Thanksgiving, Christmas --and a Rampaging Moose!

One of my friends regularly sends out a "Valentine's Letter" rather than a "Christmas Letter," simply because the holidays are always such a rush. -- Maybe this is the start of a new tradition for us too. . . .

Sadie's birthday (these pictures have been hanging out on Matt's phone for a while) was a huge success --as she considers it. We had six little girls all dressed up as princesses dancing, playing, and eating together. We even did a pinata (homemade!!! It was so much fun, we're going to have another go at it for Michael's birthday) 

I have to admit to being proud of the way the castle cake turned out. It was probably more fun to make than to eat.

Here's Michael at his school's Thanksgiving Feast. . . . We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner the following week at my parent's house. (Sorry, no pictures.)

Happy Birthday, dear Matt!  Thirty-five is a beautiful age to be.

The day before our first freeze of the winter, my dad and I picked all the tangerines and lemons off of our trees. There were four buckets this size. We enjoyed fresh squeezed orange juice every morning for weeks! YUM!

One of Sadie's birthday presents was a little cash register.  Here, the girls were playing grocery shopping when they got an even better idea --food castles!

The night we decorated our Christmas tree, Joseph was really fussy, so I had to hold him the entire time. (I didn't even have a spare hand to put a shirt back on Adelaide.)  I let the kids do all the decorating, and they loved it! --And did a pretty good job, I must say.

Like Daddy, like daughter!

For playgroup, we invited everyone over to build graham cracker "gingerbread" houses. It was good, messy, sugary fun!

Michael build his after school.

Adelaide has recently taken an interest in making funny faces. This was her first -and most gruesome.

Christmas Eve, we enjoyed having my good friend Ellen over. Ellen was our neighbor for the three years Matt was going to law school, and I'm so glad we have kept in touch!

Christmas morning . . . stockings always come first,

This was our room before  . . .

and after!

After all the presents were opened, we headed to Grandma's house in San Antonio . . . where we got to open more presents!  We stayed with Grandma for a few days, then on Fri
day went over to Great-Grandma Lamm's house for a backyard picnic. What fun!

We got to play with cousins,

swing with aunts,

play pin-ball,

and, best of all, have time with family.

We got to meet John's son, Tristan, for the first time this trip. What a cutie!

Much later, back at home, we had fun while making vegetable soup . . .

maybe a little too much fun.

Cabbage hats could come into fashion --you never know.

I took Michael to get his hair cut after school one day, and Sadie said she wanted to get hers cut too, sooooo

we did it. You can see her in the background of the picture above. I think it came out adorable.

I found some cute children's yoga shows online, and the girls love them.  Here, they are making a pyrimid.

A nice, docile solitary moose . . .

becomes a terrifying, rampaging creature of destruction, bent on the annihilation of her rival.

What a handsome boy he's growing into!

Just a funny picture we took at the zoo.--The frogs were sitting so still, giving us a perfect front and back view.

This girl loves her brother!

It has been unusually dry here lately (and cold, for Houston) so static is something of an anomaly for the kids. They had lots of fun seeing what they could get their balloons to stick to.

Like I said, it has been unusually cold here lately.  A few days ago, we had freezing rain and ice on the streets, so school was cancelled and Matt worked from home. (Go ahead and laugh, all you folks in the frigid north. --Yes, that includes Utah and D.C.) The downstairs was freezing, so we had a breakfast picnic upstairs in Michael's room.

Michael is crazy about food. Sometimes it seems like his whole world revolves around food. If I serve him things he likes, he is the happiest little kid in the world. If I serve him things he doesn't like, he throws a fit and tells me he's having "the worst day ever." This night, I earned "Best Mom in the World" by serving pizza, hold the sauce and cheese.