Last but certainly not least--cousin pictures!

Construction on the Great Wall of China is exhausting work!

And more pics . . .

Misc pics

Since I didn't post for forever, I feel like sharing pictures from Christmas and the intervening months. Enjoy (or don't :) ) ! Mormor and Morfar and Aunt Heidi were here, and we had a blast!

Crows swear?!

Friday, Buddy came home with a new word that we've heard waaay too many times this weekend--caca. We discussed how it's a bad word, but this one seems to be lasting a lot longer than the others. He said it again in the car this morning on the way to church, and I gently reminded him that "we don't say that word" which led to a whole discussion.
CBC: Why don't we say that word?
Me: It's a bad word in Spanish--basically means C-R-A-P.
CBC: Wait, what's the word again?
Me: I don't want to repeat it when Buddy can hear me.
CBC: Just tell me.
Me (quietly): Caca.
CBC: Wait, what?! That's what crows say! And it's a bad word?!
So then we had to hear the rendition of CAW-CAW versus caca. Very nice.

CBC Turned 8!

CBC's birthday has come and gone, with a lot of fun stuff! We extended her birthday for weeks--she turned 8 in the beginning of the month, but we didn't have an actual party until the end of the month because . . . Mormor, Grandpa, Uncle Erik and Aunt Jody and the kids came to participate in the festivities!!! It was so fun having everyone stay at our house, especially since we don't get to see the Hansen cousins very often. We had such a blast! 8 is a really big deal in our religion (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) because that's when children get baptized, so the cousins made a special trip to come and participate in CBC's baptism. Everyone's help was much appreciated, and the slumber parties at night were rockin'! I am so proud of CBC and all she does to be a good person. She is truly a light in our lives.

After the baptism, we all came back to our house and had a combination CBC/Superman birthday party! 41 kids were invited, but (whew!) only about 25 came. It was a puppy-themed party and, wow, it was probably a good thing a real puppy wasn't invited. It was exhausting, but my girl had the time of her life.

Buddy had a great time, too, and is already planning his "speed racer" party--by which I mean he holds it over our heads whenever he's mad--"If you're not nice to me, you can't come to my Speed Racer!" Think I took us all way too far into the "theme" parties! And he's super antsy to get baptized, too--we'll have to plan another huge party in five more years :)
(And if anyone can suggest a more user-friendly and quicker blog option, I am all ears. Trying to move these pictures around took me 20 minutes! Sorry about the crazy formatting, but I don't have 20 more minutes to waste.)

The epiphanies keep coming

We're watching "Chuck" right now and CBC just looked over at me (yes, she should be in bed!) and said, "You know, Mom, sometimes hot people really can't be trusted." Just an FYI for those of you out there who are either hot or are involved with hot people.

Belly dancers just appeared on the screen and she says, "WHOA!" I said, "Those are belly dancers." CBC says, "I thought maybe they were called immodest dancers."

LOVE IT!

Values

This morning, CBC told me that she and a classmate had an interesting conversation on the bus. He told her he'd already decided who was "hot" in their class and he wanted CBC to decide who was the ugliest. She told him no because that was not nice (yay for CBC!!!). Then he asked her who she would date out of everyone in her class. Mind you, she's only turning 8 tomorrow! Her answer rocks, though--she told the boy who was asking that she would date him--because he's smart and because he folds paper airplanes really well! HA! Love it :) I'll update her dating requirements as she ages.

I'm just sayin'

Mormor is a bad influence. We've always known it, but here's my proof--Buddy has started adding "tootie" or "poopie" after everything he says. Thank you, day-care-best-friend. Anyway, we had several chats about it this weekend, culminating in him getting mad and saying, "Well, Grandma said I could say it!" HUH?! And then last night, he told me he'll just wait until he goes to Grandma's house and say it there.

He also decided to try and open a Christmas present because "Grandma told me I could!"

And then last night, after we made our gingerbread house and family, I asked him if I could have a bite of his gingerbread man (which he was busily chomping). He said, "Sure! Eat Sissy's." Nice.

As CBC put it, he's full of it, "literally." (Her favorite new word :) )

And then my dear, sweet daughter asked me, "Do you think Santa is going to bring me what I want this year?" She has written a nice letter to Santa and taped it to our living room wall for all to see. I said she'll have to wait and see, to which she added, "'Cause last year, he just gave me random things." HA! Good one, Santa :)

Beware of kangaroos

One more entertaining thing about Buddy--he is deathly afraid of the kangaroo monster that he thinks lives in our house. Seriously, I have no idea where this comes from, but he fears that the kangaroo comes out at night and will get you if you don't hide. The kangaroo will also get your toys if you don't hide them. Buddy feels like the refrigerator is a pretty safe place, so he's been hiding toys in the fridge to protect them from the kangaroo. And last night, as I was laying in bed and he was going downstairs to tell Superman good-night, he turned on the night light and told me to cover my head so the kangaroo wouldn't get me. I tried to reassure him that I wasn't worried about the kangaroo, to which he replied, "Mom, I'll keep you safe from the kangaroo. I won't let him get you. It's okay, you can go to sleep." Love that crazy kid, but why a kangaroo? I can't wait until we go to the zoo!!!

Sickness, part whatever # we're on now, plus a heart murmur

After enjoying (?) so much time together all week, it had to end with somebody getting sick. Two somebodies, in fact. Superman started Saturday morning by throwing up. CBC followed soon after, and she continued into the afternoon. Of course, being the great mother that I am, I told her she was probably okay after the first occasion, and told her we would still go to swimming lessons. After watching her puke all over the floor on our way out to the car, I figured that was probably a sign that she really wasn't doing too well :( Superman is still not feeling that great, but CBC seemed just fine yesterday evening. I've spent much of the weekend just trying to keep the kids from beating each other, and convincing them to leave Superman alone. It has been eventful, to say the least :) I'm starting to feel like we're cursed this fall because we've all been so sick.

The really interesting thing about all of these doctor and urgent care visits is that we learned CBC has a heart murmur. The urgent care doctor noticed it at the strep throat visit, so we followed up with the pediatrician on Black Friday. She said it's a Still's murmur, which is nothing to worry about. Still (pun unintended) kind of gives me the creeps!

Once there was a snowman

Buddy has been singing "Once there was a snowman" all week long. For those of you who are not familiar with the lyrics, they go like this: "Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall. In the snow he melted, melted, melted. In the snow he melted, small, small, small." That was this past week in a nutshell. Monday morning Enumclaw School District was cancelled because of snow, so I worked at home while CBC played out in the snow all day. Then came Tuesday with more snow, with school AND work cancelled! We kept Buddy home, too, since it was his birthday, and we had more fun in the snow. And then the same thing happened Wednesday! It was a seriously weird week, especially since winter hasn't even technically started yet! The rain melted after that and it became a more normal November.

After having Thanksgiving on Thursday with almost all of Superman's family at our house (super fun with cousins!!), and then Black Friday shopping most of Friday (and, boy, did I do a poor job of finding the deals, but I sure had a great time!), I think we have had enough together time for a while :) We might all be looking forward to school and work tomorrow.

The pictures are from various snow day adventures, with my favorite showing Buddy enjoying snow for the first time he can remember.

Growing up is hard to do

Well, our boy Buddy hit three years old this week! We celebrated for several days (for various reasons), which convinced him that his birthday is at least four days long. Now that he is a big boy, he no longer allows kisses without wiping them off, nor does he appreciate being called a baby. At least he still likes hugs! I swear, he grew an inch this week, and his vocabulary grew proportionally. I made cupcakes for his home birthday party (have no idea why the picture shows sideways), he took Oreos to school, and we ate a castle cake for his family birthday. He got some seriously awesome Cars pajamas from Mormor, a puzzle from Miss Anne, and toys from the rest of us.

This week has really brought to my attention how serious he is about growing up, and how much he reminds me of CBC at this age. My favorite? When he's mad or doesn't get his way (which happens often), he says, "You're not my best friend!" CBC used to say, "You're not invited to my birthday party!" when she was mad. My kids make me laugh so hard :) I much prefer those statements over several potential others, but I just wonder why not being a best friend or not coming to a birthday party mean so much to them. Too funny! AND . . . Buddy is obsessed with puzzles. He can handle 24-piece puzzles with no problem, but he also likes doing the two United States of America puzzles we have--and he does them by himself! Pretty impressive.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUDDY!

Who, Nelly!

This is a plug for antibiotics . . . and a lament against winter. I can tell it's coming because I've already had my annual nasty cold, Buddy got pneumonia, my brother's kids all have walking penumonia, and now I have strep throat. All within the last four weeks. After being on antibiotics for two days, I finally feel like I'm going to live! If we could all have the immune system of CBC . . .

Sports

I know I've said this before, but CBC is a natural athlete. Sports just come so easily to her--which is both a curse and a blessing. She tends to goof off during the practices which drives both the coaches and her parents nuts! Here are some fun soccer photos--her against 5 boys, and she can whoop their butts. Hey, where did that short kid in the Superman pajamas come from?!

Fun pics of kids

I was going to enter the kids into the Gap casting call this year (same thought as every year but I never actually do it), but I couldn't take any pictures without red-eye. I still think the kids look really cute, though!

More pics from Halloween

Just call me . . . Peter Parker

Spider-man and a Blue Heeler came to our house on Halloween this year! It was so fun! CBC's costume was home-made, as usual, which meant it wasn't that great, as usual :) I have to tell you--I have the perfect daughter for my imperfectness! She is such a good person, and so intrinsically loving. Even when people didn't know if she was a rat, cat, dog, or a mouse, she thought it was fun that she was a mystery animal. And next year she wants to be a vampire dog. Gosh, I love that kid! And Spider-man was very insistent that we call him Peter Parker. He was so cute! We didn't have a mask for him, so Superman painted his face repeatedly for all of our Halloween parties (4? 5? I can't even remember how many we went to now!). Buddy thought it was awesome. And they looked so cute!!

We had a church party, school parties, Enumclaw party (so cool! especially the black-and-orange plastic eggs search with the lights off! Check out the Demon Dog and flying Spidey pictures), pumpkin patch/corn maze, and actual trick-or-treating. We are completely candied up, and had an absolute blast. One of the highlights was me taking a day off and living it up with the 2nd graders at school! We carved pumpkins, did fun pumpkin estimates, and had a costume parade. CBC's friends thought I was super cool because I was able to carve some of the un-ripe pumpkins that were too hard for anyone else to do. At least I improved my girl's standing in school :)

Too funny--we finally went to carve our own pumpkins and one was completely rotten. So of course my kids stabbed their fingers into the mash. So gross!

Please can I open it?

Since I couldn't post the "wanna piece of me?!" video of Buddy, I'm posting this one instead. Tell me he has not learned how to work the system (and by "system," I mean "Mom and Dad") :) Enjoy!

Food and boogers, but not together

I have to share this because it's such a phenomenon! Those of you who have shared a meal with us know that Buddy is not a good eater. The kid seriously survives on one meal a day, which always makes me appreciate his school's food. Anyway, to our complete surprise, Saturday showed us Buddy's ginormous appetite--two bowls of cereal and three pancakes for breakfast, an entire grilled cheese sandwich and fruit for lunch, and then macaroni and cheese and two bowls of ice cream for dinner. Seriously, I was shocked. I figure he must be making up for having the flu the weekend before!

And we've recently realized anew that OCD lingers on . . . we've been really appreciative of friends who have been giving us hand-me downs for CBC. That girl grows so fast that it's hard to keep her in good-fitting clothes. We're always buying them too large and then suddenly they're too small. Anyway, CBC has been more careful lately about whose clothes she's been wearing, depending on whether the giver has "picking" issues. Eek, that's all I can say.

Trying to post the video of Buddy playing with Spider-man--you can hear the evil laugh and "wanna piece of me?!" but it's not working . . .

Into the deep