Santa Letter

It's that time of year again, and tomorrow we are making our way to visit Santa at Bell Square mall.  It's the same Santa each year - makes for cool pictures where the kids grow and everything else stays the same. 

Christian informed us at lunch today that he will indeed cry.  No way around it, he will cry.  No trying to talk him out of it, he will cry.  (I'll let you know how it goes.)

So in preparation for tomorrow's visit, the kids and I sat down tonight to write letters to the big guy before going to bed.  Campbelle was very serious about it, and Christian initially asked for just rocks - trying to be funny.  Campbelle informed him that was a terrible thing to wish for and he shouldn't joke with Santa!

Here are their letters (with only a little penmanship help from me):

Getting ready...

With our tummies still full from Thanksgiving, we brought out all the Christmas decorations and setup the tree. The kids had fun decorating and make paper chains. Only two glass items broke during the whole process (and funny thing, neither incident involved the kids!!)

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a really nice Thanksgiving. I know we are all still full from yesterday's meal. We were fortunate to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends - old and new. Our good friends the Slaters spend another Thanksgiving with us, as well as a newcomer to the country - Frode, a Norwegian Microsoft college of Leifs. Gina was there - of course, I need her help immearsuabley in the kitchen and plus she's alwasy in charge of the desserts; and Leif's parents - Liv and August are here. We had a fun day of laughing, eating, telling stories, eating, and making fun of Canadians! haha just kidding Dan. Oh yeah, and we ate.

David was the sole kid who made it to the grown-up table. Jack, Christian and Campbelle ate by themselves in the kitchen. Its just quieter that way!

What a great way to spend one of my favorite holidays and a great way to kick of the season.

Our best wishes for a happy holiday season to you!

LAUNDRY EVERYDAY???

So after Tammy's latest post about 101 things, I asked her if she really does laundry every single day.  I couldn't believe that she would have to... and then I did my laundry (which I probably do 2 times a week, sometimes only once) and I saw this....

... and thought maybe 1 load a day wouldn't be a bad idea!!

Yikes?!?

Songs and our 'Old Country'

Campbelle has been feverishly practicing her Norwegian songs in preparation for her Farmor and Farfar's visit starting next week Tuesday. She sits in front of her CD player and listens to 3 songs over and over again and then practices her singing. The other day, I over heard a conversation with her and Christian where he was wondering what she was singing about - since he didn't understand the words she was singing. She exclaimed in her authoritative voice, "I don't really know Christian. I don't come from Norway, I come from Fargo."

Disney on Ice

Tonight Leif and Campbelle had a date to Disney on Ice - Princess Wishes.  Campbelle has been so excited about this night for days and I believe that she'd told everyone, including strangers, about how her dad is taking her to the show.

I think they had a great time - Campbelle said it was her 'best day ever!'.  On top of it all, Campbelle and three other girls were randomly picked to ride out onto the ice in Ariel's boat.  Leif said at first she was a little skeptical, but then she really got into her princess waves to the crowd.  They also got moved up to front row seats.  Very exciting.

Here is Campbelle and the other triplets waiting for their boat.

And aboard the boat...

Oh, what little girls dreams are made of...

Culture of extremes

Ok, so I lied, I guess we have done some exciting things since Halloween.  It's really not quite as boring as I made it out to be.  (can you tell someone got on my case for making us sound pathetic).

On Saturday, Gina took the kids to the Children's Museum for the afternoon, then out for pizza and just some hanging out time at her house before bringing them back to our's for bedtime.  Which meant, Leif and I had Date Day!

We started with a trip to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM).  It's recently reopened after a lengthy re-design and we had a great afternoon strolling through the galleries and taking in some very amazing, unusual, interesting, freaky, strange stuff.  Art - you have to love it in all its forms.

In the main lobby, there are several Ford Taurus' suspended from the ceiling with neon lights protruding out everywhere... strange --yes, good commercial to jump start Ford ever declining sales -- maybe.

  After a few hours of contemplating some other very interesting pieces of work (giant black rat sitting on top of a person in bed??) we decided to partake in another venue of art.  We went to the movies.  American Gangster (Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe).  Pretty good. 

And who said we are boring!! ? :-)

Nothing....

It's been a long time since I last posted... almost 2 weeks.  The reason for that is very plain and simple - we've had absolutely nothing going on.  Boring.  But I'll share an insight into our conversation that we had today at lunch.  We talked about being grateful and giving thanks for everything we have in our lives.  (It's the topic of conversation at school tomorrow for the kids and I'd thought I'd 'prep' them a bit.)

 

"Christian, what are you thankful for?"

He responds, "I'm thankful for my pappa and mom and Campbelle."

"Oh sweetheart, that's nice.  I'm thankful for you too.  But why are you thankful for us?"

"Because you love me and Campbelle plays with me," in that sweet little to die for voice of his.

Campbelle and I exclaim in unison "Awe, that's so sweet.  We love you little man."

Campbelle's turn.  Surely she will come up with something equally as heartwarming and endearing.  She is 1 1/2 years older than him and a bit more wisdom under her belt.

"Campbelle, what are you thankful for?"  She continues to eat her lunch.  I ask again, "Campbelle, what are you thankful for?"  She looks deep in contemplation of her answer.  This is going to be good and sweet.  Right?

She finally gets around to swallowing her bite, washes it down with her glass of milk and exclaims, "Yeah, I'm really just thankful for bunnies."

"Oh, really?  Just bunnies?  Well, please tell us why are you thankful for bunnies?"

"They are really just so furry, " she says with a giggle,  and proceeds to chomp on her sandwich while Christian and I both stare at her in amazement.

Did a warped age-reversal thing just occur here?

And so much for my prep work I guess.

Happy Halloween!

Today's festivities started at the mother of all 'trick or treating' spots - Microsoft.  I say it every year - you've hit the jack pot when you go there for Halloween.  About 50% of the people there are too busy to mess around so they just set a big bag of candy outside there door and welcome kids to help themselves.  You don't even have to work for it - no "trick or Treat?"  or "Happy Halloween" not even a "Thank you" is required.  And if it weren't for the dutiful parents that accompany their children from office to office, you wouldn't even be limited to taking just one candy - I'm sure handfuls are taken by some.  The other 50% of MS really, really gets into the day.  These are the half that seem to have very little to do.  There are offices converted into haunted hallways.  Conference rooms that transformed into operating rooms complete with bloody corpses, or restaurants that specialize in brains for the main course.  It is crazy the level that some of them get into this little holiday.

We limited the kids trick or treating to Leif's floor and that was clearly too much candy for two little kids.  But we saw some pre-teen boys that had entire pillow sacks filled to the top with candy - it really is the Jackpot!!

Campbelle had her fortune read by a gypsy woman.  She told her that there was a pony in her near future!

After MS, we meet our friends the Keyes' at home to walk around the neighborhood and add to our loot.

At the end of the night, the kids had an obscene amount of candy.

Thanks goodness I had pre-arranged a set up with the Candy Fairy.  All you have to do is send her an email, put your candy (less 4 pieces you can save for later) outside your door, and magically the fairy comes by while you sleep and changes your candy into a toy.

Christian got a Transformer and funny thing - Campbelle got a pony!  Maybe that fortune tell has another career option!!  :-)

Hope you all had a great night!