Who Cares About Mice When There's Santa?

My kids have wanted a Wii for years. Josh even tried harnessing the power of a New Mexican wishing well. For many and varied reasons we've never gotten one. This year Gary and I decided we have too much stuff in the house already, so we'd rather spend Christmas money on a Wii, and start out with a few games that will keep them active in the winter. So, in anticipation of seeing Santa on Saturday, I prepped the kids. They were asking for kind of expensive things, so I told them, "Santa only has so much he spends on kids every year, so if you want him to bring our family a Wii, you have to ask for cheap things."

Lissy only wants a spinning toothbrush anyway, so she marched right in, and before she even sat on his lap said, "I want a spinning toothbrush." Josh and Noah, both in a frenzy of excitement about the notion of possibly having a Wii in our house, asked for Pokemon cards. Then Andrew got up there, and no holds barred said, "I want a Wii!" Santa was a little surprised and looked at me on that one. 

Tonight, the boys were being silly when they were supposed to be going to bed, and Andrew was being particularly crazy, darting back and forth from the bathroom. Gary said, "Ok, I'm emailing Santa to tell him Andrew is on the naughty list." Josh immediately reacted, "Nooooo! Please Dad, please don't put Andrew on the naughty list!" As Josh tearfully begged, I was touched by his deep concern for his brother. Then I realized - Andrew is the one that put in the order for the Wii. Ah, brotherly love . . .

Why was I so happy the he was excited to see Santa? He was!

This boy doesn't mess around.

Once she already asked for the toothbrush, she didn't see a point in this part.

Noah is the cutest when it comes to this stuff.

 Thursday was a super windy day, and Andrew declared it to be perfect for flying kites. We don't have one, and I was cleaning the pantry, so he decided to make one himself. Look at him go!

It flies! This is what he wanted to do all day after this.

 Andrew made a kite for Lissy and her friend, too. Lissy has a new friend named Emily that moved in across the street this summer. Emily's mom is really great, and heaven knows Lissy needs a girl to play with sometimes. Sometimes I think they moved here because heaven literally knows. Lissy and Emily sat on the trampoline just talking on Thursday. What do barely 3 year olds talk about, anyway? After a magical playdate on Thursday, the girls played again on Friday, but this time they were both super-duper tired, and Lissy kept making Emily cry by saying, "Boom shaka laka." What does it even mean? She got it from her brothers, so must be awesome. And tough. Emily's mom Jen and I were laughing pretty hard. (BTW - Lissy was not trying to make anyone cry. She was being random, since she was tired, and Emily was crying, because she was tired. That's why it's funny.)

Andrew has a cute friend from our ward that does all of the same things - same preschool class, same church class, same soccer team, and now both doing basketball skills. He's so cute, and Andrew loves him, so finally we had him over to play on Friday. I loved watching them dress up and play Star Wars and examine bugs, and do all the things Josh and Noah did before they got older and so awesome. When the friend's mom came to get him, we couldn't find his shoes. I was planning on her only seeing the front room I had cleaned, but she ended up needing to go all over in our awful messes on the hunt for the shoes . . .and they were in our shoe pockets, right next to Andrew's. WHO would have thought that they would have put them where they go?!

The next two pics are from Tuesday. Oh, my. Spent the morning doing visiting teaching stats at the church, tried to get everyone naps (no go), then got Josh and Noah and headed to the allergist, then the dentist/orthodontist, then to the grocery store to buy some roasted red peppers and french bread, but ended up buying needed produce, then got talked into buying a bunch of things for the kids while I stood there not knowing where the roasted red peppers were. By the pickles, for the future. Then dropped Josh off at scouts, and brought the kids in, craziness, trying to make dinner and feed the baby and talk on the phone about Christmas for the ward, then the exterminator came, and Gary finally walked in the door as dinner was scorching because I was talking to the exterminator. Then it's 8:30 and we finally have dinner and Josh comes home from basketball and hey kiddo, you didn't really miss dinner after all. Phew.

So that is why the kids talked me into buying a gingerbread house kit instead of making our own.

It's a thing of beauty. They were soooo excited to make it. Planned to eat it on Christmas Eve, but they lasted two days.

Look who's great at sitting! New toy at the dentist, and he's good for a long time.

This pic is a few weeks ago. I told the kids we could put up the Christmas tree if they cleaned up, but I was going to wait until late when Gary got home. Then the little men took over. Noah and Andrew hauled in the box, and Josh took over the set-up. He said he watched Dad do it last year, and he coached the other kids as he set up.

He's the man of the house!

 That man of the house won the Hoop Shoot for his class last week, and moved on to the school-wide one. So fun and exciting!! Then, at the school one, he didn't make a single basket, and he was bummed. I said, "Oh, buddy, I'm sorry. You must have been way too nervous." He said, "I wasn't nervous, the ball just kept curving!"

Josh typically takes forever getting ready for school in the morning. I'll remind him 8 times what steps he needs to take, then he'll still be in his underwear when his friends show up to go, and I have to do some heavy prompting to get him out the door. On Friday the boys all slept in, and when I woke them up I said, "You guys need to hurry, you only have 15 minutes to do what you need to do!" Josh said, "I'm not worried, I'm used to being under pressure." Gary and I laughed ourselves silly over that one. If you ever dealt with him in the morning, you'd be laughing, too.

Noah and Andrew made Lissy a house out of boxes, then wrapped it up for Christmas. It takes up half of our living room, but the neighbor kids are jealous.

Wait, what about the exterminator? It's for our mouse infestation. Yes, INFESTED. EWWWW! We've been catching a ton lately, and we even thought we sealed up our garage pretty well last month, but they were already in the house. My mom heard the clawing and gnawing in the walls and called an exterminator. It's a freaky sound. We probably have around 100 in the attic, I am told. Yes, it would be the right thing to do to find a good mouser cat and keep him in the back yard in a heated kitty house, but that is too much for me right now, so I feel good about the exterminator. After hours cleaning and bleaching the pantry, I still have a few more shelves to go. And the closet under the stairs. But it will be clean after that, so there's your silver lining.

Wait, your mom? Yes! She drove to Idaho from Texas last week, so we got to see her a little bit. We played games and ate decadent mug desserts with her and my dad Sunday night, then she read books to Lissy and took us to Cafe Rio for lunch. I felt like I was taking off work, it was wonderful.

Why are you blogging? Because I need to! I love remembering the cute things my kids do, and I hate forgetting! I have been so tired I can't move or think most evenings, and if I have a computer to use, it's in the evening, and along with all of the other home and church responsibilities, this gets down there on the list. Actually, kicked off the list. I feel like my brain is short-circuiting most of the time. I'm forgetting all kinds of things I never have before, I have no vocabulary, I can't form a sentence, and I'm not so great at typing, but I'm writing. I've got a lot I want to say about a lot of things this past 7 months, but hey, starting with this week is a start.