Willy Christmas 2013

 True to tradition, the Willy brood gathered together to read and act out the Nativity as read in Luke 2.

Soren wanted no part being cast as the baby Jesus this year. Mary Quincy struggled to force keep him on her lap finally gave up and got out a baby doll, then threw a white burp cloth over Soren and dubbed him a sheep.

Reese was the angel and brought good tidings of great joy and Corbin was a doting, topless Joseph.

Aaron played a strong donkey.

 As a shepherd, I did my best to corrale the wild sheep.

I love this tradition, and even though it is always chaotic, there is peace in the truths Aaron and I are teaching our children about the humble birth of our Lord and King.  

There was singing and hot cocoa, and a nice Christmas Eve turkey dinner.  Aaron and I wrapped the last of the gifts together and watched a christmas movie. 

 Christmas morning was the stuff the dreams of parents are made of.  The children were all so excited and grateful and filled over the top with pure joy. We took our time with gift giving and opening and spent the morning enjoying each gift as it was opened. 

Quincy watched every person open their gift and asked them if they liked it after. Her favorite gifts were her robe and slippers and a plush dolphin. She gave to Corbin this year and picked out a new pair of waterproof snow gloves and some paint-with-water coloring books that proved to be worth gold for entertainment during one of our snow days in January. She got an Elf on the Shelf floor puzzle that Reese and Corbin "helped" Soren pick out for her.

Corbin asked for a lion costume for Christmas and this robe was as close as we could get. He was elated. Rawr! His favorite gifts were a Jake and the Neverland Pirate's bath toy and a sleeping bag---that is still on top of his bed. He sleeps in it every night and it gets dragged all over the house during the day and is engineered into parts of forts, and today it was a sled that carried Corbin down the stairs treacherously.

Corbin gave to Reese this year and he picked out some new sidewalk chalk for her that she used a couple days later on a warm afternoon to make a "racetrack" in the street and driveway.
Reese's favorite gifts were her robe and slippers and a set of 3 way walkie talkies.  We took them with us to the Tulsa Zoo a few days later and the kids had a chance to test them out. Reese is also looking forward to starting group guitar lessons at the elementary school.

Soren was smothered with affectionate helpers while he opened his gifts.  Reese gave him a little ball tower that is still a big hit two months later.

Reese also made Aaron a "BYU bracelet" at a friend's house in October and saved it for months to give  it to Aaron for Christmas. She was validated when he kept it on for days.

 We spent the afternoon on Google chat, Skype, and FaceTime with our families and wished we could've been together for a great day.  Thank goodness for all of the incredible technology available at our fingertips to keep us connected to our far away families.

Mommies and babies got to play. I don't want to brag, but I was Nico's first kiss. He saw my face on grandpa Hal's iPad and planted one right one me. blush.

"Ground Control to Major Tom….Can you hear me Major Tom?"

The children opened their gifts from grandma and grandpas over Skype.  

 In the evening we played games and exchanged gifts with neighbors.

Merry Christmas, my little Willy children.  This Christmas was magical. Thank you for being ours, for your existence makes our Christmas 1,000,000 times better than we ever imagined it could be.  You are  our favorite Christmas gifts.

Willardson Supply Co. Est. 2001

Yesterday, I finished up another little crafty project that has been sitting half-done in my garage since October. 

Excuse my inept photography. Good cameras really can only do so much to make bad photos look better. 

Anyway, I finally put the measurement tick marks and the numbers on a giant ruler growth chart. 

When we sold our home, I was do sad to leave behind the door trim in Corbin's closet where I's marked the children's heights,beginning around the time Quincy was a tot until about a year ago when I painted it white to make the house more sellable. Why didn't I rip out the trim and keep it? I think that after priming and painting and installing doors for months I was just too mentally exhausted to even consider replacing another piece of trim. 

I've wanted to make one of these for a few years and finally got around to it. I need to decide where to hang it. The children already love checking how tall they are and I can't wait to mark it up and pencil in all their heights as they grow. 

For this cheap and easy project, I used a 1x6 piece of pine ($5), leftover stain (compliments of Laura the Great, who made one too), a ruler, and a black sharpie pen.

To get the numeral to look like the ones on an old school wooden ruler, I printed off 1-6 in like a 250 font size, placed the paper with the printed number right where I wanted it, then traced over the outline of the number with a pencil, taking care to press down really hard. 

Pine is a very soft wood and my pencil tracing etched a faint outline on the wood below. All I had to do was fill in with a black sharpie. This trick would also work on painted wood with any color sharpie or a paint pen. Forget toll painting and stencils, ladies. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

This reminds me of a time when we were at the Eggars' house when I was probably in 4th or 5th grade for a fireside or multi family gathering of some kind. My mom had given me a pen and paper from her purse to keep me quiet during the meeting and I entertained myself by sitting on the floor at the coffee table doodling my name all over the paper. 

Hours after we'd left, RuthAnn called my mom and told her she'd discovered my name etched all over the top of the coffee table in my handwriting. Ruth Ann only laughed, and likely said, "bless your heart!" as she is the most forgiving and cheerful person I've ever known. Anyway, looks like the etching through paper trick works on oak coffee tables, too, in case you're wondering. 

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

A little catching up here…

New Year's Eve was spent with some of our faves! The Gulbransens hosted a fun night with the other Gulbransens, Sandersons, and Messicks and there were like a zillion kids for our brood to run around with. We put Soren to bed in a pack n play in a closet and all of the other kids stayed up with us until midnight playing games, talking, and eating all of Katie's delicious food. 

New Year's Day we slept in and headed over to Lawrence Plaza near the Bentonville Square for some ice skating.  We were prepared for it to be a total disaster, since they only lasted about 5 minutes the last time we attempted ice skating (when Corbin was a baby).

To our surprise, the kids were awesome!  The rink has little "walkers" for the little guys to help them learn to skate. By the end of the session all 3 of them were skating independently.  Go kids! 

Corbin is a perfect candidate for ice skating because he is totally fearless and shakes it off when he falls down.  The kid was a machine and loved every minute on the ice. 

Reese was very excited for a chance to wear that scarf. Because you're supposed to accessorize when you ice skate, you know. 

 And how about this girl? Quincy thought the best part about ice skating was ditching the walker and getting to hold daddy's hand while she skated.

Stop it, guys. You're getting too old!  You too, Aaron. ;)

While the big kids and dad skated, Soren got a little tired of being strapped in stroller purgatory, so he and I took a walk over to the food trucks and got some hot chocolate and Crepe's Paulette.

We shared. 

3/4 of them were exhausted after skating. Can you tell who still had energy to burn? 

We walked over to David Peel Park and played for a little while to soak up the warm weather while we had some to enjoy.

That night we had a bonfire and the Meadows and Fuhrimans came over to get their s'mores on. 

2014 came in with friends, food, and fun activities together. It's off to a good start! 

Snow Days are Sew Fun

The kids and I made pajamas during nap time yesterday and they turned out great!  

They picked out the fabric before the last snowstorm and have been waiting anxiously for another snow day to make them. I'm glad I saved them, it looks like we'll be home for the long haul this go around. We got even more snow this morning and another system is headed our way before this one will have a chance to melt. Yesterday was pure greatness. No school for the win! 

I call the above pic, "big hair don't care" 24 hours later and I am rocking that same pajama outfit and nasty bun. Kust keepin it real for you all. Corbin and Quincy were very still and sat on my lap while I sewed, with their right foot over the top of mine, helping me use the presser foot. Not surprisingly, Quincy was obsessed with where the thread went and how but stitched into the fabric with the machine. 

Reese was elated when I let her do her own sewing. She did wonderfully and I have no doubt that her creative talent already surpasses mine. The only thing I've got going for me is knowledge and experience, which she will gain in time...hopefully with less cursing than I may of may not have expressed over a few sewing disasters of the past. 

The results were darling. 3 happy kids in new handmade Jammie's. they were so proud of their accomplishment. 

And what the other 20 pictures looked like while I tried to get a non fuzzy pajama shot: 

Anyone else think it's a dirty trick for teachers to email a mountain of homework assignments to do on the snow day? My thinking is this: if the kids have to make up school in June when they would/should be on summer break with their families, let them actually have their break now and do the work on the makeup day. Today we're read 75 pages of the cooper "read together" book. I don't think they need to spend 2 hours practicing spelling words and doing math problems too. I hope we get the whole week together, but at the same time it just doesn't feel like a fair exchange for summer break when the teachers send home assignments. 

Anyway, Snow Day #10 is today. What adventures will we have? 

What are you doing for fun this week? 

Weekend Update

Friday was a house-full-of-kids kind of day. I watched my friend's daughters, had a preschool make up day, and brought home a play date from school with Corbin. I think there were 14 kids in and out of here throughout the day. 

Preschool was about birds. It was warm out so the kids and I ventured outside and they took turns petting Nugget, who was kind enough to be loved on by 16 little hands. We made birdseed cakes, bird watching binoculars, played with a huge bin of feathers, learned about the parts of a bird, collected eggs from the chicken coop, played a couple gross motor and cognitive games with plastic eggs, did 2 bird puzzles, played with a dozen different bird puppets, examined a couple of abandoned bird's nests with magnifying glasses, listned to 3 different bird calls that Mrs Meg has, and went on a bird identification mission. We sang baby chuckle and 2 other bird songs and ate gummy worms and other bird snacks. 

I love that I get to share these new experiences with my students. What a fun job. Preschool parents: new posts on the private bloggy coming up this week.

Quincy randomly threw up Friday afternoon (not awesome.) and felt fine before and after, but Saturday was pretty mellow and we kept the kids all stayed at home to play it safe. I attended a baptism and did some housework and projects in the morning.  The children played the Wii, made a zillion rainbow loom bracelets, did chores (like sanitizing the puked in bathroom), and were tucked into bed by our awesome sitter while Aaron and I went on a little dinner date and drive to check out the buckyball at CB. (very cool btw…will be here a few more months, so be sure to see it).

While the kids played around and Aaron ran some errands on Saturday, I knocked out a bunch of little things that have been looming on the to-do list for months, like hanging a few of the mirrors and pictures here and there, unpacking 2 boxes in the guest room, vacuuming (don't ask how long it's been, it's embarrassing), and fixing the bathroom tile that broke the day we moved in.  

I'm glad we had a productive Saturday because it made for a stress free Sunday…well, aside from worrying about Soren's little leg. 

BTW, I just talked to the nurse and our pediatrician will likely order an X-ray tomorrow morning. He is standing and even climbing more and more today, but again, no weight or pressure at all on that lower left leg or left foot. :( 

No school today. Woohoo!  Of course it goes without saying that the makeup days in June will be the most awful of all kinds of awful. But since we cannot control the weather, I'm quite happy to have my children home all day today.  A funny friend of mine sent me this emoji text this morning. 

My reply (in blue) was probably a little obnoxious, but I really can relate to how she feels, considering I used to crawl under a rock and cry/hibernate every winter before this year.  Hopefully it gave her a few survival ideas. I've experienced too much loss to not appreciate the company of these babies. I've had a change of heart regarding winter. Kids home and canceled everything = awesome and trump the grossness of being cold. One secret I've learned to keeping kids from going crazy is to prepare. Katie G and Kasey are good examples to me and taught me to plan ahead and make sure we have some fun activities, crafts, food, chores, etc on standby to help make the most of the potential days at home.  I can see that it makes a big difference to the kids to know their mom is happy to have them around, and I think everyone is happier knowing I took into consideration what things help them not go crazy, and prepared for that. 

We're making artisan loaves with everything topping to go with dinner tonight, and chocolate dipped strawberries to enjoy after FHE, and if we get the call that school is canceled again tomorrow (snow day #10!) then we'll let the kids have a late night sleepover in their sleeping bags in the loft tonight.