Day 2: Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always the longest day on earth with kids. Plus, it was really cold outside, so we couldn't stay outside for long.  They managed to make do.

We were thrilled when it started snowing that evening! We would have a white Christmas!

We finally got everyone to bed.

And then Santa came!

Ooh, the anticipation!

Day 1: Drive to Ohio

On Saturday we loaded up the van and drove to Ohio for our Christmas visit. It's so nice now because we don't have to bring any special baby-items anymore. Just tons of clothes, shoes, presents (hidden in that giant brown box), some books, a few toys, and tons of snacks and water bottles. Easy-peasy.

Our first rest stop.

Another rest stop where I used my Starbucks gift cards that I get from students to splurge on cake-pops for the kids.

All in all, the trip was fairly painless. I gave Alice a Dramamine to help stave off the car-sickness while she played on the iPad most of the time. Simon was pretty content just looking out the window most of the time. Other than the rain and fog through the mountains, it was a very easy trip. No one cried. I set a timer on my phone and gave the kids gummy worms every hour they went without whining.

We arrived in Ashville in time for a late supper with some cupcakes for dessert.

Solstice Celebration

This year, we decided to bring back our family solstice celebration. We started this way back as a way to have our own little holiday celebration at home before heading to Ohio for Christmas. (Last year we were on the verge of moving and in that chaos, we neglected this important holiday.)

It's fun to think about building family traditions, except neither of us are very sentimental or apt to put much effort into these sorts of things.

So this year's festivities included:

1. Taking a picture of Simon's Winter Solstice Silhouette in the morning.



2. Getting the candlesticks out of the attic so we could have a candlelit pizza dinner.



3. Having Alice's bizarre gingerbread house (graham crackers frostinged onto a milk carton) for dessert.



4. Letting the kids open two presents each (as a way to take slightly fewer presents to Ohio and back).

Simon's art

Simon on the way to school

When he's not freaking out and having a meltdown, Simon sure is smiley!

Simon's castle

This was our morning Simon surprise today. Simon had, at some point in the night or early morning, come down and built a castle in the living room. He was very proud of it.

Bednight snack

Once a week (usually Saturday night) Alice gets to have Parker stay for bednight snack and they watch My Little Pony together.

Simon loves climbing rocks

I took the kids to Durham this morning, and they had a blast, as they do everytime. What's so fun is there are so many things to do there that every times we focus on something different. Today we looked in the space room for a while, and Simon was flabbergasted to learn that astronauts wore diapers (Alice decided she didn't want to be an astronaut anymore).  Then we played at the tree houses for a long time. But we always have to go over to the dinosaur area where Simon enjoys climbing on the rock wall.

Decorations

Simon loves decorating and redecorates his little tree and the big tree frequently.  Here, his little tree is adorned with a shoelace, a broken plastic necklace, and some star twine he ripped off of Alice's magic wand from her art summer camp.

He also adds things to the main tree. Here are some plastic shrinky-dink bugs (not yet shrunk) that he got from his daycare gift exchange, along with pipe cleaners and a broken necklace (the same one? other half?)

Inside the lines

This is a huge improvement for Simon. First of all, he actually colored it. Secondly, most of the coloring is inside the lines. This little guy just might be ready for kindergarten in 8 months after all.

He's been learning about continents at school, which he pronounces "contiments" which I find hilarious because it's like they're made of ketchup and mustard, maybe some pickle relish.

He's also very confused about them, and asks lots of questions, like, "How is there a roof over the contiments?" and "Why don't we fall off?"

More of Alice's poor choices

I love these forms because they force her to confess her crimes.

(This one is supposed to be on the "I can think about my choices form" but they were all out of them at the moment.)

"I said to my friends, 'Scratch my butt' on purpose. Next time I will not say, 'Scratch my butt."  Alice explained to me that she only meant for her friend to scratch her butt with her shoe, not her hand. I had my hundredth conversation with Alice about what is appropriate behavior regarding private parts and potty words.

*****

"I was drawing instead of doing math."
"To not draw instead of math."

Pennies and benches

I took the kids to Marbles this morning. Alice had to foresight to bring a bunch of pennies to put into the penny funnel.

Simon spent a long time in the building area and was thrilled to build himself his own snack bench.

Chicken Divan

We tried a new recipe this week: Chicken Divan. It tasted great to us, but was not a hit with the kids. They hated it.

Alice's Parent-Teacher conference

We had our conference with Alice's teacher finally. Her teacher, Ms. Jones, is fairly young (teaching for 5 or 6 years) and seems to be really great at understanding Alice. We've been very lucky so far that Alice's teachers at least appear to understand how to work with her strengths and reign her in when necessary.

At the conference, she didn't really tell us anything surprising about Alice. Alice struggles to stay on task sometimes, but responds well to the clip chart.

She did tell us a funny anecdote about Alice trying to sell her artwork to her fellow students for Dillard Dollars (the fake-money reward system they use). She if she ends up being an entrepreneur, this is where it started.

Simon in the mornings

Simon still has his sleep weirdness where he doesn't like to stay in bed at night. Zac will  sometimes find Simon asleep in random places in the morning. One morning he was asleep with his blanket in the time-out spot.

Another morning, Zac discovered that all the ornaments had been removed from one side of the tree....

...and hung on the very bottom.

Simon was asleep in the kitchen.

Another morning, he was not asleep anywhere, but had started his own painting project.

If only he could be this self-sufficient when we're awake!

Ballons

Zac brought home the balloon decorations from his work holiday party and turned the guest bedroom into a temporary balloon party room for the kids.

Terrifying

Alice finally dared to try the wax lips from the Halloween candy.

Working

Boy with branch, girl with feather

Zac took the kids to Bond Park this morning and took some fun pictures of them.

"Alice"

Alice does air quotes now. It's "great."