Merry Frickin' Christmas

Last night our family Christmas celebration began with a power outage. Someone decided to drive their car through a power pole. We made the best of it and enjoyed a candlelit prime rib dinner.

Marcus enjoyed grilled pea puree. We had to grill his dinner because it was still frozen at dinner time.

 

Dinner was great. After eating, we spent some time trying to get a power source so we could open presents. Our new generator did not work very well, so I used an inverter from our truck to run a single lamp. Here is a picture of Marcus with my parents preparing to open presents.

 Elena opened all presents within a 6' radius. I think she could have opened presents all night long.

 Meanwhile, Marcus alternated between chewing on ribbons and wrapping paper.

The rest of the night was uneventful once we convinced Elena that there weren't any snakes in her room. The power came back on, and after resetting some breakers I thought everything was cool. At about 3 am, Karen informed me that things were REALLY cool in the house. Our furnace wasn't working. We used the last pellets for the pellet stove on Sunday, and I didn't make it to the store to get more. When we got up, the house was 56 degrees.

Luckily, John came by for coffee and offered up some pellets. The stove has been roaring ever since. We spent most of the day rotating the kids between the sauna (basement) and the arctic upstairs. Luis checked out our furnace and confirmed that he would need to order a part. The same part went out during a heat wave last summer and it took five days to arrive.

I spent most of the morning in a foul mood. In addition to the furnace, the shop thermostat and kitchen lighting also quit working. Worse yet, it was too windy to go bird hunting. Fortunately, "Santa" (Lisa and Luis) brought us one last bit of Christmas cheer: fart putty. The audio isn't great, but you can get the idea from the video. Sprout howled for a long time over this little stunt. Karen wasn't nearly as impressed, but agreed that this was the turning point in our day.

The Snake Eat Me!

Elena had her first vivid nightmare the other night. From what I can put together from her story, it went something like this. Now we get to spend a solid 30-60 minutes at nap time and bedtime searching her room for snakes and assuring her that dreams aren't real.

Enjoying the lights

 We are a little behind in the blogging business. These are pictures from last weekend. We went to downtown Caldwell and toured the Christmas lights.

 It is a short walking tour around the recently renovated Indian Creek. The weather was cold, but we didn't have the wind factor that we've been seeing this week. Sprout was sporting her new pink coat, minus gloves that we forgot at home. Luckily the sleeves are long enough that gloves are optional.

We capped off the evening by enjoying a Chinese dinner. Sprout especially liked the goldfish tanks- the one that caught her eye was the pooping fish which prompted her to launched a monologue based on the popular book Everyone Poops. I don't think the other diners were impressed.

Rescue Hero Party

 

Sprout's buddy Zarek turned three last week. Bev asked him what kind of party he wanted, and he said, "Rescue heroes." Bev took that to mean cops and firefighters. Bev and Justin went all out for this one, with games and costumes for the kids. First, all of the kids got cop mustaches.

This was followed by a doughnut-eating contest. Zarek's uncle was not allowed to participate because he has an unfair advantage (he's a real cop). He was nice enough show the kids all of his gear and handed out stickers.

We then played pin-the-water-on-the-fire. Bev hand-painted the burning building and the water splashes. She also painted the board below. Thanks for setting the bar so high Bev. We *really* appreciate it!

Six Months

Marcus hit his latest milestone last week. He is starting to sit up (with support), eats baby food, and will likely be crawling very soon. He also likes to smile for the ladies.

Santa 2012

Last week we made our annual pilgrimage to get a picture of the kids with Santa at the Orchard House. Elena doesn't really care much for Santa. When I told her that we were going to see him, the wailing began. She didn't cry in front of Santa like she did in 2010, but was still not very cooperative.

Enter Mister Mellow. He's generally happy unless you do something mean like take away the TV remote while he's chewing on it.

 

This time we enjoyed a nice dinner before we toured the light display. I highly recommend the Orchard House Santa for anyone looking for a free local option without any lines.