FHE: Thanksgiving

For family home evening we talked about being grateful. I asked each of the girls questions about being grateful. Sabrina's was kind of like playing Mad Libs.

Celia:
I'm grateful for my family.
My sister means so much to me.
My life is blessed by my toys.
Today is great because I wrapped Daddy's present.
Band-Aids make me smile.
Thanks to Mommy for folding my clothes.
I'm so thankful for my house.
I love my Daddy.
Preschool is a great blessing.
Thanksgiving is great because I get to eat turkey.

Sabrina:
I'm grateful for life.
Oregon means so much to me.
My life is blessed by toys.
Today is great because of Jesus.
Celia makes me smile.
Thanks to toys for church.
So thankful for going to nursery at church.
I love Jesus.
Church is a great blessing.
Thanksgiving is great because smile.

Clearly Sabrina is learning to give basic Sunday school answers. Entertaining evening. And now they are eating crepes with Nutella. See?

Sabrina: Potty Mouth

This morning, as I was changing Sabrina's diaper, she said:
"Ewww.  Wet!  [Singing] Wet wet wet wet wet wet wet wet wet.  [Talking] Me singing Wet Music Song."

This evening, here's our conversation:
Sabrina: Everybody in my bum!
Me: Excuse me?
Sabrina: No.
Me: What did you say?
Sabrina: Everybody in my bum!
Me: What does that mean?
Sabrina:  Poopies in my tummy go WOOOOOO!

Sabrina's Eyes

Yesterday, Sabrina had her glasses on her forehead and I told her to put them down, like always.  And I told her that if she didn't keep her glasses on her eyes, her eyes would start hurting... also an argument I make often.  She always responds "Doctor hurt either."  Whatever that means.  Anyway, Celia mentioned the eye patch possibility.  And then she asked which eye was Sabrina's good eye.  I said: "I'm pretty sure it's her right eye."  To which Celia turned to Sabrina and said:
"Sabrina, look out your eyes.  Which one is CRAZY?"

That night, Sabrina had her glasses on her forehead again.  Tom told her to put her glasses down.  Instead of putting them back on her eyes like she usually does, she bent over in a tantrum-way and yelled: "I want EYEPATCH!"

Summer Fun

Here's a collection of pictures from the summer months.

I love this one.  Celia sat down like that and looked and me and so Sabrina went over and sat just the same way and they both smiled until I took a picture.  Funny kids.

At the beginning of the summer, we still had our snow mountain.  The girls did a lot of bike riding this summer.  And the snow mountain was gone by Memorial Day.

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa's gift of a glitter set, the girls spent TONS of time decorating the yard with glitter.  We ran completely out of glitter toward the end of July.  And I caught my neighbor trying to figure out what the blue sparkly stuff on her cabbage might be.  

Thanks to Pinterest, the girls also got to do some sidewalk painting.  They really had a great time with this and we'll definitely repeat next summer.

At the beginning of the summer, I had Celia make a list of all the things she wanted to do this summer.  She wrote one thing on her list: paint rocks.  We didn't get around to it until August, but when we did, it was everything she had ever dreamed of.  Maybe next year we'll use acrylic paint so the rain doesn't wash off their lovely work.

The girls also started playing so well together this summer.  One day, they decided they were both puppies.

Toward the end of the summer, we went to a lake in town and let the girls play in the sand and water.  They had a great time.

These pictures could have been replicated several times this summer.  The girls would insist on getting their own drinks from the hose...

And end up totally wet.

Celia climbed a tree in our yard.

And also began to show her talent with playdough.  This is a car.  It has a flat tire. See the tire in the back?  It's flat.  What a funny girl.

And one day she made Tarzan out of playdough and spelled it all by herself.  That's a vine he's going to swing on.

We also did some baking together this summer.

And the girls helped Daddy wash the car.

Dipnetting!

Remember July?  Yes, we still have some catching up to do.  Well, the reds started running.  We watched the numbers every day.  And when they spiked, we were ready to head out.  But we had to wait a day because Tom was taking some drugs for fluid in his ears that were making him super sick and I had a bad cold.  So, the next day, we sucked it up, loaded our tiny car to the brim, and headed out to dip our giant nets and catch our household limit of 55 salmon.  

The weather was perfect.  The girls played with the girls from the tent next to ours.  And their dad had a two-inch deep bullet hole in his back.  The girls told me that after they dipnetted they were going to the "Dream House."  When I asked them what that was, they said: "You know when you're in jail for a long time, you can go stay there and they can help you.  It's nice."  That first evening, however, when I discovered our camping stove had broken and we would not be able to eat dinner (or breakfast, lunch, or dinner the next day...), their dad offered to help.  He spent quite awhile working with it until it was fixed.  Nice guy.  This is why I love dipnetting.  Everyone is so nice and it's a very communal experience.

The fishing was not nearly as good as we had hoped.  It didn't help that Tom and I were both not feeling great.  We caught a few that first night.  Tom was exhausted.  He had to haul the fish he caught in the heavy coolers of ice from the water from the river back up to our tent.  A man with literally a feather in his cap showed up out of nowhere and let Tom borrow his wheeled cart. Bless him. That night, we all slept terrible.  The girls didn't go to bed until after midnight.  The commercial fishing boats were coming in and going out all night.  At 6AM, dipnetting began again and Tom got back in the water.  He caught a giant fish, but he jumped out of the net as he was pulling it out.  Tom sort of tried to catch it as it flopped back into water and he hit his knee on a rock.  After a bit of a rest, he hopped back in the water.  The first run, he got the giant net caught on a rock out in the water.  After already feeling sick, hurting his knee, and having to fight the tide to get off the rock, Tom was stuck.  Guess who showed up to help?  The man with a feather in his hat.  He got in the water, grabbed Tom's hand, and the two of them were able to get Tom and the net out of the water.  After that Tom was wiped out.  After not sleeping all night, the girls were just crying on the beach the whole next day.  So, even though we were planning on staying two nights, we called it and packed up the car.  The girls were asleep in the car before we even got the trunk loaded.  Result: 14 salmon.  For the circumstances, we felt pretty good because no one around us was catching much either.  We have friends who were there that week who only caught 2 or 3 and a couple who didn't catch any.  Then there were other friends who went a few days later and caught all 55.  It's a gamble.  But despite it all, we had fun, we were saved by some interesting characters, and we're still eating salmon for dinner 2-3 times a month.

Autumn Ice Skating

As I mentioned before, we went ice skating for family home evening on Monday night on Potter Marsh.  This is a beautiful wetlands area right by the ocean.  And you can only ice skate there if it freezes up before it snows.  The marsh freezes up before the lakes since it's only a few feet deep, and the rinks the city maintains on the lakes aren't ready until after Thanksgiving.  But it's quite the experience and I'm glad we went when we did because Monday night we got a few inches of snow.  

Sabrina had a great time running around on her boots.  She kept saying: "Where's MY skates?"  We love this picture because it looks like she's levitating.  The ice was awesome.  You could see several layers of frozen ice under us with frozen bubbles.  And Tom even saw a fish swim by underneath.  

We bought Celia some ice skates last year but we only got out once last winter for her to try.  While she had fun last year until she fell down, she did fabulous this time.  She really tried.  

Sabrina even practiced ice skating in her boots.

By the end of the evening, we just had to hold one of Celia's hands and she could skate along beside us.  She even got to the point where she could stand up on the skates all by herself.

Then Tom took the girls for a wild ride on the sled.

The girls are at such a great age.  They both just played and played and had so much fun.  We plan to skate lots more this winter at all the lakes around town.  

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

This past week has been jam-packed with Halloween Holiday fun.  The festivities began on Friday night when Celia's preschool had a carnival.  Thanks to resident photographer Emily for taking pictures of us during the evening (we forgot our camera).  Yes, Celia was Rapunzel again this year.  (With all that work I put into it, I was glad she was so excited to wear it again.)  Sabrina is also reusing the pirate costume Celia wore when she was two.  But she was a very convincing pirate and would say "ARRRR" with a lot of vigor. We also discovered at this carnival that Sabrina has amazingly good luck.  She won the cake walk on the first try and the subsequently won every other game she played that involved luck (numbers on the bottoms of swimming ducks, suckers marked with pen, etc.).  She did not realize that losing was an option because winning was her default. Then on Saturday, Celia got to wear her costume again to dance class.  On Monday, Emily (same one that took our pictures on Friday) threw a little Halloween playgroup for the older girls.  Celia got to wear her costume again and came home with all sorts of Halloween goodies.  

Also on Monday, Tom and I did a footprint craft with the girls right before bathtime.  They loved it and both kept chanting "trick or treat, smell my feet" and laughing uproariously.  

For Family Home Evening, we went ice skating (more on that in a separate post) and carved pumpkins.  

Tuesday evening was the Halloween carnival sponsored by the Young Men and Young Women.  The girls got lots more candy, colored pumpkins, made bags, got their face painted, and went fishing.

It was finally Halloween and the girls were so excited for the evening.  We took pictures next to our pumpkins, got one trick-or-treater at our house before we left, and then we were off to Trunk or Treat at the Church.  

Friends in our ward that run a funeral home always bring out the big guns.

And Sabrina stood by this looking at me like this until I took her picture (PS - not a real baby behind her).

Trunk or Treating is a fabulous idea in Alaska because it's cold outside.  And in literally 20 minutes, the girls hit up about 50-100 cars, got a full bucket of candy each, and then we headed home.  Love it.  On the way home, we stopped to trick or treat at cousin Taylor and Travis's house.  They made sure the pumpkins were filled to the brim.  When we got home, we watched "Nightmare Before Christmas" and the girls ate candy like crazy people.  

And then started acting like crazy people.

Right before bed, Celia said: "Why did you let me eat so much candy."  I said: "We only get to do that once a year... On Halloween.  Didn't you want to eat candy?"  Celia: "Yes, I did.  But now my tummy hurts.  I ate too much candy and now my tummy is junk."  Celia has been fine with us being in charge of the candy from here on out.  Sabrina, however, woke up and threw a giant fit that she couldn't eat more candy.  I'm still waiting for the post-Halloween sugar rush to wear off those kids.  But it was a fun holiday week!