This isn't another New Year's post... Warning: This is super long because I'm cramming all of my memory things from the last half of December into one ginormous post. But there are pictures!

This isn't another New Year's post mostly because we didn't do much in honor of the new year.  We even celebrated early (at 11 o'clock) with sparkling grape juice and oreos.

So, really not much to report.  I'm pregnant which means I'm tired and so sitting on the couch watching the ball drop from the comfort of home was pretty much perfect.

But, because this would be a pretty short post if I only talked about our New Year's Eve Celebration, I'll also do a Week or Last Few Weeks because I haven't posted since mid-December In Review... (I know, improper use of capitalization...)

- Grammy and Grampy came over to visit with Grandma and Grandpa.  They left their shoes unattended by the back door.  The kids love to try on shoes and had a ball trying to walk in Grampy's size 14's!  There were only a couple of falls and no one stomped on anyone.

- Me, mom, and Grandma (mine not the kids') took the kiddos to Macy's* for the display.  We saw a puppet show first - Mom heard about it and thought it sounded cute.


*Thanks Macy's for putting your theater right. inside. of the toy store. It sure was fun to wrangle Jake for the 30 minutes it took to buy the tickets and then wait for the puppet show to start.

The puppet show was very cute.  Worth the wait, I think, even though I looked like a mean mommy after putting Jake into one of those child leashes.  And it was only done out of necessity!  He thought it was funny to run around the display shelve things and then pause and wait to see if I was still chasing him before he took off again... like 6 times.  So, safety first.  And he did get to explore, just with me keeping hold of the end of the leash so he couldn't explore at 50 miles per hour while I attempted to catch him.

So, the puppet show... Katie sat with me on the floor in front and Jake started out sitting with Grandma in the seats.  Once it started, he came to sit with me and once the wooden moose head started talking, well, that was it, he was laughing and pointing and loving it.

Then we went to the display area and walked through.  The kids liked that and I have a feeling that Jake wouldn't have minded jumping up onto the platforms and joining the elves.

- We went to our investment company to see Santa!  The kids were thrilled, as you can probably see from the pictures below.

Grandma and Grandpa posed with Santa too!

             

- Family Christmas part 1 (with Aunt and Uncle and family... except Mike and Jenny and Paige who couldn't come because Paigey was sick).  Don't worry though!  We saw each other for Christmas Eve!  Here are the kids with Uncle Mark, and then us with the kiddos. 

- Katie doing a twirl in her new Christmas dress.  She and Jake went to the lake after FC part 1 and so she got to wear her dress twice. 

- Christmas Eve (which started out that morning with a leak in our bay window and ended up with 6 pots and buckets in same bay window until the ice/snow froze again and we were able to leave for the church service knowing that the leak had stopped... for now) was at Grammy and Grampy's.  

Grammy made roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something but it was all super good!  We opened gifts after dinner and then had to find more room in our bellies for dessert!  I loved watching the kids open their gifts this year!  Katie was excited about everything and Jake actually opened his own presents.  They have grown so much in one year.  And just think, next year we'll have a 6 month old at Christmas.  Wow!

On Christmas Day we were also at Grammy and Grampy's.  Had ham and other really good food.  I brought the buns.  

I know.  Buns are easy.  But I justify that with the knowledge that I'm working extra hard growing a baby inside of my tummy, so really?  Buns were my superstar moment of deliciousness.  In my defense (in case the whole "growing a baby" thing wasn't enough) they were frozen rolls that I needed to put into greased muffin tins and let rise for hours before baking!  (Oh, um, thanks Mom for putting the frozen rolls into the greased muffin tins so they were ready for me to bake when I got home from Christmas Eve...) 

Oh, and the Christmas Eve leak was done.  No sign of it's return on Christmas Day, either!  (John climbed onto the roof later in the week and shoveled the snow off and  then chiseled ice out of our gutters.  We have the cleanest gutters on the block right now.  We also spent $50, yes, that's FIFTY dollars on a roof shovel.  Wow.  That's all I could say after I checked to make sure that John hadn't needed to purchase fifty or so of those little square pencils they sell by the checkout that would have boosted up the price.  He hadn't.  And $50 was the *actual* cost of a shovel on a long stick.  Hmph.)

So, some cute Christmas Eve picks... I don't have any of Christmas Day, because it was all I could do on Christmas Day not to fall asleep like I did at Aunt and Uncles for the big Family Christmas the weekend before.  Again, falling back on the pregnancy thing.  Which I will continue to do until June.

Katie with her new kitty.

Jake with his grin!

Jake and Paigey.  Not sure where Katie went...

Here they all are!  I think Auntie Jenny took this one.  
(In my pics, Katie's eyes are usually all glowey from the flash.)

 

(Ummm, no ghosts have been reported at Grammy and Grampy's.  

I think my finger just gets too close to the flash.)

See Jake's new Sponge Bob jammies?  See Grampy modeling them?

 

Katie and Paigey in their new tu-tu jammies.

- Katie had her very first successful dentist visit!  She went with me and talked to the dental tech while she cleaned my teeth.  The whole entire time.  I tell ya, she was so chatty with this woman that by the time we left, it felt as if we had known her for much longer than an hour.  After my teeth were done (I have a cavity, boo hoo), Katie hopped into the chair like she had been going to the dentist for years.  No sign of the Katie who cried all during the 20 minute drive to the dentist that last time I tried to bring her in.  No sign of the Katie who begged me to take her to the doctor instead because she would rather go to the doctor instead of the dentist.  Nope.  Just a self-assured, almost 5-year-old girl who went through her appointment like a champ.

- The kids played in their toy bin.  Katie's playing with the Leapfrog Explorer she got from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas.  I think Jake is playing with his Woody doll.  I don't know why they are doing this inside of their full-of-toys toy bin.

- Katie and daddy went to a movie date to see Tangled!  Katie won free tickets from a drawing and this was the perfect movie for her.  She loved it.  Daddy said she watched the movie and ate her popcorn and drank her icee (I know.  An icee.  Sugar city.) like a big girl.  She had such an awesome time.  I could tell she was just so thrilled to have had this outing with her dad.

Aaaaand in other exciting news, I finally called Service Plus to come look at our dishwasher.  It's been cleaning the dishes but leaving a film behind.  Ugh.  We'll see if they do as good of a job on this as they did on our furnace that QUIT WORKING a few weeks ago.  The guy had that fixed the same day they came out.  The problem started the night before we called.  If sleep hadn't been highest on my mind, I probably would have figured out that something was wrong after checking the thermostat at each of my 5 bathroom breaks and seeing the temp had lowered every time but it just didn't register.  And lately I've been freezing cold pretty much non-stop so I figured it might just be me!  Well, getting up in the morning to a 65 degree temp inside wasn't fun and I realized that it wasn't me.  So glad Service Plus had it fixed before I got home from work.  (Service Plus didn't pay me for this excellent review of their service, but if you or anyone you know, happens to work for Service Plus and would like to work out a deal whereby you provide stuff for me to review and I blog about it, we could start with a new furnace since it sounds like we'll need one in the next 5 years.  Really, call me.  We'll talk.)

Oh, and if I ever start collecting animals, please stage an intervention.  Animal Hoarders has been on today.

Happy New Year bloggy/family friends!

Katie has "preferences" when it comes to pizza. Jake too, I guess.

It's kind of sad when your kid is old enough to have a preference about her pizza toppings and the preference doesn't include mushrooms or pineapple... which happen to be your* favorites.  Your two favorite  toppings that you usually only order when you don't have to pay a million dollars extra for them... (Plug for Papa Johns... we've been milking this deal for all it's worth!)

* And by "your" I mean "mine."

Soo, I placed my usual order a few weeks ago; pepperoni, pineapple, mushroom, extra cheese.  Yum, right?

Pizza arrived, we're seated and ready to dig in, Katie takes her first bite and... her face scrunches up. 

I thought she bit her lip or something, but no.  She got a bite of pineapple.  She informs me that she does not like pineapple.

I removed all pineapple from her pizza before she would continue to eat. 

Next bite, again with the face scrunch.  She asks what "those dark things are".  I inform her that those are yummy mushrooms (in my excited, happy mommy voice). 

She informs me that she does not like mushroom. 

I inform her that there is no way I can remove the mushroom... the teeny, tiny baby pieces of mushroom.  So she ate it but she didn't like it.

I ordered pizza again a couple of weeks ago.  Again with my faves.  But I ordered half mushroom, half pineapple thinking that she could eat from the mushroom half. 

Forgetting that both were on her "ick" list because she did eat the mushrooms last time.  I distinctly remembered that she hated the pineapple (because I spent time picking each piece off), but really?  Mushrooms?  They're so small I could hardly taste them!  Luckily, they were so small she could barely see them.  She ate the pizza and I sighed a sigh of relief.

Now, last night (and yes, I know we order pizza a lot but it's good for two meals... when we order on Friday night, we eat leftovers for lunch on Saturday afternoon) I ordered from a different place (John wanted a change) and went to pick it up. 

(We've had it delivered before from this place but it occurred to me last night that they're located less than 5 minutes away so I could save on the delivery fee and tip by getting in the car in the freezing cold and picking it up.  Money saved is money spent on our next pizza order.  Duh.)

I pulled into the parking lot and saw a Chinese restaurant just two doors down and it was as if my legs wouldn't listen to my brain. 

I was telling myself "pick up pizza... must. pick. up. pizza." but my legs must have wanted some cream cheese won tons.  Which I purchased.  And debated opening the bag for a taste, as I walked the long stretch of sidewalk to the pizza place two doors down.  I didn't open them (I waited till I was in the car because I knew that once I started eating, I wouldn't want to stop eating and it would have been way too hard to juggle the open bag plus the pizza). 

So, I paid for the pizza and headed for the car.  Enjoyed a won ton (or two) and the peace and quiet in the car, sighed a deep breath, and headed home.

I was super excited because I had gotten half mushroom and half pineapple (half and half because at this place, extra toppings were not free).  When I opened the box I was surprised to see huge mushrooms the size of the peperoni slices.  I did not expect that.  I hoped I could fly these under the Katie "radar" like last time.  And I tried.  And Katie took a bite and asked what those dark things were. 

She did not like them.  She would not eat them.

She did like daddy's pizza.  Thin crust with pepperoni and ... onions.

But the drama is not over... oh no.  Jake took a bite of his pizza... a piece with delicious pineapple. 

And he promptly spit it into his hand.  Then dropped it on the floor. 

Arg. 

The pineapple strikes again.

Oh, Noisy Night

Katie is playing with daddy and Jake. Daddy is supposed to chase Katie and Jake but when Katie comes by me she's "safe". And she's safe when she goes next to the Christmas tree with the picture of Jesus, too. And pretty much wherever else she decides is "safe".

Running is accompanied by screaming and giggling. It' not quiet.

Then when she's ready to run again, she says, "are you ready Freddy?" Then daddy says, "ready" and then they run around the house.

Last time around, she shared a poem with us. It went a little something like this,

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I had a dream
I went to the zoo

Now they're done running and Katie wants us to "oooooohhh" at the tree.

The kids are getting a little wound up (understatement) but they're having fun.

Now Katie and daddy are playing the "I'm going to repeat everything you say" game. The password to stop playing is "706". Katie picked that one out. And she changed the password... now it's our address. Ummm, maybe because she forgot the first password.

Okay, gotta go. Jake's pushing a book into my face. He's being a little rough and he's probably going to start throwing it any minute.

(I'm typing this on my cell, so try to ignore the typos. Also, I've had a few interruptions so the "flow" might be a little choppy...)