Some Catching Up To Do

It's been a while, Folks.  Thanksgiving has rushed by, along with most of the Christmas shopping season (in this house? HA), and now it is time for all of those wonderful Christmastime Traditions that everyone knows and loves.

It started off the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, when we woke to find that Santa had sent an Elf on the Shelf to keep an eye on us over the next few weeks, after much debate we finally chose to name him Alvin and searching for his latest hiding spot has become somewhat of a morning ritual.
That same Saturday we decorated the house for Christmas, spreading over a dozen Santa's throughout the house, putting up the tree and hanging Christmas ornaments-and after having the tree stand break, the tree fall over, and a yellow light bulb burn a hole in our carpet, I'd say it looks rather glorious.-Though somewhat Blurry in this photo.

There has been many a beautiful snowfall up here (this photo was actually taken back on the eleventh of November.) currently there is over a foot of the white stuff on the ground, offering up endless hours of sledding, snowboarding, fort building, snowball fights, and endless other adventures for any excited child (or adult!) the best part about this snow? (At least in my opinion) The fact that it creates the perfect background for stunning pictures of my sister.

Two Sundays ago was the annual Yacht Club Christmas Party. All the Little's were given some awesome gifts by Saint Nick himself, (Thank You Santa!) They had a ball, though you couldn't tell from the looks on Lili and Livvy's faces in this picture.

Oh how I adore this photo.  It's been added to the file of "Blackmail for the Little Sisters".

Next up on the list of "Family To-Do's" was to take the family Christmas picture that would be sent out to the masses.

Do you see that? All of the Littles are smiling! Including Lili! For those of you who don't know why this is a feat, a short back story on Miss Lili:
Lili, though very loud and generally a more energetic child, is rather shy. Unless I am doing a 'private' photo shoot of Lili and only Lili, will she smile. In just about every family picture we have she is on the verge of tears.
So this year, I decided to offer up a bit of a bribe to the child who loves crafts and baking: "Lili, If you promise to give a pretty smile we'll bake and decorate sugar cookies." We got a stunning smile out of the munchkin! Yay!
She held me to my word though, not more than four hours after the picture was taken she comes up to me, sassy as ever, shrugs, puts her hands up, and says: "Sam. This is weird.  I did a smile and there are no sugar cookies." Safe to say we made some sugar cookies after that.

Can you see the icing next to her left eye?

After several hours of present wrapping, stamping, addressing, signing, and sealing one hundred and forty some odd Christmas cards, and going through several boxes of candy canes, Christmas preparations are in full swing here at the house of the Eight, up here there is an under current of Christmas excitement so contagious you cannot step into the house without catching it. But the stockings are hung and the lists have been written, a new tree stand has been bought and the demon light bulb removed, Christmas carols are playing and The Spirit of Christmas is in the air. So without further ado, Warm Christmas Wishes to You and Your Family this Christmas Season. We'll be sending some Christmas magic with your cards!

Cheers,
Sam

IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

This child, she is too cute for words.

I told her to smile and apparently she was eating chocolate...

That is all.  You may commence with your day.

Halloween Party

Today was the annual Yacht Club Kids' Halloween Party.

 Audrey was a Weeping Angel (A monster-type thing from Doctor Who), Dominic was Martin from Wild Kratts (a kid's TV show that he and Lili adore.), Lili was May from Pokemon and Olivia was a farmer, though she refused to wear her hat... Oh well.

Though the morning was hectic to get there-in past years the party always started at two, so we planned for two, only to check the invite this morning to discover it was at 12:30 this year-the Kiddos had an absolute ball, they played games like get the ball into the Witch's hat, and crush the noodle (Lili's favorite).  They had Ghost pudding and lots of candy-of course.  They got to go on a hayride and Trick-or-Treat for even more candy and just generally had a blast.  All the munchkins have now crashed from their sugar highs and are now asleep... Besides for Olivia.

A couple quick quotes

The little kids in this house say the most fantastic things, as little kids always do, so as for now, here are a few:

"I just touched wildlife!"-
Dominic, on catching the first toad of the season.

"Dom, stop crying! You're a man! or a comfy, comfy seat. It depends."-
Audrey, to Dominic.

"Docta! Docta!"-
Olivia, because we've been watching a lot of Doctor Who.

A Day in the Rain[drops]

Last Wednesday we went to the Children's Museum. It's safe to say that the little kids had a blast, even if the museum was the most packed we had ever seen it. 

They climbed the raindrops...

And splashed in the water table...

And played in the Big Red Barn room, which, named after one of Livvy's favorite books (Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown) was a favorite of the one year old.

They also played in the raindrops...

 

 And grocery shopped til they dropped....

AND CLIMBED ON THE RAINDROPS!

And played in the sand... it was an archaeological dig sight this year.

And got soaked one last time before we headed home.
Over all it was a great day and between Audrey, Dominic and Lili the raindrops were climbed over thirty-six times! Craziness.

Easter Egg Dyeing

Just a few pictures...



The photo-bombing baby



The Little Artist

Olivia decided to experiment in finger paints on Wednesday, I think that she did a pretty good job, though I'm not sure that it would made it past the idea faze if anyone would have caught her.

Let me introduce to you the artwork of Olivia

Ranch Dressing is her medium, a dining room chair is her canvas.

In her opinion the 'paint' tasted pretty good too!

 

The goof ball worked on her masterpiece for a solid fifteen minutes before she finally ran out of dressing to eat.

 

Welcome to the art world, Livvy.

Some Strange Something

Somebody, and I'm not positively sure who, MUST have put something in the little kid's food tonight.  Let me give you a mental picture;

Me, Sam, lying on the great room floor.

First, I was supposed to be becoming a mummy,

Dominic covered me in blankets...

Put wood blocks on my legs, stomach, hands and feet...

Audrey started poking me with who knows what (my head was covered with a blanket at the time.)...

And said a 'magic spell'....

And then I became a crazy tickling zombie.

Not what they were planning.

About a minute after the 'spell' was said the two of them were over the whole "crazy tickling zombie" thing, and they switched to:

"Doctoring" me,

Audrey's got a toy John Deere Chainsaw and was "operating" on me, because APPARENTLY I've got something wrong with my blood stream.

Dominic was slicing me open with a toy army knife, because, obviously I have something wrong with my brain and it needs to be cut open.

They also 'handcuffed' me with one of those fabric wraps that you put on sprains.

Meanwhile, Lili is watching all of this going on from her upside-down perch on the couch, giggling madly and grinning like a psycho child.

Dominic insisted that I needed my reflexes checked ALL OVER MY BODY.

And Audrey, well she just continued with the chainsaw.

After he was done 'tapping' me with the blunt edge of his toy knife Dominic decided it was time to start a game of Frisbee with me, while I was still on the floor covered in blankets and bandages and being tended to by a psychotic chainsaw wielding doctor.

Lili started building a block tower.

She ordered that EVERYONE must be still and only whisper, because, of course, the tower took her AN HOUR (two minutes) to build.

Audrey decided to help Lili after her tower fell down the first time, leaving me FREE TO LEAVE THE HOSPITAL.

Dominic accepted that we had to stop playing Frisbee after he ALMOST hit the floor lamp.

And then I headed upstairs.

Livvy is a CRAZY BABY tonight. My parents, they have a recliner in their room, and my mom was sitting in it playing with Liv.

When Olivia sees me she basically does a back bend out of my mommy's arms and starts super-speedy crawling towards me.

She gets to me, pulls up on my arm and starts growling at me.

She then sits down, turns around and super-speedy crawls back to my mom.

And does this again...

And again...

And again...

She then decides that mom and I aren't cool enough, crawls away from both of us and heads towards the bathroom.

Mom follows her.

Audrey comes to get me because her and Lili have built a tree out of blocks. I'm told I must only whisper and stay at least ONE FOOT away from it because, and this is an exact Lili quote "It's very unstable." I love it when little kids use big words... BUT ANYWAY....

I go downstairs and see their epic wooden block tree, which looks like something out of Mario Brothers.

I tell them how cool it is and they even LET ME TOUCH IT!

After all of this epic tree-ness I sit down on the couch. At this point I've somehow acquired Livvy (I seriously don't remember how) and Dominic has come running over to try and make her laugh, which involves lots of silly faces and crazy voices and "LIVVY!" growls and "LIV!!!" shouts.

And then Lili comes over...

and says to Liv, with a perfectly straight face;

"My Livvy, Baby!"

In a.

Crystal clear.

British.

Accent.

It has been a strange, but very entertaining night.