Declan Turns 3 1/2

Today, the baby turned three and a half. I don't know what to do with that information. It clearly doesn't mean that I stop calling him "the baby." We are, however, noticing that there is a lot more "baby" hanging off our laps than there used to be ...

At halfway to four, Dec is an active, lanky BOY. The change in schools in September was absolutely the right move and having a peer group of little boys to play with has been so great for him. He loves the little girls at preschool too - and plays well with him. But the sisters have ensured he can hold his own with girls. He needed a little rough and tumble in his world!

I noticed the difference in his peer interactions last week when he and I went to his little sports camp at the community center. He was completely engaged with all the other little boys in class, visiting, cheering, giggling. It was so fun to see. (And I got a front row view because I got to do sports camp too. He still has some separation anxiety, so I was his passing partner. As long as I was nearby, he was fine to participate. It's a start so we'll take it!)

Declan is all about race cars, superheroes, and sports these days (some thing have remained rather consistent throughout his short years.) We went to Marvel Universe Live on Saturday (more on that in a different post) and since then, I've had to say:

• No, Dec. Don't Hulk Smash your chili bowl.
• No, Dec. Don't Spiderman roundhouse kick the diaper champ.
• Sure, you can do your Spiderman moves. But no kicking the furniture. Or your sisters.

Yesterday, I helped Quinn with some schoolwork and kept Dec busy by throwing a ball down our hall for him to chase. For 15 minutes. Yogs will not fetch (we joke that he is a Golden Finder, because he's clearly not a Retriever), so at least someone will play fetch with me. We also played volleyball. And hockey. And basketball. It was a busy evening!

The baby has turned into a boy who has grown over an inch and a half since his birthday, is super funny, super snuggly, and always wants hugs and kisses from mama. He is a bottomless pit (especially for fruit. or candy) and said tonight that he is dreaming of Kindergarten. This boy is full of mischief and love and is ready to tackle (or Spiderman roundhouse kick) the world.

Holly Jolly

After an unseasonably warm Thanksgiving weekend, Mother Nature has finally remembered that it is winter! We have a covering of snow (we could use more - but it's a good start) and the temperatures are much more December appropriate. The snow has helped us all get into the holiday spirit!

Last Saturday, our elf Tyler returned from the North Pole and brought breakfast with him! We woke up to a festive table, set with Santa plates, powdered sugar donuts, strawberries, marshmallow yogurt, matching pjs, and our elf in the middle of it all. It was so fun to listen to the kids wake up and discover the surprise. Tyler also left each of them a special note about the good things they are doing. They were pretty puffed up with pride as they read their notes.

Then this Saturday, we headed over to the YMCA for breakfast with Santa - just like we did last year. We had hungry children and Mike and I definitely didn't get as much "leftover" breakfast from them as we did last year. The girls saw some of their favorite Y teachers - and Q even got to see a couple of her preschool program teachers. We also ran into our friends A&B there, which was a fun surprise.

Everyone was super excited to see Santa this year. No one cried and they were all thrilled to smile for a picture. They told Santa what they wanted and then he told them that he also wanted a present. For them to give their mom and dad lots and lots of hugs and kisses. If it's for Santa, we're willing to accept those gifts!

The girls made penguin ornaments and they all made reindeer food and wrote letters to Santa. We swung outside to see Prancer and Vixen. Quinn and Declan were super curious about the reindeer this year and Quinn even touched Vixen's antlers. She's getting so much braver with animals! We are so proud of her! Just like last year, it was a fun way to check our visit to Santa off the list.

Turn the Page

There are a lot of really great parenting milestones. I thought my favorite would be when everyone was potty trained and responsible for their own bottoms. And let me tell you, it's way up there! But we are also really loving this ability to read that the blondes have been displaying lately. They are often found curled up with a book, working hard to sound out words. Declan has also discovered that they will happily practice their skills for his listening pleasure. If he plays his cards right, they'll even read him a book about cars. The basket that once held mountains of board books has officially transitioned to piles of easy readers. The girls will happily read road signs, billboards, menus, posters, store names - and everything else they can put their eyes on.

Killing time at the doctor
office by writing all the words

Things found in the "everything else" category - reminder notes, lists, text messages, news headlines. I learned the hard way that Fiona can read most of my text messages when B sent me a note that was not entirely "clean" for young eyes. Luckily I grabbed my phone before she got to the offending word. Gone are the days where I can leave a list of Christmas presents or holiday to-dos around the house. There are so many abbreviations on my to-do list these days. Apparently if it is a word, it's fair game for these blonde readers!

There was a new entry on the milestones list today ... we took the kids sledding and Mike and I stood at the top of the hill. Because everyone was able to pull their own sled back up! We did, of course, pull some sleds up the hill. But it was random acts of kindness as opposed to constant acts of need. It's hard to not consider this a viable contender for the top spot on the list.

Downtown Holiday Fest

The girls came home from school last week with a flyer for the “holiday fest” in downtown S-town on Friday night. It included a parade of lights (yes!), the town tree lighting, and fireworks. The event said it went from 6-8pm, which meant that the fireworks were earlier than 10:00pm. Our people have never seen fireworks – because they do not stay up until 10pm. Ever. They are so tired by 8:00 every night that I can’t even imagine trying to stretch them that late. Disaster!

The girls and I immediately started plotting how we could get Mike on board. Turns out all we had to do was leave the flyer on the dining room table. The weather was so mild last week that when he saw it on Thursday night, he said “hey, we should go to this.” It’s official – Mike can no longer pretend he is a grinch!

Friday night found us shoveling frozen pizza (we did cook it first) into our bellies and trying our best to hurry short people out the door. Downtown was a madhouse! Our parking spot was borderline on its legality, but we went with it and hurried our selves toward the parade route. Because we were running late, we snagged a spot right at the start of the route. And it worked out perfectly!

Mike and I focused more on the “holiday” part than the “parade” part in our preparation. So neither of us thought for a second about candy. Big mistake! By the end, both our hats were overflowing with all the candy these people got. We learned that candy canes are not the best parade candy because they break when they hit the ground and Quinn was beside herself that she couldn’t find a non-broken one.

One of the floats threw mini Milky Ways and the girls dove on those like it was their job. And then brought them all to me, saying “here, mama. We got these for you.” The guy standing next to us was quite impressed at how well trained they were. I told him it’s probably because I ate every single one of their Halloween Milky Ways. He laughed like he thought I was joking. The Vs know that I was not!

The hockey association float threw foam pucks and I dove on those like it was my job. Because if I didn’t, I was afraid Dec would be run over. He was laser focused on getting one. The result – my house is under slapshot siege from two new foam pucks!

The very last group in the parade was the local snowmobile club – and who was representing but our very favorite Makai and his family. The kids were SO excited and they dumped SO MUCH candy in front of us!! After the parade finished, Mike ran our very full hats back to the car to dump the candy (and brought back our hats so we could wear them) and the kids sat on the curb and enjoyed a candy cane.

Then we headed to the center of town to watch them light the tree. We ran into C’s sister and her family (some of our favorites) and they made all the difference in us surviving until the fireworks at 8:00! After the tree was lit, we still had over an hour to kill. We scored an awesome viewing spot with our buddies, ran around with them, and played charades. Then we decided to walk around downtown and check out some of the happenings.

We waited in line for a photo with Santa (because we had plenty of time). This Santa didn’t ask what they wanted, but we have a breakfast date with Santa on Saturday so no worries there. We found some hot cider and marshmallows too. Then it was back to the hill to get ready for the fireworks. Dec, of course, had to go to the bathroom (for the third time). So he and I ran to the bar, made a nice lady laugh at our ridiculous conversation, and made it back just in time!! Quinn and Dec completely loved the fireworks. Fiona liked them okay, but thought they were way too loud. She was pretty stressed out the whole time, but made it through – and now she knows what to expect.

It was very late to bed, but they talked about how much fun they had all weekend. It was a blast to kick off the holiday season downtown – and Mike only relapsed into grinchy behavior a handful of times.

Ever So Thankful

Snuggled up to watch
the parade

Mike is fulfilling one of his Christmas traditions tonight and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is on. It's ever so fitting since this movie is what keeps me up each year on the night before Thanksgiving. I live in fear every year of ruining the turkey - where it goes pffft when carved and everyone has to crunch away. Just thinking about it makes me anxious.

The good news - I didn't ruin the turkey and we had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend. My parents and sister came down, as well as my sister's friend Emily (Enchilada) and Emily's mom (Gramchilada). We had such a fun day together with good food, Quinn's blueberry pie, an authentic Texas pecan pie (courtesy of Gramchilada), and some serious Wii playing action. Fiona is a master sword fighter and I impressed everyone with my chicken flying skills.

Mike had to work the day after Thanksgiving (banks are open so everyone else can shop), so Mom, Dad, and I packed up the kiddos and headed to the zoo. It was a really mild day out and we were really excited to get to do the outside trail. We saw a baby tiger and its mom, the grizzly bears, and the moose. We had the most fun watching the baby tiger play and the mama tiger walk around - the kids just loved it. And Dec even tried to make friends with mama tiger.

Zoo with Gma and Gpa

We also put in some solid time at the zoo's outdoor park, conned Grandpa into buying cake pops to help small people push through to a late lunch, and then walked the Minnesota trail and saw the fish. We were disappointed that the wolves were not very active, but both Q and Dec touched a stingray in the tide pool.

Gma and Gpa left on Saturday to go spend time with Auntie. We spent the rest of the weekend outside enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and cleaning the garage. We also started putting up our Christmas decorations (only started - as being able to go outside in sweatshirts was impeding my holiday spirit) and I got to babysit my cousin's little 3-month-old baby for a few hours. We are so thankful to  spend the holiday with some of our favorite people - and we missed our other favorites and can't wait to get see them at Christmas! We enjoy Thanksgiving and the great reminder of everything we have to be grateful for.

So warm out for the end of November!