We were sitting at Coco’s, on Blossom Hill…DO NOT eat here.  As we were waiting to order, I got Brain Quest out.  One question was ” what comes out of a chimney?”  Gregory, without hesitating, said “Santa Claus!”  Loved the answer…Best thing about dinner.

After reading about fairy houses, we decided to build our own.  We took a walk around the neighborhood picking up sticks, rocks, leaves, that kind of thing.  Abigail got the most little stuff, while Gregory took care of rocks and sticks.  We found the best stuff around our church grounds.  We each built our own versions of fairy houses.  Abigail put 3 beds in hers.  Dons has a satellite dish and antenna.  Mine has purple wall to wall carpeting.  Gregory decided to do a monster house instead of a fairy house.  We decided that his monsters keep our fairies safe.

As some of you may know, I’ve restarted the Sonshine club at church.  I’m in charge of activities for kids 3 years old- second graders.  We meet about once a month, do fun activities and get to know each other.  This Saturday we had a pj party.  But lets back up a bit.  Since the pj party started at 5:00, I left the house a bit before 4, thinking I had enough time to get to the church (only about 20 minutes away) and set up.  This didn’t quite happen the way I planned.  I left as planned, but once on the highway, the traffic came to a standstill.  We weren’t moving at all.  Me, being directionally handicapped, couldn’t even figure out where I was, and since I was in the truck, I had no GPS.  eeek!!  After about 1/2 an hour, we moved!  The CHP had blocked an on ramp and were directing cars to drive the wrong way up the on ramp to get off the highway.  A very strange feeling.  Once off   the highway, I knew where I was and was able to get to church.  All this time, Don was dealing with the kids. They had a busy morning at Happy Hollow and were totally zonked!  I ended up getting to church when we were supposed to be starting the party.  Some new kids showed up, they were rather rowdy.  We played games, topped pizza, ate, did some cute chalk pictures, and watched a movie. I was glad that other families were late getting to church also. While it was a totally chaotic time, I think everyone had fun. I am SO grateful for all the wonderful help from families.

Yes, I know it’s January, but, hey, I’ve been busy!  So, here it is, our Christmas update. We weren’t able to cut our own tree, since Don was recuperating from shoulder surgery.  We went to a tree lot.  We finally found one, didn’t quite realize how fat it was.  There was no way we could have gotten it into our old house!  It was HUGE!  It drank TONS of water. I think we could have drained our pool with this tree! We spent days decorating it!  We spent Christmas eve at my cousins house along with 30 of our closest relatives.  It was chaotic, it was loud and it was fun.  The kids did an excellent job of waiting to open the mass amount of gifts.  Since they didn’t get much nap that day, and they went to bed way late, they slept until 8:45!  I can’t remember them ever sleeping that late. !  A gift to their tired parents.  It was wonderful, though I kept wondering when they were going to wake up and if they were ok… Once they woke up, they ran down stairs, to open stockings.  We had breakfast then started with the gifts from Dons family.  Didn’t get too far before Lisa and Patty showed up. Mom and Russ went to church and showed up at 11:30 exactly!  They must have flown down the freeway!  Once the gifts were mostly open, the songs sung, the food eaten, they left to go to my Aunts’ house while we stayed here and slept.  It was great.  I do love seeing Christmas through the kids’ eyes.  Since everyone had time off, we did lots of park visiting, a bunch of cookie baking and just had fun.  It was difficult getting up the first morning of pre k, though I think the kids were looking forward to seeing their friends again.  And, lets face it, I was looking forward to time off.

Last night was the pre school program… 14 songs in 15 minutes!  Ok, it wasn’t quite that short, but much shorter and quieter than last year.  They wore reindeer antlers made with handprints.  They had little red noses.  They sang, quietly, for the most part.  They jumped, clapped and looked adorable.  But, seriously, it lasted only about 20 minutes.  We took the kids out to dinner, got looks… Then on to see lights, which weren’t on. BUMMER!  Overall a fun night.

Yesterday our church had it’s annual Christmas play put on by the Sunday school kids.  The youngest kids get to be sheep.  There were 5 sheep this year.  Little did I know, Gregory had two cars with him during the play.  I only found out when he zoomed one on the communion railing when he walked past.  This cracked some folks up.  But… what brought the most giggles is when he zoomed his car over the “dead” sheep.  He zoomed it over this poor kids back over and over.  The kid was great and didn’t slap his hand away or anything.  Since this didn’t get the results Gregory wanted, he tipped the kids hat off.  Still little reaction from “dead” sheep, but now the congregation is giggling.  Gregory then decided to use “dead” sheep as a foot rest.  No response…maybe the kid really is dead?  Abigail steps in at this point, grabbing Gregory’s legs, getting him to stop briefly.  He then puts his feet on her.  Finally poor Lisa (a sheep mom) steps in and stops the whole thing.  I was on the verge of going up myself, but he was doing it with such an innocent face, you couldn’t help laughing.  In fact I was on the verge of tears, I was laughing so hard.  If he had done anything that would possibly hurt the other kid, I would have stepped in, but it was all very gently done.It wouldn’t be a Christmas play without someone doing something goofy.

As those of you who live in California, or follow the news, we have been having some major windy days here.  Yesterday, after lunch, I took the kids to the pet store so we could look around and waste time.  Walking there, from Pizza my heart, was quite an adventure.  The wind was blowing so hard, it was hard to stay upright.  Gregory told me he didn’t have any problem since he had “heavy feet”, which helped him stay upright.

We took the kids to dinner at Elephant bar.  The service was a tad slow so the kids were restless.  Gregory entertained himself playing with his cars.  One needed attention so his fork became a “fork lift” so he could look under the car to find what was wrong.  Here is Gregory putting his car on the fork and lifting it up to see what was wrong.  This has probably been done 1000′s of times, but I thought it was WAY cute and funny.

Halloween started early this year. I am in charge of the little kids club at church, and we did a Halloween party the Saturday before Halloween. We decorated cookies, some of which got eaten, some were for a homeless shelter dinner. Since our church is across from a retirement community, we took the kids trick-or-treating there. Yes, we gave the folks notice before that we would be coming. They were so happy to see us, one gentleman started walking after us, trying to give the kids more candy. I don’t think they get many trick-or-treaters there. Since we only had 6 kids, there was TONS of candy.
The kids woke up early Monday morning ready to get into their costumes and GO! Abigail was….wait for it… Tinkerbell! Gregory wanted to be a skull, but, since we couldn’t find a skull he went as a transformer. I don’t even think he knows what a transformer is, but he liked the costume. We got to pre K and ended up waiting for the parade. We waited SO long that I had to leave, I couldn’t do the party either. I missed the whole thing… Don had to go to the ER for a MRI. His leg was bothering him and they wanted to rule out clotting. It is ruled out, but we spent all morning there, and even then, I ended up leaving him there to go get the kids. The kids were riding on a huge sugar high! They didn’t nap, who could blame them?
Patty and mom came over (as traditionally they do). Patty and I took the kids around the neighborhood, hitting some necessary houses… the bunny lady and the old car dude. That is he’s a dude with an old car… We had lots of fun, but, by the end, Gregory was too tired to carry his candy, so I did. Didn’t take too many pieces. Got home to dinner and more trick or treaters. Funny thing: the trick or treaters ended around 8 or so. We thought we would get older kids later, but no one showed up. A fun few days all around.

The kids went on their first field trip yesterday.  They went to the pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go with them.  I was in Burlingame with Don… (more later.)  The kids had a great time.  They were able to pick little pumpkins.  Abigail picked the littlest one, while Gregory got a slightly bigger one.  Abigail has already named hers “baby pumpkin.”  How original.  While Gregory did the “haunted” house, Abigail made a bracelet.  How typical.   They loved going on a real school bus.  Sitting with friends and not wearing seatbelts!

Tonight we decided to let the kids do a picnic on our family room floor while we watched a movie.  Basically, pizza and a movie.  Abigail got to decide what we watched.  Did she pick “Toy Story”?  NO Did she pick “Cars”? NO, she picked “Charlotte’s Web.”  Yes, we watched a movie about a pig and a spider.  We didn’t get to finish it, but loved watching the movie.  After dinner we all climbed on the sofa, got cozy and watched more of the movie.  It was a fun evening.