Ho Ho Hello There!

Santa has come and gone, and the kids and Tim have had the entire week off (the kids don't go back to school until the 7th.) It's been a good one, but unbelievably busy! I feel like we've hardly been home, other than Christmas morning when Santa came to visit. The kids were both pleased with their gifts - Adam wanted a bey blades set, and Ellie wanted a Hatchimal. Santa delivered both... unfortunately did not realize that a Hatchimal is much like the Furby's of yore, the horrible chatting robot. Thankfully, it has an off switch.

You know what does not have an off switch? A kid with a magic 8 ball. They each received one from Gigi and were DELIGHTED. The best part is that they understand that they have to ask a yes or no question, but they love to ask questions about the past, not the future. And then their method of asking is to shout into their question into the magic 8 ball, turn it over to read the answer, delightedly shout the answer, and then turn to me and shout the question they asked and the answer they received, as though I wasn't in the room with them. The other hilarious part was Adam's malapropisms in trying to read the responses. His rudimentary reading skills caused him to say an unprintable word in front of his grandparents, and we all had to correct him while trying to keep a straight face. He also said one response was "most lick-ly."

Speaking of licking, this is the best picture of the family we got at Don's birthday party.

I'm pretty sure he's just sticking his tongue out, and not actually touching Santa, but I could be wrong. The kid is a nut. Ellie is showing off the stuffed Hedwig she received from the big man.

They had a great time with their cousins this week - both their Parmodesen cousins (who are not really their cousins) and their Smith cousins (who are actually their second cousins.) Christmas at Mimi's house was a mad house of almost fifty people but thankfully the weather cleared so people could sit outside. Adam suckered many of the older cousins into playing bey blades with him until he crashed on the couch for a bit, and after everyone left I fell asleep for a solid hour. It's not just small children who can't go as hard as they used to!

They really are a fun age this year - very into all of the Santa magic and delighted with all of their toys, while also being able to stay up late and hang out with friends to that we're not rushing around to take a nap or get a crying baby home for bed. We've had dinner with friends four different nights, at various houses, and it's awesome that they mostly disappear and come back when they're hungry or need a fight broken up. They also had a sleep over at Gigi's house and then the following afternoon we all went to see Mary Poppins Returns. I LOVED the movie - I thought all of the actors were great, and I thought it was wonderful as its own movie, with a few nice call backs to the classic Mary Poppins. During one song both Gigi and I were crying and Ellie, who was seated between us, looked at us and told us that we were both crybabies. TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE.

Pre-Christmas Catch Up.

What have we been doing! Well, one weekend we went up to LA and got to celebrate Hanukkah with Lauren, Jonathan and baby Piper:

And then from there we drove on to Fluff and Jasmin's house for their holiday pot luck, filled with delicious food and good friends. Adam and Lucas have really started to hit it off, which was cute.

(in a post food and bounce house coma.)

Tim and I attended the Team Four holiday party in all of our festive, velour glory.

We celebrated a year since adopting the cats. This is how I take my coffee in the morning. Usually just one lump, but sometimes I get two.

Tim turned 39, which means he is very elderly.

Annnnnnnd Ellie got fitted for a palate expander, and we can add orthodontists visits to our list of things to do in the coming months. The x-ray of her teeth is nuts - there is almost no room for any of her adult teeth, and that crowding is part of why they haven't pushed through normally. The hope is that if she wears the expander for the next twelve to sixteen months, as her baby teeth fall out, the adult teeth will come in straighter so that she can spend less time in braces (because let's be real, they talk about avoiding braces completely, but based on my amateur opinion, this is only phase one.) She has to wear the expander 24/7, except for when she takes it out to clean it and brush her teeth. She's really excited about the whole thing and is very charming to the staff. Her speech was pretty impaired last night but that should get better, and I'm cutting her food up for her so that she has an easier time chewing. I feel for her - her mouth is sore, it's all a weird new thing and the process will be at least a year so she just has to suck it up and deal. This morning when we were walking to school she goes "so your teeth just came in straight? That's just what they did?" Yup kid, sorry. Your father has many fine qualities, but a wide enough jaw for his head and chompers is not one of them.

North Pole Explorers

Our trip to the North Pole via Arizona this past weekend was wonderful! The kids had an absolute blast - they loved the actual experience, but more than that, they loved having three straight days with their best friends. They begged to sleep in the same beds, they rode in the same cars together, we threw them into showers together. All besties, all the time. And fun for us adults - loved getting to see Kristen's home town and hear about growing up in the Phoenix area, her parents are super nice, and after the kids went to sleep every night, the four adults had a cocktail and stayed up late goofing off.

We flew into Phoenix on Thursday and stayed overnight there, and then drove to Flagstaff in the morning. There had been storms coming through and though it rained a little on our drive, it wasn't bad at all. The girls were in our car and FREAKED OUT when we hit an altitude where they started to see snow on the ground. We had lunch at Kristen's mom's boyfriend's home in Flagstaff and he's on a golf course, so the kids had a bunch of open space to go out and play in the wet snow. Perfect for making snowmen!

Almost immediately after they finished their creation, the snow started coming down hard. They came in to warm up and marveled over the white stuff falling from the sky.

Our hotel in Flagstaff was nice - definitely overrun by people going to the North Pole, but fun to see everyone in their Christmas jammies and outfits. The North Pole Experience runs buses to the North Pole every fifteen minutes basically all day long. We had a 6:30 bus, which was perfect timing. They make a big deal on the drive out about how you're going into a portal to the North Pole, and when you arrive, the elves start making things fun. They led the kids through a series of rooms with something different to do in each room - make toys, help the elves fill the stuffing machine, going to elf university, having cookies and hot chocolate and then dancing with Mrs. Claus and the elves, writing a letter to Santa. They kept things really moving so the kids didn't have much of a chance to whine or get bored, and the only real waiting was the last ten minutes before we went in to see the man himself. And the nice thing about that was that each family got to be alone with Santa - so it's not like your kid is in line screaming at Santa while other kids are trying to have their moment.

And they each got a teddy bear!

The kids loved it. They're all at such a fun age to still be wowed by all of the magic. Later, the girls said that they were sure it was the real Santa. They also liked that afterwards they got to stay up late playing around and then sleep with their friend instead of their sibling (they sleep like puppies all cuddled together, it is about the cutest thing ever.)

The next day our package also allowed us to have breakfast with Santa at the hotel. This Santa was not as impressive, nor was the buffet breakfast, but hey, it was right there! We drove back to Phoenix, but on the way, detoured through Sedona, which was GORGEOUS.

Here they are holding up the mountain!

We did a little shopping in some of the fancy shops and had a nice lunch. I really wanted to go into a crystal rock shop, because I am a nut, and the girls came with me and were very pleased to look at all the rocks, and meet the resident store cat. Please note, that is my future someday. Taking woo-woo photos of people's auras, hanging out with rocks and cats.

For our evening fun back in Phoenix we went to a local park that decorates all out for the holidays. They have a little train that runs around the perimeter, and lots of lights in the trees, plus a carousel and a model train museum. The line just to buy tickets was well over an hour, but thankfully, there was also a play ground, which the kids LOVED, and truly, letting them just run around saved the day.

Though, after waiting an hour just to buy ride tickets, Adam was very upset when I told him we weren't waiting for additional hours in line to ride the train. I told him we'd ride the carousel instead, and he said that was for babies.

STILL HAD FUN THOUGH.

Sunday we had a relaxing day. The kids slept in a little and then each set of kids watched a movie in bed so their parents could doze (I heard the girls start watching the Greatest Showman, fell asleep during A Million Dreams and woke up during the final number.) We had a leisurely breakfast and hung out with Kristen's dad at his house before we loaded back up on the plane to head home.

It was such a good time. The kids had so much fun and were such funny little travelers. It was awesome to get the best of Arizona, from the snow to the scenery. And now, we're feeling fully in the Christmas spirit and ready to have Santa come to our house.