Our Extended Stay

One thing that I love about living in Kitsap is that it is such a short drive over to my parent's house (with nearly all of my siblings settled nearby). We're so near that we don't need any big excuse to make the trip and come enjoy our family, even if it's just overnight.
Wednesday morning we woke up and decided to come help celebrate Aunt Becky's birthday - no big deal - hang out and be home in time for dance and scouts the next day...or so we planned. Clearly I don't check the news often enough, because I figured "no snow, let's go!" It didn't even occur to me that the warmer weather and continuing precipitation was going to mean widespread flooding!
So, here we are in Snohomish, hoping that today there will be a clear route back to our house in Port Orchard. We've already missed all of the obligations we were hurrying home for, but we're running out of clean undies!
Thanks to Kathy for the pictures of the kids in front of the overflowing Pilchuck River (which you can't usually see from the road we were standing on). And on the other side of that road, there was the flood from the Snohomish River. Craziness!
If you'd like to see my pictures bigger, check out my Mom's blog (Grandma Linda). I'll try to fix mine when I get home! :)

Christmas cookies! Yes, I'm a little slow.

I'm just now starting to do a bit of Christmas baking (I was too busy sewing before Christmas). Better late than never. When I found my long-lost crystallized ginger on Saturday, I knew just what I was going to bake first - ginger snaps!
Some of the kids like crystallized ginger, so I decided to just chop it up relatively small and not advertise that it was in there. If they begged me, I could always tell them my secret ingredient later.
Annika helped me make roll the dough in sugar, and as she watched them in the oven, she sighed, "they're like glittering balls of sugar!" Yep. Pretty much. Sugar, spice, and everything nice.
Everyone loved them. James tried to horde them all until his 3rd cookie, when he bit into a pretty big piece of ginger. After that, he let us have them!

Polling data shows...

Tony has decided to go on vacation without me again, so now I have plenty of time to add to my blog and agonize over curtain fabric. You're so lucky - I'm going to include you in both!
So...all of my long-distance friends, which fabric should I use to make the girls their long-awaited curtains? I bought fat quarters of each of these. We've been holding them up in front on their window and pondering for weeks now. Please help and vote in my poll!
Yes, I already tried just finding a set to buy, but they were all ugly or heavy or boring...and Amy Butler fabrics are so cute! Do you think it is bad that they aren't "matchy" with the bedspreads?
If you can't figure out which fabric belongs to which name, well, they're in the same order in the poll as they are in the pictures. If you also leave a comment, I'll throw your name in a drawing for a give away! (And no, it won't be all of the losing fabrics...but close.)

Whatta White Christmas!

We had such a lovely Christmas this year. All of the kids were very sweet and happy about their gifts. The girls were somewhat chagrined to receive IOUs instead of pajamas, but I've promised to make good on those this week. (And they will be so dang cute that they will totally forget that they were late! I was saving the funnest sewing project for last, hoping that it would motivate me. It didn't.) Only James was a little grinch (at least for the first hour after being woken up much earlier than usual). Of course, he changed his tune once he saw Jonny's Hess Truck.

I was amazed at how thoughtful all of the children's gifts were. Nobody bought me their favorite DVD or anything. Jonny did get me all kinds of candy, knowing that I generally share, but...ooooh...hot tamales! Annika got me a new set of coasters (with a fern pattern on them). I know she was thinking, "Mom likes plants...and us not to put our drinks on the furniture...coasters!" Sofia, my fellow Twilight fan, bought me the Twilight soundtrack, and Anthony got me a some headphones that block out background noise (aka kids). The combination of those two things may lead to some bad parenting, but it was very sweet.

We took the kids to see the Tale of Despereaux, which was actually quite a gift from us, since Tony had to drive on yucky, snowy roads and I'm going through an "anti-kid-movies phase". Then we sat around reading our Christmas books, eating, and playing games for the rest of the day. Lovely and lazy.

Now the magical snow has all been rained away (Woo-hoo! I can leave my house!), Tony is back at work, and I'm gearing up for a new year and a fresh semester with the children. See ya next year, Christmas!

This Means War!

Tony and I had a very peaceful, non-present-buying truce going until today. He hadn't bought me anything. I hadn't bought him anything. It was like the year that we both forgot our anniversary...but this time it was laziness, not forgetfulness. I was very happy not having any presents under the tree - it took the pressure off. (I never know what to get my husband, so I always end up buying him something lame and he pretends to like it.)

I shouldn't have underestimated a man's ability to go shopping at the last minute. And what was his excuse? "I didn't buy you anything, but the kids wanted to get you presents." (A likely story - I heard Anthony complaining the whole way to the car!)

Of course, I am glad that he loves me enough to put down Breaking Dawn to take four kids shopping. I know I have trouble shaking off the Twilight stupor. And he may have thought that the present truce was just another woman trap, like, "Do I look fat in this?" or "Do you like my new haircut?" Tony has always been wary of those, so his spider senses may have been tingling?

So, what should I do to retaliate? Any very last-minute gift ideas?

Our Mini Vay-Cay

Since Tony is actually taking some leave, I thought we would sneak off for a couple of days (just away from the Navy, not away from the kids this time). We drove down to Grand Mound, WA to stay at the Great Wolf Lodge. A perfect get away for two reasons: 1)something fun to do inside (it is December) and 2)rooms that are actually made to sleep 7 (rare indeed). We drove down in the snow Sunday afternoon and came back today. Short and sweet.
The review: I loved all of the decorated Christmas trees in the huge lobby. Tony cringed at the horribly cheesy animatronic clock tower show. The little kids thought it was great. I just loved the fact that there was a huge lobby full of families with little kids! Family friendly wins an inordinate amount of points from me. The buffet was expensive..shocker. But the water park made up for any other short-comings. My dream water park - totally free from my arch-enemy, the sun! They had a great toddler area with little slides, a beach-front entrance, and plenty of buttons and levers that made water squirt/dump/spray from various things. James' favorite parts were the fountains spraying water out of the ground (which were all over the place) and ski-doos that didn't go anywhere, but squirted a steady stream of water in whatever direction you pointed them. (Although I was shocked at the idiotic adults and older kids that though it was hilarious to squirt a 2-year-old in the face. Very nice and mature. I guess I should just be glad that wasn't my husband or kids!)
Everyone loved the waved pool, although the older kids tried very hard to drown in it by not using the inner tubes. I was a good preggy and didn't go down any of the forbidden water slides. Everyone else raved about them. Scaredy-cat Sofia even went down the scariest one (encourage by 2 new friends she made at the park)...the tornado. Anthony loved the tornado! Jonny and Annika were up for anything and went on the waterslides over and over. It was a blast to watch everyone. Sorry I don't have any pictures of everyone actually splashing and having fun, but I was the wet Mom, chasing kids through the pool (trying to avoid drownings!), not the dry Mom with the camera sitting in a beach chair (boring). The upside...you also don't have to see pictures of me in a maternity swimsuit - Sexy! So, just count your blessings.

Caroling for Food...and Freezing

The kids participated in a very worthwhile (but extremely cold) event today. Every year in Poulsbo, Fishline (the local food bank) has an event on Front Street where various singing/other groups carol for donations to the food bank. It's such a great idea, but today happened to be the coldest day we've had this year. (Snow is blanketing the ground outside as I type.)
Their lovely violin teacher had a nice group of violin and guitar students, but they only lasted a little under an hour. Singers can stick their hands in their pockets, but you kind of need those frozen fingers to be exposed if you're playing an instrument. Even Annika, who isn't quite up to playing Christmas songs in a big group yet, was a dedicated little page turner. (Actually, it was more of a page-holding duty, so that the wind wouldn't blow the music every which way and on down the street.) Next year we'll be smart and bring hand warmers and fingerless gloves.
I thought they all did a wonderful job and were real troopers!