december jam

this past week has been jam-packed with things going on. On top of everything, Kiersten has had croup and Evie has an upper respiratory infection. So that has not been the greatest, but they both have managed to stay mostly happy through the sick times. I think Kiersten is starting to be better. Today there was no vomiting or fever. Kara has been fine so far, and hopefully wont get sick at all.

Kara made Christmas suckers to share with her classmates. Kiersten got to help for the first time ever. She did better than I expected. Here they are enjoying some of them.
Evie is such a big girl. I have started her on fruits and veggies now. Here she is trying to use the spoon on her own, unsuccesfully. She has really started loving food, and tries to eat anything we eat while holding her. If we aren't holding her, and she sees us eating, she just lunges forward with her mouth open and a frantic look in her eyes.
this is how she looks when the food is gone and she's upset that I've stopped shoveling it in.

now that she's such a good sitter-upper, she doesn't have to take lay down baths anymore. She loves looking at herself in the mirror, and also splashing with her hands.

I like this one of her looking in the mirror.

she is getting around so well. I'd call it more of a wriggle than a crawl, though.

sometimes she likes sitting in the splits. She is so proud to be able to get into a sitting position all by herself. She beams with pride every time she does it. (which is like, 30 times a day)

you'd hardly know she was sick, if not for the running nose, horrible coughing and raspy breathing. she is still so happy.

Kiersten was no longer contagious as of friday, so she is happy to play with Evie again. I was trying to keep them away from each other as much as possible so Evie wouldn't get croup and end up even sicker than she is.

Kara's class Christmas party was friday. They did a singing and dancing performance for us. Kara is in the pink dress if you can't spot her.

They held up their books in front of their faces the whole time they were singing, but the words weren't even in the books. it was just pictures to remind them which song came next. I wish Kara hadn't held hers up the whole time. I took video, but only got a few glimpses of her face.

Mrs. Wright is always dressing up for holidays and the kids love it. She's a fun teacher.

Kiersten refused to wear her shoes because it was raining, so she insisted on her rain boots.

After the party, we drove up to meet Ben at Black Angus for his birthday dinner. We had several people come over to tell us they thought Evie was cute, and a few to tell us all the girls were cute.

When we got home, we let Ben open his birthday gift early. He went right upstairs to start playing it.

Today is Ben's 29th birthday. Every year after my birthday, I have a month of teasing to endure. He calls me an old lady and teases me about having robbed the cradle. Now he is 29 too, and the teasing will stop for another 11 months, until I turn 30. I'm sure that one will be extra fun for him. He dislikes cake, so I made him a birthday rice krispie treat. I could only find those 2 candles, so we decided each candle represents 14.5 years.

blowing out the candles. I hope his wish comes true!

It was taking too long to load the videos from Kara's christmas recital on here, but I did post them to facebook if you want to see.

Christmas stuff

Here are some pictures from Ben's Fidelity Christmas party. It was at a bowling alley.

Kara took most of the pictures. We ended up with a lot of candid ones, because I don't think everyone realized she was taking pictures. We also ended up with a lot of pictures of the other little kids, especially Nathan's little boys.

Kara bowled one time without the ramp, and dropped the ball. Then she sat on it as she tried to roll it forward.

this was right before Kiersten dropped the ball very near her toes.

Evie got held by lots of different people. It was nice to have my arms to myself for a change.

another wierd sleeping picture. This was on friday. She fell asleep in the car again on the way home from Kara's school. I sent her inside, and went back out for Evie. she didn't even make it to the couch. I did pick her up and put her on the couch after I took the picture.

the girls love hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows.

Kara had a Christmas concert yesterday at the South park community center. Here she is with some of her friends from school before the performance.

Kiersten was more than a little jealous.

Kara and her friend, Gregorio. He was at her school last year too, so they are pretty good friends.

Once the show started, Kiersten cheered up. She was singing and dancing along with the kids.

Evie got all dressed up for the concert.

Kara's group during their ballet performance. We got better video than pictures during the dances, so I'll post that on here later.

Can you pick out Kara, the little cheeser?

It's been a pretty busy December so far. I am glad that I am completely done with shopping, wrapping, and shipping. So I am looking forward to the next few weeks of hanging out with the girls and doing more fun stuff. Kara has one more week of school, and then a Christmas party on Friday. I am looking forward to 2 weeks of not having to get all the girls ready and out the door in the mornings. It will be a nice break.

last day of school

First, I just liked this picture of Kiersten. She asked if she could take her nap on my bed the other day. I set her on top of the pillows with her own blanket, and when I came in to check if she'd fallen asleep, I found that she had unmade one side of the bed and gotten in. She looked so cute. Kara on her last day of school. She made a card for her teacher. That's the paper that she's holding.

She has grown 2 inches since she started school, and only gained 1 pound.

posing in front of her school. She has been saying the last few days that she was glad to be done with school. We tried to explain that she wont see her friends and teacher, so she needed to have lots of fun on her last day. She just insisted that she wasn't going to be sad or miss anyone. But when I picked her up from school, she started crying and didn't want to leave. She begged me to let her go to summer school, and insisted that all the other kids are going to summer school. I just explained that we are going to be having the new baby arrive soon, so we need to take a break from school until the fall. She seems to be okay with it now, although she has brought it up several times today that she no longer gets to go to school or ballet.

Kiersten got this bug sprinkler for her birthday in march. It was finally sunny enough that we let them try it out on saturday after we got home from a birthday party. Ben counted at least 7 pregnant women at the birthday party, so I was in good company, and also got to see some Seattle friends we haven't seen in quite a while.

This morning I woke up to find Kiersten getting into my makeup in the bathroom. I sent her down to play with Kara while I cleaned it all up. (you can see some still on her face). When I came down, I had every intention of lecturing her about getting into things, but I forgot when I saw the two of them cuddled together on the couch like this.

36 weeks along in the pregnancy now! I am having my first dr. appt. to get "checked" tomorrow. So not looking too forward to that, but definitely looking forward to the baby coming soon.

Kara's school pictures

Kara's school pictures from Velma Wright Academy

Grrr! so mad!

I am so mad at the mom of one of Kara's preschool friends! She found lice eggs in her daughter's hair this morning, and brought her to school anyway. Of course, Mrs. Wright told her she couldn't stay at school, but the mom argued with her that it was just the eggs and they weren't hatched yet. Does she not realize they could hatch any time? or does she not care, since her daughter already has it anyway? For all she knows, they could have started hatching on the way to school. Kara's teacher was telling me that she felt so bad about not letting Maya in the play area, but this mom was just insisting that she let her stay. She said she has already used all of her sick days for the year and will get written up if she calls in. That's too bad, but not the other kids' fault. What a jerk. I think that is so rude of her to possibly expose everyone else's children and family to getting lice. I don't know of any school or daycare that would let you bring your child with a head full of lice. Mrs. Wright said that they were only there about 10 minutes arguing about it before they left. Maya didn't take off her coat or get past the front entry area, but we should still watch out for it just in case. She also told me that in a room full of kids, the lice prefers clean hair, so those are the kids who typically get it first. She wanted me to be aware because Kara is one of the kids that always comes to school with clean hair. My real concern, is that her mother found the eggs this morning, but she has been at school monday and tuesday, and last week as well. She could have had it already, and it could be in the classroom, or already spread to other kids. So for the next 14 days, I guess we'll be checking Kara's scalp on a daily basis. Thanks a lot, Maya's mom! If it were a situation where she didn't know she had it, and sent her in, I still wouldn't be happy, but I could understand how that might happen. But she knowingly brought her to school with it, and tried to insist that since she pays tuition, they have to let her stay! I would never do that, and I don't think very many people would. I felt horrible when Kara got pink eye. She had been to school 2 days before she got it, and I called the teacher to let her know. Kara was so excited about being class helper that day, but I made her stay home. She was so upset and it really broke my heart to see her so disappointed, butI felt like there wasn't any choice in the matter. If your kid has something contagious, you have to keep them home. Her teacher was scrubbing everything down when I got there, and said her hubby was on the way to help, so I just hope that is good enough to keep Kara's head lice-free.

Field trip to city hall

Kara doesn't usually have school on thursdays, but her teacher was having trouble getting parent volunteers for a field trip to city hall to meet the mayor of Tacoma. So I asked if she would like me to come along and help out. Kara was thrilled, since she missed the library field trip in January, and was going to miss this one too. Here she is holding hands with her buddy for the day. She really wanted her buddy to be one of the other girls, but these two did pretty well together. Kiersten came along too. She didn't behave perfectly, but did pretty well for her age. Her biggest issue was that she wanted a buddy like the other kids had. I just wasn't a good enough buddy, I guess.

The kids waiting for the bus. Their teacher really has them in line. It was impressive. If someone started acting up, all it took was her saying their name and they were back to good behavior.

the kids all piled into the bus. I think that was their favorite part of the entire field trip.

Marilyn Strickland, the mayor of Tacoma. She was just elected in November, and seemed pretty excited to have the kids there. She said this was her first group of pre-schoolers to come for the tour. She let them play on the terrace outside her office, and gave them all temporary tattoos and pins to take home. She took us down to see the council chambers and held a little mock meeting with the kids.

All the kids got to say their name into the microphone and ask a question if they wanted. Unfortunately Kara's teacher got in the way just as I took this picture. The mayor had asked the kids if anyone wanted to be a mayor when they grew up. Of course they all said they did. When Kara got up, her question was, "Is it okay if I can be the president instead of the mayor?" we all laughed, and Mayor Strickland told Kara that would be a very good thing to aspire to. Then Kara leaned in again and said, "or maybe I will be a cake maker." Then she just went and sat back down. She got a lot of laughs.

The kids loved sitting in these chairs for the "meeting". They didn't want any of us adults sitting with them.

The class posing with the mayor. The man on the left is the other parent that helped chaperone. All the kids loved having Kiersten along. Kara got a little protective, and kept reminding everyone that Kiersten is HER sister.

It was a fun little outing, and I'm glad I went. I didn't really want to, but I knew Kara did, and I didn't want the trip to get canceled for all the kids because there weren't enough parents to go. Mayor Strickland was so nice and happy to have us there. I think that made it really fun for all of the kids. All of her staff was really cheerful and nice as well, so those kids felt like special guests. We did cause a few people to take the stairs once they got a look inside the elevator full of children. That was pretty funny to see the surprised looks we got from people.