North Pole

The weekend before Thanksgiving we took the kids to the North Pole. It was a lot of fun (except for the long windy drive through the desert and into the mountains). We got on a tram and the elves took us through a magic portal to Santa's Workshop.

 Here we are in front of our tram. It had green velvet seats! Talk about fancy. We saw the reindeer in their stalls as we pulled up.

 When we first got there we met some elves who led us through the Toy Hall of Fame. There were lots of cool old toys. The Hall of Fame was in Santa's "old" workshop and there were even some funny old toy prototypes.

 Once Alabaster Snow (Santa's chief elf) took us into the toy shop the kids got to help the elves make toys for little boys and girls. Here Sadie is stuffing a bear.

 They also got to play with Ram Rockets and shoot all the elves. Madoc really liked this part.
Our tour group had a lot of no-shows. There were only three families with a total of seven kids. The elves outnumbered them by a lot so the kids got a ton of attention. I think Sadie and Madoc had six or seven elves surrounding them. While the kids worked on the toys I let Charlotte wander around. Elves kept coming up to her wanting to hold her and find her dolls and toys. Apparently even elves can't resist cute little Charlotte.

 After toys everyone got cookies and "snowman soup" or hot chocolate while the elves sang Christmas carols. Then we went to Elf school and learned all about how to be an elf.

 After that the families went into Santa's office one at a time to write letters for Santa. Charlotte just tried to get the tree the whole time.

Then we saw Santa! He was a really good Santa. Charlotte didn't even cry.

 At this point we went outside around a big fire to wait for the tram. It was really cold and the wind kept blowing the flames at us. Not a fun part of the night.

 Our last stop was back at the lodge with Mrs. Claus. She read a Christmas story and then the kids colored pictures.
When we got to our hotel for the night we were all very tired. Then we discovered the hotel didn't have baby beds. Charlotte ended up in our bed and wouldn't go to sleep. Not a fun night, especially when we had to get up the next day to drive to California.

Halloween 2011

Charlotte and I got sick the week of Halloween. It was really bad timing. There are parties and school programs like crazy that week. And I had to make Madoc's costume. It was a very miserable week and everything got done last minute and only halfway really.

We hurried and carved our pumpkins before Trick-or-Treating. You can't carve them very early here because it's too warm and they rot. And the Saturday before was the ward Trunk-or-Treat and I was busy all day being sick and sewing Madoc's costume so we didn't get the pumpkins done then.

 Sadie decided she and Charlotte would be hula dancers, just like Sadie was for her first Halloween. Madoc wanted to be a cheetah.

 Yes, she's eating rocks.

Due to the time crunch our pumpkins were pretty simple this year.

Hunting for Pumpkins

We have several pumpkin patches in the area but one is quite close. It's only 15 minutes down the highway which is extraordinarily convenient when you have three small children. We didn't go in 2010 since Charlotte was due soon so we decided it was time to go again. We spent a few morning hours at the patch and as we were driving home Neil and I both agreed that it had been a highly successful morning. Everyone had fun, Charlotte was good, there were no tantrums, the kids saw everything they wanted, and everyone was ready to go at the same time with no complaining! We packed a lunch to eat in the car on the way home so everyone was ready for naps when we got back. How awesome is that?!

 We rode on a hay wagon out to the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins. Sadie found a good one right away. Madoc wanted the biggest one of course. We almost walked the whole patch before he finally settled on one. Sadie also found a tiny pumpkin for Charlotte.

 This farm has awesome tire swings. The kids had lots of fun taking turns with the other kids.

 Neil decided the pumpkins needed some shade.

 I sat and watched while the kids were on the swings and in the trees.

 The kids also saw some animals, walked the hay maze, and played in the bounce  house. Once she was done jumping, Sadie announced that she was tired and ready to go home. Madoc was good enough to oblige her as soon as he was done jumping too.

Mother's Day

I haven't a single picture of Mother's Day because I'm the one who takes the pictures around here and I'm the mom so it was my day off. But despite the lack of pictures I think it was one of the best Mother's Days I've ever had (not too hard since there's only been six, but who's counting?).
I got to sleep in until 7:30! That's unheard of! I'm usually up at 5:30 now that the sun is making an early entrance. Then I played the waiting game. You know, the one where you're not sure if you're supposed to stay in bed because there are festivity plannings downstairs or if you can go ahead and get up. I got the option of breakfast in bed or at the table and I opted for the table. Who likes crumbs in their bed? Or eating by themselves? So down we all went to have Belgian waffles with strawberries and cream. Oh yum. And then the showering of gifts began! Lovely cards drawn by my lovely kiddos. Flowers to adorn my window. And this:


From The Vintage Pearl of course. And oh how I love it!

The kids were amazingly well-behaved all day. Sadie was really into the whole celebrate mom thing. I kept receiving drawings and crafts all day. From Kindergarten I got a juice can vase full of silk flowers and a pink peony broach that went perfectly with my skirt for church. And there were lots of hugs.
At church the women got cds full of instrumental hymns and primary medleys and mine now hangs out in the car. And the men took over so we could all got to Relief Society! Yippee! The only sad thing was when Sadie refused to go sing with the Primary kids without Madoc (her security blanket) who was asleep on Neil's lap. Oh well.
And after church we had another family for dinner. Neil made fabulous grilled chicken. That with roasted potatoes and cranberry and almond salad made my day! And our friends brought chocolate cake with pb frosting! Anyone who know me should realized that I could have had just the cake for dinner and been completely happy.
What a lovely day it was. Too bad it doesn't come twice a year!

Happy Easter

We had a wonderful, quiet Easter at home this year. In years past we have invited friends over for a big Easter dinner but the holiday sneaked up on me this year, as everything is lately. I can't seem to plan ahead with a baby in the house and Easter sort of surprised me. So we did without the big dinner in order to lessen the stress of the holiday and celebrated by ourselves.

Sadie found a recipe for Bunny Buns in the Friend magazine so I made those for breakfast. I was up at three in the morning starting the dough so that we could actually eat them for breakfast. Charlotte was a good alarm clock! Neil made some bacon and cheesy eggs to go with them. It was a yummy breakfast. Oh, and the buns were just orange rolls. You can find the recipe here.

The kids baskets were filled with new books, bubble refills, pencils, and new sand buckets. It seems that every Easter my kids get new sand toys because the heat and sun here make their old toys brittle and they all need replaced every year. We passed on candy this year and instead I made Rice Krispie treats shaped like tulips, bunny heads, and butterflies and decorated them with colored sugar.

Charlotte seemed happy about her first Easter basket. Or maybe she just liked being outside.

The girls had matching yellow dresses with white polka dots. I made Madoc a yellow tie with blue and green polka dots to match the girls.
We dyed eggs the night before and filled some plastic eggs with coins. And for the first year here we had our egg hunt in grass and not rocks!

Sadie and Madoc had a good time finding their eggs. Madoc had a little help finding the last of them. Sadie had beat him to all the most obvious ones and so we pointed out the ones hiding amongst the tree branches.

All the loot!

We have late church (not over until five!) So we had the ham in the oven on a timer. When we got home it wasn't long until we were eating a fabulous dinner of ham, potato casserole, carrots, salad, and deviled eggs. Yum!

St. Patrick's Day

I'm one of those awful mothers who forgets doctor appointments, bills that need paid, and holidays every time there is a new baby in the house. So this St. Patrick's Day snuck up on me. Sadie actually reminded me of it early in the day and then halfway through getting everyone dressed I remembered again. We had to scramble and change a few outfits but we all managed to avoid being pinched.

We didn't have our green pancakes since I forgot but I did manage to put together a quick craft. Good thing too because to Sadie, that's what holidays are all about! We traced two sizes of shamrocks onto paper, overlapping them in interesting ways, and decorated them with different patterns and shades of green. Sadie actually made two.
And I thought about making our stew and soda bread that night but we had already planned on grilling and it was beautiful outside and everyone was out playing while Neil dug in the dirt so we decided to stick with it. We did have broccoli salad to add some green to our dinner and I made a last minute trip to the grocery so we could add green punch and cupcakes.

It was well after bedtime before dinner was ready due to Neil using all the daylight hours he had in the backyard so the kids were watching Kipper while they waited. All three of them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The Crapo kids on March 17, 2011

Valentines

We had a lovely Valentine's Day and I have no pictures to show for it. The longer I'm a mother the fewer pictures I take. I find I'm just too busy managing kids and enjoying what we're doing to pull out the camera.

My mom watched the kids Friday night so that Neil and I could go out. We found a local Italian place called Mama Louisa's. It was divine! I've never had lasagna that good and the eggplant parmigiana was to die for! We are definitely going back soon. Then we went bowling. It was so much fun. The first game was hilarious. Neil kept getting gutter balls while I kept getting strikes. Our first game was 107-69. But he started to do better and won the second game, 114-74. I lost my strike streak but consistently got 7s and 8s and that's pretty good in my book.

On Monday morning my poor husband left before anyone else was awake. I am pretty sure I only half realized that he was leaving as he came to kiss me goodbye. (Gotta love seminary.) A while later Sadie came and crawled into bed with me and found something strange on her daddy's pillow. It was toffee from See's Candy! Yippee! My husband knows me all too well.

I made pink heart pancakes for breakfast and they were a big hit. Sadie took her homemade Valentines to school and came home with a bag full of goodies, including a cookie gram from her mom and dad. Grandma handed out Valentine cards and pink M&Ms, and Grandpa sent more cards from Indiana. And to finish the day off we had a festive dinner table with red tablecloth, white candles, and M&M covered plates thanks to Sadie. Oh, and Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. Yum!

Our Trick-or-Treaters

About a month ago we asked the kids what they wanted to be for Halloween. Cute Girl sweetly answered, "I want to be a hummingbird so I don't have to make more work for you on the sewing machine." (She was a hummingbird two years ago - yay for reusing costumes!) Handsome Face answered, "A honey bunny." We have no idea where the 'honey' came from but he positively answered "honey bunny" for a month straight whenever asked about costumes.

I put the Rocket Scientist in charge of costumes but because of miscommunication I ended up whipping up the bunny at the last minute. He did figure out how to make a bunny costume but simple directions found on the internet are SOOOO not useful. So many times, this year and in the past, we've found directions for cute costumes that require SIMPLE things like gray sweatsuits or green long sleeve t-shirts or solid colored beanies. But guess what? You can't BUY simple things like that. This year we searched for a plain gray hoodie and could not find one. Of course, I thought too late about ordering one online. Oh well. Handsome Face got a costume in the end.We trick-or-treated Saturday night with just over a dozen other families from church (mostly) and the neighborhood. It was so nice not to have to go on Sunday especially because we went out last night just to drive and look at the lights and the neighborhood was CRAZY!One family from the ward couldn't go out because Dad was working and there are too many babies for Mom to handle so we took the big girl Grace with us. She was the cutest, most excited girl to be going trick-or-treating. The kids had a blast having Grace tag along.After an hour and a half of driving around the neighborhood with our friends, the Porters, and visiting all our church buddies' homes, the kids got two treats, a shower, and then BED! Yay for bed on Halloween!

Our Great Pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins yesterday. The kids had a lot of fun. Handsome Face wouldn't put his hands in but talked about how fun it was to carve pumpkins while I did all the work. He chose a candy pumpkin. Cute Girl drew a very elaborate picture of a scary monster. It had four of every face part. We simplified if for the carving and it was kind of crazy looking. The Rocket Scientist is the master carver and always comes up with something fun. I, on the other hand, hate carving pumpkins and only tolerate it because I have to.

I thought my candy pumpkin turned out rather well.