Weekend recap: Farewell to 2011 edition

Happy (almost) New Year! Everyone is outside lighting fireworks, but Jack and I are inside watching Sesame Street because he burned his hand on this sparkler:

I thought I would take advantage of the free time to do one final blog entry for 2011. I noticed on the side bar in my archives that the number of blog posts has dwindled considerably each year. I wish I could wax poetic about something profound to end the year, but I have nothing. Looks like it's just going to be a weekend recap!

Yesterday, I took the kids to the zoo. Ellie immediately asked if there were elevators at the zoo. When I responded in the negative, she became much more excited about the trip. Tom had to stay home to wait for our new TV to be delivered (a new TV! After 10 years of the same old one, we finally got a fancy, flat screen thanks to some generous Christmas monies from our parents). We met up with Daniel and Sabrina and some friends and spent a good 4 hours checking out the animals. The kids had fun imitating the animals they saw.

Their favorite was petting the goats at the Children's Zoo. There weren't many goats in the enclosure this year. Seems like they used to have a lot more goats along with an assortment of other animals. Oh well, the kids didn't notice as they happily brushed every goat they could find. After the zoo, we went over to Tara's house to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday. Usually, Ellie insists on helping blow out the candles, but this year she had company. All in all, it was a fun night.

Aside from the little sparkler incident, we ended the year on a high note. 2011 has been good to us. Here's to an even better 2012!

A funny thing happened at the museum today

Today, Ellie managed to get her elbow stuck in the elevator of the Children's Museum. Not in the door or anything, but in the rail that most people just hold onto with their hand (if they even touch it at all). Let me just start from the beginning...

Our friend Alex gave us a few family passes to the Houston Children's Museum. I thought it would be a fun thing to do with the family over our break. The day started out promising enough. The kids had fun driving an ambulance,

shopping,

surfing,

and even rock climbing.

Unfortunately, too many days of late nights and no naps were getting to Jack and we decided to make an early retreat. We boarded the elevator to go up one simple floor. As we were exiting, I hear Ellie scream, "I'm stuck!" I look back and see that her elbow is wedged between the rail and the wall. No big deal, right? What goes in, must go out? One would think. But no amount of pushing and pulling would free that elbow. The entire time, Ellie is screaming and crying hysterically. A museum employee decides that we need to remove the rail. I was all, no, no, I am sure we can pull her loose. Still no luck. At this point, Ellie's screams have drawn a crowd of concerned parents. Tom and I are trying unsuccessfully to fight back laughter while our small child is screaming at the top of her lungs. I consider taking a picture, but decide against it since all those people are watching and it might make me look too callous. Then, another employee runs and gets a bottle of dish soap which they pour down Ellie's arm. It does the trick and she pops free, but still keeps crying and screaming. They take her to their little medical area and give her an ice pack while filling out an incident report. Finally, we are free to go...back down the elevator, which causes more screaming from Ellie because she doesn't want to ride in the elevator ever again. Tom decides he will distract her by pretending his hand is stuck in the rail and he can't pull it loose. By this point, Ellie is hysterical and convinced that the elevator is out to destroy her entire family. I make matters worse by having her pose for a picture right outside the museum. I am sure there are more loving and caring parents out there, but you'd be hard-pressed to find them.

The obligatory Christmas recap

Christmas Eve:I love Christmas Eve. I love watching the grandkids act out the story of Jesus's birth (at first I wrote "act out Jesus's birth," but that just sounds like we had some small child reenact a labor scene...gross). My dad always narrates and my brother is always the donkey and now that I am old, I always get to be a spectator. I remember as a child, the part of Mary was always the coveted role, but Ellie just wanted to be an angel. Jack was supposed to be holding the star of Bethlehem, but he was removed from his star-holding duties after attempting to impale the baby Jesus (played by his tiny cousin Krew). After getting the religious stuff out of the way, my dad then told his Pack for Santa's Back story. Another story that has been told every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember. Jesus's birth and Santa's Pack have always gone hand in hand. The kids were riveted. We also continued the tradition of eating Jesus's birthday cake and Mark once again was a party pooper and refused to let us sing Happy Birthday. Not that I didn't try.My parents had just returned from a Disney Cruise/trip to Disney World with my oldest brother and his family. They decided they would buy a gift for all 21 grandkids at Disney World. I imagine they spent their entire time at Disney World shopping. But the grandkids were so excited with their gifts.

We ended the night by having the kids open their Christmas pajamas and attempting to photograph them in all their cuddly cuteness.

Christmas Day:

I woke the kids up at 6:30am on Christmas Day. Yeah, that's right, I WOKE THEM UP! Tom thought I was being ridiculous, but I wanted them to have plenty of time to open and play with their gifts before going to church. It worked like a charm.After church, we went over to my Mother-in-Law's house where the living room was completely full of gifts. We ate a delicious meal to build up our strength for all that unwrapping. It was crazy, I was unwrapping gifts like a mad-woman and then promptly shoving them in a large, black, trash bag.

So, when we got home that night and I was going through and sorting them, I kept discovering all kinds of neat stuff I had missed the first time around. It was like Christmas times 2. Anyway the kids had fun destroying my MIL's house. Jack even managed to pull a curtain rod down on his head, giving himself a black eye. I am pretty sure my mother-in-law takes great pleasure in buying my kids the noisiest toys available.

Christmas Day After:

We went to my father-in-law's house for one final day of celebrating. We filled up on yummy fajitas and watched the kids play.

It was fun visiting, but it was right during Jack's nap-time and towards the end he started to have a meltdown. His sister teasing him didn't help.

Sorry about the marks on your window, Tom!

I love Christmas. Three days filled with my three favorite things: food, family, and fun (not necessarily in that order)!

Sunday Best: Christmas morning edition

Merry Christmas!

A preschool Christmas party (as boring as it sounds)

Jack's preschool Christmas party was last Friday. We have attended the past several years with Ellie and have always had fun. This year, with Ellie in Kindergarten, I went for Jack's party and Tom went to pick up Ellie from school. Jack has been singing "Bingle Bells" for weeks now so I knew he was excited about the party. But when I showed up, he started crying and insisted on sitting in my lap instead of joining the rest of the class for their performance. When it was time for Jingle Bells (Bingle Bells!), I was able to convince Jack to join the other kids, but as soon as I snapped his picture he was back in my lap.
I knew that decorating gingerbread houses would cheer him up.

But he was more into eating than decorating. I tried to put a few pieces of candy on his house and he got mad at me because he preferred the quicker method of eating straight from the bowl.

We ended up being the first to leave because I wanted the other kids at the table to have some candy to decorate their houses. The whole thing was actually quite stressful. I don't know why I am even documenting it except that I always documented Ellie's Christmas parties and I feel like poor Jack doesn't get enough blog-mention. Being Child #5 out of 7, I am very sensitive to that sort of thing!

My tiny teenager goes to high school

I have been missing a lot of work lately due to my kids and their disappointing immune systems. About a month ago, Jack ended up having to come to school with me for 1st period because his daycare refused to admit him (apparently, if you get sent home for diarrhea you can bring your child back the following day, but if it happens again they will deny admittance). My students in my 1st class acted as though they had never seen a small child before. They kept trying to pick him up and Jack kept trying to crawl back into my uterus. I went home that day and was telling Tom all about it when suddenly Ellie perked up and started insisting that I take her to school, too. She then continued to ask me every other day if she could come to school with me. Well, today, her wish was granted. She woke up this morning crying because her head hurt so bad. Ellie has an unusually high pain threshold, so I knew she was serious, but I gave her Advil and proceeded to get the kids ready for school anyway. As we were walking out the door, she started vomiting. "See, I TOLD you I was sick, Mommy!" With such short notice, I had no choice but to take Ellie to school with me while typed up a lesson plan and waited for the sub to show. My 1st period was again overjoyed to see another small human, but this time they had someone eager to accept their advances. First, she wrote "boys" on the chalkboard and put a frowny face next to it and then wrote "girls" with a smiley face. My students loved this. Then, she drew pictures of Christmas trees and candy canes for all the girls (smiley face!) in my class. I tried to warn my students that she was sick, but they still insisted on hugging her and sitting next to her. Clearly, we got a lot accomplished. When it was time for us to leave, Ellie (who had miraculously recovered from her mystery illness) started begging to stay at school and meet all my students. I have always felt like Ellie is a teenager masquerading as a 5 year old and her total comfort in the high school setting just proves my point.

A REAL Reindeer: Part II

So, you remember how last year we crashed another neighborhood's Christmas celebration and I was so excited because they had a real reindeer even though that reindeer had only one antler? Well, we went back today and this time the reindeer had TWO antlers. But there were also two antlers laying on the ground in front of Santa's sleigh and I found this very disturbing because somewhere out there is a reindeer walking around bare-headed.

Ellie was so excited to sit on Santa's lap. The whole time we were in line, she did her bouncing thing. Ellie likes to jump and she can jump up and down for a whole hour straight if she is excited or bored or just feeling bouncy. When it was our turn to see Santa, Jack went into full on meltdown mode and so Ellie ventured into the sleigh alone. Really, it is a shame she isn't an only child because this would have made a perfect Christmas card picture. I am a little stressed about the whole Christmas card thing. I always put it off til the last minute and this year was no exception. I ran out and picked up the kids new Christmas sweaters today and figured I would snap some pictures for our cards while we were crashing this Christmas thing. Why do I always forget how uncooperative my kids are when it comes to pictures? It went a little something like this:

That naughty elf!

Oh my gosh, y'all, we have been having so much fun with Elf on the Shelf! I wish I had started it earlier! The first night we just had it sitting on the mantle of the fireplace. The next night I forgot to movie it, but luckily Tom was on top of things and I found Elf sitting on the camel in the Nativity! I told Tom he was the official Elf-mover from now on because, not only is he more creative, but he has a better memory than I do.



This has been my favorite, by far. Such a naughty elf!
Ellie said that it looks like the Elf is "marrying" her Barbie.

So, obviously Tom and I have been enjoying ourselves, but Ellie absolutely loves the Elf, too. She named him Jingles and each morning she excitedly leaps out of bed and begins her search. And all I have to do is mention that the elf is watching to prompt a change in her behavior. On Sunday, she was acting up a little during church and out of habit I whispered, "Don't forget the elf is watching you." Then I remembered where we were and quickly added, "And Jesus, too!"