Halloweekend

Ben's Mom and his sister Nancy and her husband and kids came to visit us for halloween. They arrived thursday evening. On friday after the girls got out of school, we got started on making treats for a halloween tea party.
the girls set the table and made place cards for everyone.




Evie suddenly loves her animal train again now that her cousin Tommy came and likes playing with it.

Kara did really well at her soccer game saturday morning. It was really muddy and cold, so she and some of the other kids were upset by the end of the game. Later that afternoon, we went to a halloween party hosted by Ben's boss. It was really fun, and decorated super cute.

I made costumes for the first time this year. We were cavemen with a cave baby. You can't see the picture very well, but Evie had a cute little bone on top of her head. I loved her costume the most.

Vicky forgot to bring a costume, so luckily we have this cow costume she was able to wear. Here she is indulging in a little snack.


and...planking?...
my lovely princess peach and Halloween princess. I'll have better pictures of their costumes when they go trick or treating.

all the kids at the party. It was sure a lively group of kids, and hard to get a picture with all of them looking.

Evie fell asleep about 5 minutes into painting pumpkins.

Kara and Kiersten both worked really hard on their creations.

Nancy and I decorated a halloween gingerbread house with the girls. it was fun, though there were a few mishaps. We also made halloween suckers for the kiddos to take to their class party the next morning. It was a projecty day.Be on the lookout for cute trick-or-treating pics in the next day or two!

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.

making candy

Kara and I had lots of fun making Christmas candy. Of course we had to do Kara's favorite chocolate suckers. She gets better and better at them every time we make them. Here are some of the finished candies. I sent these to work with Ben for his coworkers. This year I decided to make some candy from my Grandma's cookbook. Her fudge was super easy to make and turned out really yummy. I also made those pink cloud things. They are pretty good too. I remember eating them when I would visit her as a little girl. Ben thought they were a little weird. Her cookbook is great because everything is very simple, and calls for everyday ingredients that I usually have already.

yesterday the girls were watching cartoons together on the couch. This is a rare thing lately. Usually one would be pushing the other away angrily, so I had to capture the moment.

I had to put this one, because I love the look on Kiersten's face.

Here is a shot of Kiersten showing me that something yucky came out of her nose. Ben really loves this new jacket of hers.

that's all for now! I've got way too much stuff to do before Christmas, and going to Utah!

We love making stuff!

After spending the morning shopping at the supermall, we came home to make suckers for Kara to take to school. She is the class helper again today. Here she is getting ready to start.I used pastry bags this time instead of the double boiler. It was cleaner and easier. I also didn't have to worry about her being near the stove.
Making green eyeballs!
Kiersten didn't get to help, so she played with the play kitchen while we worked on them.

Here are a few of the finished suckers.

The candies without sucker sticks are supposed to be eyeballs. Kara made them 100% all by herself. I helped her do the actual suckers.

Kiersten enjoying the finished product.

Kara thought the eyeballs turned out yummy.

Here she is ready for school this morning. She took her tickle me cookie monster for show and tell. those are the suckers in the plastic bag. we just wrapped them in purple and orange cellophane.

Kiersten is terrified of cookie monster, really terrified. She screams and cries when he is turned on, and if she even sees him, she gets upset, and says, "scared!" so we try to keep him out of sight. A few nights ago, Kiersten wouldn't stay out of Kara's room. Kara doesn't like to shut the door, because then she can't get back out when she wants to. Kara was getting frustrated, until eventually, Kiersten joined us in the family room. I went to go to the bathroom, and saw that cookie monster was standing in Kara's open doorway. We thought that was pretty smart, and a little mean spirited of Kara to think of doing that, but it totally worked.

1/15/09

We had such a busy day yesterday. We went up to Seattle and went to lunch with Ben at Gordon Biersch, then we stopped at the branch so Vicky could see his office. Then he had to go back to work, so we took the girls down to the aquarium. We spent a really long time there. Then we walked down to catch the ferry to Bainbridge island, and right when we got there, Ben called and said he would go with us, so I got him a ticket. He ran all the way from the branch and made it there about one minute after they called for boarding. He was covered in sweat, but at least he made it! We wanted to find a certain diner on the island, but when we got there, we found that it had closed permanently. Then we saw the children's museum there, and it is one we can visit for free with our membership. But it was also closed. We then had time to visit a cute little toy store, and then had to hurry back to catch the ferry back to seattle. It seemed like such a long, cold walk in the dark to get back to the branch. Luckily, Ben carried Kiersten, so I just had to push Kara in the stroller. I was glad I had parked right there, Ben and Vicky had to walk even further to get to where he had parked. I was exhausted once we got home. We had a quick dinner and watched Kung Fu Hustle (one of Ben's favorites) and then somehow, Vicky still had enough energy to play wii fit. She had to get up early for her flight back to SLC, I don't know how she does it. Now, it's just us girls again. We have plenty of housework to catch up on and laundry to fold. Both girls have coughs and runny noses still, so I think I'll just keep them home for a few days to get well.

Kara wanted to play wii fit with Grandma. This is the yoga tree pose. hehehe.

This is on the ferry to Bainbridge island. It was pretty cold, but both of the girls did pretty well. We were the only people outside on the way over. On the way back it was even colder and dark, so we sat inside with everyone else. My camera was dying, so I'll have to wait for Vicky to get home so she can email me some of the pictures she took.

We visited the Seattle aquarium. These were the fur seals we were watching. Kiersten fell asleep while we were there, so she didn't end up seeing any of the marine mammals.
These are the heart suckers that Kara made. some of hers turned out really pretty. This time, I had her use a little paint brush instead of a toothpick, and that was a lot less messy for her.

Here are some of the suckers that I did. The bears sure turned out cute, but when are any of us going to want to eat that big of a sucker???