Day-after-Thanksgiving Tradition

Every day-after-Thanksgiving our family goes to Bellevue Square to have a holiday latte, hot chocolate for the kiddos, see Christmas decorations and shop the sales, although we don't usually buy much at all. I don't really know why this started, oh wait, maybe it was because Mike thinks crazy crowds are quite humorous. He used to go mall shopping on Christmas Eve every year. He never really needed anything, but laughed at other people who did. But since we had the kiddos, after-Thanksgiving craziness seems to be crazy enough.
Today, we had a great time. We found the dress that Paige will wear at Christmas on sale at the Gymboree so while Mike spent an hour in a line that wrapped around the store, the kiddos and I walked around looking at decorations, peeked at Santa (We didn't visit him because the kiddos will do that at the company Christmas party in a couple weeks- Free picture!), and spent a considerable amount of time in the Build-a-Bear Workshop. The kids love this store. Well, all except Jack, who was quite afraid of the stuffer machine. He also doesn't like to hold big stuffed animals or have them near him. My little chicken...
When Mike was finished paying, we watched a local ballet theatre perform parts of The Nutcracker in the center of the mall, while drinking our lattes and drinking and spilling our hot chocolates. Again, everyone was happy. The kids loved the music and dancing, but Jack did NOT like the Nutcracker mask. He didn't cry or anything. Actually, it was quite nice. He just snuggled close to me the whole time.

Jonah and Paige with the Cast of The Nutcracker

We walked through mall, looking in various stores, like Eddie Bauer and the Lego Store (Jonah did not want to leave this store!) and Jonah kept climbing trees. They have live trees in the mall and he couldn't really climb them because the branches were too high, but he did wrap his little legs around them and held on. He was pretending he was a panda all day. So, ofcourse he had claws to hold onto the tree and whenever he ate, it was bamboo, not rice and beans or cereal. Then I spotted an ear-piercing place. Mike and I have been talking to Paige for a while about piercing her ears. She was even going to go with her best friend Gabby awhile back, but it just didn't work out. I wasn't sure I wanted to pierce her ears anyway, but she sure did and Daddy was 100% behind her. So, my big girl looks even more like a big girl! sniff sniff

Here is Paige, so excited. She was not nervous or afraid one bit.


Ouch!!!!! You told me it wouldn't hurt Lady! The camera battery died here. She was smiling within seconds and couldn't stop smiling!

We had lunch at Taco Del Mar (one of the only places we feel we can take Jack without worrying about milk, cheese and butter being in everything). Paige smiled the whole time. She just felt beautiful. We'll have to get a shot of her with her earrings soon. She chose flower shaped birthstone (ruby for her) earrings. They do look really pretty in her cute little ears.

So, that was pretty much it. We bought very little and did not so much, but it took us more than 4 hours to do what we did!

Have a Happy Turkey Day!

The kiddos are downstairs having "Daddy time," which means I get a much needed breather, Mike gets abused, and I get to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I have been busy all day getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Of course with me, that means that I have been in the kitchen all day. I took little breaks to play with Paige, Jonah and Jack, but I spent most of my time hard at work, loving every minute of it.
Wow! It is really noisy downstairs right now. I wonder what kind of ride Mike is giving. Maybe a dinosaur ride, but he wasn't doing the normal "roar" it was more of a grunt. A wild pig ride? Last week, I walked downstairs during one of these unplanned Daddy times and Paige was sitting on top of Mike. Mike didn't seem to be moving. I just sat down and started talking to Mike. A couple of minutes later, Mike says to Paige, "All right, slug ride's over"! I laughed so hard. It was funny to me because I didn't even question why Paige was just sitting there on top of Mike and why he was just a lump on the floor and the fact that I didn't even notice them moving.
I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! Okay, I am needed. I am so thankful for my family.

I don't have anything exciting to post

Thought I would give an update though...
Jonah is obsessed with skunks (porcupines, turtles and possums are his other favorites. He spends many hours each day as one of these animals. When he is a skunk, he sticks his little tush out and "sprays" us. When he's a porcupine, he pokes us. And when he is a turtle, he is constantly saying, "Scare me"! He wants to be scared back into his "shell", which is usually his shirt, but sometimes is a towel or a blanket so we have to growl or bark or say "boo" many times a day.
Jack is now running! He loves rough play with Daddy, and unlike the other kids, he likes to take his daddy rides backwards without holding on. He loves climbing too. Paige and Jonah taught him yesterday how to put the little slide behind the couch, climb up it and then sit on the top of the couch. Little stinkers. They know they are not to climb onto the backs of the couches, but they thought it was fun to teach Jack how to...
Paige, our geocaching obsessed girl, is obsessed with finding treasure! So today, I made a map of our upstairs and we took turns hiding Baby Bop and marking and x on the map for the other person to find. This was fun. She read the map pretty well. It was definitely a challenge for her though. Paige also made pirate eye-patches out of black paper for her and her brothers (I helped with the string.).
I made a really good chicken barley soup last night. It tasted great and everyone ate it. Today at lunch, I noticed BUGS in my leftover soup! They must have been in the barley and we just didn't notice because of the lighting.... YUCK! And I was being so resourceful too. I made my own stock with our leftovers from our chicken the night before (something I've been doing for a while now) and made enough soup with it for dinner last night as well as five lunches for me. Now I have to throw them out. I know that the bugs probably wont hurt me, but I will not intentionally eat bugs. So, anyway, I'm a little bummed and really grossed out.
And Mike, he doesn't know he ate bugs for dinner last night since I haven't told him yet. He's at work, getting ready to go to Brazil next week. He's probably looking forward to pizza night tonight.

Our Girl

I thought I would share this conversation I overheard last night...
Paige: Daddy, are you staying home tomorrow?
Mike: Nope, I have to go to work.
Paige: But, when ARE you going to stay home?
Mike: Tomorrow will be Thursday and then there's Friday. 2 more days. Then, I will stay home on Saturday and Sunday.
Paige (very quickly): Then can we go geocaching?
Mike (with a goofy smile on his face): Of course we can!

Mike is so proud of his "Baby Girl." He loves that she enjoys something that he loves and loves that she just cannot get enough of it. Lots of exciting Daddy time! But, he is also impressed with the unsissyness of Paige. She'll hike for miles, doesn't mind the rain so much if she's got her raincoat, knows how to use the GPS and even wants to go geocaching again, after what happened last weekend (And if you haven't already, read the blog entry from Mike titled, "Another geocaching adventure." It is hilariously written and gives you a better picture of what their adventures are really like.). Last Sunday Mike ended up taking the two kiddos through a swampy marsh to get to the cache after hiking a couple of miles and a couple hours already... Paige and Jonah (Mike too for that matter) were SOAKED from head to toe after their adventure. Paige had fallen in the mud so she had that going too. When they came into the house, it instantly smelled like swamp, but there were so many smiles- from the excitement of the adventure, but also from the hot chocolates and donuts Daddy treated them to from Starbucks on the way home. Mike was giddy about their adventure, laughing while he told me whole story. It is so fun having a little princess who loves dancing and singing while wearing beautiful poofy and twirly dresses, but who is also at ease in nature covered in dirt and stink. I guess I'm proud of my little girl too.

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun and yummy Halloween! Since I am such a foodie, we began our day powered up on pumpkin oatmeal (I put a little pumpkin in regular oatmeal along with pumpkin pie spice and a little food coloring...). Yum! The kids and I did our normal chores and stuff, but we also made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies later in the morning. Lunch wasn't super special, besides having a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie, since I wanted to pump some good stuff into the kiddos. Jonah, Jack and I had leftover pumpkin soup from Thursday night, while Paige had apples and a peanut butter sandwich... Like you really are interested in everything we eat! Oh my! But, I do have to share our dinner! The kids and I made a jack-o-lantern pizza. Cute, huh? Jonah did the pepperoni circle while Paige designed the face complete with eyebrows.

No, I didn't get to eat this masterpiece. Jack didn't either. But we have found a frozen cheese-less (completely dairy and soy free) pizza that we LOVE (Thank you Annie's Organic!).

We had a nice Halloween evening. Grandma Tull came over, ate dinner with us and shared in our festivities. The kids are always excited to have company, especially one of their grandparents! After dinner, Grandma and Mike took the three kiddos trick-or-treating at two of our neighbors home. So, here you go... What you've been waiting for... Pictures of our trick-or-treaters! Oh, actually this is Paige's second costume of the night. I don't know why we don't have any pictures of her dressed as a ghost. Maybe because we couldn't even see her...

Jack as Harry Potter

Jonah as a Bat

Paige as Hermione

Grandma as a cat with our bat and Hermione. Jack wasn't really fond of Grandma's whiskers....if you're wondering why he's not in the picture. We should have dressed him up like a chicken!

Paige and I did a little more trick-or-treating while Jonah (and probably Daddy too...) ate candy and Daddy and Grandma (and probably Jonah too) answered the door to our lowest number of trick or treaters ever. I don't think we had more than 10! We are drowning in candy!!!