Winter 2018: Part I - Daily Cuteness

When the kids go down for bed or upstairs to play with their Kindles, the cats come out for cuddles.

Here's my cute Tyler playing on Muk Island at the YMCA. I used to be required to do it with him, but his swim skills are strong enough now that I can sit off to the side and watch.

In church Oscar figured out how to write our last name in a way that it'd be the same backwards and forwards. Allison started sitting in during singing time to prepare to start attending primary in 2019.

Museum fun!

Nibbler likes coming up for cuddles while I'm on my phone.

Cabela's started having a Santa's village this year, so we already had a Santa photo on November 10th! When Tyler was asked what he wanted for Christmas, he didn't know, so Santa said "how about a teddy bear?" For the rest of the season he kept talking about how Santa was going to bring him a bear for Christmas and wrote his own letter to Santa asking for one.

We attempted nail caps with the cats, which worked out nicely while they stayed on. Nibbler's came off well before they were supposed to, so we're wondering if we didn't use enough super glue.

Cute kiddos cooking with daddy and sitting with the other kids at Tyler's bus stop.

Silly kids spinning around while brushing their teeth

Arlington didn't hold a nativity festival this year, so instead I sang for the Bellevue Nativity Festival. Maybe next year I can do both!

I bought this gingerbread house last year, but we forgot to put it together until this year. Oscar and Tyler had fun putting it together, but Allison grabbed it off the table a few days later and it all broke into a thousand pieces. Tyler was super sad, so we made it up to him by having him bake a big gingerbread man too.

Several days later I watched my friend's boys during the morning while Tyler was at school, and while I wasn't looking Liam broke off one of the gingerbread man's legs and started eating it (I ate some too and it actually still tasted pretty good). I knew Tyler would be upset when he saw it, so I told him we could use the extra frosting to turn him into a gingerbread pirate. He cheered up real quick.

Here's Allison building 24 piece puzzles by herself and playing at the STEM night at Tyler's school. It's amazing how long a balloon can entertain her.

This video is Tyler being silly with daddy while they were coming up with progress goals for Tyler. After Oscar wrote down all of Tyler's new goals, Tyler wrote down that Oscar had to eat all the poop in the cat litter box.

The other pics are Tyler singing and taking a selfie with mommy at the ward breakfast and Allison having a mild allergic reaction to being licked by an affectionate boxer puppy at the park.

My ministering sister made us our own Christmas cookie decorating kit, which was very fun and tasty.

I teach a voice student on Tuesdays, so Oscar usually takes the kids to the YMCA while I'm busy. I then come to the Y and get my own workout while he goes to scouts, which means the kids get back pretty late. We've tried to serve the kids dinner earlier, like when Oscar took them out for pizza, but unfortunately the kids aren't hungry enough to eat their dinner at 5:30.

Here's cute Allison sneaking away to read her dinosaur books before bedtime.

Tyler's now lost two teeth! 

Here's Allison with Donald Trump hair after I took her ponytail out and playing with our nativity sets.

Cleaning the church cuteness!

We got the kids dressed up to see Santa at Fred Meyer only to realize that we'd read the flyer wrong and that he'd been there the week before. They were disappointed, but at least they had fun at Samantha's Disney party afterwards. Allison almost started crying while the Minnie pinata was taking a serious beating. We had to reassure her that it was just a pinata filled with candy and not the actual Minnie.

 Allison fell off Tyler's loft bed one day. Fortunately she came out of it with nothing more than a limp, but since she's not great at learning from her mistakes or following directions yet, we decided to bring Tyler lower to the ground. Oscar built Tyler a basic twin frame.

We attempted bare bottom potty training but abandoned it after a few days since Allison was cold. Even with my Christmas socks she was still pretty uncomfortable. I'll try it again when the weather warms up and I'm comfortable with her wearing her summer dresses all day.