Happy New Year!

So, Pete's in the hospital for new year's eve. We came in around noon because he was in a lot of pain-thought he had a kidney stone. The CT scan showed that he didn't, but he does have appendicitis. They'll be doing surgery some time tonight. We've spoken with the surgeon (dr. Michael Ujiki, for those of you keeping track) and I liked him pretty well. The dog is with the Huelkes and the kids are with Sharon. Henry asked me if dad would be like a zombie when he came out of the surgery and I (unthinking) said yes, kind of. Then Clara got nervous that dad was going to be a zombie. Poor girl. She was very sweet this morning-bringing him lovies and boxes of tissues.
So, now Pete and I are just watching tv and listening to the strange noises from the hallway. Happy New Year!!

Hanging out with Russell!

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas Eve!

Thinking about our family and friends. Hope everyone is feeling a little bit of Christmas magic tonight.

Merry Christmas!!!

Guess Where We Are

Winter Sing

Henry had his winter sing this afternoon at school. We weren't able to get as good of a seat this year as last, so the photos aren't great. Here he is in his new sweater, hamming it up.

 And again...I don't think he even knows he is doing this cheesy smile.

 And here he is, yawning while the principal speaks. Nice.

The sing was lovely. He sang about 5 songs and even had a triangle solo! Pete got some poor-quality video footage, so maybe I'll post that later. We were about 6 rows back and Clara was standing on my lap the whole time, so this picture shows a better view than I actually had during the show. Some of the song selections: I'm Gettin' Nuthin' For Christmas, Coventry Carol, some sort of yodeling latkes song ("potato o-de-lay-o") that won't get out of my head...

Crafty

Look at our wreath!

Dear Santa

The kids have written their letters to Santa this year!

Henry's letter. Written by himself. How many first graders do you know who can spell "sleigh" correctly? Also, take note of how he incorporated the top of Santa's hat into 'love'. He was proud of that.

"From: Henry

Dear Santa, How have you been? Is it fun

riding in your sleigh? I bet it is!

I can't wait for Christmas! this is

some of the things I want.:

A Elctronic Dinosauar costome,

Snap circuits extreme And

Snap Rover. the stocking

with the bone is our dogs!

His name is: Franklin!

Love, Henry

P.S. I've

been good!"

 

And Clara's letter, transcribed (and influenced) by Henry:

"from: Clara

Dear Santa How Have

you Been? Ist fun 

riding in your sleigh?

I can't wait for 

Christmas. I hope you

can bring the presents I

want! A Doll House.

Love, Clara"

In other news, Fabio is looking fabulous. He's a little ornament-heavy around the lower-mid section, but that's because the kids did most of the decorating. I've been resisting the urge to redecorate.

Fabio (updated)

Guess what we did today! It was very muddy for cutting down a tree. Not as lovely as last year's snowy wonderland, but we enjoyed ourselves and found a good one none-the-less. And the cinnamon donuts taste just as good when there isn't snow on the ground. Clara tried to name our tree, but it kept coming out as something I couldn't quite pronounce. For a while it sounded like "cerado". I suggested maybe we just go with Fabio and she was good with that. His brother Frederico lives on the other side of town at Sharon's house.

 

Update: Fabio is a bit bigger than we realized. He looks very wonky in this picture, but we're still working on his placement and he's still loosening up and settling into his new home.

Scenes from Thanksgiving

It's obviously taken me a while to get pictures up from Thanksgiving- so I'm not going to take even more time to narrate the whole thing. Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving day. We started the day with cinnamon rolls and the parade and ended it with pie and lots of playing. We had 21 people, which does count Penny and Vivian, who didn't eat turkey. Still, we had two turkeys and 6 pies. We're still eating turkey soup over here, but the house is a lot quieter. We really enjoyed having everyone here! I'll post a few supplemental photos soon...

Henry's Magic Birthday Party

We just wrapped up Henry's birthday party. I have to say, it was the easiest yet! I totally understand why people hire places out for their parties. We still had it at home, but we hired a magician and it made for such an easy, fun party. Here's the birthday boy- can you believe he'll be seven tomorrow?

 As his friends started to arrive we did some coloring.

 Then we went into the family room for the magician's show.

 Henry got to play a starring role in several bits.

 Clara also got a little special attention.

 After the magic it was frozen pizza, carrots and grapes.

 There were cupcakes, of course.

 And he took a little time making a special wish.

 Henry's pal Noah wanted to get in on this photo.

 I forgot to make him wash his face before pictures...it helps me remember he's still a little kid, even though he's growing up so fast!