December 2016

December 1st is Hazel's birthday. This year she turned 8. She'd been looking forward to this birthday for 365 days. She would draw starbursts around her 8's in school and I found several countdown notes keeping track of how many months and days until she turned 8. It was so cute.

I've had my eye on this Kit Kat cake for a while now, so I was excited when she wanted to make it for her birthday cake. We had fun designing it together. And it was delicious, although also a major sugar rush!

Hazel got her own set of scriptures and a cute bag to carry them in, and (dun, dun, dun) her most wished-for American Girl Doll, Kit! Jack wrote her an adorable story about a runaway steak.

Hazel's favorite colors right now are purple, green, and orange. She loves to play with Legos and big dolls. Her favorite animal is still a cheetah, and her favorite food remains steak. Those two have held strong for at least four solid years now. Rather than having a favorite book, she's got favorite authors right now, including Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary, and She Silverstein. She reads all the time.

We have watched a lot of older movies and musicals this year, and Hazel has really loved them, especially "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "Sound of Music," and "White Christmas." Her favorite songs right now come from those musicals. I think her very favorite one is probably "Bless Your Beautiful Hide." The kids love to talk about how awful Adam Pontipee is, which makes me super nostalgic about my childhood.

She lists Mary Tree, Aarna Patel, and Kaitlyn Zoerhoff as her best friends. She also plays a lot with a fun girl named Adrianna. Mary's her buddy from church, and she's had a solid group of good girls to hang out with in her school class this year. I hope some of them move on to the next grade together so she can have some consistency in her friendships.

When outside, Hazel likes to jump on the trampoline and swing, and ride her bike. She sleeps with a stack of pillows. She says when she grows up she wants to be a missionary and a mom and a cook. Her favorite place to go is Mexico. Her favorite season is winter, because it has her birthday and Christmas in it. Also, she has always loved snow. She still doesn't like mashed potatoes. She's afraid of the dark. 

She likes to draw and build things, like 3D art projects, Legos, and even bookshelves she made with Todd. She is good at being kind to other people. Hazel described herself as nice, adventurous, and artistic. If she had one wish, it would be that Daddy and everybody in our family could be home all the time - almost all the time. Farts make her laugh. She likes to travel and play games with our family. She loves to learn about history - "stuff in the past - it's pretty interesting, except about things I already know about." 

Two days after her birthday, Hazel was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by her dad. She was looking forward to this ordinance with such excitement. It was so pleasing to see how much she wanted to take this step. My mom and dad and brother Chris drove up from Utah for the baptism, as well as Todd's mom and dad and Hazel's cousin Shaylee. 

Todd's sister Erika and brother KB and his girlfriend Hope came as well, from parts of the Bay Area. Our "California cousins," the Hope and Dix families, came up as well, and we had lots of support from the ward. Hazel invited Mrs. Allen, her kindergarten teacher, and she also came.

Her dress was pretty special. My friend Elaine Haupt sewed it from my wedding dress, and even designed it to match the style of my dress. Hazel felt very important wearing it, such a treasure.

I was so full of pride and joy for Hazel all day. She was beautiful and so happy with her decision. She was calm and mature and knew what she was doing. After she was confirmed a member of the Church and given the gift of the Holy Ghost, she was literally glowing. It was so beautiful to see. It was a great day for all of us.

We had a family luncheon afterwards, and then went for a walk at Brushy Peak. The hills are so lovely and green during the winter; it makes me feel like I'm in Ireland.

 Gemma went with some buddies on a field trip to Trader Joe's grocery store. She thought it was pretty cool. They let the kids use the scanner.

We went to a live Bethlehem put on by a Baptist church. There were people walking around dressed as Roman soldiers, booths where you could learn to write in Hebrew or see other pieces of ancient culture. It was super crowded and I was regretting coming until the end, when they acted out Mary and Joseph finding the stable, and shepherds and wise men coming to worship the baby Jesus. They sang a few songs and it was reverent and worshipful, and my heart was filled with gratitude and love and the Christmas spirit. Jack keeps bringing it up as one of his favorite things we did this year for Christmas.

Hazel has been focusing her creative juices on Kit, her American Girl doll. She built her a tree house and a typewriter and it's been really fun to see her at work.

We went to the Nutcracker Ballet at the Oakland Temple auditorium. It was well done and lots of fun. We brought our neighbors with us, the Bassets, Hazel's friend Sierra and her sister and parents. I hope we planted a good missionary seed in their hearts, walking the temple grounds and going into the visitor's center afterwards.

Todd wasn't with us that weekend. He was asked to fly a helicopter from Colorado to California, bringing his military unit a new aircraft. He plotted his course over Arches and Bryce National Canyons, got a real sight-seeing tour out of it, and stopped in Cedar City to gas up and visit his sister Laura as well. It was a cool trip for him. 

Gemma had her last dance class this month. She's totally loved it, but I decided to stop for a while because they don't offer prorated tuition over the next couple of months when we miss so many Mondays. Instead, they offer make-up classes, but there's only one time we could attend when she's not at preschool and it was super inconvenient. So, we're taking a break from dance. Watching her at class each week has been so much fun. She's adorable out there.

Mrs. Allen took this picture while I was reading to her class. (I volunteer in Jack and Hazel's classes every Tuesday.) Seeing it makes me miss teaching. I'm thankful I had a few years to teach and use my talents and have a career and a space to define me as ME. And I'm even more thankful to be able to be a stay-at-home mom.

Hazel's old doll, Melody, likes to have sleepovers with Kit.

I was able to come to Gemma's Christmas party at preschool. They wore pajamas, rolled out and decorated shaped cookies, and had a book exchange. She is loving preschool. She's my only kid who's excited to go back to school at the end of winter break.

We made gingerbread cookies on Christmas Eve.

Hazel made this sweet bow and arrow set for a game the kids were playing.

We acted out the Nativity story twice, because both girls wanted to play Mary.

Hazel made a better angel, because she could read all the lines.

Santa brought Jack video walkie talkies, Hazel rollerblades, and Gemma baby doll twins. They were all stoked!

I had been dreading having 9:00 church on Christmas morning, but we prepared the kids for it. They knew we were going to look at our stockings and open our Santa presents, then get dressed for church and have breakfast and save the rest of the presents for after church. Those lovely kids were cheerful about it, and it was actually really satisfying to go to church on Christmas day and sing all the Christmas songs in the hymn book and worship Jesus in that way. Truly, I wish we could have Christmas like that every year.

Aunt Laura gave us all BYU shirts, which everyone wore for about three days straight. Nana gave Jack a scooter. He rode that, and Hazel learned her rollerblades, all over the house for the next several days, until Todd and I felt Hazel was ready to go outside without having a major wipeout.

Todd had his 38th birthday on December 26th. He stayed home from work and did some home improvement projects, and we went as a family to the movie theater to see "Moana."

We had our second annual New Year's Eve sleepover with the Hope and Dix families, but on Friday night instead of Saturday. We had dinner and played games and stayed up late. I think most of the kids were up till 11:00. Todd fell asleep on the couch about 9:30. The rest of us adults waited until about five minutes past midnight, then we all headed to bed as well.

Saturday morning after breakfast, we went over to our church building and had a Nerf gun war. It was awesome!

That night, we found this goofy reindeer head hidden in mine and Todd's bed. Thanks Suzanne! We brought it with us to Spencer's baptism a week later and left it on Chrissy's van windshield. Who knows if that's the end of that, or if this is the beginning of an epic running joke?

November 2016 - Cancun trip with the Bonner clan

 We've been working on a family goal of peacemaking because we needed it. I got a few boxes of puff balls from Target, and whenever I caught the kids choosing to be peacemakers instead of fighters, I told them to "pick a puff" and put it in this big vase we had on the table. When the vase was full and the puffs were gone, we would take the kids to Boomers as a reward. It took some hard work and many long weeks, but the behavior turned around and has been much, much better. Hazel made signs and taped them all over the house to remind us of things such as "be nice to Mom and Dad" and "don't be mean people." Anyway, we finished the jar in November and had a fun night out at the arcade.

Jack was reading a book about moths and butterflies and it reminded me of the Monarch preserve in Santa Cruz. We went there once several years ago, but Jack didn't remember it. It just so happens that the best time to go is in November, if you can catch a sunny, warm day, and that upcoming Saturday looked perfect, so we planned a day trip out. We met up with Uncle KB and his girlfriend Hope. We walked the trail and saw thousands of monarch butterflies fluttering all around above our heads. It was rad. Then we went out to lunch and played at the beach before heading home. It was a good day!

We were having a rough afternoon one day and I blew off dinner to make the kids go for a walk with me on the path behind our house that leads to Marshland. They started out grumpy, but it melted away with the exercise and the fresh air. We reached this spot on the edge of the houses before it gets wild, and it was full of tall clover. The kids had a heyday walking through it, wet and up to their knees. They were making clover angels and rolling around and cartwheeling and it was like they were in this zone, you know, where time freezes and they're just feeling complete bliss. It was awesome to see. They stayed and played there till the sun got low in the sky.

Gemma is in this fun stage where she's starting to see the letters from her name in print all over the world, and each time she joyfully gasps, "My letter!" M is her favorite: "up, down, up, down." 

Jack got a new kid in his class, and his favorite thing about her is that her hair goes all the way down to her waist. After her first day at his school, he made her this card (completely independently). "I'm glad to have a new kid in school. I really like how long your hair is too. I admit that I've been staring at it the whole day. I'm so glad you are here." How cute is that? 

Todd's parents had a family reunion in Cancun over Thanksgiving break. Everyone made it there except for KB. We had a fabulous time! We stayed at an all-inclusive resort and played at the pool and the beach a ton. We also rented a 12-passenger van, aka the Party Van, aka The Shag Wagon, and used it to go on day trips with portions of the group most days. It was great.

Todd and I and Missy and Burke went scuba diving twice. Once happened to be on November 19th, mine and Todd's wedding anniversary, so Todd made a plan with me to kiss underwater. That's pretty cool, right?

We saw a nurse shark! Everyone was gathered around, checking it out from a few feet away. And then there's Todd, slowly swimming closer and closer to it, with his hand outstretched. Yep, Todd touched a shark! Just a light moment of contact, and the shark took off and swam down the canyon until it was far away. Not used to being approached, I'd guess.

We went tide pooling and found lots of pretty coral. 

We snorkeled at Akumal Bay and saw sea turtles. It was super cool! I went out with Hazel and Jack and we just toddled around until we'd find one, then float and watch as it ate sea grass and came up to breathe. Some were probably four feet long, pretty big. We saw a mamma with her baby. And we saw a little sting ray out there, too. 

We drove out to some ruins. Hazel loved it! She remembered everything we had learned about Mayan culture from our trip to Cancun in the spring, and asked the tour guide some good questions and was really into it all. Who knew we had a history guru for a kid? 

The neatest part about the ruins was that they were spread out, so they had bikes for rent. Everyone loved cruising around in the middle of the jungle. Gemma was devastated that they didn't have a bike small enough for her, and she and I had to ride on a cart instead. I was pretty bummed to miss out on the bikes, too!

Jack attempted to have pizza for dinner every single day. I didn't really keep track of whether or not he did. It was lovely to not worry about making dinner! The buffets were our friends. Everyone was happy. The ala carte restaurants took too much time and weren't kid friendly, so we only attempted those a couple of times.

There was tons of cousin time. All the kids seemed really happy to be together.

 

Gemma's favorite animal right now is a kodamundi. She apparently loved the cute little things, even though they climbed all over the tables and bit Hazel's finger when she was trying to feed it (yeah, we learned not to offer them food). 

Todd told one of his famous Jeffrey the Goblin stories. My kids beg for those whenever we're in the car or sitting around at the table with time to kill.

Hazel still made time to read. She even lent her cousin one of her books to read when she had finished it. So cute and mature.

The beach was awesome. The water was warm and the sand was soft. Jack loved body surfing. Gemma loved jumping over the waves and playing in the sand.  There were not enough shells for Hazel; she usually spends a lot of time collecting shells when we're at the beach. That really only happened on our tide pool day. But she was plenty happy, don't you worry.

We went to this beautiful cenote called the Garden of Eden. The water was clear, we were surrounded by trees and rocks, it was super beautiful and peaceful. We snorkeled a little, swam a bit, and just enjoyed being there.

 We flew home on Thanksgiving Day, took the next day to recoup from it all, and took the simple route by hunting for our tree at Home Depot this year. While the search was understated, the tree has been a good one. It's as tall as can fit, and lovely and green and full and smells great and makes me happy. I love a good Christmas tree.

Oh, and Santa was randomly there, so we popped over to say hi to the fellow.

The next week was pretty fun and busy, but that's in December, so I'll keep you in suspense for a few weeks more before I tell all about that.