welcome to the 21st century, dad!

My dad's the coolest guy. He is one of those guys who could survive and thrive as long as he had a change of underwear, a good book, and his morning cup o' joe. He's a greener. The man leaves virtually no carbon footprint. He's a hippie. His hair is as long as mine. (He and I are having a contest to see who can grow their hair out the longest.) And he's a biker. (Note the biker Santa on their mantle?)

Call it his philosophical beliefs, call it his lack of desire to follow the crowd, but my father has never owned a cell phone, a computer, or any other article of technology from the 21st century, for that matter. In fact, I was surprised to find out that at work, they recently gave him a desk with a computer to email clients. Seriously!

My mom and brothers decided that this year was 'the year' to get ol' daddio up with the times and get the man his own cell phone. My bros bought the phone, mom added a line to her cell phone package, and Voila!! He's ready to roll with the rest of us! Watch out, pretty soon he'll be texting. PLZ, like that's ever going to happen. LOL. LMHO. ;-)

Dylan thought it would be funny if he gave my dad the kind of phone

fashioned by 3rd graders in 1952. Good times.

Christmas Kittens

In my humble, unbiased, maternal, unprejudiced opinion, nothing in this world is more adorable than my children. ;-) Then we arrived at my parent's house last week. And that's when I laid my eyes upon their 2 six week-old kittens that my dad got for my mom for Christmas. So now, in my humble....opinion there is pretty much nothing in this world that can top the cuteness of my children AND kittens together in the same picture. hehehe

The entire week we were at my parent's house the kids went bonkers for the kittens. They would not leave them alone. They played more with those cats than they did with their new toys. Eventually we had to establish "kitten play time" and "kitten sleep time" so that those poor felines could have a break from the kids!!

Bless their hearts. The kids tried so hard to play nice with them, but you know how toddlers are. Their interpretation of "gentle" falls somewhere inbetween abrasive and lethal force. ;-)
At one point I caught Jayden carrying the orange kitten by its tail!! By the end of the week each kid had a couple claw marks on their hands or face.

All these pictures were taken on Christmas Eve. We'd just returned from a church service at my mom's church, hence the reason the kids are all dressed up. Something I love about protestant churches is their "midnight mass" candlelight Christmas Eve services. Traditionally they are held at midnight; we went at 4 p.m. ;-) We listened to a beautiful message and sang carols by candlelight.

This poor, poor kitten!! Can't you just read the expression on his face?! Wake me when this is over!! Help me!!!

Jaclyn found a jingle bell on a string and they were watching

the orange kitten jump and play with it.

Jaclyn's 3rd birthday

To say that Jaclyn likes Dora the Explorer would be an understatement. My middle child can't get enough of Dora! And Diego for that matter. So, of course, when asked what she wanted for her birthday, Dora was the immediate response. Lucky for us, we still had all the decorations and party favors from last year! reduce REUSE, recycle, right?!

Jaclyn's birthday was Sunday, Dec. 6. We told her each day leading up to it that her birthday was pretty soon, and it was sweet to watch her excitement grow. Then on Sunday morning, Joanna and I exclaimed that "today is your birthday!!!!" and you should have seen the look on her face. Pure elation.

That morning in nursery class the song leader led the kids in singing her happy birthday. She got to wear a felt birthday hat with a cake and candles on top of it. Standing in the middle of her class I could tell she got a little shy to have the attention on her, but she enjoyed it. (I secretly watched her through the window on the nursery room door!)

Then later Sunday evening we had a sort of impromptu birthday party with some of her friends.

I made that Dora cake! All by myself. So take that mom, I do have a few baking skills. ;-)

When we started singing Happy Birthday to Jaclyn she got the biggest
blushing smile on her face.


The kids

Funny story about the above picture. Later that evening my mom and dad called to wish Jaclyn a happy birthday. She was talking to my mom, telling grandma all about her party. I thought it was a cute moment so I went to take a picture of Jaclyn talking on the phone. So when Jaclyn saw me taking her picture she held up the phone and said, "say cheese grandma!!"

In her 3 year old mind I was also taking grandma's picture. hehehe

Joanna's preschool play

During the month of November at Joanna's preschool, the theme was "the farm". They learned about everything from farm animals to crops that farmers grow. Then last Saturday the kids performed the play about the little red hen. Only this play was a variation of the classic tale. In this play, instead of the little red hen asking help to make bread, she goes around asking all the animals to help her make a pizza. All the students did such a great job with their parts! Not a bit of stage fright! They were all so excited to participate!

Joanna was the cat. She had one speaking part. So when the hen asked Joanna if she'd like to help make a pizza Joanna loudly said, "Not I, Meow!!!"

The scenery was mostly made by the kids. Joanna's teacher made the set and then decorated it with the month's art projects. You can see some pigs they made in the background.

Joanna doing the actions to a song before the play started

Joanna the cat

Some of the cast. Joanna really likes the friends she has made at school.

She talks about them all the time!

to give my child the best day

because we don't know how many days on this earth we'll get to share with each of our children, here's to making each one count. this video made me cry. mainly because i know there are some days when my bad mood or attitude makes their day bad. but i hope they can forgive me some day and know how deeply i adore them. here's to giving my babies wings to fly.

a pig and a pirouette-ing princess

Yesterday Joanna and I got to go to Yakima--just the two of us--to see the play version of Charlotte's Web. Her preschool class attended the play all together and it was so nice to have a little one-on-one time with my firstborn. I'd wanted a picture of her and I together, but that didn't happen. So here's Joanna in her theater seat after the performance. Joanna thoroughly enjoyed herself. Charlotte's Web is one of her favorite movies so I think it was neat for her to see how 'real' people can get dressed up and tell a story just like a movie can.

Here is a super dark picture of the set. Sorry it's such a crappy picture, but that's what you get when you have a crappy camera. ;-)

Um, what's up with the 'eat crap and die' glare, little girl?

After the play Joanna and I swung by Toys R Us to find a couple birthday presents for Jaclyn. (her birthday is this Sunday) Joanna has been HOUNDING us for Cinderella's blue dress for at least a month. She asks for it at least 50 times a day, and I'm not exaggerating! We are firm believers in delayed gratification, so we've been telling her that she needs to ask Santa for the dress and wait until Christmas to receive it.

But as we searched for Jaclyn's presents, Joanna spotted "the dress". A very beautiful dress up cinderella dress. And of course she went bananas. She asked so nicely if she could get it! And me, being the softy that I can be, was like, well, ok. (hey, it was on sale, so that makes it alright, right?!)

Joanna dancing like a ballerina

Needless to say, Joanna hasn't taken the dress off since we got home. She wanted to sleep in it last night but we explained that even Princesses wear pajamas.

She's dancing like Cinderella at the ball!

Then she asked Jayden if he wanted to dance like the Prince!!! The cutest thing was that he obliged!!