Kids are Awesome

*Seth was writing on my calendar this afternoon. I looked up and saw what I thought were a bunch of random letters. I asked him what it said, and he responded, "Heh, heh, heh!" Sure enough, the calendar was filled with H's and E's. Then he informed me that "that's how I'm going to laugh now." Heh, heh, heh...

*He's also taken to making up games for us and Catherine to play. Right now they almost always involve keeping away from the lava, but some get very complex with lots of rules and regulations. During Christmas Jon's older sister commented that Seth is just like Jon was as a kid--always making up games for everyone to play.

*Catherine, on the other hand, seems to have a different side of her dad's personality--namely the side that enjoys pestering siblings. Seth is at the age right now where he bursts into tears if he doesn't win. Doesn't matter if it's a race down the stairs or a game of Cootie--if he loses, there is much drama. Which means all Catherine has to do is say, "I win!" in order to start him into a panic. "No, I win!" "I win!" "NO! I WIN!" They can be in the middle of eating lunch or watching a show (no competition at all) and she'll just blurt it out and watch carefully until he freaks out. She knows she can always get a reaction with that phrase. I am in big trouble with this one.

*Other favorite Catherine thing right now? She pronounces "blanket" as "bacon." Every morning she comes wakes up with her two blankets snuggled to her face and announces, "Two bacons!"

*We had her (awesome) nursery leader and family over for dinner on Sunday. He told us that if Catherine's upset in Nursery, all he has to do is start wiggling his hand crazily in front of her face. She immediately stops and starts giggling. Not sure what to make of that one...

2013, Here We Come!

The Blood family rang in the new year with a cheese log, disappointed sparkling apple-pomegranate cider, and a 10 pm bedtime. We party hard around here. 

A few days into 2013, we met up with our good friends at the Storyville library. It was the best time my kids have had there--Catherine was big enough to not be constantly knocked over, and Seth was actually pretending instead of just playing with the cars. We'll have to make an effort to come here a few more times before Seth gets kicked out (6 and over aren't allowed in Storyville).

Seth  with a shopping basket full of things he wouldn't touch in real life.

Catherine in the rocking boat. 

She stayed in this forever--much to the dismay of an overly-concerned mother of another toddler.

(I really, really hope I wasn't that obnoxious when Seth was little.)

Catherine has recently decided that she must be where I am, doing what I am doing AT ALL TIMES. This specifically includes getting ready in the morning (she must put on tiny dabs of my makeup) and cooking dinner. It's actually kind of flattering to have a little shadow, so I generally let her. I remember thinking how cool my friend Kellie was for letting her little Audrey help us make cookies. Maybe I can be as cool as Kellie now! 

Two babies, on the island, with tortillas.

Yum!

Part of Jon's calling with the Scouts/Young Men involves driving them around to pick up Fast Offerings. Which means every Fast Sunday the kids and I get to hang out at the church for an hour or so while he drives teenage boys around in our van. It's actually kind of fun--the kids run wild, and there's usually some other poor mom there for me to chat with.

Catherine in her outfit from Christmas. Check out the boots! Love!

And Seth, being a 'meow-meow' and climbing on the pulpit of the Primary room.

Post Christmas Christmas

Between the whole "car full of stuff" thing and the whole "house full of cousins" thing, we opted to leave several of our bigger/full-of-tiny-pieces gifts at home and open them after we got home. Luckily Seth had forgotten during the drive home, so we were able to postpone the gift opening until after church the next day.

I was SO excited for the present Jon & I/my mom/Beth gave Seth (it was pretty expensive--thus the multiple gift-givers):

Catherine is a great helper.

Seth deserves it after all the 'helping' he's done with her gifts.

Ta-da! 

It's a vehicle Kid K'Nex educational set. It's designed for a classroom, but Seth can easily use 2/3 of the pieces himself. He has some regular K'Nex, but they're just too tiny and inflexible for him to put them together himself. But these Kid K'Nex are AWESOME. He plays with these every single day. At first he just used the included patterns, but now he makes up his own creations. We did well, Mom & Beth!

Then it was Princess's turn. We may or may not have gotten her too many gifts (mostly because I forgot completely about the baby doll stuff someone had given us and I'd hidden in the basement).

Opening her snow clothes from Grandpa & Grandma:

Of course, at this point we may never get any snow for her to play in...

Then it was time for my favorite Catherine gift: 

A mini-trampoline!

It took a little bit of coercion to get her to try it out, but then she was hooked:

It's currently living in the basement, where Seth has already figured out how to leap from the bookshelf onto the trampoline and then the couch. No injuries yet, but I have caught Catherine up there contemplating the jump herself. So far she's still too terrified to actually jump, but I have a feeling that won't last too long.

Then there was the baby doll accessories--a stroller and crib: 

Either she's too young or she's not a baby person, but the doll generally goes untouched.

Of course, all the little girls who come to our house love the doll, but not Catherine...go figure...

And, finally, modeling her princess shoes from Santa: 

Once again, not as big of a hit as I'd hoped, but that's mostly because her feet are too darn small.

Probably should have saved that idea for another year or two.

After Christmas

After several days, we thought it was about time we got the kids out of the house.

Conveniently, there was a bouncy place in downtown Hurricane open that day, so off we went.

Seth and Rebekah wasted no time as they ran from place to place to place together:

But it was Princess "Jump and Jump" who had the best time.

This girl would be happy if the entire surface of the planet was made of bouncy material.

Not the greatest picture, but her face is pure happiness: 

Then there was Andrew, who I thought would be all over this kind of thing.

Nope.

He spent almost the entire time in somebody's arms: 

After a couple of hours, Catherine & Andrew informed us that it was naptime:

The next day was our seventh anniversary. We didn't take any pictures, but Jon did take me out to our favorite Asian place, AND (to his everlasting credit) to see Les Miserables in the theater. He survived and gave it a "5 or 6 stars" out of 10. Not too shabby.

(My opinion? If it hadn't been for Russell Crowe, it would have been a stunning success. That voice! That weak, strained, totally un-Javert voice!)

And then it was time: 

Time for Seth to bawl hysterically when we had to leave Grandma's.

We got to make a pit stop on the way home to drop Aaron & Ashley off at Ashley's house. Ashley's family fed us some delicious food and sent us home with all the leftovers from their fridge. It almost made me feel less jealous of them for  leaving on a cruise the next day. Okay, not really, but we were very grateful anyway!

And then we were back--back to our own beds, our own (separate) rooms, and our own bathrooms. But we miss everyone and the fantastic chaos of being home. Thank you for everything, Mom & Dad!

It's Christmas

We enjoyed what is probably our last year of our kids not realizing it's Christmas and sleeping until 7:30 am.

Jon managed to pick up some kind of stomach bug and spent the entire day miserable.

The kids with the stockings from Santa.

("Santa" accidentally left their stockings at home and had to borrow some from Grandma).

A very awkward Christmas picture.

Luckily Seth was appeased by the Angry Birds pillowcase that Santa brought instead of a bed.

And Catherine didn't care about anything besides the candy.

Not even the cute cat that meows that we were so excited to find for her. Go figure.

Because we like to torture children, we waited until everyone was at the house before we started opening gifts. And it really was torture for the kids. Here's Seth waiting for everyone to show up:

Catherine was also very whiny, but not because of the gifts.

In retrospect, we think she and Jon probably had the same bug:

And, just to prove that I was there, too.

And that I put on makeup:

To save time, we skipped the whole taking-turns-opening-gifts ritual.

Instead, we opened by family, with the kids opening all their gifts in one shot.

Fantastic idea.

Of course, we were family #3, which, once again, almost killed Seth.

He had to watch most of his cousins open presents before he got to.

But then, it was our turn!

Seth got some great stuff--Angry Birds shirt, Angry Birds jacket, a nutcracker (which he soon broke trying to actually crack a nut), and some boring old pants and books from Mom.

Catherine got...

her first baby doll

And Jon got sick:

Which meant he was even lamer than usual on Christmas.

Once their gifts were open, the kids entertained themselves in various ways:

The Best Christmas Present Ever

Or their favorite activity--loving on Aaron & Ashley:

Our kids would have hopped on a plane back to Provo with Aaron & Ashley if we'd let them. They ADORED Aaron & Ashley, and Aaron & Ashley were fantastic with our kids. Catherine loved Aaron from the moment she saw him, which is a very rare occurrence with the Princess. After a few days she wouldn't even come to me if Aaron was holding her.

Seth, on the other hand, was in love with Ashley. Aunt Ashley was a great playmate and could always be suckered into playing cars or building with blocks or whatever Seth wanted to do. And he adored her because of it. Can you please come move in with us, Aaron & Ashley?

Pretty soon the kids got bored with the presents and headed outside in the cold and mud with Uncle Jacob:

She refused to jump unless Jacob was sitting down...

Meanwhile, the adults got to enjoy watching everyone open their gifts.

We gave Mom some chocolates from a local candy shop:

She gave them a thumbs up.

Which means, "They're not See's, but they're edible. You may purchase more for me."

We made out pretty well this year. Jon got new basketball shorts, a picture of the kids for his office, and Reese's PB cups. I got some shirts, some kitchen shears, some jewelry, and new pots and pans (thanks, Mom!). 

It's complete chaos most of the time, but I love Christmas at the Bloods!

Christmas Eve

It started off with a very brave Joanna and James helping the kids make cookies for Santa.

An activity like that is not for the faint of heart.

The kids had a blast.

James and Joanna? Not so sure.

Then, after much craziness, it was time for the Nativity reenactment:

Starring Jacob as the Bedouin robber who tries to rob the happy couple:

(this was before Mom yelled at him to take it off and give the costume pieces to the kids)

Seth, as a very enthusiastic Wise Man.

He was offered the role of Joseph, but turned it down. 

Jocelyn as the always-perfect Mary,

Megan as a Wise Woman,

and Chubby Evan as Jesus: 

And Catherine, as the Angel (with the assistance of Uncle James): 

The play was in a much better state that two years ago when Seth and Rebekah were running around like crazies and messing everything up. This time it was very sweet to see how reverently Seth treated the whole process:

Presenting Baby Jesus with gold

(by "presenting" I mean "setting gently on his face")

Christmas Eve ended with a little bit of this: 

Babies jumping on the bed.

"Mommy, take a picture of me jumping HIGH!"

Done: 

After opening Christmas Eve pajamas (and cars for Seth, toys for Catherine), we sent them to bed.

Then we spent our Christmas Eve playing awesome games with awesome Joanna: 

To the Bloods We Go!

Because we are so cool, Aaron & Ashley flew to our house before Christmas to hang out.

We were very entertaining (okay, really boring).

But I did treat them to Broom's Bloom for lunch so Seth could see the train garden!

Seth loved driving the train around

Aaron & Ashley and Catherine, and Catherine's boots.

Then, also because we are so cool (and halfway between NY and WV), Daniel & Wendy and their family came to stay with us, too. Seth was in cousin heaven.

Seth and "Chubby Evan", as he calls him.

(Which is a very accurate name, considering Evan is all of 4 months old and weighs the same as Catherine)

Seth, Evan & Megan: 

After deliberating over whether to postpone our trip one day because of snow, we decided to just go for it.

As it turned out, the roads were clear and the drive was sunny. Hooray!

Which meant we were in West Virginia for Christmas Sunday.

One of Catherine's three Christmas dresses:

one from last year that still fits her (size 9 months)

one that didn't fit her last year, but does now (size 12 months)

and one that doesn't really fit her yet, but is so cute! (size 18 months)

This is dress #3: 

And this would be the best shot I got of my kids in their Christmas outfits: 

I am in love with this picture, though: 

This is Catherine and her two-day-older cousin Andrew.

They were great buddies.

And, of course, the stuffed-full family picture:

Everyone except Timmy (in Mexico on his mission).

Mom & Dad+10 kids+6 spouses+10 grandkids=28 Bloods

Soon there will be enough of us to take over the world! 

Bwahahaha!