Thanksgiving Break Part 2

Friday we had planned to have friends over, but Eva and Jack both ended up not feeling great, so we just relaxed instead. Rob had to work, although he got to come home early as it was so dead. We were glad he went to work that day though as he heard back about a job he interviewed for. He was offered the position!!! We are very excited about it as it's a promotion and he won't have to travel (if he had moved up in his current department, he would have had to travel, probably quite a bit). He'll be working with mutual funds now instead of 401k's. Another nice thing about his new job is that he will not have a book of business, meaning clients that are specifically his, which will make it easier to take vacation days. Right now, he gets backed up if he takes even one day off and it's basically impossible for him to take more than a week off. He starts in January :)

We're going to have to adjust our family schedule after Christmas break. Up until now, Rob and I have used a system where I get up with the kids in the middle of the night (and stay up doing homework) and he gets up with the kids in the morning and lets me and the baby sleep in. His new job is 7-4 instead of 8-5 though, so I will have to get up like a regular mom and get the kids off to school. We're moving Eva into Beth's room around then though, so hopefully I won't have to worry as much about getting up in the middle of the night with kiddos :)

Friday night we watched Star Wars Episode V.  I thought it would be fun to tape the kids' reaction to Darth Vader's revelation to Luke, but Megan, being Megan, had gotten curious about the rest of the story and had read the back of the other episodes and discovered that Darth Vader had been Anekin Skywalker and then pieced the story together. The reaction I got was "See? I was right!" :)

Saturday Kiki called and asked if Beth and Kylie wanted to go to a movie with her. Of course they were thrilled :) Rob and I loaded the other three munchkins in the car and headed off to run some errands. Megan and Jack took turns going into stores with Rob and Eva took a long nap. It was nice to drive around and talk with Rob. We finished up by buying our Christmas tree.

We set up the tree as soon as we got home. As we have a smallish child this year, it went up on the climber again. Eva discovered that she fit perfectly into the space under the tree and had a lot of fun crawling around in it.

Rob and I put on the lights (blue this year - Rob picked), then Megan, Kylie and I hung the tinsel ~

Eva looking way too old ~

Jack thought Eva's fort was pretty cool too ~

After we got the lights and tinsel on, we let the kids hang the ornaments ~

Kylie, looking way too old too ~

Jack got to put the angel on the tree this year. We tried to let Eva do it, but she was not interested ~

The munchkins with the finished tree (Eva spilled a drink all over herself, so she was just in a diaper, on her way to take a bath) ~

My kids are so weird - they must get that from Rob ;)

We wrapped up the weekend by making cookie turkeys out of double stuf oreos, nutter butters, candy corn and frosting ~

I had to take pictures of the house Megan made out of a box. There's even a clock on the wall!

Thanksgiving Break Part 1

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving break! The kids got the whole week off from school, so we started the week out by letting them stay up late to watch a show with Daddy on the laptop ~

Megan spent Monday with her BFF, Paula. When Paula's mom picked Megs up, she gave us some clothes that Paula had outgrown. Most of them were Beth's size, which thrilled Beth. They were all in perfect condition, so it was just like getting new clothes. Beth doesn't get a lot of those as she's the third girl. She picked her very favorite outfit and put it on that night to go to Walmart. We call it her Mary Kay dress ~

Elder Robinson found out that he was getting transferred to a different area on Wednesday, so he came over Tuesday night to say good-bye. Jack dressed him up and they went "skating". Rob was thrilled with Jack's choice of dress up clothes (if there was a sarcasm font, I'd be using it). Personally, I think the wide brimmed black hat compliments the Batman shirt ;) Elder Robinson was a good sport as usual though and Jack had a lot of fun.

We got a family picture with Elder Robinson ~

We had to get a shot of Elder Robinson with Simon. Simon HATED missionaries before Elder Robinson came along. Simon really doesn't like most adult males. Elder Robinson decided he would fix that and he worked and worked to earn Simon's trust. It took quite a while, but Elder Robinson is now one of Simon's favorite people :)

We said another good-bye this week. Our Fuji apple box finally gave up the ghost. We've got this box (at Costco I think) shortly after we moved here. It's been a toy box, a car, an art studio, a plane, a train, a rocket ship, a boat, a school chalkboard, and countless other things. It always makes me laugh when something as simple as a cardboard box provides so much entertainment, yet things we actually spend money on only keep the kids occupied for a few days.

Wednesday Rob got home from work early and we headed off to Cabela's, a huge sporting goods store with a zoo of stuffed animals (as in real animals that are now dead) and an aquarium. On the way we picked up dinner and ice cream cones at Braum's. While at Cabela's, the kids found wooden pop-guns and begged us to buy some (Kylie and Jack were especially adamant that we needed them). We let them pick out two and are now the proud owners of a pink camo pop-gun and a brown camo pop-gun. We wrapped up the night by eating peanut m&m's while watching the first half of Star Wars Episode IV. The kids have never watched Star Wars before, but they have been playing with our Star Wars monopoly game for the past week and love the characters. Jack's favorite is "tiny robot", aka R2D2.

We had a very low-key Thanksgiving day. We slept in late, then had monkey bread (made completely by Megan!), grapes, carrots, snap peas, and broccoli for brunch. We let the kids graze off the veggies and grapes (the monkey bread was eaten fairly quickly) all day. I got the turkey in the oven and then we spent a few hours relaxing. We stuck with a very classic Thanksgiving dinner and had turkey, gravy (which Rob made and did a much better job than I usually do), stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, crescent rolls, and our traditional jello mold. We had organic sparkling pomegranate juice to drink, but had issues opening the bottles. Rob came to the rescue with his channel locks :) Dessert was chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, and cheesecake. We ended up only eating the cheesecake as we were so full from dinner. Allison joined us for dinner and Christy came over later that evening to spend some time with us and pick up some stuffing. 

After dinner, Jack crawled under the table and fell asleep, making sure to keep his pop-gun under him ~

We finished off the night by watching the second half of Episode IV.

Eva's "Party"

We don't do big birthday parties at our house. Especially for 1st birthdays. We did one for Megan's 1st birthday and (as we should have expected), she opened about half a present and wandered off to do something else, leaving me to open the rest of her presents. For Eva's birthday, we invited Beca's family, Betsy's family, Allison, and Jo-Jo. Beca's family got a stomach flu, Allison ended up not being able to drive up when planned, and Jo-Jo had to work. We missed them, but we had fun :) Betsy, Ashley, and Caitlin came over. I made Eva's cake shaped like a pencil due to her inordinate love of eating pencil erasers. I found a fantastic recipe for frosting and will never buy frosting again as nothing comes close to comparing to it! (You can find here ~ http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gale-gand/quick-vanilla-buttercream-frosting-recipe/index.html)

Eva waited with Caitlin, Kylie, Megan, and Beth while we lit her candles (one for her birthday and one for good luck).

Eva wasn't quite sure what we were doing as we brought her cake over and sang to her. I ended up blowing her candles out.

Before eating cake, we let Eva open her presents. Beth made Eva a "coupon" out of construction paper and wrapped it in a hat.

Rob and I got Eva a baby laptop. It took her a bit to figure out that she was supposed to pull the wrapping paper off, but eventually, with some help from her sisters and brother, she got it open.

We took off her clothes before letting her dig into her part of the cake. She got the whole eraser of course :) She taste-tested a bit of the frosting first.

Then decided to dig in. She chose a hands-free approach.

Ashley decided Eva had the right idea ~

She ate most of the frosting and smooshed up the rest of her piece of cake ~

Our cute little one year old just before I scooped her up and took her upstairs to take a bath ~

How We Spent Eva's Birthday

We started off our day by getting up and going fairly early and leaving the house around 10am, heading to the school for their annual Thanksgiving Feast. Last year my parents went and Rob has gone a few times, but I've always had too many little kiddos to go. This year, we decided to tackle it! Jack was Batman today, by the way, and wore his cape to school (his Batman shirt was under his sweatshirt)

As we walked to school, I was mesmerized by the cloud formation. I've never seen clouds look quite like this. It looked just like the ocean on a calm day.

Beth's lunch was at 10:30 and we sat at a table with her BFF, Maia

Maia's mom, Alice, was there too, along with Deric, who is good friends with Jack (and Silvie, who is 2 months older than Eva, but Silvie slept through the whole lunch). After the kindergartener's lunch was over, Alice offered to take Jack back home with her so he could play with Deric rather than sit through two more lunches (we'll have four to go to next year!) and the time between them. Jack happily took her up on her offer :)

Kylie's lunch was half an hour after Beth's ended. We got to sit by ourselves and loved spending time together! As I ended up eating most of the lunch I bought Jack during Beth's lunch, I didn't get another lunch. Eva fell asleep during Kylie's lunch and slept through Megan's, cuddled on my chest in my baby carrier (which I LOVE - seriously the best baby carrier ever, Kimber; you are awesome!).

During Megan's lunch we sat with Paula. Paula and Megan have been BFFs since kindergarten :)

Paula's parents, Constantino and Maria, Paula, and Megan

Megs, sleeping Eva, and me

Megan's friend (whose name I don't remember), Paula, and Megan.

After all three lunches were over, Eva and I headed over to Alice's house. Jack was quite disappointed when we showed up as he did not want to leave. Alice asked if we had time to stay until school got out, so we spent a couple of hours with them. Eva and Silvie played together and Jack and Deric played together and Alice and I talked :) It was a great way to spend an afternoon!

We picked the girls up from school, then had to go pick up Rob so he could drop his car off to get check out (check engine light is on). We decided on Chinese food for dinner and ordered from a place down by the mechanic that has a drive thru pick up window. Dinner was awesome! We haven't been able to find a really good Chinese restaurant since we moved down here, which has disappointed me as New England has fabulous Chinese food. We've ordered from this restaurant before and found it to be the best in the area. It was still just "good enough" though. I don't know what they changed, but the food we got tonight was some of the best Chinese I've ever had! Eva loved it too :)

After dinner, we were able to skype with Nona and Papa so they could sing happy birthday to Eva and talk to the kids and me. Kiki came over with red velvet cupcakes and was able to join our conversation with Nona and Papa. This time they took us on a virtual tour of their apartment, carrying the laptop from room to room. The kids loved seeing the pictures they drew on Nona and Papa's fridge! Megan was fascinated by how small their kitchen is (it's about the size of the kitchen in our last house, but she probably doesn't remember that :) ). We even got to meet their tree, Oscar, who although he looks more like a palmetto than a pine tree, will be decorated for Christmas. We skyped for about 45 minutes, then they had to go make lunch for the elders they were having over :)

Eva opened her present from Kiki, which is a talking soccer ball that apparently talked to Kiki all the way over to our house, even though no one was touching it.

We stripped Eva down before giving her a cupcake. I've learned a few things in the past nine years and one of them is that naked babies are much easier to remove stains from than clothing ;)

Initially Eva didn't seem too sure of the situation

She tried the frosting first, scooping it off in one handful. Red velvet cake has a cream cheese frosting. Eva discovered that she's a fan.

The rest of the cupcake followed the frosting pretty quickly

All done! And ready for a bath :)

Happy, happy birthday little Eva girl!!! :) We love you!!!