Wow, it took me a long time to finally post these. In mid-March we went down to CA to welcome Dan home from Brazil. Yay Dan! He introduced us to the magical, magical food of Brazil both by taking us to a cafe (appropriately named "Cafe Brazil") in West LA (was it Culver City? I forget), and by making us Brazilian food. We also went to Disneyland, hit the beach and had a glorious time. Funny story . . .so, we've been adding into our prayers for two years "and bless Uncle Dan to come home safely from his mission." So, now that he's home, Avery asked me if we could say "and we're so happy that Uncle Dan came home safely from his mission." And she says it at every prayer!
With Dan at Cafe Brazil. Elliot's very happy to meet Dan, finally :)


At a Brazilian supermarket, where Dan got to show off his language skills. A little Brazilian spice in the background.


Ah! The bliss of Disneyland.

The flying Dumbo ride has got to be the slowest line in all of Disneyland. But so worth it.

I love Sam's face here. Elliot was enthralled with the Pooh-characters. If I get around to it, maybe someday I'll upload the video of her giving Tigger and Pooh lots of hugs.

We spent a gorgeous day in Santa Barbara to check out Mike and Anna's awesome new pad. And we walked around and took in the local sites. How does Santa Barbara do it? Must be all those expensive property taxes :)

And the beach. The windy, windy beach. But so fun.

Yesterday Avery told me that she likes to fight when her "heart is dark."

Elliot doesn't know how to say "mom." It's true. She says "dad" with perfect precision - it's the word she knows best. When you ask her "where's mom?" she points to Mike (or a picture of Mike) and says "dad!" When I point to myself and say "mom, mom, mom" she gleefully yells "dad!" When you ask her "where's dad?" she looks around expectantly, hopefully, excitedly. When Mike comes home she starts to hyperventilate. This is one serious daddy's girl. (But when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she only wants to cuddle with mom. of course).Good thing she's so darn cute and irresistable. I figure this is just good practice for when she's a pre-teen. Maybe she'll get it all out of her system now : )

A few weeks ago, we rushed to take advantage of the day's waning sunshine and went on a quick hike to Spencer Island. It was less a "hike" and more of "walk and stand while watching Elliot pick up rocks and Avery climb on things," but still fun.

Out of the blue today Avery asked me why Santa gives rocks to kids if they are bad. Seriously, I have no idea what spawned this reflection. The only thing I can think is that she is still obsessed with the Grinch Who Stole Christmas - Jim Carey version, and sings "Where you are Christmas" pretty much constantly. Anyway, after we talked a bit about how kids get presents even if they "try" to be good, Avery stated that she is ALWAYS good . . .on Christmas Eve :)

Elliot's new thing is to throw her head back and laugh maniacally. She sounds exactly like an evil genius plotting to take over the world . . .which may be exactly what she's doing :) Hmm. Well, even if she doesn't get around to taking over the whole world, she's definitely good at tearing up our house. Whew. Mike commented the other day that in the time it took him to brush his teeth, Elliot was able to unroll a roll of toilet paper, empty out our under the sink cabinet and take the toilet brush out of the holder. Um, yeah, I said, that's why the house is always a mess when you get home :)

Still no camera!! Where could it be?

So, I can't find my camera . . .it's in a netherworld with my phone charger. The last time I saw them I believe some very little person with a runny nose was taking them out of my purse. I'll probably find them stuffed in a drawer, cupboard or toy basket one of these days. Sorry for the lack of pictures until then.

In the meantime, Avery and Elliot are keeping us well entertained. Elliot's communication skills grow daily - she lets us know when she's "done," needs "more," and when she's had enough of us: "bye" (pronounced "baaaa" with a "tell it to the hand" wave). Her favorite thing is to be read to. She'll go over to her little shelf and peruse her collection of board books. Peruse is the best description because she runs her fingers over the spines, briefly pulling one out and then pushing it back in, until she finds the books she wants. She then brings it over and plops down in your lap. When finished, she gets up and goes to pick another book. She'll do this over and over again until the reader pleads exhaustion. And she's a real busy kid, always climbing, running, destroying. Always on the go.

Avery is in a deep thinker phase (please please let it be a phase). She constantly asks us questions that test our metaphysical limits. Today she says "Mom, do you like me?" "Yes, of course I like you. I love you Avery!" "I like myself too . . . some people don't like themselves." Where on earth did that come from?!

On a lighter note, she told me the other day "I can't whistle! Whenever I put on my whistle face I just spit!"

And we got a kick out of Avery's advice the other day. She asked me "Did you check your tummy today? Is there a baby in it? Remember what I said! When your tummy gets round, you have a baby in it!"

This is motivating me to get said tummy back into shape. I don't want to give the wrong impression :)

Clues that I may need to lighten up a bit

Avery was very excited to play a game she came up with called"kids family night" tonight, despite it being Thursday. She was insistent that we needed to participate and that it was different from regular family night. "How is kids family night different from regular family night?" I innocently ask. "Kids family night is fun," says Avery.

Mike and I trade off doing preschool activities with Avery each evening, respectively called "mom school" and "dad school." So, I'm putting Avery to bed on Tuesday night and she asks me what we're doing the next day, and among other things I say that we're going to do "mom school." "Aaaugh!" Avery exclaims. "What's the matter with mom school," I ask. (slightly hurt). "Mom school is HARD," and then she whispers conspiratorially, "Dad school isn't!"

Cousins!

And a funny Dee.

Christmas in Moscow!

We were able to spend Moscow with Mike's family this year, and the weekend was full of cousins and crafts, sledding and snow, food and fun.

Avery went sledding with Grandpa and got a face full of the good stuff.

Big kids going for a ride all on their own. I've never been much of snow person, but I was almost converted after having so much fun, and watching the kids have so much fun.

Mike and I got in on the action on the "big hill."

O Holy Night.

Definitely on the good list.

Our part of the Christmas program.

A bike from Santa! When Avery first woke up she was acting a little funny and said she was really hungry. When she saw her presents, the only thing she got excited about were the three candy canes in her stocking. After she had some cereal and orange juice, she realized that everything else around the stocking was for her as well and was more appropriately ecstastic.

Presents for dad.

Testing out the bike with Grandpa.

Wheee

Santa and a movie

The second weekend of December we took the girls to the Bellevue mall to see Santa (not sure why I don't have pictures of that), and then we watched Princess and the Frog, and capped off the evening by catching the Bellevue mall's Christmas celebration with snow fairies, toy soldiers and assorted, cavorting holiday characters. It was all very fun, the lollipops were a big hit, and Elliot even made it through the movie (assisted by large quantities of popcorn).

Lights of Christmas

We braved 20 degree temperatures to visit the lights of Christmas in Stanwood. This is the same place I took just the girls last year while Mike was at a holiday party. This year, Mike came along and much fun was had, with just a couple meltdowns.

Christmas season begins . . .with candy canes!!

I guess I have two candy cane junkies now in the house. I don't mind, means more chocolate for the grown ups.

Averyism

Today, Avery and I were discussing what Santa might put in her stocking and I suggested that he might bring an orange (we always got oranges in our stockings). Avery disagreed and said, pretty emphatically, that Santa does not bring "fruit." I asked why Santa wouldn't bring fruit and Avery replied that his customers tell him not to. !!

Elliot's first word is "book"! I'm not kidding, it's legit. She pronounces it "kook," but it definitely refers to books. I wonder, in general, how often first words are reflective of later personalities. Avery's first word was "shoes." :)

Averyisms

We were late to the ward Christmas party last night and while wrestling Avery into her winter coat I tugged a little too hard, or something, and Avery wailed "Mom! You're killing my life!" I thought I wasn't supposed to be doing that until she was 12 at least.

We woke up to a fallen Christmas tree and ornament debris all over our front room: crushed glass balls, de-limbed angels. Mike told Avery that the grinch did it, and for the next hour Avery was obsessed with how the grinch got in the house, when exactly he came down from his mountain, etc. She even thought she saw him on our neighbors roof (trying, no doubt, to topple their Christmas tree). We got the tree back upright and most of the ornaments back on again when Avery said "well, at least the grinch didn't break our heart." Both Mike and I were a little stunned and about to marvel at the wisdom of babes when we then saw that she was pointing to a heart ornament. But still, right?!

This afternoon I was making the girls some lunch and Avery was mad about something and said that she was going to spill her milk (this is one of her only forms of retialiation). So I gave her a "look" and she quickly backtracked, saying "Hehe, that was just a bad joke mom."

California for Thanksgiving, scratch that, the week before Thanksgiving

So you know how sometimes you think you're buying airplane tickets for one week and you end up getting them for the wrong week and make plans with your family months in advance and then call them up two weeks before you're supposed to come and say, haha, guess what, I'm coming next week?! Yeah, that's happened to me too. But you know, it ended up just fine. Shorter lines at the airport, cheaper tickets and, hey, we were going for the sunshine anyway, not the turkey :)

We had such a great time in California, it was just the right mix of fun (zoo! playground!) and relaxation. Of course, the best thing is just to be around my wonderful family who are all so fun and great. The pictures below are in no particular order, just some goodies from our weekend (the weekend before Thanksgiving, that is).

Mike's Birthday

Avery decided that Mike needed to have a baseball cake for his birthday and this was our joint effort (Avery was in charge of candles).

Turning 32 is so much fun!

Balloon-a-palooza

Averyisms

I was driving with the girls in the car and half listening to Avery and half listening to NPR. Avery says "Mom, do you hear me?" "Mmhmm," I say distractedly. "Mom, you're a liar, you didn't hear me. You're a liar mom." Well, what could I say? She was right :)

Those of you who have been reading this blog since its inception might remember that Avery doesn't like it when it's Mike's turn to read books at night. Let me say, quickly, that this is NO reflection on Mike's reading ability. It's a mystery we haven't been able to figure out. Regardless of the reason, though, Avery's new defensive strategy is to tell Mike that he can read to her "tomorrow."

Here's a sweet one: I took Avery to a primary activity on Friday. It was a family birthday night and one of the activities was to ask your child questions and see if you could guess the correct answers. To the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up" Avery's answer was "like my mom!"

Catching up on some cute videos of the girls

Halloween

The gathering and carving of the pumpkins stretched out over most of the month, with us picking up various pumpkins from various pumpkin patches. We finally got around to carving them a few days before Halloween, and Avery was insistent that hers have a "mean face like this." Mike's pumpkin is kind of like those visual illusions that has two pictures in them - look one way and you see a very happy pumpkin, look another way and you see an Asian-like pumpkin with unusally large nostrils.

Spookifying the house!

A little Minnie Dee.
Butterfly delux.

Too much Halloween partying!