  This was the best one, and it actually turned out GREAT!!

On Monday, the girls and I went to play in the snow again.  The girls had gotten ready without me, and so I just headed out after putting a jacket on.  Grayson also came out to play with us.  I wrapped him up in some blankets, and he snuggled down and had a nice little vent hole for his face.  Everyone stayed warm, and we had fun playing in the snow together.

On Wednesday, Winry had her winter showcase!  It was a lot of fun to watch.  I called in on my phone while I was there, and Monica and Brooke called in from home.  Also, many of you reading this called in too!  Thank you so much for supporting our kids!  It means a lot to Monica and me, but more importantly, it means a lot to the girls!  Anyway, her class was super fun to watch, and I took a few screen recordings.  Monica tried to get some good pictures of the TV, but there was a really bad glare from the sun coming in a window without blinds at that time of day, so I decided to put up my screen recordings instead.  Here is one of their... technical showcase I guess you could call it.  They didn't actually prepare a dance for this, which is kind of sad.  Brooke did when she was this age, but it's different teachers, and the class attendance has also been really spotty in Winry's class, I'm guessing likely due to COVID things.  Anyway, they also did sleeping bunnies, which Winry LOVES!  We listen to that at home too.  They listened to a version with lots of animals, not just bunnies, which you will notice throughout the video.  I'm really proud of Winry.  She loves dance, and she works so hard at it.  She always listens to her teacher and does what she's asked.  It's actually funny, the first time Monica showed me a video of Winry in dance class I said "oh, she didn't want to run around and do the thing with all the other kids?"  And Monica said, "No, none of them are supposed to be running around, they're all supposed to be doing what Winry is doing!"  She is great!

Here is Grayson, sleeping peacefully.  Very peacefully.  How peacefully?  Pre-vaccine peacefully...  Oh, "these were days never to be forgotten; to sit under [Grayson]..."

Oh... Monica took that picture during dance class!  That's why she couldn't move to get less glare in her pictures...  How do I know?  Because here's Winry with her new ornament!!  After each girls winter showcase they got to go to the Christmas tree at E&E and pick an ornament.  We need to make some kind of label or something for them so we don't forget what they're from.

The girls have been loving Legos this past week.  I got down my big box of Legos, and they spent the first two days playing with the bag of mini figures and the bag of stuff from our Lego Christmas advent calendar from a few years ago.  Eventually Brooke found my bag of instruction manuals and asked if we could build something, so we dug through all of the Legos to find all the pieces we needed to make a few sets.  The girls each built their own.  Brooke all on her own, Winry I had to help a few times, and had to push a few pieces together for her too.  Look at that!  Lego masters!  They loved it, and I loved playing with them.  I left them together for a few days before cleaning them up so they could have time to play.  We'll definitely have to get into the box of Legos again soon!

This morning (Sunday morning) I got on Facebook to post the elder's quorum email.  While I was on I saw I had a new friend request or something, so I click on it, and it said I had 101 requests... As you can tell I handle those often.  Anyway, I started scrolling down the page and adding people I knew.  I was reading names to Monica, and a LOT of them were wives in our ward.  People that were Monica's friends, etc.  Anyway, after "confirming" a bunch of them I realized that I was actually in suggested friends, and instead sent a friends request to somewhere around 15 to 20 women in the ward...  Turns out only the first person in that list was a friends request, and then there was a button to see the rest...  Thanks Facebook... thanks.

Here's a picture of the girls during church today.  We've been trying to get back to church like activities while we join our weekly call.  We got a little out of the habit while we didn't have church, and we've been working hard to get back to reverence during church.  They did a good job drawing and being quiet.  Hopefully they were paying attention too.  The sacrament was not so good.  I don't remember what the huge reverence breaker was, but it was quite the distraction.  Maybe Monica will fill it in when she reads over this. (Winry was holding baby Jesus from our nativity- I thought it might help her think of Jesus- but instead she started moving him all around saying Baby Jesus was swimming....it almost  worked)

At lunch time we had sandwiches.  Winry rocked hers while saying "Rock the Charmander, rock the Charmander."  It's from a yoga video (though they're not eating a sandwich in the video... that was just Winry).  I've never seen it, but I've heard the kids say it a bunch before.

Tonight I was holding Grayson, and Monica said it was just too cute not to capture.  Also, something happened while I was holding him and my left wrist is KILLING me right now!  I'll maybe have to tape it again tomorrow or something... we'll see.

Well, Grayson is stirring, because why sleep?  I'd better go so I can be ready for him when he wakes up.  Take care!  Have a wonderful Christmas!  Let's do this again soon!
 

Two-fer Today

Alrighty!  I am two handed tonight, but it is late, and I missed last week, and I'm going to try to keep this quick.  To start off I just have a cute picture of the kids.  Monica took it, so I don't know if there's more to it then that.  Also, I just noticed that Brooke has a phone in her pocket, and it reminded me that sometime in the last two weeks Winry was playing with a toy phone, and shoved it in her pants in the approximate location a pocket would be.  It was pretty great!

Sometime in the past few weeks on Sunday we were talking about Christmas and the symbolism between the things around us that we see all the time and how they relate to Christ.  I asked if anyone could think of how various things like lights, etc. could be symbols of Christ.  I asked about presents and Brooke raised her hand and said "I know!  Presents are like miracles!  And Jesus performed a bunch of miracles!"  SOO cute!

Now that I see this picture better Monica will be thrilled I put it in.  The picture is supposed to be of ever vigilant Jelly helping out with Grayson, so ignore the yawn.  Thanks.

Grayson decided pooping was overrated for a while.  We called the doctor to see when we needed to worry about it, and they also mentioned that you can give a bottle of apple juice to help them poop.  The girls were VERY excited to get to give Grayson a real bottle!  Everyone had to help out.

Brooke and Winry picked out matching outfits, and it was even their overalls!  What cuties.

Here's Winry in her Frozen night gown!  Also just here cause it's cute!

Monica signed up for a kid photo shoot thing.  The plan was just for the kids, but when we got there Santa was still there from the group before!  The girls were so cute when they saw him.  Winry stopped dead, her mouth fell open and she stared.  Brooke ran up and gave Santa a hug.  At that point it didn't seem like there was any harm in letting the girls get a picture with Santa too!  So here they are all together.

Brooke put on her Moana costume this past week and made her scary Maui face!

Last Monday was Brooke's winter showcase at dance class.  They couldn't have everyone there, so instead they did a video call.  It was a lot of fun to watch, and I recorded her special dance that they worked on!

Here's Grayson denying his pacifier.  It's unfortunately a thing he does often.  We've been using an arms up swaddle, and he'll swipe his hand back and forth across his mouth while he's asleep, almost like he wants to wake up and be a grump.

The girls started playing Grinch the last few days.  I don't know if they already knew before, but they found the leash thing that came with a backpack we got for Brooke.  We've never used the leash, but they sure loved it!  Whoever had the backpack on was Max, the Grinch's dog and towed the Grinch along.  They played this for a LONG time, and the only problem with it was that they just kept screaming, and SCREAMING!  It was loud...

Here's Grayson doing tummy time this morning!  What a head lifter he is!

We went and played in the snow today!  We did sledding, and snow balls (I almost hit Brooke in the face twice with a snowball when she'd duck turn around), and snow angles.

I pulled the girls in circles around the yard on the sled to, which is always the favorite.  Brooke even pulled Winry as you can see in the previous picture.

I think that's all I've got for the past two weeks.  I think having a new baby is finally really starting to catch up with me (unless I said that before...) and I'm starting to be a lot more tired in general!  Have a great week!