Ringing in 2015

You know you're officially the opposite of hip when your plans for New Year's Eve begin at 5pm, and they take place at a bowling alley... with your own three kids, plus three other families. Luckily, this night was pretty much the coolest night ever for Joey, Clara and Molly. They loved everything from the dorky shoes to the fluorescent balls to the pizza to the computerized screens with their names on them!

 

Here's to a new year full of this kind of fun!

 

 

 

Snapshots from Christmas 2014

December flew by in a flash, leaving us with lots of cookies, a few extra pounds, an ungodly amount of cardboard and wrapping paper, too many toys, and some pretty fun family memories!

 

The week before Christmas, we kicked off the holiday festivities with a pageant, three class parties, a visit to Santa Claus, some movie dates with friends, and a trip to Yuba City to see rising star and friend from babyhood Lily Miller perform as a shin-kicking child in The Baddest Angel Band.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We squeezed in some do-good time with the kids, and joined Tim at his office while he and his work colleagues assembled 65 bikes for kids at the Oakland Boys and Girls Club.  Tim has never assembled a bike for one of his own offspring, but managed to whip together five lickety-split for underprivileged kids. Maybe it had something to do with his cute assistants...

 

 

 

Before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve, time for this crazy crew of cousins to gather for food, fun, and an impromptu talent show!

 

 

Our Christmas morning highlights were a walking puppy for Clara, a Samantha doll for Molly May, and a compression sleeve for baseball and walkie-talkies for Joey!

 

We snuck in some quick Christmas morning pictures at the new property and showed Hop and Mop the progress on the new house...

... and then headed to Pacifica for a Christmas lunch Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles and more cousins!

Another happy, chaotic, cousin-crazy Christmas in the books!

Getting Our Crafty On

In early December, some holiday craziness set in, and I decided it would be super fun to invite twelve first grade girls over for a Christmas craft party.

 

I immediately had regrets as soon as I hit "send" on the evite. Then I had even more intense feelings of panic when I realized that the Saturday afternoon I had chosen for the party was the same day that Tim was headed to Reno for a boys' gambling trip. Then all twelve girls said they could make it, and I just accepted my fate of glitter and glue being flung all over my house.

 

Luckily, one little girl was insanely jazzed about this whole thing, and kept preemptively saying thank you over and over again.

 

We survived the craziness, thanks mostly to two moms staying to help corral the kids and help little hands complete some of the trickier crafts. It might even turn into a holiday tradition, once eleven months pass and the memory fades of the girls chasing Joey and his friend Pearce around the house while sloshing hot chocolate out of their mugs and flinging sprinkles to every corner.

 

The Wise Woman Takes the Stage

For the fifth year in a row, we had a performer in the annual preschool Christmas program, and while we might know the songs by heart now, it was still huge fun to see Molly May help tell the Christmas story.

 

In the past, we've had a shepherd (Joey), and an angel (Clara), but this time, fittingly, our most observant, misses-nothing kid donned a purple, royal robe and a crown and was a "wise woman" along with two wise "men" from her class.

 

Joey and Clara played hooky from school that morning to come along to the pageant and silently join in on their old favorites, including "No Room," and "Little Donkey." I love that this show is part of their shared history, and that we have so many memories from all the different years, including Clara's nose-picking as a thee year-old, Molly's boisterous version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" two years ago, and Joey's unabashed belting out of "Go Tell it on the Mountain."