Photo Catch Up

So many parties in the last few weeks, so many fun family celebrations, so much driving around!

The 22nd we saw Santa at the Parmordsen Party:

The 23rd was Poppy's birthday party, where Mimi unwittingly put trick candles on the cake:

We had Christmas Eve with Gigi and Grizz:

(Grizz and the sugarplums having some quiet time before Sara got home from work)

And then Santa came on Christmas morning! And everyone came over for brunch!

Santa brought new big kid bikes, Pokemon cards, and socks and underwear. He knows what they need.

Not to be out done, on the 26th we drove up to Woodland Hills to celebrate Hanukkah with Lauren, Jonathan and baby Piper:

Since then, we've been trying to relax. Hanging out with friends, having sleepovers even (which is more exhausting for the kids than any of our other activities. Why they want to sleep in an unfamiliar place is beyond me)

This is the only kind of sleep over that interests me:

Holiday Performances

We've had a lot of them lately, from piano recitals to school performances, there's been a lot of acting around these parts.

Friday morning Ellie's class did a performance of the play "Bob the Goofy Reindeer," with Ellie in a major starring role as Santa. She did great - knew all of her lines, delivered them well, was the cutest Santa I've seen in a long time.

It was also nice in that the performance was just her class, so it wasn't crazy or packed.

Because an hour later, ALL the first graders were doing their holiday performance, in which the various animals explain to the moose about the various winter holidays. Took me forever to find Adam when he came out on stage - he was smack dab in the center, as a caroler.

Now everyone is out of school and off of work until the 6th, which will be nice. We've already had several holiday parties, with several more to go, and then hopefully we'll get some museum trips in, some good relaxing, some bike riding and YMCA visiting and lunches with friends.

Before everything wrapped up, Ellie had her first holiday piano recital. She was practicing for a good two months on her pieces, and performed them better than I've heard before. She was so pleased with herself when she finished, and we're very proud of how her hard work paid off.

Adam still has one more semester of the group piano class before he starts private lessons. He told us during Ellie's concert that next year he'd like to play Jingle Bells. But then also had a chance to show Santa his skills during the Parmordsen party last night. Please watch to the end to see his celebration dance.

Lordy Lordy, Tim is Forty.

Though, with my tardiness in this update, he's practically forty one by now (which would please him more, as it's a prime number instead of just a boring base ten.) I can't believe he's so elderly! (and yet, still so cute.) We had a nice party with our families on his actual birthday and then Mimi and Poppy took the kids overnight on Saturday so that we could go out to dinner and hang out in San Juan with a bunch of our friends (forty year old Tim was the only boy who was willing to go out on the dance floor.)

Handmade cards are the best

These nuggets, also the best

Thankfulness

Happy December!

The kids have no school the week of Thanksgiving (after the previous week being only minimum days for conferences - November and December are light on actual hours spent learning) so we've been busy. The weekend before Thanksgiving we went up to Lake Arrowhead and stayed in a cabin with friends from college - got there in time to watch UCLA lose to USC and be sad about it, and then drink to forget our problems.

There was snow on the ground, but it didn't snow while we were there, which is fine with me. There was enough snow to make snowballs and mini snowmen, but the kids didn't need the full snowsuit, and the roads were clear and clean (Californians are OBSESSED with the idea of snow tires and chains, I just hope for the best with the Rav4's all wheel drive.) The scenery is so beautiful - the huge trees and the mountain vistas, and the company was fantastic. Our house had a little stream near it and Adam loved being able to go across it on a fallen over log. He was the happiest little explorer. There were two toddlers in our midst, and they were both very into following Ellie around and being her mini-mes. Overall, a very fun way to settle into the vacation.

The kids had craft camp at the YMCA on Tuesday and Wednesday, made many wonderful crafty presents for their parents and grandparents, and we spent most evenings hanging out with our friends. They got to do a lot of hanging around, a lot of Minecraft with Tim, a lot of staying up late.

Thanksgiving itself we went and hung out with Gigi and Grizz in the afternoon, helped them decorate their tree, play some bey blades, exclaim over all the cute ornaments of yore. And then we were off to Cathy's house for the large and in charge Thanksgiving celebration - I wore a vintage caftan I recently bought, so that I didn't have to worry about anything being tight while I scarfed all the deliciousness. Adam wore a collared shirt and kept his collar popped, and encouraged others to do so, because he thinks it makes him look like a vampire. Ellie once again wore a vintage sequined top and some leggings, the cute little nut.

The rest of the weekend was similarly busy - we celebrated our neighbor Victoria's 40th birthday and her daughter slept over at our house that night to make babysitting easier, we went up to LA to visit some friends and hang out for the day, we practiced more piano and browbeat Ellie into finishing all of her leftover homework, and had the regular Sunday Scaries. I was however, pleasantly surprised that everyone was up and at 'em with ease yesterday morning. Happy to get back to school, happy to see their friends, but then very punch drunk by 7pm. Back to our routine, for the few days we have left before winter break.