Having Calvin's birthday on the 28th so close to Dec 25th really helps us get the house stripped of all things "Christmas". Tree got taken down, garland down, whole house vacuumed, Christmas legos packed up and put away...this is a huge effort, but well worth the "fresh look" again without all the red bows and candy canes.
Calvin last-minute decided he wanted a Minion-themed birthday. These are little yellow creatures featured in the movie Despicable Me, which we've seen...but the little Minion characters became rather popular after that movie came out because of their humor and silliness, so there seem to be Minions everywhere. Calvin drew a picture of the cake he wanted and the types of food for each meal...and wrote them on a note for me. I think I have a picture of it.
Waffles for breakfast, PBJs for lunch, breakfast sandwiches for dinner. This is so typical Calvin! Triple layer cake, each layer getting smaller from the bottom up, alternating yellow/blue.
I surprised Calvin with a Minion shirt/hat combo and I didn't expect it to be such a HIT! He wore the shirt and hat combo all day, never once taking off the hat.
He also specified blue/yellow streamers on his door - two blue/two yellow/two blue/two yellow in this pattern.
All the kids planned "yellow and blue" clothes for the day! So clever! Of course, Eli is in his swimsuit.
We didn't have any "plans" for the day. A nasty snow storm ripped through Cedar Falls making travel or outdoor play pretty impossible. I spent a lot of the day baking/decorating the cake, and in hindsight, wish I'd had the time/energy to do it the day before and make more of a point to create a fun day for Calvin, because the day got a little squirrely. We stayed in the whole day, and we enjoyed the foods Calvin requested, but the kids acted a little bored and a few more fights broke out over things than was normal. I was frustrated because they had gotten all these new toys and weren't playing with them! Violet put up balloons and streamers which kept falling. How do you instruct a kid to do a better tape job?
Anyway...the day turned for the better when Rachel came. :) My fingers were blue from food coloring the frosting and cake batter. I was cooking hashbrowns, frying eggs, toasting english muffins, baking bacon, and setting the table. Dave had taken the girls out for an errand and Calvin earlier had gotten a chance to help decipher where exactly the decorations on the cake would go. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The meal was delicious, the thickcut hardwood smoked bacon from Sam's Club was a smash hit, and Calvin was a happy boy.
We got Calvin a huge thick book of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, a big book of Curious George stories (I LOVE that he can read!) aaaaaaaand "the ghost dragon" Lego thing he had been dyyyyyyyyying for for months and months. He was absolutely enamored with his gifts and couldn't stop exclaiming that he HAD the ghost dragon now, finally, finally, finally!!!! It took him two days to assemble it.
a delivery driver from Flowerama braved the snow storm to deliver some birthday balloons from Grandma and Grandpa Hardinger! Eli was enamored with the spiderman balloon.
excitement over blue food coloring
a little more...a little more...not enough blue...
of course he beat me. Better memory at age 8 than at age 34!
I better get to writing about this...it is already a week and a half past and my memories are fading!
Our LaMarche immediate family celebrated "Christmas" by opening stockings/presents on Christmas Eve before the groups of family arrived. The highlight of this year's Christmas was the addition of the "disco ball"-style tree topper on the fake tree that sits on top of the ledge above the front door, and a new light-up-color-changing-tree topper for our real tree on the main level.
Dave and I had taped a long thick piece of wrapping paper across the top of the stairs to "block" the kids from going downstairs before us on Christmas Eve morning. When we were ready we let them "bust through" and go downstairs to open their stockings. Treats, candy, donuts, gum, pencils, and erasers were the highlight of the stockings. We ate breakfast and started in on the main presents. A slackline, spyphones, legos, Frozen apparel, princesses, helicopters, sparkly things, and pens/pencils were all hits. I don't remember all the gifts. The Book with No Pictures was super fun to open the night before. Bluurrff! Blork!!
Dave and I had the pleasure of hosting the Hardinger crew for Christmas - and it was a nice time! On Christmas Eve, my family and Rachel met at Orchard Hill Church at 3:00 for a Christmas Eve message, music, and time to remember. The message was wonderful, and left us with thankful hearts. The snow had begun to fall and turned everything white, which everyone was thankful for! Rachel and I made a quick plan to make Italian Wedding Soup and serve it with buttered bread for dinner on Christmas Eve. Rachel brought over the ingredients and it turned out yummy.
My parents, Rachel, and my family had dinner together. After getting all the kids settled in for bed (and singing some REALLY LOUD Christmas songs during the Bible lesson), the 4 remaining adults enjoyed some snackies, peppermint-irish cream cocktails, and some razzling games of ping pong!! We discovered how hard it is to go around the ping pong table bouncing on two feet and playing with our left hands.
Jay arrived with Stella and Theo on Christmas morning (Friday). Mom heated up the egg bake, dad presented his Christmas bread, and the morning was pretty uneventful. We all waited for Jay and his kids to arrive before doing any present-giving. Some kids played outside, I don't quite remember all the details. Food was all pretty much prepared by my mom - thank you, mom! - creamy delicious potatoes in the crock pot, glazed ham, veggies, and we topped off the meal with banoffee pie (banana + toffee) made by Dave! Inbetween the morning and evening meals was gift-opening. Everyone enjoyed their gifts and Stella wanted nothing but My Little Pony things. :) Purses, shoes, coffee mugs, sweatshirts, toys, vodka, etc...
Stella, Theo and Jay all set up in the girl's room so the girls shared with the boys comfortably and it is a win-win since the girls LOVE moving to share with the boys! Brought the twin mattress from the top bunk to the floor for Jay. Stella slept in Vanessa's bed, Theo in a crib in the corner.
After a delicious Christmas dinner, more events happened. I think guitar music happened for awhile...games were played...snacks were enjoyed...a few cocktails consumed....
Kiddos all got settled and the night got really late. We played ping pong again for a couple hours and then spent some time together as a family talking a bit about Jay's difficult situation. It was close to 1:30 am before we all decided to go to bed. Even Rachel, the Waterloo resident, slept at our house! Too bad the air mattress deflated on her...she slept on the gymnastics mat in the theater!
Saturday morning...is a blur. I know Jay stayed the entire day and went to Bethany Bible Chapel with us in the morning. We had waffles or something, I truly do not remember. This is a pic of Sat night meal - Rachel came up with a recipe for cheesy ham soup and made it. Delicious!
I could write a novel on the silly things he says and the way he acts. But I recorded one yesterday that was so funny - to me anyway.
Dave was heading out to run an errand. I was sitting on a chair near the table and holding Eli. Dave says to Eli "now you take goooood care of mommy while I'm gone, ok?" Eli thinks for a moment then says "No, I can't. She's too big and heavy." He must have been thinking he couldn't pick me up and carry me around, haha!
Then he gets all silly saying he is too hot, and wants to put on a cape and fly to another planet then he won't be hot. I got an audio recording of that conversation on my phone somewhere.
He saw a bottle of face wash in my bathroom the other morning and found "Eli" in the word. His thumb is pointing to the beginning of the word "eliminating". He knows his name pretty well!
Adding to this post on 1/6/2016...
He opened a larger tootsie roll (about 2 inches long) and said "how did this tootsie roll GROW!?" because he is used to the small bite size ones he is awarded after each gymastics lesson! haha!
And tonight, he said, "i'm a spider web!" by doing this:
Eli participated...and by this...I mean he stood and was part of the group of his class in front of the crowd during the Orchard Hill Church Preschool Christmas Program. Eli had woke up from a rare nap on this day SO grumpy and I changed him into clothes (he wears his swim suit 100% of the time when he's home now) AND I had to wet his hair and take out the tangles. He had a quivering lip when I dropped him off to join his class before the program started. Oh my...but he had a cute face and recognized us immediately, and was either staring blankly (and NOT singing a single song he knew so well at home) at his teacher, or waving at us enthusiastically. Can't expect much else out of a 3 yr old! Here's some photos from the event. In the group photo he's in the front row closest to us.
