the last of thanksgiving... and on to new things!

I had asked Mom for her copies of the Thanksgiving weekend photos in Coeur d'Alene, but she had printed them at Costco and deleted them from her camera. Oops. She pulled them out of her scrapbook and SCANNED them, so dedicated was she to meeting my needs. Unfortunately, she got them to me a few hours after I had already published the previous post about Thanksgiving, AND about half of the pics were unusable due to scan quality. I've gussied the rest up as best I could using my limited Photoshop skills, including cloning a big black hair or scratch (Mom, dust the scanner!) off of people's faces.

Staying in the black on Black Friday! I got some cute needlecrafts to put on the wall in Vesper's room. Once I have some prints framed and everything hung, I'll post photos of that. A friend came over in the last few days and wanted to see what she was sure would be a "super cute" baby girl room. 

She was disappointed, but really gracious about it as I told her my grand schemes for paint and such in a room that's full of tubs of baby boy and baby girl clothes (seriously, six tubs), a now-unused bassinet, and various other baby ephemera that I haven't gotten around to dealing with!

Me and my first-born at the Coeur d'Alene lighting ceremony.

A closer shot of the Perrines and their brood. Bing looks like someone spiked his hot chocolate, or maybe Maddox was peeing down his neck. I'm pretty sure those are the only two possibilities.

My fabulous folks.

Now, the twins are kindergarteners, and Reese and Matt put them in separate classes. The boys are thriving as individuals, and I got to hear them debrief their day to one another once: it was adorable and kind of loud. Once they get all caught up on their time apart, they usually get all caught up on playing and/or fighting. One of the things Reese didn't fully think through, she confessed to me, was that TWO classes makes it hard on ONE mama for things like class holiday parties and such. For the gingerbread making parties, I left Vesper with Rob and tagged along so we could divide and conquer. Smitty specifically asked for me, Mason specifically asked for Mom, and I snagged Sawyer while Reese hung onto Gunner. Everyone was happy!

The blue paper has Smitty's gingerbread house design on it. He was supposed to build following his plans, while I was simply to facilitate. I asked Sawyer if he'd like to build a house too, but he had a mouth full of graham crackers and shook his head no.

Methodical and as precise as one can be while wielding a plastic knife covered in frosting.

Sawyer changed his mind on building... and on smiling for the camera.

Saucy's creation.

Smitty's structure.

Mason's masterpiece.

What do YOUR homemade snowflakes look like? My friend, Becky, sent me a link to Star Wars themed paper snowflakes. I'm a sucker for paper crafts, so I picked the easiest-looking ones and went to town, because it turns out I'm also a terrible enabler of my boys and their addiction. The white was really beautiful against our dark kitchen cabinets, but now Blake wants to rescue them from my plan to toss them and put them up on his wall. The junk that kid collects and wants to display is becoming a real problem, but that's another post, with pictures of his bedroom, which I cannot seem to tame.

Six months old! Little miss V is sitting up mostly on her own, has rolled over only twice that we've witnessed, and dislikes being on her stomach so much that she may skip crawling all together. Big brother Blake is pretty much her favorite person, unless she's hungry (I win!) or talking (dadadadadadada). She's fully on to solids, eating a little something at each meal. When I remember to nurse her before I go to bed, she lets me sleep all through the night, most times. We think she's teething right now, because last night was a barn-burner for Rob, as he comforted her from 4:00 to 5:00 am. We're all a bit shagged out from that one (she woke everyone), but she continues to charm and delight our whole family with her calm, contented demeanor and ready smile, which she rarely flashes when I have the weird black box in front of my face.