Lunar Eclipse

We woke our older kids up on Dec. 21 around 2:30AM to see the lunar eclipse. It was COLD so we bundled them up with coats and hats and a few blankets and then B carried them outside so they could see it. It was just starting but I didn't want to wake them up at 5 when it would reach totality and have them unable to fall back to sleep. I snapped a picture of Princess Sparkley but forgot to get one of Buddy.

Santa at the Church

Our ward had a Christmas breakfast/brunch Saturday morning complete with a visit from Santa (and then ending on a more spiritual note with a nativity play and Christmas songs). The girl in the picture is Princess Sparkley's friend... you might recognize her from PS's party this summer. She wanted PS in her picture and Buddy refused to be in a picture on his own. That's how all three ended up with Santa.

When Santa was announced, the kids all ran to get in line. Once Little Guy figured out what the line was about, he decided he definitely didn't want to be there. A bit later he discovered that Santa was handing out candy canes and he talked Daddy into getting back in line with him. Then he wasn't so sure again. After he finished his candy cane he told me he wanted to go see Santa again (for another candy cane).

County Trip

B's goal for the past several years is to get 100 new counties a year. (He collects counties like some people do states.) The last couple of years he hasn't reached this goal. He hit 100 new counties for 2010 on Friday with a long road trip into Pennsylvania. New county totals: B=12, N=18, the kids=19.





We stopped at Gettysburg and saw the free parts of the museum (bathrooms, gift shop, statue outside). We talked about the kids' great great great great grandpa (John S.) who fought in the civil war, lying about his age to become a soldier at 16.
[Corrections from Grandpa M: Very cool stuff here. John S. was in the infantry for 6 months, got out in May 1863 and rejoined in late July 1863 for the remainder of the war (in a cavalry unit). He missed Gettysburg.]


We stopped in Dillsburg, PA to see B's Great Grandparents' grave. (Isn't it fun that someone who loves the Simpsons as much as B descends from people named Homer and Margaret?) It is a little creepy to see your own last name on a gravestone though.


We stopped and saw their old home (that B last visited when he was 4 years old).




We saw the State Capitol in Harrisburg.


We stopped at the Washington DC LDS Temple to see the nativity displays, Christmas trees, and lights. The trip took longer than expected so we missed the musical performance, but we still got to enjoy the lights and everything else.

Noodles

Buddy requests Top Ramen for lunch whenever he gets the chance. They crack me up when they eat it.

Kids with the Camera

The kids get a hold of the camera and I have no idea what I'll discover.

Princess Sparkley took pictures of us putting the first load of family presents under the tree.

Then they built some stuff with Legoes. Mostly tall towers (during which, Princess Sparkley figured out how to use the self-timer! She's 8! Some adults can't figure that out). PS also built a rose out of Legoes and Buddy built a Shake Weight (B takes them in the As Seen on TV store at the mall too often).

And Buddy documented some train track layouts he made and was being forced to clean up.

Reading books together. Little Guy usually shows up with a stack of several books when it's time to read books with Daddy.





(And a peek at my new bedding, although the green isn't right in the picture.)

Santa

Our apartment complex's management had a "party" today with Santa. The kids were super excited... until we got there. Little Guy refused to pose with Santa but luckily the big kids did after I pressured Buddy into going up with Princess Sparkley.

Christmas Decorating

We put our decorations up this year BEFORE Thanksgiving. I know, I've lost it. But I knew I was having book club at my house on December 2 and I knew we were getting back from Thanksgiving in Ohio on November 29th, late... so we decorated early.



Top and bottom left, my new tree skirt.
Then I've gone bunting crazy. There's some hanging in the entry way to the dining room, there's a littler one on the screen door, and there's a short one on the bookshelf. I made my countdown blocks at Super Saturday. I wish I'd make a huge variety of holiday ones since my kids always want to countdown everything and they were really easy.

Tree Skirt

I decided this year we needed a real Christmas tree skirt. Not a bunched up fancy place mat or scrap of fabric. So, with the help of this, I created my own version:




The two smaller pictures on the bottom right are different stages of creation.

Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the other side. I used a cute green flannel with tiny trees in little red and green wreaths so if I want, it's reversible.

Random Cell Phone Shots

The big kids were at the table trying to do schoolwork and I hear this persistent: "[Princess Sparkley] come pull your baby," over and over again from the other room. Little Guy in a basket on wheels is what I found.

Buddy, or possibly a small UPS man dancing on the Christmas aisle at Walmart with a dancing Christmas tree hat on his head. These hats are hilarious. You should check them out.

Little Guy playing with all of Grandma M's Hallmark singing stuffed animal ... things at Grandma's over Thanksgiving. I wish I'd had my camera and not my cell phone. He was being so cute and kept moving all three to one table and making them play all their songs at one time.

I'm one of those parents who lets her kids use the escalator in the mall unattended. They have to be very careful and it isn't all the time. We just ALWAYS have a stroller and the escalator is their favorite part. Plus they don't goof around. They are equally scared and excited about escalators.

The fancy car is a bail bond car. Princess Sparkley commented on how Buddy would be sad he didn't see it so I took a picture out the front window.

The sign post and no parking sign have cocoons on them. One of the kids noticed them so I took a picture so they could all see them up close. It looks like little bundles of twigs. They've been there a couple months now.

Christmas Parade

I wrote the Christmas Parade on the calendar very lightly in pencil so if I remembered and wanted to take the kids, we could go, but they wouldn't demand it or expect it. Saturday morning about 10:45 I remembered the parade. It started at 10. We hurried and bundled up and drove over to the end of the route figuring we could still see something. It wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected (basing everything on how many people went to see fireworks on the 4th of July) so we parked downtown and walked over to the main part of the parade route and stood behind people in chairs for awhile. After maybe half an hour my arm was tired of holding Little Guy up and there was a curb opening across the street and down a bit, so we waited for a pause in the parade and ran over. But with all the hustle of getting out the door, we didn't have the camera. Only my cell phone camera, which I think is 3.1 megapixels or something. So... one of the best pictures of all three kids looking at the camera and smiling I may have taken this year, and it's on a inferior camera. Oh well.



I took a bunch of other pictures as well just so we could come home and show B the kids' favorites. Here they are:


Princess Sparkley enjoyed the dancers, bands and Girl Scout troops.
Buddy enjoyed the types of trucks, cars and tractors as well as the bands.
Little Guy loved the "forseys" (horseys) and the jeeps decorated with eye balls, etc. One looked like Mater (I didn't get a picture).
The blurry dump truck is painted pink for breast cancer awareness. The boys are all about dump trucks but I thought PS might pick this one as her favorite dump truck.
And the parade of course ended with Santa and Mrs. Santa. Although every time I say that, Buddy cracks up and insists that they are Santa and Mrs. Claus. I suppose he's right.

And because this is what my kids do... they came home and played parade. Princess Sparkley put on a parade outfit. They made a banner. Blurry Little Guy (still couldn't find my camera) is in front as either a dog (which there were in the parade) or a horse.

Little Guy is a Rock Star

I discovered Little Guy and Buddy being a rock band the other day. The bat is his guitar.

Here he is in action:

Thanksgiving Break: Going Home

Yea! California! Oh, it's California, PENNSYLVANIA.
(Great Grandma M went to college here to become a teacher in the late 1920s/early 1930s)


The whole Ohio trip our kids were hoping for snow. I was not. Then Princess Sparkley decided maybe there would be snow at the high point in Pennsylvania. We didn't think so. But there was!


Highest Point in Pennsylvania: Mount Davis (3213 feet)

A deer hunter stopped us as we parked the car to ask if we were heading up to the observation tower. Then told us we were going to freeze. B told him how we froze at West Virginia's high point the week before and he asked how high West Virginia's high point was. Then said WV had them (Pennsylvania) beat. Sort of a fun competition.


It was cold. The "hike" was little. Little Guy didn't want to raise his arms (hence the two pictures). The plaque behind us says it's the highest point. You can see the observation tower in the background.


We hiked to the top of the tower. Our kids were a little nervous but very brave. And for once, all of us our looking at the camera (perhaps just to see if the wind was going to blow it over).


After climbing down, B saw a US Geological Survey marker on a large boulder and had his picture taken standing on it. Since he was climbing, Little Guy was climbing too. The picture of the kids with their hands in the air is on the neighboring boulder.


[Keep in mind that you can see these collages larger if you click on them.]

Thanksgiving Break: at Grandparents'

What was going to be just our family of five, B's parents and B's little brother with his wife and new baby, turned into a family reunion with all 23 Ms present.

The kids had a great time with their cousins. I saw Buddy for about ten minutes each day. Usually for a food request, or because he needed to use a bathroom and they were all occupied. He was in the basement playing the Wii or in the "Lego Room" building Lego creations.

Little Guy got along great in the Lego room, or hanging out with his cousin Danny, just 6 months older than him.

Princess Sparkley was in heaven with her two girl cousins and getting to hold the newest girl cousin, 4 month old Amy.

We over packed on shoes and socks because we barely left Grandma's house. B went and played football with Grandpa's ward Thanksgiving morning and went on a 10 county solo trip to Indiana on Black Friday. When he got back, he and I hit a few stores. And we went to church on Sunday. That's about it for leaving the house. Otherwise we played games, played Rockband, chatted and ate.


Grandma/Grandpa and their 13 grandkids.
B and M family. H and G family. B and N family. Not pictured: B and L family.

Thanksgiving Break: Going

After traveling to B's parents' in Ohio last January and dealing with cold and snowy driving, we decided this year we'd make our holiday trip to Ohio in November, hoping to miss that. And we did. No snow. Yea.

B skipped his Tuesday night class and we left Tuesday morning around lunchtime. Because it's B... we of course picked up counties on the way**. 10 of them. (12 for Little Guy.) And we got a new highest point**: West Virginia's Spruce Knob (4,863 feet), the tallest mountain in the Alleghenies.


After winding up and around this mountain road past deer hunter after deer hunter, we finally made it to the top. And it was windy and COLD.


Here's the lookout tower.


Here we all are celebrating on top of the lookout tower. And freezing. And almost being blown off.


Since there was no clear marker for where the high point was, at least that we could find, we also took our celebratory pictures with the sign.

We listened to every Weezer album on our drive starting with the Blue Album and ending with Raditude. (We got to our hotel before we could listen to Hurley, and their two newest albums (released in November) are only on our cell phones). B gave them the behind the scenes info on the band (like how there is a big space between the Blue Album and Pinkerton because Rivers (the lead singer) had surgery to lengthen one of his legs).



We stopped for the night in Bridgeport, WV. Little Guy got to sleep on a chair.


*B keeps track of how many counties he's been to.
**And now we are trying to go to the highest point in each state.