5 amigos

These guys have so much fun together. Borja is the ring leader and the other four love him. The language is sometimes English, sometimes Spanish, and sometimes imitating Borja's accent.

Puppy love

Not quite big enough

Siblings were included at Borja's last soccer practice, but someone wasn't quite big enough.

Space Needle party

Becka invited us to a party at the Space Needle for her work and even arranged for us to travel in style. A limo showed up at our house, complete with my parents inside, and we spent the evening dancing and taking pictures. :)

in the limo

it was a little windy on the Space Needle deck

and a little chilly

It cost me $20 to have Kenzie sing "Call Me Maybe" on karaoke, but it was worth it.

The dinner was nice - Mason went to the kitchen and asked them for ketchup.

Yes, we did opt for the cheesy pictures with the fake backdrop

Christmas relaxation

Making cookies and playing with friends.

Christmas 2012

The Christmas season was quite lovely this year. We spent a lot of time with family and friends, didn't travel anywhere, and enjoyed a quiet season...well as quiet as it can get with three kids and a dog. We started early with two family Christmas parties on the 15th, the Bolams for breakfast and the Averills for dinner.

We decided to make a Spanish feast for dinner, with gazpacho and paella. Kenzie and I doubled the batch of gazpacho, which ended up being about 10 times too much. But the paella was a hit, even with the critical Spanish judge.

 

We had good friends over for Christmas Eve and revived the favored Christmas tradition of crank caroling. Casey brought her guitar and we sang until we ran out of contacts in our phones.




Christmas day itself was so nice. Grammy and Grampy came up for the traditional eggs benedict and prolonged present opening ceremony. Borja was certainly the most excited of all. This year each present was labeled as either "Snowflake," "Elf" or "Reindeer" and the kids had their theories about which was whose. Unfortunately for them we are still a step ahead and none of their guesses proved correct. Once he figured it out, all we heard was "is there another present Snowflake can open?"

 

Pretty soon Grandma, Grandpa and AJ made the trek from next door to see some of the unwrapping.

 

There was one gift that got a particular "gasp" - we are going to Disneyland in February. The gasp came when Kenzie read that we are going with our new but dear friends, Wil and Gabi, and their family. We are very excited.

 

 

Dear Santa 2012

This year the only one who fully believes in Santa is Borja. Kenzie is pretty convinced he doesn't exist and Mason has been towing the same line. Until tonight when we told him that Santa only delivers presents to those who write him a letter. He disappeared and came down with an insurance policy.

(Oh we also told him of five years ago when Santa showed up the day after Christmas to let us take pictures, so he included that. You can also see that since Mason shot me in the face with a Nerf gun and then the Newton, CT, shootings happened we have reverted to the no-guns policy. He's not happy and thinks Santa can help.)

It says (in the corrected version): I hope you give me a new Nerf gun. But my moms don't want me to have one. :( She took them away. I want a picture with you and I want to see the penguins in the North Pole. Next, are you real? I have never got to see you. Love, Mason. I have been a good boy!

A clown and his baby

A lift

Kenzie thinks her brother can't pick her up. She doesn't consider the full situation.

Beiber hat 2.0

For Felix

Double dollars

Not to be outdone by her brother, Kenzie plucked out two teeth today (that I don't think were loose this morning). Then she documented it. :)

She denied that she is trying to raise extra money for Christmas presents. Hmmmm

Pagaent 2012

Once again Cindy co-authored and directed the Christmas pageant at church. It was a hit, even though they never were able to do a full run-through prior to the show. This one was called "the Littlest Angels." Both sets of Grandparents, AJ, and our dear neighbor Sandy all came to watch.

Buds

Lauren shared her hair gel with Mason today. If we pull out one of her lower teeth and pierce his ears they'll be twins.

Angels Among Us

Today Pastor Dave started the service talking about how we can light the advent calendar of joy in a week where Newtown, CT, experienced a mass school shooting that left 20 kids and 8 adults dead. It's hard to fathom as adults, let alone as kids. Kenzie had prepared this Alabama song "Angels Among Us" and then dedicated it to the town of Newtown. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house as she stood up there, completely poised, and delivered a heart-felt message. (This was the first time that she sang with a live keyboard.)

Crazy hair day

Spirit week

Progressive dentistry

Here is part 1 - Mason asks Mommy to pull his tooth. #MomFail



After a few days he decides to put it in the hands of a professional. #HardCore



Then, as if the Sisterly tooth pull/trauma wasnt enough, the tooth fairy did not show. Mason woke up this morning very upset about it. I let him know that sometimes the tooth fairy has too many teeth and she just can't get through them all in one day but she pays double the next day. He seemed actually quite happy about that. He said so if she misses three days she pays triple? I said, yes, but after she misses the one day you are at the top of her list so she shouldn't miss twice...instantly regretting those words.

To test that theory, he barricaded his room shut tonight. Both Cindy and I tried to enter but he had a big bean bag chair, two mattresses and his body against the door! Finally I believe the tooth fairy found her way in, retrieved the tooth, and paid out the full four dollars. Lesson learned. #ToothFairyFail

Christmas Creek 2012

Even Dru and Bentley got to enjoy the hay ride today as we made our annual Christmas tree hunt with Liz, Casey and the boys. We go to Christmas Creek Tree Farm where they have the best (and free) Santa.

Borja has been excited to cut down his first Christmas tree (in his family they have an artificial one). I have been joking with him that one of the reasons we bring teenage boys into our homes is for this very reason: to cut and carry the tree.

While he did cut Liz and Casey's tree, these two fully cut ours:

And when it came time to carry it, "somebody" just hoisted it up and started walking. Who needs teenage boys anyway? Yes, that's the attitude we want her to have for quite a while.

But, we did get our annual "pose with the tree" picture. Oh, but this isn't our tree. We weren't in full consensus yet so we kept wandering for another half hour, until we found another tree that we couldn't agree on. It does, however, look quite similar.

Grampys favorite pictures

...from his archives

Conferences

We had meetings with Mrs. Murray and Ms. Jones for the fifth and second grade checkins.

First up was Kenzie. Mrs. Murray clearly takes a very strong interest in Kenzie. She knows her very well and is very invested in setting her up for success in middle school. Her skills are great. She just needs to work on her study skills and confidence in math, but Kenzie is clearly one of her favorites. She was also so nice in that she thanked us for making Kenzie well-rounded with strong values. She asked us about the fundraiser at our a house last weekend and even gave us a check as a donation. She is an amazing teacher. She said that Kenzie is the line leader (responsible for being at the front every time the class is in the hall and keeping them in a straight line). Kenzie was missed, as she put it, when she was gone in Hawaii for a few days. If the line strays even a bit, Kenzie stops, turns around, and just looks at them until they behave. It was nice to hear, however, that nobody describes Kenzie as bossy. She works well both individually and in groups.

Masons teacher is young and sweet. She described Mason as the kid that likes everyone and that everyone likes. She said he is mostly focused and is also dedicated to learning. Math comes easy for him and she is genuinely happy to have him in her class.

We took the kids out to dinner and celebrated good reports!!

Market Day

The kids school gives out Shark Bucks as a reward system. The more times they are recognized, the more Bucks they accumulate. Then the whole school attends Market Day. This is a very special (and parental nightmare) day where each fifth grader sells stuff to the rest of the school, where the younger kids give up their Shark Bucks by procuring homemade goodies from the older kids. Every fifth grader has to develop proposals for what they want to sell, submit prototypes for approval, then manufacture 40 items to sell. So, what did Kenzie do? She went down to Grammy's for a weekend where they--and Gabi--made a bunch of cases for recorders. They had a lot of fun that weekend. These custom fleece covers are worth more than the five shark bucks they will fetch. Then Cindy and she made custom magnets.
After many weeks work they made 28 magnets, 16 recorder cases, 10 Christmas ornaments, 1 large Christmas pouch for raffle and a beautiful smile...

Raffler

We hosted a fundraiser tonight for our friend Tricia's amazing charity. Mason was the chief pocket picker. For the last three weeks he has been relentless at selling raffle tickets. We raised over $1500 and he was shameless at selling. We are grateful for our community that comes out en masse to show such consistent support.

And now we know Mason has a career in sales or politics ahead of him.