With our crazy schedules, we celebrated Santa Lucia a bit late. This year the boys wanted to be Star Boys, so I made them their hats.
Luckily they have no idea about dunce hats! They loved being part of the program this year instead of just the audience. I still need to make Emily a dress for it, but who knows when that will happen. She did have a hair piece so she didn't feel too left out. Santa Lucia has attendants known as Star Boys and Handmaidens.
Here's what we came up with:
It's hard to tell, but their glowsticks have stars on top.
Sorry for the blurry pictures, Low light was not my friend and the kids moved too fast. We had a good breakfast together and enjoyed the day.
To celebrate Devon's big day Daniel had taken Devon to DQ to order a cake a few days prior. They couldn't do what he wanted so he settled for a different cake, super easy decorations, and set the date and time to pick it up. It took the worker 3 tries to place the order. This did not bode well for the cake...
When Daniel went to pick the cake up, (it was supposed to be ready at 11). He got there, No Cake! He talked to the manager and he said to come back in 2 hours. He did and they had it ready. There was some sort of mixup, they had the cake the day before, but it wasn't in the freezer when Daniel went to pick it up. Devon wanted to go to the movies for his birthday, so we headed to The Dalles and saw Strange Worlds. We were the only ones in the theater so that was fun. Lizzy was at a tournament so we got the call that they were on their way home as we were leaving the Dalles. Since we knew we would be a little late I called a neighbor to pick her up. She was happy to do so. We got home about 20 mins later.
Henry's preschool had their holiday party, we had ornaments that the kids decorated and photos with Santa. We had a hot chocolate bar and cookies as well.
Unfortunately, Lizzy wasn't there, she was at a wrestling tournament so we didn't get her in the photo. It was photoshopped pretty badly, but it was free and the Santa was perfect.
Here's a cute pic of Henry
He made this lego tower in school and had to show me
We got this fun Nightmare Before Christmas train from my parents.
I took Devon to his well-check and he was so sweet with Teddy.
Charles scours the bleachers at school for leftover pencils and after garnering a ton of them started a business selling them to his classmates for school coupons. This was his pocketful after a recent expedition.
I had my birthday and since I was turning the ultimate answer, I requested a Vogon Poetry contest. If you are unaware here's the Wikipedia definition: "The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy—initially a BBC Radio series by Douglas Adams—who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an intergalactic highway construction project for a hyperspace express route. Vogons are slug-like but vaguely humanoid, are bulkier than humans, and have green skin. Vogons are described as "one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy—not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous", and having "as much sex appeal as a road accident" as well as being the authors of "the third worst poetry in the universe". They are employed as the galactic government's bureaucrats. According to Marvin the Paranoid Android, they are also the worst marksmen in the galaxy."
Their poetry is considered deadly and a common form of torture. Our poetry reading was not so intense. It was fun and I made certificates of survival for all participants.
We had planned to go to the same tree farm for our tree this year, but I found a notice on our local Facebook page advertising free trees from their property. It sounded so fun and I never pass up a good deal. We had fun traipsing around their 10 acres in search of the perfect tree. They were so sweet and even gave us hot chocolate.
We decorated cookies for caroling.
The tree had a few branches that poked over into the stairwell, Daniel asked me what I wanted to do with them and I said leave it. I love the feeling of walking through a forest. You didn't really have to duck much when going downstairs so it was a fun touch.
Lizzy took up wrestling after soccer. She has quite the family history of it on both sides. I was of course concerned for her well-being as she can be quite clumsy at times and is always hurting herself. She does come home every day with new bruises, but she is thriving and really seems to enjoy it. We went to her mix and match in Wapato. The drive was pretty.
Daniel met us up there. They took forever to get the girls going so he didn't miss a thing.
She didn't win this one, but has improved a lot since. It's so nerve-wracking watching her. She definitely pulls her own though! She has a ton of matches all over the place. She had several overnight matches and one 2 day all girl's tournament in Kelso, WA. She did really well there. Won two bouts and lost two. Our best female wrestler injured herself there and resigned the final bout, but still ranked 5th. Unfortunately, she tore her ACL and is out for the rest of the season.
