Big Babies

Christmas was only 4 days ago and to look at our home you would have never guessed. We usually like to keep our tree up until New Years, but with Locke eating branches and ornaments we were ready to get rid of it.

Izzy announced that she would like to give karate a try (still into the "all things Japanese"). So Ty and I are looking for a decent place to send her. She said, "I promise I will never use my karate power for anything bad... or even evil". With a promise like that who can say no?

I asked Izzy to make our grocery list. This is what she came up with :)

Locke has dropped his naps down to one a day which is bittersweet. It's nice that I don't have to schedule "outings" around his two naps, but it was also nice to have him down for two just so I could get a little more done (dishes, sewing, etc) sans baby. He likes to climb in the dishwasher so I don't do them when he is awake. 

After struggling to knock the fan over Locke fell asleep on the floor.

 Little HQ is completely anti diaper now. She is actually offended when she sees one. I pulled one out for Locke and she took it out of my hand and put it back in the box and said, "No, Hahee (what she calles herself) pee in potty". I explained it was for Locke. She thought that was just fine. My babies are so big!

My kids are so lazy.

Well, Ty and I are fighting off a cold, so we hope to take it easy and get rid of them quick. We have a very exciting vacation (which was a Christmas gift!!) coming up for just the two of us :D It will be the first one since our honeymoon! 

Log onto WoW

Christmas morning the kids did not fail at waking up nice and early (which was still sleeping in for Ty).  They quickly made their way downstairs and straight towards any sugar. Izzy knows Santa isn't real, but we still fill stockings and put one gift out "from Santa". I suppose that's more for our benefit... 

Looking through stockings and Santa goodies.

We each opened up one gift and then made some cinnamon rolls before opening the rest. Locke took 3 steps today! He was heading for Izzy's cinnamon rolls. HQ used the potty like a pro. They sure know how to give good gifts. :D 

Ty made me a puzzle.

Which led me to my gift. :D

Locke checking out one of his gifts.

Izzy's Vikings' pillow pet got the best reaction out of all her gifts.

 After we finished opening presents I had Izzy give my parents a call to wish them a Merry Christmas. My mom was so short and cold with her on the phone that Izzy said, "I guess Gramma IS mad at me too" and quit asking about going over there. It bummed me out, but I suppose it made it easier for her.

Enjoying some hot pink hot chocolate!

Scarlett got a hat to match Izzy's!

Izzy got picked up around lunch time by SD to go celebrate a 4th time! She made him a tin of cookies and hot coco. She was quite proud of it. She did almost everything by herself. Even the measuring! ... and dough testing. :) 

For Christmas dinner Ty found a recipe he wanted me to try. It was a Sam Adams Winter Ale chicken recipe. It was really good and was made up of a lot of stuff we liked, but it wasn't fantastic enough to be a Christmas tradition dinner. HQ just ate all the shiitake mushrooms and carrots out of it.

After dinner we enjoyed some Christmas cartoons, goodies, and games. All and all we really liked having a "quiet" Christmas at home.

Watching Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.

Very scared of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Christmas Eve

2nd day of our Christmas celebrating. Today the kids and I baked and cleaned the remnants from last nights' gift opening.

Izzy's wrapping handy work!

Toys!

Izzy and Scarlett both sporting Christmas gifts from G&G Orpi.

In the late afternoon my oldest brother came by and dropped off a couple gifts for all of us. It was nice to see him :D Just like with my other brother and sister yesterday HQ also wanted to show him the movie, My Neighbor Totoro. What is it with that movie?

Part of our tradition is that the kids get to pick out one gift to open on Christmas Eve. Both the girls grabbed gifts from Izzy's Grammy (she used the shinyest paper). They loved their gifts, but immediately after opening gift one HQ wanted to continue, fortunately we were able to distract her.

Their Christmas Eve gifts.

 Today we went to celebrate with Ty's Dad and step family. We really enjoyed ourselves. They have a 13 course traditional polish dinner. It's quite delicious and has already become tradition for me since we have done it the last 4 years.

After dinner Locke Plays Ty's head like it were a bongo drum.

The kids got a bunch more stuff including a Beatrix Potter boxed book set for HQ (I'm really excited about that!) and a sturdy kid's digital camera for Izzy
.

More presents!

Ty and I watched Blue's Brother's as we played Santa tonight. I think we ate too many cookies... Why I don't just store them in the freezer and eat them at a later time I don't know.

Santa was here...

Well I think it's time for bed. I'm sure the kids will be up plenty early! Merry Christmas!

Spoiled Kids

Day one of our three days of Christmas!

This afternoon my brother and sister came by to play "Santa Claus and his elf" by dropping some toys off for the kids. They were all ecstatic to see them. It's been a while! My brother and sister aren't "allowed" to come over very often since my mom is mad at me, so it was quite a treat for the kids. Izzy wanted to show them EVERYTHING while HQ just wanted to show them the movie, "My Neighbor Totoro". My sister wanted to take them all with her! :)

HQ wants to drive to G&G Orpi's

We spent tonight with The Orpi's (Ty's mom's side). We had a great dinner, exchanged gifts (I got a much needed new set of very nice knives WOO!), of course the kids made off like bandits with gifts, and the little cousins got to play together. What a fun time. :)

In their matching shirts.

Cousins :D

Locke wants the microscope!

Ty got up for work at 4am today. Immediately after work (around 4pm) we left for his Mom's and stayed there until 9. He was also supposed to go to a bachelor party tonight, but he knew he just wouldn't make it. Especially since one of the guys stressed it was going to be a long night. Is it wrong that I am bummed he didn't make it?

Our kids are getting spoiled this year!

We have received so many gifts and packages for the kids this year it's crazy! Even Izzy's Grammy (my ex's mother) got gifts for all the kids. I am surprised, but what an awesome little blessing! What makes me feel awful is we shipped out ZERO. We actually don't usually send out a whole lot of gifts with being pretty not rich and all, but there are the few we exchange with families similar to ours every year (usually handmade stuff). Yay for New Years gifts?

HQ Likes Cookies

We've been a little busy around here. Between homework, making Christmas presents, and visiting friends it feels like we've been moving nonstop. It's made the last week just FLY by. I don't like that! Especially this time of year. I want to take my time with it and enjoy the smells, the weather, the sights, and the company.

Bumbo head!!!

This shirt he's in makes me laugh.

I can still have long hair even when I have short hair.

Hmm.. which Cheerios should I eat?

 Over the weekend we got a last minute invite to spend the night with some friends at their house. Their big beautiful house... not jealous. :P They specifically asked us to bring our kiddos along. We don't get to see them often because they live farther away than we'd like. We had a lot of fun! Well, Ty fell asleep around 8ish... but the kids and I had fun :D Although I'm pretty sure HQ stole some of their toilet paper. Izzy has asked for the last couple of nights, "Can we sleep at Jessica and Hercules' house again?" (Hercules is an adorable little dog).

He says, "Mmmm Christmas cookies!!!" HQ likes cookies...

So for the last couple of months I have been drooling over a specific shelving unit that I wanted so badly for my fabric and sewing stuff. I don't have a separate sewing room so my stuff just ends up all over the place. It makes looking for something specific very hard and it means I usually have to choose between having a clean bedroom or being able to sew. It also means having to rewash and iron fabrics more than once... which stinks. 

Fabric is taking over!

On my sewing desk

Next to my sewing desk...

And in random not so pretty boxes.

Anyway, we just didn't have the budget for it. A couple weeks ago Ty asked me what I would like for Christmas and I told him this shelving unit. I think he was hoping for something a little more romantic/personal, but having a tidy bedroom and sewing space is romantic! :D I looked up the price new and realized it was just still too much to ask for even as a Christmas gift. Two weeks ago I noticed that it was sold out everywhere and still is. So everyday I checked Craigslist. Everyday a minimum of twice a day. So many people were selling it for more, just as much, or $10 to $20 less than purchasing it new... it was frustrating, but I suppose since they are sold out you can ask for more. I would find one within our budget and call within hours of it being posted and was told they had already sold it. Last night another one went up. I got to say I was excited, but really wasn't expecting a call back. Already long story made a little shorter we got one and for less than half the price! Yay!

I was having so much fun organizing this thing!  

It still looks like no Christmas for us at my parents' this year, so we have been trying to think of a new way to celebrate. All we know so far is that I am making french toast and chocolate pie. I guess that's enough!

Crayon Maker

Today was back to normal. Ty worked and the kids and our did our thing. We did our homework, we played, we did "art", and we made a couple Christmas presents. 

Under our tree was pretty empty. Sadly empty for a family of five so Izzy and I wanted to change that. While HQ napped Izzy made her some crayons using up our broken ones and melting them into HQ's (and Izzy's) favorite shape, hearts. Izzy got creative with each heart. She didn't want to just have plain colors so she made them themed. There is a Christmas heart where she used red, green, and yellow, a Vikings heart with purple and yellow, a ghost heart with black and grey, a Halloween heart using purple, orange, and black.. you get the idea. She was pretty proud of them. 

Making Crayons

How they came out.

Attack!!

Trying on her Christmas dress.

I finally gave the P90X a try. I really liked it! HQ was awake with me the last half and doing her "push ups" on the floor right next to me. It was pretty cute. It was given to me a few months back and I just wasn't able to make the time, but with the kids napping and sleeping regularly now it may be easier to get up earlier than them and get it done. I really hope I can keep it up. I want to feel like I own my body again!

Well, back to Santa's workshop. :) 

Monstrous Little Jacket

 Today was a good day. Ty had it off and allowed me to spend a good chunk of the day sewing. I was able to do the finishing touches on Locke's Christmas shirt, let out the dress I made HQ last year that went unworn, and I also made one jacket for HQ and I am currently working on another one since the first one was a disaster!

Locke's completed shirt. The buttons are made from actual coconuts!
Ty's excited for me to finish his.

HQ's dress with the monstrous little jacket. It looks like it was made from Elmo's grandma's fur or perhaps even a yeti...
 This is what happens when you let your 2 year old pick the material. It doesn't look half as bad here as it does on! But HQ being the odd ball she is loves it. I am hoping I can get her to love the new one.

Found this for $2.75! 

Working on a new jacket for HQ with my favorite pin cushion. The girls like to wear it and help me sew :) 

The kids were all happy to have Dad home for the day and played with him like it was going to be illegal to do so tomorrow. Poor Locke is going through some teething again, and he made sure he let us know he wasn't happy about it. Poor little guy.

Well, I have a jacket to finish!

Yummy Smells

Every year my mother (for lack of a better term) goes crazy. It usually happens sometime mid January/mid February and lasts for a few weeks and includes, but is not limited to, completely disowning me and the kids. We can usually tell when it's about to happen because she will make really bizarre comments. I will spare you the details as I don't want to gossip. Anyway it came early this year and is more serious to me this time around, but I haven't spoken to her in a week. Oh, family! 

Who's kid is this?

One of my favorite things in the whole world is watching Ty play with our kids. He's so creative and fun with them. Izzy and Ty are always cracking each other up with their silly scenarios. HQ and Locke always think he's funny. He's always the bad guy. Izzy's reasoning is that he has the best bad guy laugh and she's a girl and girls can't be "bad guys". Makes sense. Plus, any chance the kids have to play with a 6'6 human jungle gym they take!

This is how Ty plays with the kids. Yes, yes that is a bumbo on his head and a pink Hello Kitty in his shirt.
What you can't see are the stuffed birds he swinging around like nunchucks.

Locke thinks his dad is hilarious :) 

 Although we were babysitter-less we still were able to sneak in a date this weekend. After the kids went to bed a little early we made a heathy romantic dinner and opened a bottle of our "finest" wine ($4 a bottle is as fine as we ever get).

A romantic dinner date at home with Ty and some Trader Joes $4 wine. 

Today was cold and rainy. YES! But Ty was gone from 5am to 5pm :( Ty spent most of his day driving in the rain (in his heater and music free car) so I wanted to make sure he had a cozy home to come back to after a long day, so HQ and I decided to make some warm aromatic foods.

She's so goofy :) 

This is why our tree ends up being top heavy with ornaments. . .

Since it was cold and rainy I wanted to warm the house up with yummy smells. So HQ and I roasted a chicken for dinner.

 Tonight Izzy came home from SD's. Our family was whole again. Locke and HQ were obviously just as happy as I was to have her home. HQ patted a seat next to her to get Izzy to sit down. They both sat and giggled together on the couch for a few minutes before dinner. This made me all the more excited to watch them grow up together!

We noticed this one out of place house so we made a u-turn to check it out.  The lights are in-sync with a Christmas music playing radio station! They all blink with the beat etc. It was crazy! They were Christmas songs we had never heard too. So we also learned something.

Simply Having Wonderful Christmas Time

Every year Ty and I usually get those advent calendars that has the chocolate inside. Ty buys one for me, one for Iz and one for himself. I don't like the chocolate it come with and Izzy doesn't like the chocolate it comes with, so this year we decided to make our own advent chains instead. We gave it a $20 budget between the kids and made sure it was all stuff they liked and would be useful. We wrapped up things like mini cereal boxes, stickers, dental floss (my kids love to floss), a few candies, play doh, lip gloss, etc. So far the kids love it! HQ finally caught on that it was an everyday occurrence and will now wait next to her advent chain when she gets up. The only thing I would do differently next year is if we decide to do any sweets again that we have them open those on the same day. Like today, Izzy opened dental floss while HQ got a couple kisses, and a couple days ago Izzy got a fun size m&m's while HQ got toothpaste... It evens out, but for a kid I think that would kind of stink. 

Crappy Pic of one advent gift chain.

Determined to get her gift open with no help.

"What is this?"

Izzy has been in love with Japan after discovering that Hello Kitty, Pokemon, Miso soup, her favorite erasers, her favorite squid, and sushi are all Japanese. When she learned of the tsunami it caused her heart to grow even fonder of Japan. She also loves the language and is looking forward to learning it. However she decided she'd like to wait before taking a trip there now (with tsunamis being so scary and all).

Practicing eating with chop sticks. 

We decided to take the kids out for a little drive tonight. We brought some soup and sandwiches with us and went to check out Sleepy Hollow (a neighborhood in Redondo Beach that gets all decked out for Christmas). Almost every house is decorated to the max. They have bike rides and sell coco, cookies, and cupcakes. We made sure we played Christmas music (fortunately the song, Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney never came on. Bleh! I love you Paul, but really?)The kids loved it. HQ yelled, "Aww CUTE!" at almost every house an was exceptionally happy when she saw penguins or Elmo. Locke fell asleep about two houses into our tour. He wasn't very impressed.

Waiting for Ty in the car, Locke attacks the air freshener. 

The surfboard toting ginger bread people were my favorite :D

The kids are in bed and Ty and I are going to enjoy a movie. He's worked the last 9 days straight and has tomorrow off. I am SO excited he gets to sleep in and actually see his kids. We've all missed him :)