Christmas

Yay! for Christmas! We had a good one! There was the PERFECT Christmas Eve snow...falling gently all day, warm enough to play outside. The only downside: it wasn't sticky enough to make snowmen. But that didn't stop M & M from creating an elaborate "kitty town" in the backyard with paths and storage areas, etc.
Christmas morning!
M3 with her big present: an iPod Nano with touch screen! Woot woot! I must say, the touch screen is pretty cool! It's much nicer than her Shuffle: she can make playlists and store photos.
Rumpus with his gift: a water fountain! Maybe he'll keep his grubby mitts off the counters now.
One of M4's gifts (although not his "big" gift which was a Playmobil Pyramid. It is wicked awesome.). But the Rock-em Sock-em Robots are pretty fun, too!
It was lovely to be home for Christmas morning. We had a relaxing day and then had our friends who had been in DC for the fall semester over for Christmas dinner. The day after Christmas we headed to KC to hang with everyone, which was ever so fun....and I forgot my camera. Gah! Will have to get some pics from my moms to post. Suffice it to say, it was great to play with cousins and aunts and uncles, to play games, to consume massive quantities of booze and sweets, and to enjoy the warm weather in KC which allowed M & M to use their new scooters and us all the get outside and play!!

I got new poles for my XC skis and am now impatiently waiting for the snow to ski on!!

Merry Christmas...

Quite an experience to have your dryer catch on fire, as it did last night. Thank goodness we were home, and it really was pretty mellow as far as fires go. The smoke detector didn't go off, but the fire extinguisher worked. One out of two? I'll never turn on the dryer and leave the house again, that's for sure! This is the best picture I could get of the fire location behind the fan.

As far as we can tell, it was electrical and not lint. There was not much lint in the machine to speak of. In this picture you can see how black the smoke made the lint that was in the trap from the load in progress. The clothes are OK except for a bad smell which I hope will wash out. All Max's pants were in there!
I am extremely, profoundly grateful that nothing worse happened. It could have been much, much worse. We are all OK, the house is OK, the dryer is not. But that is a very small inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. Happy Holidays! Check your smoke alarms and fire extinguishers!!

Band and Choir Concert, pt. 2

OK, here is one of the choir songs. M3 is on the far left on the edge of the row. (I zoom.)

Band and Choir Concert

M3's first band concert!!! You're going to have to watch for her...she pops up with the sax section. I kind of focused in on her general area. This piece is called "Popcorn Prelude." Keep in mind....these kids have only had their instruments for a bit over three months, and they have band every other day with private lessons once every six days!


Did you see her??! I have a choir video where you can see M3 much better. (It takes hours to upload these videos, so I'll get it up here soonish.)

Hardship...

M4 so hates shopping for clothes that he informed me the other day, while being subjected to trying on pants, that he doesn't want to buy any clothes, he only wants to "make them himself." Well, I guess he would never have to leave the house then!

Birthday boy!

M4's birthday was last Friday, and we had Giza in house! Well, at least here are the mummies and their buddies:
There were definite opinions on who wanted to be a wrapper and who wanted to be a wrapee. The procedure:

Of course, cakemaster Mark came up with a beautiful pyramid cake with hieroglyphics and all! He really is multi-talented.Junior archeologists excavating a site filled with Egyptian artifacts.

A good time was had by all. Really, it was a whole birthday weekend made extra special by Grandma and Grandpa's visit. We ate cake all weekend! Woot!

Down with the crankies! Up with the tree!

OK, got some Christmas shopping done...hope to finish most of it this week so as to actually enjoy the rest of the holiday. My friend Andrea joked with me about forming a "Less is More" support group, but I am all for it!! I feel like one of the few people on the planet not getting all electronics for their kids. I know there are others of us out there...we must band together.

M3 had her first swim meet last Saturday and did a great job! It's always fun to watch her swim. The next meet is at home in Grinnell College's gorgeous new pool. I will definitely try to get some pictures. After the meet, we went and got our tree at our new favorite Christmas tree farm:
Deer: "Whaddya you lookin' at?!"
Reindeer like apples!

Not enough snow for the toboggan, but they tried!