Christmas!!

Christmas morning Isak woke up around 7 and we let him open his stocking. We woke Lucy up around 730 and started opening presents. Isak had a scuba mask and his specified nerf gun waiting for him from Santa while Lucy was elated to find her angry birds and pigs set up for her under the tree. She refused to let go of said angry bird and opened the rest of her gifts with one hand, for fear we would take it away as we had every other time we had been at the store.
Isak also got some more robots, legos and games and Lucy got some other toys that she didn't care about because well she already had her angry bird. My sister made this really awesome bird costumes for my kids which they LOVED and Lucy thought they were angry bird costumes and was really excited. Thanks Valerie for the Halloween costumes for this year!

The great thing about having Christmas near all our family is that we really had 3 Christmases...one by ourselves, one with Kevin's family, then one with my family. And Isak and Lucy really loved opening gifts three times!
Before church we went over to Kevin's family to open presents. Isak got another Nerf gun and more legos and well he was just as excited as could be. Lucy continued to refuse to let go of her angry bird and happily settled in watching "Wonderpets Mistmas!" It was fun having Kevin's Aunt Colleen up for Christmas as well as his grandma to visit with.
My parents came over for dinner along with Aaron. Isak got an awesome sled and Tinker toys while Lucy got a tea set and a new doll that has a motion activated laugh. It sounds slightly demonic.
Aaron made Isak an awesome ferris wheel out of his tinker toys and played nerf guns with him all night. Isak is still asking me when we can move to Texas or when it would be possible for Uncle Aaron to move to Othello.
She has been having tea parties with "Gatorade!" and her angry birds ever since. She is very polite and makes sure everyone says "please" and "thank you" before receiving more in their cups.
We had a wonderful Christmas and it was so nice to be able to stay home and be with family. We were so blessed and our kids were spoiled rotten by everyone. Now, if we could just add another baby here in a few weeks everything would be perfect!

Christmas Eve

On Friday before Christmas, we made gingerbread houses at my parents' house. My brother Aaron is here visiting from Texas for Christmas and Isak absolutely loves and idolizes him. Apparently he wants to be an engineer just like Uncle Aaron because he is "so smart". Anyway, we do graham cracker houses and Isak was very specific that he wanted to make a "spooky gingerbread house". He let me know which decorations were spooky and which ones were not. He also really wanted to decorate for Christmas eve with our Halloween decorations but fortunately I couldn't get to them.
Notice the spooky candy corn on the house? As well as the broken house and hole in the gumdrop window...

On Christmas Eve, my parents and brother came to our house and we acted out the nativity. Here is Isak being a wiseman and bringing his "treasure" to the baby Jesus. I was Mary and Lucy was suppose to be the angel but not surprisingly, she was not cooperating. My brother Aaron was nice enough to be a Shepard and wiseman with Isak.

My dad read us The Grinch who stole Christmas, which has been a christmas tradition in our family since I can remember. He does the best actions and voice to the grinch and Isak was quite enthralled.

Lucy was determined to keep sticking stuffed animals in the tree despite numerous reminders and warnings not too, which led to this....

Followed by timeout in her crib. Did I mention she is getting to be super fun lately?

And the kids were less than excited to pose for me with their pajamas in front of the tree. Stinkers. We put out milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.

Stoneridge

The weekend before Christmas Kevin and I took the kids up to Stoneridge, a resort north of Spokane. His parents have a timeshare up there and no one has used it for a while so we decided to take advantage of a cheap vacation and spend a few nights there. The room had a small kitchen with a fridge so we brought our food and cooked it as we went.
The rec center area has a salt water pool, hot tub, racquet ball courts, gym and areas for crafts and even a WII game room. The first night we spent playing in the hot tub and then had a movie night with the kids, complete with popcorn and Gatorade. They were in seventh heaven.
There was a light dusting of snow and the lake was frozen over. We took the kids for a walk and Kevin and Isak walked out onto the lake and threw rocks. We found all sorts of animal prints everywhere and Lucy found sticks to draw in the snow with.
Kevin took Isak sledding while Lucy was napping and he had a great time. There is a golf course there and it had perfect hills for sledding.
There was an ice cream social one night we were there at the rec center and Isak found some boys to play with. There was also Santa there, which neither of kids were that excited to see but Isak flat our refused to sit by him or talk to him. No amount of bribing was working. It was a good 15 minutes and finally he gave in as long as he could sit with Kevin. So this is our Santa picture this year, kind of funny. Isak asked for a nerf gun and a scuba mask. Lucy was just happy with the candy cane she got out of the whole deal.
We had fun and I learned why we don't go on "vacation" with our kids more often...its a whole lot of work with a 2 and 4 year old! By the time we got home, I told Kevin I needed my own vacation by myself...but Isak had so much fun and keeps asking when we get to go again. And Lucy keeps looking at videos on my phone of her swimming and wants to put her swimsuit on over and over and doesn't understand why she can't go to the pool. I am glad we got to do something fun with just the two of them before our family expands to five!

Lucy doing her yoga pose with Kevin. That girl is incredibly flexible, its amazing. We have been so busy the past few weeks with Christmas approaching as I am sure everyone is. I just got our Christmas cards sent out today and mailed the last few packages. The kids are so excited for Christmas and Lucy loves our "mistmis tree!". I showed them the new bible videos on lds.org and Lucy LOVES them and keeps asking to "watch baby Jesus!". I guess there are worse things she could watch. Isak especially seems to get it this year and asked to make sure I get his letter to Santa so he knows exactly what he wants. The other day he told Kevin and I he wanted an RPN. We asked him what that was and he said, "a rocket propelled nerf gun!". I guess he is starting to understand acronyms!.
My young women and I made gingerbread houses last week at my house and my kids were pretty impressed. Actually I only had one girl, poor thing, and she was stuck with me the whole time. She was nice enough to gift her house to my kids and Lucy promptly named it "lucy's house" and told me, "its so nice!". She loves to sit by it and talk about it and actually has eaten very little off of it, just wants to admire it. We are making ours next week and Isak keeps telling me he needs one his army guys can live in.
Isak has been asking to make a fruit rainbow, for some reason, so today I obliged and we created this. Isak has been telling everyone that he has a cat named Carro that lives in our attic and is very nice. Everyone once in a while he has kevin lift him up there and let him look around. He even told his whole preschool class about this as well as the snow leopard that lives in our yard. The kids comes up with some impressive stories. Last week he told me that blue otter pops have more fiber than the other colors. I don't know what he knows about fiber but he has a memory like no other so I'm sure he heard it from somewhere.

I have about 5 weeks of this pregnancy left and have started to get pretty uncomfortable. Sleep is getting harder, as well as moving in general and I have been pretty cranky. Poor Kevin and my kids. This combined with Christmas just has been a lot to deal with. I am working on being more agreeable and trying to save my patience for my children. My mom and I went shopping on Saturday and I got everything I need for this baby, either boy or girl, and I am all set. Just trying to wrap my head around the idea of a third kiddo around here but we are so excited!

Thanksgiving!

The Wednesday before Thanksgving Isak had his cousin Grady over to play. These two play so great together, I hardly see either one of them all day. Isak loves having a constant playmate and I love having someone to entertain him so I can get something cleaned!
They were even pretty good about playing with Lucy, who ran around for an hour with the fireman hat on her head and packing around this blue case.
For Thanksgiving this year, Kevin's family came up to Othello to celebrate and attend his cousin's wedding in Spokane. My brother Mark and his wife Jen came up to Moses Lake as well for Thanksgiving and for their wedding reception on Saturday. So we were very busy with family!
Stephanie, Whitney and I made about 3 batches of rolls and I made 3 pies for dinner. The rolls were so yummy! We had a wonderful dinner and visit with family right up until Friday when some horrible virus started to run through Kevin's family. It was super contagious and volatile but short lived. Isak got sick, then me, then Lucy threw up all over my brother's reception and then Kevin missed work the next week. It was horrible. I think Sunday night was the only night we actually got to visit with everyone and no one was actively sick.

Since we were sick most of the time, I completely forgot to pull out my camera. These are 3 of the grandkids post sickness. They had a lot of fun playing with their cousins!