To the winter home!

Lix left town with the kids for the month of January, but before she left she wanted to prepare her digestive system by having a Café Rio dinner with a bunch of friends. One of those in attendance had never before tasted the wonderful goodness that is Café Rio sweet pork, and mentioned that he might be making some trips over to the airport (where there is a Costa Vida) because he loved it so much. In fact, it was so good that Alixa didn’t even go to Café Rio during the first few days of her trip, which is almost unfathomable.

I will let the pictures do most of the talking, and after looking at them you will have seen Jarom’s kids as much as he has this week. It’s sad and lonely around the house. Mars is here, and he and Jarom cross paths occasionally. But he works late a lot of nights and Jarom isn’t all that social to begin with, so it isn’t exactly Animal House. The kids left on Monday after going out to lunch with their dad. Bo had a few of his cars in his yellow murse and Jenna had her gigantic backpack strapped up. They did great on the flight and have since been having an amazing time in Utah with Grandmas and Grandpa and cousins and aunts and uncles and snow. But mostly the snow. It dropped a few feet on them, so Jenna has been shoveling with Grandpa and making snowmen and snow angels and snowballs and sledding and generally having a great time playing in the powder. When it is time to come inside she has really taken to playing dodgeball. She and Bo will stand at opposite ends of Grandmas kitchen with a ball in hand, Jenna will count off “I…2…3…Dodgeball!!” and then they will run in and throw the balls at each other. Jenna was winning a lot of those games so she ramped up the competition and asked Lix to play with her. Lix promptly hit Jenna in the face with a ball and made her cry. She has gone back to playing Bo. She also makes her princesses play dodgeball. Ariel (post mermaid, I assume) and Rapunzel are the best at it. There have been trips to a farm, where Jenna was nearly eaten by ducks, and a trip to the aquarium, where the otters were particularly playful, and lots of visits with family and friends. And they will still be out there for 2 more weeks.

Sweet murse, Bo

 All bundled up and ready to play

Until someone gets a face full of snow

 Pleasantly feeding the birds, while the hordes planned their attack

 Bo didn't have any trouble with his animals

 

 Helping clear the driveway

 Watching the otters

 Wearing his new Cars boots

 Getting ready for bed

 Pop Tarts taste even better at Grandma's house

Which list were you on?

Happy Festivus everyone. The holidays have been wonderful around here. Things got off to a bad start when Jarom’s quest for a fourth consecutive fantasy football championship was derailed in a surprisingly narrow loss to Jason in the title matchup. I’d be lying if I told you that anyone other than Jarom was bothered by this. As a general rule people seem to root for him to fail, so his wife and family members were all pretty happy to see him defeated. It got better from there. The weekend before Christmas there was an invite to a great steak dinner over at the Ogden’s. The 24^th came with an early dismissal from work, which is always a welcome treat. The Winns went over to the Winns for some dinner and some games, and the first few gifts of Christmas. Then they went to see some lights and decorate some gingerbread houses with the Marlais, and then it was home to prep the house for Santa’s arrival. This is the first year that Jenna has really understood the concept of Santa, which has been fun. Lix and Jarom have motivated her to be a good listener by explaining that he brings presents to the good boys and girls. Jenna was very excited to leave some cookies and milk for Santa, and some carrots for the reindeer.

 

Jenna's fine construction

We think she might be solar powered

And in the morning the cookies and carrots were all eaten and Jenna must have been a good girl this year because she got a whole set of My Little Ponies, including the one that she wanted most of all, Rainbow Dash. Bo didn’t ask for anything so he got an assortment of cars and books and toys and new pajamas, and seemed to love them all. Alixa must not have been that good because all she got was a book. Jarom claims to have gotten her a new blender and a new couch and a new ring, but that’s just because he starts saying all purchases are Christmas presents beginning in mid-November. Jarom got a free pass to go golfing with the Quigleys in the 40 degree weather we had Christmas week. It was exactly what he wanted. Mother Nature delivered the best present of all, a healthy dose of snow. Jenna and Kenna spent the day playing with each other’s toys and playing out in the snow and then having warm baths. Bo liked the snow as well, but doesn’t have any gloves so he couldn’t play in it for too long.

 

Two cute kids

 

Bo finally got over his fear of the carousel

The second snow of the season was much more impressive

The bad weather meant that Jarom got to work from home on Boxing Day, which was especially nice because Lix was babysitting Kenna and Callie that day and had an emotional breakdown and needed a little support. Callie has RSV and was a little grumpy and Lix couldn’t get her to stop crying. Having three little ones running around while dealing with a baby while being pregnant is a recipe for disaster, I guess. I’m not sure what the big deal is, that’s what Nancy refers to as the 80’s. And now there’s some discussion about adding to the mix. The Quigleys have a pregnant siamese cat that will have kittens available for adoption in about 7 weeks and their adoption policy is much more lax than some of the others that the Winns have run into, so they might take advantage of the opportunity. Jenna is pretty excited that she might get a kitten that looks like Skippy Jon Jones.

 

One little cowboy

Three little archaeologists

During her recent run in with the police Lix was scolded for having lived in Texas for over a year and still using a non-TX driver’s license. In fact, her license was from Tennessee, having skipped Virginia entirely. So she gathered every possible piece of identification she could find and headed off to the DMV to sit for hours. By the grace of God she met their requirements and was issued a new license. Sadly, in order to balance out the universe she had to hit something on the road while heading up there and poor Carlotta has a cracked front fender. Lix tried to pretend it didn’t happen until the next day when Jarom saw it and asked about it. She vaguely remembered hitting something, but she couldn’t recall what it might have been. And now the car is being held together by black duct tape. We’re a classy bunch.

Jenna and Bo and Sam

Bo doesn't like waking up. He gets that from Lix.

We wrapped up the holiday week with a New Year’s Eve gathering at the church to play dodgeball. Alixa hates dodgeball, which I believe is against the gym teacher code, but whatever. So she used Everzoomius as an excuse to sit on the sideline and ref. Bo and Jenna loved the idea of dodgeball, but are still too small to actually play, so they got to run around the halls and play with toys and yell at Rob and watch Nemo. Jarom loves dodgeball and had a great time terrorizing high school kids and doing his best to throw his arm out and make himself as sore as possible. It was a fun evening and the kids made it until about 10:30 before they had to get out of there and get the little ones to bed. Sadly, Lix rang in the new year by barfing up the salad that she had eaten for dinner that evening and heading to bed at the same time as her 1 and 3 year-olds. Hopefully 2013 is going to be as good to all of us as 2012 was.