A Day of Firsts

Ryker started montessori school in January.  They all have to bring plants their first day.  Ryker decorated his pot and was excited to go.  Thankfully he liked this fern because I wanted a plant that needed a lot of water.  I'm sure he waters it everyday as well as a bunch of other kids and I didn't want it to die from overwatering the first week!  I checked on it when I was there for the Valentine's party and his still looks great and yes, it is plenty wet.  He has already been on two field trips, one to Safeway and one to the Children's museum.  Seth was able to go on both of them with him.  I can't wait until it is my turn, but Seth is gone so much that it is important that he goes when he's here.  So far he loves everything about school, but wishes he could eat lunch there.  He only goes half days and the kids that go full days eat their lunch while he is packing up to leave.

 

While at the store getting Ryker's fern, we also got Kya her first candy necklace.  Should have known how that would end.......

That Sneaky Santa

Note from Santa........check.

Note from Peeka.......check.

Farwell Peeka snow angel on the porch........check.

Make it look like the reindeer ate their food.......check. 

Ate Santa's rice crispy treats......check.

Cosmos not impressed with my shenanigans or stern lecture about staying out of the flour snow angel until Ryker and Kya see it in the morning.....check.

Fireplace door cracked open.....check.  Perfect........I can go to bed.  I learned something this Christmas that is going to be detrimental in the years to come.  Our house was not designed for sneaking around on Christmas Eve.  Every inch of the loft opens up to the downstairs fireplace with a birds eye view of any action.  All the kids have to do is walk out of their rooms to use the bathroom and I'm caught.  We were unsure if Seth was going to make it home for Christmas since he was crabbing and my Mom suggested that we do our Christmas a little later so he could be there.  My reply:  You can't stop Santa's sleigh!  Seth is a big boy. Ryker and Kya; not so big and they are expecting Christmas on Christmas!  Nice thought Mom, but you know me, I wait for no one!  Luckily Seth made it home the night before.  Good thing too because I made him sleep in Ryker's room with him to ensure that he would not come out.  I still snuck around in the pitch black with no lights on because I was worried he'd catch me.  When they're older, I'll probably be setting my alarm for 2am to do it well after they are sleeping. 

Christmas morning, I heard Ryker running around upstairs with this candy cane.  I had snuck it into his bed and he was so excited that Santa would do such a thing.  He ran down the hall to tell Kya, but she was already up and in my room.  He was a little alarmed that she was gone (did Santa take more than Peeka?), but made his way quickly downstairs to find us and tell us all about how he woke up to this candy cane and that there was one in Kya's room too.

Kya, not quite as pumped especially considering that she won't actually get to eat any of it.  I had to get them each one or Ryker would have wondered, plus I really like salt water taffy!

We fed Cosmos and checked out the reindeer food and discovered this fantastic snow angel left by Peeka. 

Back inside for the grand finale.

Ice cream cone ball shooters never go out of style!

Ryker told Santa (who happened to be a retired Police chief) that he wanted a Firetruck for Christmas.  Some friends of our, one of which is a police officer, figured he needed to explore both careers so they got him a this sweet car.  Ryker likes them both, but Kya is much more into this one because of the catchy "Bad Boys" tune.  Ryker likes to bring it in the car and play the siren and I have to pretend like I think it is a real police car pulling me over.  If I don't, even one time, he's annoyed with me.  Kya, she just likes to head bang in the back seat when Ryker plays the song.

Here's the firetruck he got from Santa.  It came with a helicopter, motorcycle, and boat too.  Sadly, it did not squirt real water like he wanted, but he was not too upset.

Ryker and I bought helicopters for Seth and Ryker's cousin Asa.  Seth took his out of the box and it didn't work.  We decided we better check Asa's before we gave it to him and it also didn't work.  I took them both back, but by this time Seth had an itch for a helicopter so he went and bought his own.  This one worked.  I guess you have to buy an "Air Hog" to get a quality copter these days.  Anyway, Ryker loves it and can actually fly it which surprised me.  He always sits by the fireplace when he flies it and finds it very amusing to fly it into the kitchen and try to shoot me with the darts when I'm not paying attention.

Our vaulted ceilings are perfect for it, but the cable lighting is a little tricky to get around sometimes.

Christmas: Take 1

We had a lot of fun decorating our new house for Christmas for the first time.  We got these sweet stockings from our friend Pat while we were in Wibaux.  Ryker's is a cars one so, of course he loved it.  Thanks Pat! 

We went with a little tree again this year, but it was a live tree so someday when it is HUGE, we will cut it down for and use it again.  I'm still a little nervous about it falling on someone since I'm often the only one supervising and I do need to shower every once in a while and then there are always those days when I'm just not paying very good attention:)

Kya was pretty pleased with her decorating. 

Kya found Peeka!  I've noticed she has her pacifier in her mouth a lot in these Peeka pictures.  It's because they were always taken in the morning and she only uses it at night.  I'm happy to say though that she has been pacifier free for over 2 months now and it was much easier than I thought it was going to be, just like with Ryker.  I was dreading it so I let her keep it through our trip to Montana (figured I'd need to plug her squaking on the plane).  Then Seth went crabbing and I didn't want to be up all night by myself, then she had a cold.......yada, yada, yada.  I finally bucked up after I decided there would never be an ideal time.  It was as entertaining as with Ryker.  I did the same thing by cutting the end off it.  She decided that it was broken, but it was hysterical watching her mess with it, putting it in and out of her mouth and me telling her it was broken.  I talked her into throwing it in the garbage, just like we did with Ryker, but just as he did, when we went to leave the room, she wanted it back.  She dug it out of the garbage and I washed it off, but eventually she gave it to me and went to bed.  I was also worried about her because she had to go to daycare where there were other kids with pacifiers.  I didn't want her taking theirs and putting it in her mouth.  Ryker was home with Seth so he never had the temptation.  Anyway, it's gone and now we can always see that beautiful little grin!

Ta da!

Yep, here goes tree #2.  This one is fake, but that's okay because we have the smell of pine downstairs!  When we were planning/building our house, I could envision the Christmas trees and decorations.  We're not quite there yet, only because what I want to do will cost a little more than I want to pay for right now, but some day.  Does anyone have a classic train set they'd like to sell me for cheap?  I used to go to my friend Kerry's house and marvel at their Christmas tree because it was perfect with a locomotive running around the base of the tree. Her dad would do it all and they would just watch.  She would come to my house and marvel at our tree because it was all hand made ornaments and decorated by us kids.  She loved that we got to help.  I want the best of both worlds.  I want a perfect tree that no one touches but me on the main floor and the family tree upstairs.  Is that completely rude?  I have to compromise on a lot of things these days with my helpers and I want my perfect tree!

A little dinner after a hard day of decorating.

I decided to stop leaving my rings on the counter when I saw Ryker wearing them one day.

I made a salmon stocking for a party we were having so Ryker decided he wanted to make one to take to daycare for a snack.  He chose the dog cookie cutter.  I don't think we'll ever be able to form them into plain salmon balls again.  He was way too impressed with his salmon dog.

Baking cookies for our Christmas party.  I'm so glad we finally have counter space so Ryker can get up and help without Kya getting into all the stuff.

Kya, not so happy.  She threw a bit of a fit that he was out of her reach.

But eventually moved on to playing in the cupboard and eating her apple.

My family had planned on coming after Christmas, around New Year's, but ended up coming before Christmas to attend my Uncle Doug's memorial.  Grandma showed up first and they got started making Christmas gifts.

A few days later Brian, Kara, Ty, and Nikki rolled in in the middle of the night.  I hope just because they got in late, they didn't think they were going to sleep in!  Actually, Ty was the last to get up (even though it was still really early and he drove the whole way) and when Ryker saw him emerge from the bedroom, he jumped up, sprinted toward him yelling "Uuuuuuncle Tyyyyyyy" and gave him a big hug.  Ty was retelling the story the next day and basically said "I'm not gonna lie, I did not want to get up, but when I saw how excited that kid was, it made it all worth it."  Very interesting, because I remember waking him up for fishing around 4 am every day when he was 18 and I always had a big grin on my face, sometimes Kara and I sang him a beautiful duet, tickled his little toes or called him cute little names and he was never excited to see me in the morning.  I guess Ryker just has a way with people.
 

Uncle Brian wasted no time getting the Nerf guns loaded and a hideout built.

Of course everyone came bearing gifts so we had an early Christmas.

This one should have been opened last because it was hard to concentrate on the others after this one.  Good work Grandma.

Kara sporting the lovely apron Ryker made her.  That was a hint to get in the kitchen and bake us some cookies!

Brian and Ty with their Reindeer beer from Ryker.  That kid loves googly eyes!

Getting after it.

Jana, Marguerite, and Wes came for the service too and stayed in our apartment.  It is so nice to finally have room for guests!  Cosmos, back off buddy.  No one is carrying any bacon.

These pictures are a little out of order but they got this easel for Christmas.

If one has their shirt off for some reason, the other thinks theirs needs to come off....every time.

That crazy Peeka.

Giving Kya a ride in her new racecar chair.

Showing Grandma all their cool stuff.

Making the couch up for our guest arriving in the middle of the night.

Kya is becoming the ham lately while Ryker's new trick is to run or hide and escape the camera.

They got this sweet microphone that we left in Wibaux over Thanksgiving.  It makes all kinds of noise and luckily Grandma was kind enough to pack it in her suitcase and get it back to us.  Whew!  Don't know what we would have done without this noisy thing.  Thanks so much Grandma.  We'll be sure to pack the cowbell and tamborine next time we visit you!  Actually, it isn't that bad and they really enjoy it so what the heck.

Ty was really into this new book Nikki had told him about.  I bet he learned how to share this Christmas from old Billy Buzzle.  Nikki, on the other hand is getting the directions down so she can smoke him in a game of Cootie.

Brian assembling Kya's shopping cart.  Ty still reading.  He seems pretty into it.  I wonder if he'll read the whole series and be as into it as he was with Harry Potter?

Onto the easel. Good thing these guys were here since Seth was gone and these kids need everything assembled RIGHT NOW!  It would have taken me forever.

Oh good, the boss has arrived to supervise:)  Good teamwork boys!

Bubbles!

Anyone for Pictionary?

Good thing Grandma stuck around for a couple days after everyone left because Ryker was pretty happy with the house full of guests and it was a big disappointment when everyone had to leave.  At least he still had Grandma to ease out of the fun filled weekend and back to just Kya and I.

When Kya says "more," she means more and she means NOW!

Put down that stupid camera and refill my plate!

Yep, a shower was in order after that meal.  Headed up to find some clothes.

New PJ's from Chloe and Josh.

Back outside for some more digging while I was at work and Grandma was holding down the fort.

Peeka's last perch before flying off with Santa Christmas Eve.

Food for the Reindeer......check.

Treats for Santa....check.

Dragging Kya away from the treats and off to bed........check.