Need Chocolate?

Well I’m still in my blogging funk.  Probably does not help that I’ve felt like dog poop (and that’s using nice words) for the past few days….. Nasty cough and sinus junk.  But despite feeling icky life has been busy and we’ve done some fun things over the past couple of weeks.

First I got my early Christmas gift just before Thanksgiving…..a fabulous Cannon Powershot SX20IS camera.  I LOVE it!!  Adjusting to all the new settings and options has been a bit challenging at times, but I’ve just about made it through the entire manual (that’s a huge plus for me) and I’ve done some tweaking and button pushing to figure stuff out too (since I’m more of a “manual” kind of girl, this is practically a miracle in and of itself!!).  And I’m loving the way this camera takes picture as opposed to my Sony…..and the video options are fabulous.  Can you tell I really like my camera!?!?

The first weekend in December Stephen got tickets to Sesame Street Live from work (I love free) and we took the kids.  Even though we don’t watch Sesame Street at our house this is our third year to go to the Live program and the kids just love it!!  Even Ben sat perfectly still mesmerized by the action, music and lights for the entire first hour.  The second hour he watch intermittently, but still for little Bean he did a good job.  Natalie was not feeling very good and by the end of the show was looking very sick 😦  Poor baby girl.  My big boys really had fun too……totally glued to the stage.

We normally get our tree the first weekend in December, but with Natalie being sick, we opted to wait…..and guess what……we’re still waiting!!  Ten days until Christmas and we don’t have a tree!!  I’m pretty sure my big boys will cry buckets if we don’t get one, but I’m thinking “that’s a lot of work for 10 or less days of enjoyment.”  Wow, I can’t believe I actually think that!! Bahhh humbug!

Last week we had our first ever kids Christmas party.  And it turned out be a smashing success!  I asked Carlos to tell me the names of a few kids from his soccer team that he would like to invite.

(And a funny side story.  As Carlos was naming off the kids, Jeremiah asked, “Carlos don’t you want to invite Jamesie?”  Jamesie is a little girl who also plays soccer on Carlos’ team and apparently is very popular with the boys.  Carlos looked at Jeremiah and said rather indignantly, “No!  I’m only inviting boys.”  That’s a first for my Latino 8-year-old!)

In the end we had four families total and from our 4 families there were 15 kids!  I wished that I could have invited a lot more families, but was afraid that we would have no place for all the kids to run around.  I found some fun ornaments for the kids to make and that turned out great since I got a very simple ornament and then some harder ones for the bigger kids.  Probably the most fun was decorating the cookies.  Poor Ben fell asleep and missed that part, but everyone else had a fun time.  There’s just something magical about little pieces of candy and sticky sweet icing!

Ok, so maybe not everyone is exciting about mommy taking a million pictures!

On Friday we went downtown with my sister and her 4 boys to visit Fantasy Land.  As kids we went to Fantasy Land and it always seemed like a magical place to visit.  Oh and I’ll never forget my brother climbing up a stranger legs trying desperately to get away from Santa returning from his lunch break!!  Well, either Fantasy Land was a lot better back then or my memory is not so good!!  So sadly it was rather a dud and a waste of a few dollars, but we did enjoy a tasty lunch and a fun ride on the trolley.

We were taking our second spin around on the trolley when Carlos struck up a conversation with two ladies sitting next to him.  This is a very common occurrence…..Carlos makes news friends every time we go somewhere.  And this time having a very outgoing little boy made for a wonderful afternoon.  These two ladies were taking to the trolley to one of the hotels downtown to see the 30+ Christmas trees.  It sounded like fun and indeed it turned out to be WAY more fun than Fantasy Land!!

The big boys thoroughly enjoyed riding the escalators up to the skywalk.  And my sister and I laughed hysterically trying to get one stroller with a baby plus 4 terrified little kids on the escalator.  We were quite the scene!  The boys and Natalie (since out of the 8 kids there are 7 little boys and Natalie) all enjoyed walking around the hotel checking out the player piano and all of the trees……the Boy Scout tree was probably the very best……I mean how can you top a camp fire!!

Going back over the skywalk was extra exciting because a train was passing under…..and since all the kids are train enthusiast that was thrilling!  I’m not sure why, but watching empty coal cars pass underneath you is very exciting.  Oh and if you are wondering about the down escalator?  We took the elevator!!

 

And if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, Stephen called to say that he received free tickets for a carriage ride at Dickens of a Christmas downtown that night!  So we opted to take naps and eat dinner at home and then head back downtown to watch the parade (something I said that I would NEVER do again since it is bitterly cold once the sun sets) and then take a carriage ride.  I bundled the kids up in coats, hats, gloves and extra blankets and we watched over a hour of the parade (and we were about an hour late!!) and then waited for a LONG time in line for our carriage ride.  It was pretty cold…..about 30 degrees, but thankfully the wind was not blowing, so it was tolerable.  The carriage ride was very fun and I think everyone enjoyed the adventure.

Ok, so that’s a wrap on what’s been happening….and since that faithful Friday night we’ve been home basically every day doing nothing but trying to feel better!