November and December 2019: ♫It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year♫

Thanksgiving was super late this year, but that didn't stop us from getting into the spirit of the season early. Oscar's less wild about holiday festivities than I am, so we holidayed hard during his business trip to Denver. I kept the super kids busy and took them to Thanksgiving craft night at Chick-fil-A. There were so many kids there (though not as many as pumpkin painting night) that the slide was just jam packed with children. But that didn't seem to bother them in the slightest. They were having a grand old time (until someone had an accident and the playplace had to be evacuated. I thought it was Allison since she was soaked, but her undies were dry when I changed her, so she must have just slid right into it).

In the video at the top I'd made a delicious rice dish with chicken, bacon, and veggies. It tasted incredible. I thought for sure the kids would love it. I was wrong...

Allison earned another new roaring dinosaur which she named Ruby Rex after her friend Ruby and for her red eyes when she roars. She was so thrilled to put both dinosaurs together and see "they're roaring at each other!"

I love seeing the things Tyler builds and creates when I pick him up at the YMCA.

Tyler had the full week of Thanksgiving off for parent/teacher conferences, but Allison still had preschool on Tuesday. He loved coming with us to library storytime and picking up Allison from school. They both went running to each other with big, beaming smile and wrapped each other up in a huge, sweet hug. You'd think they hadn't seen each other in a month.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we attended an adult only "Inappropriately Early Christmas Party." It was so nice to have a fun time socializing and playing games with other adults without having to worry about feeding and entertaining children.

The Monday before Thanksgiving we got our Christmas tree. It's the first real one our kids have ever had. Tyler spilled some water trying to help daddy water the tree, and Allison brought over a towel and kindly offered to clean it up. I love my little helpers!

Tyler also came with us to the Mill Creek YMCA where it was actually dry enough to play outside.

Tyler had a friend over on Wednesday. They spent most of the day playing with toys. I love how friends make my kids enjoy their own toys that much more. I also took them out into the backyard to play with bubbles!

On Thanksgiving day we spent the morning going to the YMCA in Bothell. Our local Y's didn't have childcare that day. so it was worth the extra 8 miles to be able to take the kids with us. It was a beautiful day too, so we let them play at Miner's Corner County Park on the way home.

This year we thought about going out to eat for Thanksgiving, but 2 days before I heard about a Friendsgiving potluck happening at the church. We figured that would be the better choice. The kids were bound to finish up before us, but at the church they could play with other kids and run around the gym. At a restaurant we'd have to force them to stay seated (most likely with the help of electronics). Tyler and Allison did indeed finish up before us, and they had a blast playing basketball with the other kids. Oscar joined in on the fun too. At the end the party planners let all the kids take home the fantastic centerpiece balloons.

We told Tyler the truth about Santa the Monday before Thanksgiving. I'd had a prompting for awhile that we needed to let him know soon, but I figured we'd wait until after this Christmas season was over. The impression I had was if we let it continue much longer he would feel betrayed and crushed whenever he did find out, and that he would struggle to have any sort of faith in the future. I hadn't figured out how I wanted to approach it, but it all went over very naturally that night. He asked a question during our family home evening if Santa was one of Jesus's disciples, and we replied that Santa was a pretend person but that he was a representation of love and kindness and giving. He asked a few follow up questions, but he wasn't sad or hurt by the information. He took it perfectly and we encouraged him to be a Santa to others this season. We told him gifts from Santa are from people who want to give gifts anonymously not expecting acknowledgment or anything else in return, like Jesus. We said they could be from us or anyone else. We also explained to him that Santa was based on a real person known as saint Nicholas who anonymously gave gifts to others, but I didn't have full details. Since we weren't expecting to tell him until after Christmas was over, I hadn't done all my research.

In spite of knowing the truth now, Tyler enjoyed meeting Santa anyway. We were able to meet him and take pictures at the Children's museum the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Tyler also didn't ruin the magic for Allison or the other kids, though I could tell it was a bit of a challenge for him.

After meeting Santa the kids had fun making science bubbles, building forts, and making their own wrapping paper.

There were also men making and giving away tops for the kids. Tyler loved watching his get made and choosing the colors for it.

We met up with Nick and Liz at the Evergreen chuch in Bothell for their fabulous lightshow, fake snow, and cookies. Allison was obsessed with the Rudolph. She kept going back to it and trying to keep other kids away from it.

We took the kids to the Chennault Beach branch Christmas party where they got to meet Santa again. We also took them to our ward party, but we had to leave halfway through since it was the same night as Oscar's work party.

After drinking some of Oscar's smoothie Tyler ended up with a chocolate milk handlebar moustache. I have no idea how he managed it! We put nail covers on our cats again, which Leela spent hours trying to take off.

Here's Tyler in his new dinosaur shirt, Allison waiting to go into class with the other cute Sunbeams, and Allison entertaining herself with Kinetic sand for over an hour.

I wanted one more practice with my accompanist before singing at the Arlington Nativity Festival, but she was only available in Arlington Wednesday the 11th at 8pm. That also happened to be opening night for Cedar Crest tour of Lights, so we decided to drive up after Oscar was off work. Last year we went during their closing week on an exceptionally warm, dry night. The line was so long I had to wait for 90 minutes while the rest of the family went out for dinner. This time there was zero line, and the kids loved it as usual.

Here are the kids at their friend Samantha's birthday party. It's always a good time with the Del Angel family!

I had my first performance at the Nativity Festival that evening. Fortunately a friend came to see me and be my carpool buddy for that long drive up in rush hour.

She was able to get in a few videos of me too. I'm grateful she did since the kids were so busy the next evening that Oscar was barely able to take any.

This year the Nativity festival included microphones and broadcast my performance all throughout the building. The detriment of that is that less people sat down to watch since many just assumed I was a recording. The benefit is that more people got to hear me while they were touring the other rooms.

Allison was an adorable donkey!

After my recital was over we made an attempt at family pictures. Just as we were finishing up we saw a family from our ward who'd just shown up. They thought I was singing at 7. Fortunately there were still about 10 minutes before the next number, so I went up and sang 2 more numbers just for them.

Tyler was thrilled to check out a Henry and Mudge book at school, just like the one his granny had given him in November.

I worked the Christmas season as usual, so Oscar got in some exra time with the kids. He made gingerbread houses from scratch (which were delicious!) and the kids saw Santa at the YMCA. We were also able to make it to the Mays Pond Live nativity the Saturday before Christmas.

It was another great Christmas Eve! I stayed busy doing deliveries all day as usual (I laughed out loud when #4 of 43 asked if I was almost done yet). The sun was magnificent! After several past days of darkness and gloom it was absolutely glorious to drive into Seattle with zero traffic and perfect views of Mt Ranier with pretty pink sunrise clouds off to the east. Forutnately I finished before 6:00pm and was able to have a lovely evening with Oscar and the kids. We opted for takeout rather than going out to eat so we could have a Family Home Evening to focus on the Savior. We sang Christmas carols, Tyler read most of Luke 2, and we watched The King is Born Living Scriptures video. The kids were fairly attentive and even Allison said "that was a good baby Jesus movie." We then let them open a present each. They loved their gifts from granny and grandpa Hunt. Tyler has the BEST reactions!

He's also an incredibly sweet boy. Since they were opening presents early, he wanted us to open one too. He gave us a snowman he'd made for us that he'd been working on all week.

Santa came out and left gifts and stockings after the kids were in bed.

Christmas morning!

The kids were excited to get their new talking, walking dinosaur and popcorn tins. They'd asked Oscar for popcorn tins when they'd been shopping with Oscar they day before little knowing I'd already gotten some for them.

Allison loved her new dinosur toy finger toy, and the kids seemed to get just as much joy out of their Dollar Tree jingle bells as they did their more expensive gifts.

Allison kept trying to move the new dinosaur's legs manually, so we put the dinosaur away to keep her from breaking it. She got really sad and told us she was just going to be lonely and sad because she doesn't like dinosaurs anymore.

Allison received this new dragon for Christmas. A few days later we had this conversation

Me: Allison what's your new dragon's name?
Allison: (very slowly and sleepily) Ca-res-a-nu-fun-di-cant
Me: Caresanufundicant?
Allison: yes
Me: okay. Let's call her Carissa for short

The day after Christmas we met up with Lia and family for Indian food and gift exchange. We first played hard at the YMCA and the Funtastic Playtorium in Lynnwood, so we had a sleepy little Allison giving her auntie some nice cuddles. Afterwards we were listening to "I'm getting nuttin' for Christmas" on the way back over to the Funtastic Playtorium. While we were there Allison was bumped into pretty hard by a kid running past her. When I saw her crying and asked what was wrong she replied "somebody snitched on me!"

The Monday after Christmas was Onesie night at Wildlights. Anyone wearing a onesie got in for half price, so we went down in our nice warm Halloween costumes.

I liked the Komodo dragon sticking out its tongue lights. Allison liked anything that was purple.

The tiger lights were neat.

And I had to get some footage of Oscar Otter with the otter lights. He'd worn a dinosaur costume this past Halloween too, but it wasn't as warm as his otter costume from the previous year, so he picked the otter instead.

Carousel!

This watering hole and elephant stampede never fails to impress.

Diving Penguins!

Previously the displays ended at the Zoomazium, but this time there were a whole bunch more leading toward the south Entrance.

The kids really liked the Narwhal!

Tyler stuck around for the animal show, but Allison didn't want to sit for it.

Both kids loved the orca lights!

Eagles, bears, and salmon!

Allison kept coming back to watch the wolves howling at the moon.

Another nice addition were the lights in and around Molbak's butterfly garden.

Dragonflies! Oscar actually got a picture of Tyler with the triceratop head right over him.

After that we let the kids play in the Zoomazium. They were having plenty of fun, but we left for home after Allison's glasses got knocked off twice from kids throwing the soft (fake) snowballs all around the room. They were soft, but some of those big kids were throwing hard and fast. 

For New Years Eve I took the kids to the children's museum, then over to the Noon Years Eve dance party at the downtown library, then over to the YMCA. I tried to make it a fun holiday for them during the daytime. Allison didn't nap so we knew there was no chance she'd be staying up late that night (she was asleep by 7:00pm).

We did let Tyler stay up a little bit late (9:00pm) to ring in the new year with the east coast. We drank some sparkling cider and made a 2020 Monster cookie.