Seeing Santa Thrice!

What a week!  We're definitely into the Christmas festivities now!  We got to see Santa a handful of times this week.  The first time was at my work's Christmas party.  We had a really great time at the party, and both the girls were very excited to see Santa.  Winry didn't even cry this year!  Though I think she understood she was going to get a present this time.

On Monday, Brooke had her 4 year check-up.  She was SOO excited!  Brooke just loves going to the doctor, and had a wonderful time interacting with the doctor and getting her check up.  She wasn't bouncing around quite as much as when she was sick, but she was still in a super great mood.  She had to get two shots, and she cried a little, but maybe for 30 seconds at the longest, and then was back to being a super champ!

Monica and the girls were originally planning to go to Arizona this week.  However, over the weekend/start of the week Monica's grandma got really sick, and we were pretty sure she was close to the end, so Monica cancelled her trip.  Monica is heading out to California this week for the funeral on Wednesday.  That changed this past weeks plans quite a bit, and instead of being out of town we were able to go to a whole bunch of things.

Wednesday afternoon was my work's family Christmas party.  The kids enjoyed seeing Santa, and got to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted.  Brooke said she wants a yo-yo, and Winry said she wants PEZ.  Then Brooke got a Cinderella wagon from Santa, and Winry got a stuffed Snoopy.

In fact, here's a comparison of their new stuffed animal hugs!!

After dinner we headed over to the craft table for some fun.  Brooke made some gingerbread men and an elf ornament, and Winry put together a jingle bell wreath!  We all had a wonderful time, and I am so grateful for the wonderful Christmas party that work puts together each year!  Thanks SEAKR!

This past week we called in for our final building inspection, and almost passed.  We needed a studor valve under our sink in the bathroom.  I installed it this past week, and the next inspection is scheduled for Wednesday, so hopefully our basement will be done NEXT WEEK!!  I put together a tour of the basement this past week, for those who haven't been here to see it in person.

Friday was Brooke's Winter Showcase at dance class!!  We had a wonderful time, and Brooke does so amazing at dance!  Monica got this really awesome animation from a video she took.  I think at this point all the kids were in a line and following the teacher.  Brooke and I looked through pictures and videos, and Brooke really wanted to put in a video from warm-ups because it was so much fun.

The class also prepares a dance for the Winter Showcase as well.  Brooke did great!  I really love watching their more organized dances.  Per usual, Winry LOVED dance class.  She is so excited to start herself.  She can start in about 7 months, so the start of the next school year!

Currently in Brooke's dance class she does dance, tap, and tumbling.  Here's a good action shot of a donkey kick!  Look at that girl go!

Brooke's dance teacher, Miss Mery, is moving very soon, and this was (probably) her last week at dance class.  After class Brooke gave her a big hug, and Miss Mery even teared up a little!  I'm glad Brooke has such amazing dance teachers!

We got a picture at the E&E backdrop after class, and grabbed some treats too!

On Friday afternoon, while Winry was taking her nap, Brooke and I were playing board games and I introduced her to Mouse Trap.  We didn't actually play the game (does anyone?) we just set up the trap and ran it over and over and over and over!  Brooke was having so much fun.  By the end she learned how to set up all of the parts and was running it all by herself.

This past week, a rather large box came.  What was inside is not the important part, but instead, the fact that Jelly LOVED this box!  She climbed into it all the time while it was out.

However, the box was large enough she had competition.  I caught Winry laying in the box with Snoopy once.  And another time Brooke was laying in there, and Jelly didn't know the box was occupied (we hadn't installed a sign yet...) and hopped right in... on top of Brooke's face...  Brooke started screaming and I ran and got her.  Fortunately Jelly realized what happened when she landed and didn't use her claws at all to get out, but Brooke got very scared.  Everyone was alright, but that was when we knew it was time to collapse the box.

Last week we found out that Brooke got accepted to start preschool in January.  On Friday night, the school was having a Christmas celebration, and so we decided it would be good to go see the school and get a little more familiar before class started.  Out front they had some face cut-out things.

And inside they had a whole bunch of activities.  In the gym they had these slippery shoes you could put on and "ice skate" around the gym floor.  Brooke really enjoyed them while we were waiting to go see Santa.

Mrs. Claus even came and was showing everyone a diorama of the north pole!

And the kids got to see Santa again!  The kids sat on his lap again, and Brooke was consistent with a yo-yo, while Winry asked for "hungry."  At the front of the school there was a fish tank with a big fish in it.  Brooke really liked the fish, and told Monica if she was ever late picking her up Brooke would just come watch the fish.  However, I'm pretty sure the fish is on the opposite side of the school from preschool...

When we finished up at the elementary school, we headed out for Kai's birthday party.  The party was pretty great for little kids with play-doh and special painting pages that only used water!  Brooke and Winry both had a fun time painting, and spent quite a bit of time over there. 

On Saturday we all decorated gingerbread houses!  Brooke did a great job, and was able to do a lot of it on her own.  Brooke did a double chimney and two paths from the house.  All her gumdrops were people that were working on decorating her house!

Winry showed Monica everywhere she wanted to put something, and then Monica would put down frosting for her!  Winry's design really focused in on stacking multiple candies on top of each other.

And here are all the finished houses.  Brookes, Winry's, Mine and Monica's in order left to right.

After dinner we had a sing-along with Winry on Brooke's guitar!  The girls really love music and singing.  They also love a song where you say things like "goo goo goo" and then everyone else repeats you (the song at the start/end) that they heard on T.O.T.S.  The person who sings the song uses a guitar, and so that's usually the default song when it comes out.

Saturday evening was our ward Christmas party!  They had a musical talent show, which was a lot of fun, and some snacks and desserts.  They also had a room of nativities set up in a side room should you choose to adventure that way, and after the party, Santa came!  I guess Brooke was a little Santa'd out because she didn't want to sit on his lap, but Winry hopped right up there and asked for "a sucker!"

At church today, Brooke got to go up to the front and sing some Christmas songs.  That was a really great surprise, and Winry almost went up with her but instead stood in the aisle and stared at Brooke while she sang.  Winry admires Brooke so much, and really wants to be just like her!  It's really cute to see.  And with that, have a fantastic week!

Family Game Night

This past week for our Family Home Evening activity on Monday night, I pulled out some board games!  Winry is getting very interested in games, but we haven't really played anything with her yet.  Winry had SO much fun!  In fact, it was hard to get her to go to bed, and there may have been a few tears when we put the games away.  We promised her we could play them again though, and she was willing to go to sleep for the night.

On Monday morning, Monica looked up the stairs and saw Brooke laying across the stair way like this.  As she was walking up Brooke said something like "Mom, once you get to the top of the stairs, you have to say 'banana pants'. That's the only way you can get past."  True to her word, Monica said "banana pants" and got to go by.

Back to family game night, after we finished a couple games of Yeti in my Spaghetti we pulled out Feed the Kitty!  It was also a hit!  While we were playing, you could definitely tell that Winry was really studying what was going on and trying to figure out the game for herself.

After the kids went to bed, we got a pretty exciting package.  We ordered some cat-nip for Jelly for Christmas, and I just couldn't wait to give her some!  She loved it!  Jelly rolled all over in it, and then started to lick it out of her fur!  Definitely a good buy, and I think she'll be really happy on Christmas morning.

When I was getting ready for bed, I accidentally interrupted Bear on the potty!  Sorry!  As you can see, play knows no bounds in our house.

On Tuesday, Monica took the kids to the museum.  Both the girls had a lot of fun in the play area of the museum, which had all new activities since the last time we'd been there.  There was a place to make cupcakes.

And Winry fell in love with light-brites and played on one for a LONG time.

The main hit for our kids is still the stuffed animals.  For us, the museum is basically the "still zoo."  But really, the museum has like 3 floors of animals, and in total it's probably at least a fourth of the museum.  It's kind of nice though, because it's usually the least crowded area.  They also have fun things at some animals like buttons that play noises, or model animal ears!

Everybody loves ears, right!?  As I understand it, everyone had a wonderful time and was very well behaved.  Though at lunch, Brooke threw some trash away and Winry thought that looked fun, so she asked for something to throw away and then threw away some trash too. When she got back, she was asking for her sandwich, so Monica thought she was actually going to start eating. Nope! As soon as she got her sandwich, she said, "Sandwich, Garbage!" And took off running over to the trash can! Luckily Monica stopped her before she could throw away her whole lunch!

On Thursday night, Winry sang to, and put a stuffed kitty to bed while we were getting the kids ready themselves.

On Friday at dance class, Brooke's class practiced their dance for the Winter Showcase.  Monica was able to get the whole thing, which is great because Monica, Brooke, and Winry are heading to Arizona next week and will be missing the actual Winter Showcase class where we would have seen it.  It's a little sad, but we let Brooke pick, and she said it was more important to "go see her best friend Eden" than to stay for dance class.

Friday night we made pizza for dinner, and one was Thanksgiving leftover pizza.  It was very good.

Brooke put her giant unicorn stuffed animal in her bed a few days ago, and sleeps on it every night.  Or, at least, she starts sleeping semi-propped up on it.  However, quickly in the night she'll roll off of it and it just sorta pushes her out of her bed.  It's always fun to go in and check on her at night because I never know what I'll find.

On Saturday morning, the kids were playing with Brooke's Frozen 2 microphone, and I noticed it had a line in port, so I grabbed a cable to test it out.  Turns out you can play any song into the microphone, which makes sense since it is for karaoke.  Brooke was excited to sing a new song with her microphone instead of just "Into the Unknown."

When we headed up to get ready for the day, Winry climbed into Brooke's bed and looked very pleased with the whole situation.

I also caught Winry looking very grown up and looking at a book on the couch.  Definitely looks like she's just reading some books to herself though!

Saturday night was my work's adult Christmas party.  It was at Wings over the Rockies, which is an aerospace museum.  Monica and I had a lot of fun there, and it's nice that the radiation group is so close knit because we actually had people to talk to all night long!  That was a first for us.  We did spend a little time looking at the exhibits, and I found one of the Apollo computers on display.  That is the flight computer, and all of those wires were attached by hand!  This is also just a fourth of it...  I'm glad we've been able to move on from things like this :).

Here's Monica and I with a plane in the background.  They had some planes that you could sit in, but I guess those all ended at 8, which was in the middle of dinner.  We were in line for one and dinner started right before we got to the front and we figured we'd go eat and just hop in real quick after.  It's a little sad we didn't get to sit in any of the planes, but it wasn't a big deal.  We still had a lot of fun!  I'd say this was also the first time we didn't want it to end when it was time to come home and relieve the baby sitter.

I hope everyone had a wonderful week, and that your Christmas is shaping up to be wonderful!  Have a wonderful week ahead.

Happy Thanks-Giving Machines!

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a great week out here even with the kids being sick.  Also, I just want to note that right now Brooke is "singing" to me, and I have to repeat every line, so who knows how that will affect what I type...  Anyway, this past week most of my family came into town to my brothers house for Thanksgiving.  There were some crazy snow storms that put a stop to some travel plans, and made some other traveling pretty miserable.  But while we were together we were happy!  We even went to the Giving Machines one day with everyone as they have them in Denver this year!

Last Sunday at dinner Winry discovered her love for ketchup!  On Monday morning, she "fell asleep" while eating breakfast!  And that afternoon Brooke was asleep and Winry really wanted to do some yoga all by herself!  From the looks of it I'm pretty good at yoga too!

On Tuesday there was a huge snowstorm and we got about a foot of snow!  I just kept it easy on myself and worked from home for the day.  Here's the storm going in the morning.

I opted to keep my run inside as well.  My treadmill setup is pretty good, so I typically do most of my running in the winter inside.  However, Jelly didn't want to give up her own turn on the treadmill...  So I had to wait in line.

Monica took the opportunity of being trapped inside to do some cleaning, and Brooke was thrilled to help.  She even cleaned all of the windows by herself!

While were were all trapped inside, Brooke worked on her karaoke with her new microphone she got for her birthday and was singing the new song from Frozen 2.  You can also hear Winry's very hoarse voice.  At this point both girls were quite sick, and Winry had called Gram on the phone and had to keep singing songs.  There was no stopping her, and she just kept sounding worse and worse.

Winry woke up at like 4 in the morning on Wednesday, and I was not ready for that.  She was having a rough morning, so we turned on T.O.T.S. which is her and Brooke's current favorite show.  When Brooke woke up she joined us on the couch, and I woke up every 20 minutes or so to start the next episode.

The next morning both of the girls were pretty sick and coughing a whole bunch in the morning, so we took them to the doctor.  Winry had croup, which wasn't too surprising based off how she sounded, so she got medicine.  While at the doctor all of the misery of the morning was forgotten and the girls had a wonderful time and were talking to the doctor and dancing and just had a wonderful time.  Fortunately they both coughed many times, so the doctor was able to believe us.

We stopped for bagels for a late morning snack afterward since the girls were so good.  They had a little coloring corner at the restaurant where the girls sat while we waited.

We were all supposed to go join my family at the butterfly pavilion at 11, but with Winry being as sick as she was, she and Monica stayed home, and I took Brooke.  We had a fun time and saw some pretty cool looking butterflies, like these blue ones (only one has it's wings open).  Also, look at all the snow!

Brooke was really excited by the pill bugs in the Colorado Backyard exhibit.

And we got a picture of Brooke and her unicorn at the butterfly cutouts when we left.  We ended up getting there late with all of our doctor shenanigans in the morning, and so we saw the rest of my family as they were finishing up, and then enjoyed our turn exploring the facility.

Brooke also got a really good picture of me and unicorn "pretending to be butterflies."

After we finished we headed to Tyson and Tina's for lunch, and to pick up my sister Niki once she arrived.  She was supposed to have a flight the day before, but it was cancelled because of the storm.  She came back with Brooke and I so that she could run the Parker Thanksgiving 5k with us the following day.  It was pretty cold, but we all bundled up and were ready! Monica ended up not running because Winry wasn't doing to well that morning, so she stayed home with her. Winry ended up taking her nap at 7:45 that morning instead of the normal 12:30...so good thing they stayed home!

She also got a picture of Brooke and I as we were preparing to get started.  Also, I attached my camera to the stroller and got a time-lapse of the race.  Unfortunately, I turned the camera down a little during the race, and it made the video much worse until I turned it back up.  Lesson learned for next time.

After the 5k we cleaned up, loaded up the car and headed back to Tyson and Tina's house for Thanksgiving dinner!  It was a lot of fun to all be together, and things weren't as crazy as you'd think they'd be for having about 30 people there.  There was even enough calm for naps in the middle of the room.

After lunch/dinner we just stayed and all hung out together for the rest of the day.  Winry got... cuddly, I guess is the best word, at some point during the day and rubbed her face all over Monica's foot.

Later in the evening we went out for a little Black Friday shopping.  I must admit, it was pretty tame.  I think that a lot of deals got pushed online this year, and I know Monica got a bunch of emails in the morning saying things like "black Friday starts now, online only!"  It seems like a lot of people probably did their shopping earlier in the day online, so the craziness was at a minimum.

On Friday morning we met downtown at the Giving Machine!  We let the kids pick a couple things that they wanted to get from it, and then went to smash burger across the street for lunch.  It was a lot of fun.  I think it's a little more interesting to get to see/know exactly what your donation is doing as well.  The Giving Machine here in Denver is located at Writer Square, and you can find more information about all of the Giving Machines here.

On Friday evening we were going to go to the Parker town tree lighting, but on the way Winry had a really bad coughing spell and was almost throwing up in the car, so we had to pull over and take care of her and missed it.  That's okay though, we'll go down and see the trees some other time in the next week or so.  We were planning to get a Christmas tree after, and once we got Winry back under control we all headed out to get a tree.  King Soopers had trees 20% off for the weekend, so it was now or more expensive later.  Here we are in Luna with a tree tied to the roof!  I guess putting a tree on a Corolla is getting to be common, because I forgot to take a picture of the tree on the car.

However, we did get a special branch, and so I did take a picture of that.  Monica said it "wasn't distracting" so it was fine.

An hour or so later, our tree was decorated!

Friday night after the kids went to bed, Monica ran out to Costco to check on the sales.  Good news, there was a lot of chocolate on sale, and it tastes very good!  It wasn't snowing at all when she left for Costco, but by the time she came out half an hour later, the snow had decided to start dumping! 

On Saturday I was asked to decorate the outside of the house, however, as you can see the rain gutters were a little bit icy.  This was a more interesting picture than the gutter up high, but those were full of ice so I couldn't get the clips in to hang the lights.

Brooke and I did put up our big ornaments on the tree outside.  We only have one tree in the front now, so it got all of the ornaments.

We had my family down for dinner that night to show off our basement.  We had 14 people over!  Dinner went great, and then my sisters and mom showed us picture form their recent trip to Antarctica!  To steal a joke from T.O.T.S., it was SNOW cool to see all of their pictures!

We all had a great time together, or at least I had a great time while everyone was here.  We even had a group macarena with the flamingo!  After people headed back home Winry wrapped up a kitty in the blanket and sang to it to get it to sleep!  The best part is definitely that the blanket basically completely missed the kitty, and that she's holding it up by it's head!  Winry also loves to play with hair clips, and like to open and close them over and over.

Today we headed up to church with Tyson and Tina's family because Tyson got called as the bishop!  While we were driving up Winry kept saying "I want Megan!"  She was very excited to get to play with her cousin once we got to church, and spent most of sacrament meeting sitting on her lap.

We had a wonderful week out here with family.  I'm glad that everyone who traveled was able to do so safely, and I hope that everyone heading home today will be able to make it safely as well.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!

P.S. I wrote this whole thing on Sunday, but when I gave my computer to Monica to proof-read it my computer died... so we're a day late.