++Christmas Wisconsin style++

The crazy crew made it unscathed (for the most part) through their travels across the country to Christmas round two. Wyatt was fabulous on the plane. With Claire it was a lot like holding a hamster. We spent almost a week with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Matt, Aunt Taylor and Busha.
Matt got Taylor "Rock Band" for Wii and we had lots of fun trying it out. Wyatt liked to join in on the fun too. Hint to parents: if you want your child to sing their entire Christmas program from school for you, make them think they are a rock star.
Uncle Matt taught Wyatt the Pacyna family tradition of sword-fighting with the wrapping paper rolls (a.k.a. tooterloos).

Hands-down my favorite photo of Christmas this year. Not posed. Wyatt and Claire checking out their loot from Santa.

Here's Claire sampling the cookies that Santa left on the plate.

The family Christmas photo. This is the best you're gonna get.

Here's the happy smiley kid that we see every day but disappears when the camera comes out. The secret? Being attacked by his alligator puppet. This was a request to Santa (????).

Claire testing out her new piano from Grandma and Grandpa. She loves this thing.

The other attendees at Christmas: Matt, Busha (at 101!) and Taylor.

Merry Christmas! Again!

++It just snuck up on us++

Someone we know turned ten months old on Christmas Eve. She's much smilier than this picture would let on. Here's a little about Claire at ten months:
++ She thinks she is three...or sixteen.
++ She is a crawling pro and FAST. Also she's super nimble she can get from her knees to sitting or pull-up on something in nano-seconds. Sometimes she tries to crawl so fast she gets a little ahead of herself and does a faceplant. We try not to laugh and applaud the effort.
++She knows her mom and dad and Wyatt. She likes us best. That is good.
++She is a waving machine. She loves that she has figured out a way to greet her people and greet them she does. Teenage boys seem to be her favorite. We are in so much trouble.
++She says mama and dada and something that sort of sounds like "hi" to accompany her wave. The rest of the time she speaks her own language.
++She eats anything we put in front of her which is such a treat. We know it's only a matter of time before she realizes she can have an opinion. No doubt she'll learn by example from her brother.
++She got her first taste of juice on the airplane to Wisconsin. She wouldn't set the cup down. We haven't given her any since. It worked great to get her to swallow though!
++She is the lightest sleeper known to man.
++She still loves shoes (eating more than wearing). She's wearing her first patent leather shoes with her first pair of tights in the picture above. I tear up just thinking about it. Now if her hair could just grow a little bit and we could start with the bows.
++We continue to enjoy seeing the unique personalities in each of our kids. Wyatt was always so cautious. Claire just loves to be in the middle of it all. It doesn't seem that she is afraid of much. Again...we are in for it.
We sure do love our little bear (or Miss P, Princess P, Little One...depending on who is talking to her).

++Christmas round one++

Like every year, we celebrated Christmas twice this year. After our Santa train ride we pretended it was Christmas with my family.

Claire opened her first gift. As she was opening it I commented that I wonder what she would do because she had never opened a gift before. It was perfect--my sister gave her another lovey (a hint hint that we need to be washing the stink out of them more often) and Claire just giggled and beamed when she saw what was in the box.
Most of the time it was chaos of kids and presents.

The boys got umbrellas from Nana and Bompa.

Wyatt ended the night with his big surprise gift. A box told him to go outside and he was delighted to find...

A new sandbox! He hasn't let it die that we left the old one in TN. We opted for the "table" this time due to all the friends around here that would no doubt love to dig in a sandbox at night. It's great because we have it up on the deck in a spot that's covered so he can play rain or shine (but mostly rain these days).

Merry Christmas!

++Santa Train++

Susan and Brett tipped us off to a great Pacific Northwest treasure--the Santa Train. It's a simple concept: ride a train to a depot, get off, visit Santa, have a cookie and ride it back. What under-fiver wouldn't think that was fabulous?
Here are the troops approaching the train. What a beautiful snowy-kissed sunny winter day. Ha! Remember we are in Washington so it was a dreary, gray, drizzly winter day.
We boarded the train and found some seatmates.

Even Claire enjoyed riding unrestrained..

This was as close as Wyatt got to Santa (Claire's traumatic experience was already posted).

The crew, listening to the tuba band play Christmas carols and waiting to board the train.

++You better watch out...++

...you better not cry...

Clearly my kids didn't get that memo this year. We have Santa pictures taken at the same place every year for each year of my childhood. It was always so fun to get them out and look at them. I started this tradition with Wyatt and his buddies and then we proceeded to start moving all over the place so that fell apart. I still intended to get the pictures somewhere. So while my parents were here we took them to the mall. This is the closest Wyatt would even get to Santa (and don't get me started to what it took to get him in an outfit for the photo. I went with the Christmas tee which I guess is less painful for him than a sweater.)

This was Claire's response to Santa (it was actually a few days later with a Santa where cameras were allowed...I just couldn't spend $20 at the mall on a picture of only one of my children--who is screaming her head off.)
Funny...I thought all this stuff was supposed to be fun? Maybe next year.

++The fabulous bakin' boys++

This photo could possibly be my all-time favorite of 2009. The boys were going to help me make cookies. Wyatt insisted he needed goggles (safety first!) and Larson just used the splatter guard from the mixer.
Look! A surprise cameo by ME. Helping with the cut-outs.

If you get queasy easily, don't look at the sheer amount of sugar being dumped on the cookies.

The final results being delivered to Bompa. Check out the flour behind Larson's ear. The sign of a true hard-core baker.

++Hey, What's the big idea?++

This phrase likely means nothing to most of you. Unless you are lucky enough to have an Imagination Movers fan in your house. Pretty much the day after Halloween Wyatt switched his allegiance from The Wiggles to another group of four grown singing men. To be honest, this one is far more tolerable. I usually put a show on for Wyatt while I'm getting Claire down for her nap or doing something else and I don't pay much attention to it. One day I happened to catch an ad at the end announcing the "Movers" live tour was coming to Seattle. There were no questions for us. We had to be there. Luckily enough, Nana and Bompa would be in town so Wyatt got two parents to himself.

Despite his unwillingness to look at the camera, he WAS excited for the big event.
SEE. Now that is excitement. Sadly, neither Mark or I could remember the last concert we had attended. We are so lame.

We weren't able to get great seats as I only heard about the concert a few weeks before they came. I was a little nervous Wyatt would be disappointed that the guys were so far away. For the most part he just sat in his seat with a blank look on his face. I even had to ask him if he liked it or not. The reality is that I think he was in awe that his favorite TV guys really came to life.

The best part? His favorite guy is Rich. In fact, Rich is leading the race to be his Halloween costume next year (don't worry, I'll wait until October to take anything he says seriously). Well, we were up in the balcony and who came around to greet the fans? Who gave Wyatt not one but TWO high fives? RICH!!!! No joke, I teared up. I was so excited for the little guy.

We finished our night off with a dinner out. It was so fun for all of us. And once again led us to question how we ever thought life with one kid was the least bit challenging.

++It's a good thing++

It's a good thing I have no grand dreams of showbiz stardom for my children. They may have been shattered this day. At Wyatt's school Christmas program all the girls dressed as angels, all the boys as shepherds and all the Wyatts dressed like Wyatts (so it seems). Thank goodness the teachers handled the dressing as I would have stressed out too much about his non-cooperation. Instead, Mark and I just sat in the audience and laughed. Both at him and his best buddy, Isaac, who is the third from the right and dressed as an angel.

++Life these days++

Wyatt playing trucks in our bathtub. It's one of the few places that are "Claire safe" in our house any more. Wearing his Christmas "jamas"--his favorite these days-- but somehow the pants never made it back on after a bathroom trip. The pictures still waiting to be hung on the wall as we decide where we should put stuff and whether or not to paint. This could be any morning in our house these days.

++O Christmas Tree++

This year we decided to embrace our Northwest surroundings and visit a tree farm to cut our own Christmas tree. One of the problems with having a more complicated camera is that it makes things a little tough when you hand it off to the 80-year-old tree farm worker. Despite what it may look like, Claire wasn't glowing.

In fact, she wasn't even really smiling that day. She was a little under the weather.

It didn't take too long to find the right tree. Mark got the honors of doing the cutting.

Wyatt's favorite part was exploring the antique firetruck (oh---and the apple cider).

He was very helpful at decorating this year.

Claire enjoyed checking out the Christmas decorations. The music boxes were her favorite.

I wonder if Mark will still lift Wyatt up to put the star on when he's eighteen?
And just like that, Christmas was in our house. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. I love the memories that go along with the decorations as we pull them out. Even though this is the third house in three Christmases for us, pulling out all of those decorations sure made it feel like home.

++Stinker++

Meet my son. The boy who will not look at the camera for me unless he's making a goofy face. The boy who will never sit still long enough for me to compose any shot. The boy who has decided he would much rather be the photographer than the photographee. UNTIL...it's time to take a Christmas photo of his cousins. Then he cooperates fully. Then he won't get out of the chair. Then he flashes all the smiles you want. Too bad Susan isn't interested in sending out photos of her three favorite kids. Don't you just love three-year-olds?

++Thankful++

I'm writing this more for me than for you. We all have those days. And when I have those days I try to remind myself to be thankful for what I have. Maybe if I write this down, I can read it and remember. Hopefully it will help you to remember too!

++When Wyatt is running all crazy through the house...I am thankful that he has the energy and vigor to run.

++When both my children want me at the same time and I seem to be pulled in two directions...I am thankful that I have my two children and I am here for them to be pulled on.

++When my house is in shambles and I can't seem to keep it clean...I am thankful that I have a nice home that when clean is quite beautiful.

++When Mark's job causes him to be gone when it always seems like I need him most...I am so thankful he has a good job with a good company that he really enjoys.

++When I feel sad because I miss my friends from former cities...I am thankful that I made those friendships in the first place.

++When I feel like all I do is change poopie diapers all day long...well, being thankful for poop may be a stretch...

Wow, I should do that more often.

And quickly, a recap of our Thanksgiving. We celebrated with (surprise!) the cousins. Here are the two turkeys (and I'm not talking about the cookies), who were in rare form that day and played "garbage truck" emptying almost every toy we own into the empty toy box. They've graced both Susan and my house with this game. It has been officially outlawed.

The obligatory table shot. The meal was super yummy. I made a bacon-wrapped turkey. The littlest girls out-ate the little boys. We used the china and silver. Hopefully next year we will have a dining room table so we can actually use the room for it's intended purpose.

And here is a lovely portrait of Brett. (note to self--make sure to double-check your camera settings before handing it off to someone else for a photo).

Happy Thanksgiving!