Gretchen's Birthday! Christmas! Parties!

Hello!  I feel like I should go ahead & just address this to Poppa Randy, since you're pretty much the only one who reads these.  So Hello Poppa Randy!  And Hello anyone else reading!!!

We had a lovely Christmas.  Mostly because it was here and we didn't have to leave the house.  That's my favorite.  For sure.  

Gretchen's birthday fell on a Sunday.  Ella and I woke up early and made her a "web of balloons" so that when she opened the bedroom door, balloons fell out on her.  Except we had to make them high so that the cat wouldn't get them.  And she still sort of did.  BUT NOT ALL!  HaHA!  

 Look at that tired kid's face!!!!  Surprise!!!

 The biggest surpsirse was that I let her open a secret box.  And in the secret box was COOKIE CRISP!!!  Sugar cereal for breakfast!  Shaped like cookies!  Cause that's a good idea, right?  She was very excited, but apparently not excited enough to eat them all cause we still have leftovers, a month lalter.  More than a month later.  (Come visit and you can have some.  I'm sure they'll still be good by summer, right?)

 Do you see Steve The Elf up on top of the Happy Birthday Banner?  He's such a stinker.

 And so is she!

 She reminded me that I'd bought a fancy cake mold at Ikea, so we tried it out.  It was moderately successful from a certain angle.  So then we threw a bunch of pink glittery sugar on it and put black swirleys.  Almost looks like we didn't make it at home.  almost.

 We were lucky enough to catch the Robertson Clan at Auntie Alisa's just before everyone left.  I'm sure they were THRILLED that their 90 minute drives were postponed to watch us scream HAPPYBIRTHDAYCDEARGRETCHEeeeeeEEEENNN.  Sorry Family.  We love you.

 Christmas Day brought lots of presents.  Look at that pretty tree!  I was so happy to get that pretty tree out of our pretty living room!  We bought it from the Boy Scout lot, and were super happy that THIS YEAR at least it didn't shed its needles all over the freakin' house.  But I was still pretty happy to see it go.  Look at Ella's new scooter!  She rides it the 300 yards to school every morning.  And every morning I give her a kiss, take the scooter, and ride it 300 yards back home.  (Don't worry, I can totally pull off that look.  --Mom riding kid's scooter at 9:03am every morning-look)

 Gretchen got some Calico Critters.  Look at that face.  LOOK AT IT.  (She really was happy).

 More stocking loot.

 After Christmas, we had Gretchen's Birthday party.  Like, four days later.  Not sure that was the best planning, but I was in GET IT OVER WITH mode.  So that's what we did.   We borrowed my friend Katherine's lovely dance studio, which has two nice empty rooms, and filled it with 18 kids.  And lunch.  And Minecraft themed snacks.  Because it was Minecraft themed.  (What's Minecraft?  A game for the phone, tablet, computer, xbox, etc.  You build things out of blocks.  It's ridiculous and weird and THE KIDS LOVE IT.  Especially Gretchen.  One of the best parts was that we did the LONGEST MINECRAFT PICTURE IN THE WORLD!!!  We're supposed to be taking a picture of it to send to Gretchen's Hero, Mr. Stampy Long Nose.  A retired engineer who quit his job because his youtube channel (which features movies of him playing minecraft and meeting up with online friends to tour people's "Minecraft Worlds".  But he has a British accent, so it sounds very proper.  A very proper waste of time.)

The party was fun, but Gretchen was super excited.  A little too excited.  She accidentally swore, and then laughed that she said a bad word and screamed out, "I JUST SAID ____!! HAHAHAH!" and then lied about it when I asked her, and then got grounded for a week.  That was painful.  For both of us.  But she learned her lesson.  I think.  I've heard her say (as we listen to songs on the radio, or she hears people talking), "That's a word we don't say in our house."  Good thing she doesn't hear half the things I say.  I'd be grounded for a lot longer than a week...

we had a lovely New Years.  Our dear friends the McCombs and the Kuhns came over for crazy good times.  Between the three of our families, we had 8 kids here.  (Remember how small our house is?)  Luckily the kids enjoyed the basement.  And we enjoyed them being down there while we hung out upstairs.

Sad news is that our kitten, Russia, took off and we just realized she never came back.  We had a babysitter last night, so our usual schedule was a little off, and we're not sure when she was home last.  Usually her adventures only last about an hour.  We're sort of freaking out.  The girls are pretty upset.  So fingers crossed, prayers said, we'll still have a kitten next post....