Siri's first piano recital

Due to ridiculously snowy weather last Sunday, Siri had her first Piano recital tonight. She really needed the extra week to practice but was ready and waiting when it was finally her turn. Great job Siri.

Oops, I kind of cut off MV. Here they are before the performance showing off their piano books.

Christmas 2008. It was a good one!

This year Christmas officially started when Rob came home from work at about noon on Christmas Eve. I love having him home for so many days during Christmas and New Year. He is off until Monday and then only works 2 1/2 days next week and is off until the next Monday. How cool is that? Grandpa sent Christmas money and had suggested that one good use for it might be dinner for the family. We opted for lunch at Red Robin. That was a fun treat. With the kids getting older and eating more we tend to take the kids out to eat on a more individual level so it was fun to go out all together. They had a good time.


After lunch Rob took all the kids that wanted to go sledding. That meant Siri. In this photo she is cold and wet and shivering like a little leaf. But look at the joy! There are no pictures of her actually sledding because I stayed home by the nice warm fire.

The Christmas tree in that magical hour. I love looking at the tree after Santa comes and the house is all quiet. I really try not to let my kids define happiness by material things but I love to anticipate how excited they will be.

Opening presents Christmas morning. Siri wore her new pajamas all day until time for bed. I know, gross. But it made her happy.

The most fought over, and first broken, toy? The slinky in the box from Devins grandma. At least the breaking led to the end of the fighting. Opening other gifts helped too. Devin has other shirts. I think this one's his favorite which is why every picture of him seems to be in it.

Rob, carving the roast beast. Yum!


I don't really have any pictures of Autumn doing anything specific but we had fun trying to do self portraits with her new camera. What a fun girl.

Christmas Caramels

My friend, Kristin, sent out a challenge to post a traditional recipe. I didn't really think this applied to me because every year I pour through cook books, magazines and web sites looking for new recipes to try. Tonight when I was making my caramels I realized that this is the one. I've had them every Christmas for as long as I can remember. I remember as a kid stirring for what felt like hours. Now that it's my turn to pass the stirring stick over to my kids I can't seem to do it. Stirring those darned caramels is just a part of Christmas. If you receive one, know that it was a labor of love. If you don't receive one, know that I ate them all.

Hostess Caramels

2 c. sugar
1/2 lb butter
1 1/3 c. corn syrup
1 can evaporated milk

Over med. heat, cook and stir to firm ball stage. Remove from heat and add 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1 c. chopped nuts (I use pecans). Pour into a well buttered 9x13 pan and chill till firm.
Yum!

Doing dishes

Well, things have gotten busy enough for me that Rob has finally convinced me that it's okay to make the kids do more around here. For all my complaining that I'm the only one who does anything, I never seem to make them do anything. I have had this fear that my kids would grow up and talk about how their mom sat on her butt (oops, there's that word again) while they did everything. Well, now they are the lazy ones. So, last night Rob put his foot down. I was doing the dishes and discussing all the things I still had to do later and the kids were playing guitar hero. Rob about lost his cool and told them to do the dishes. I felt totally fine about it because I was clearly busy grading DOL for Siri's teacher. But right now I feel guilty as heck blogging while the kids do dishes. What's up with that? I was in the kitchen for 4 hours making Christmas treats and dinner. Before that I went to the grocery store. Before that I had a meeting to go to....etc. It's not like I don't do anything. The craziest part is that Autumn and Devin have so much fun together it only took them about 3 minutes to forget that they are oppressed and they laughed and joked the whole time.
What next? Do I dare get them to clean the bathrooms?

Just because I can. Shannon, this is for you.

BUTTWIPE

Remember when...we were warm?

Autumn and cousin C.J. Instant friends.

Siri at Sea World San Antonio.

Siri and M.C. the summer they were inseparable.

The family outside a shop in South Padre.

Rob, cousin Cindy, Autumn, Grandpa Wisdom, cousin Shaylee
Devin, Siri

Siri and P.V. Best of friends at the aquatic park in Moses Lake.

Autumn feeding a goat in Leavenworth.

Siri having some summertime fun.

Rob in San Diego

Siri at the former Van Horn annual back to school party.

Good Times!

Just my opinion

I seriously think that people who don't want to "lie" to their children about Santa (what are they gonna do when a three year old walks in on an intimate moment? Tell the truth? Just wondering?) or who tell their kids that Santa was invented by people who want to kill God really need to drill into their little beasts head the idea that this is private information and that we don't go spoiling the fun for other people. Why should I have to be stuck coming up with a cover story at the last minute when my little kid confronts me with this evidence? Just saying.

Light Pole: 1 Keolani: 0

Would ya look at that? I was even paying attention. I had cars parked too close on either side and a light pole behind me. So I knew I couldn't turn too sharp. Might clip one of the other cars. I also couldn't turn to wide, wouldn't get turned before I hit the pole. It had to be just right. Obviously, it wasn't just right. The weird thing is that I was going so slow there wasn't really any noise and absolutely no jolt. I almost just kept going but then decided I better check to see if my license plate was bent. Clearly there couldn't be any more damage than that from that little nudge. From now on I guess I'll just have to use a different parking spot.

Excited much?

This is what I found when I went to wake Siri up this morning. Cracked me up.

This is how she went to school. I'm thinking it's gonna be a long 13 days for her, but as a recall from being a child so many, many years a go, the anticipation is the best part.

Parenting payoff

Yesterday I had one of those moments that makes it all seem worth it. I was taking Devin to a doctor appointment and decided to ask him about some rumors I had heard about a friend of his. He says they aren't true and I hope he's right. But that's another story. Because this friend has parent issues the conversation led to his feelings about his dad being gone all the time - not as bad as I feared - and how fortunate he feels that he has a "father figure" here at home. I know that was a relief to Rob when I told him that.
The payoff came when I asked him if it bothers him that we can't give him all the monetary things his dad can. He got a little emotional and told me that what bothers him is that he can tell it bothers us. He told me he knows lots of kids that have a lot of things he won't have but that their moms are gone all the time and that it just isn't worth it to him. He said that he's glad I'm working now because it's only part time but he doesn't think he would have ever gotten healthy if I hadn't been around when he was little. Then he asked what my degree is in. I told him Psychology but that I don't want to do that anymore. I told him that I believe I was lead down that path so that I could better parent him. His response? "What a thoughtful God."
That was definitely a good parenting day.

By request

I didn't say it was beautiful. I only said it was fun.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We had our annual tree trimming party tonight. We usually do it the Monday night after Thanksgiving. I put on Christmas music, set out cheese and crackers and the kids make themselves sick on eggnog. Usually I have the rest of the house decorated while the kids are in school but this time I was just too busy. We worked on it together and had a great time. I think we're going to have to break down and buy a new tree. Our artificial tree is dropping more needles than any real one I've ever seen. As always, it was a fun night and really got us ready for the season.

Yellow? Really?

So, Autumn's ipod died. Fortunately we are 16 days away from the end of the 2 year replacement plan. So Rob took her to Best Buy and after much agony (I don't care what your computer says, we did not return the ipod 2 days after we bought it. We gave it to her for Christmas and now it's here in our hot little hands. If we had returned it wouldn't the receipt, also in our hot little hands have the item crossed out with the word return written on it? And no, we won't pay the difference between what we paid and what they cost now, it's a replacement plan.) she got to pick out whatever color ipod she wanted. For anyone who read my previous ipod related post I would love, love, love a yellow ipod. Guess what color she chose. I guess if I can't have one, at least I can look at hers. Sooo pretty.