Garnet Ace is FOUR!?

Happy Birthday to the most lovely, sweet, genuine, smiley, rambunctious, goofy, wonderful beautiful boy. We had a fun indoor party complete with XMas tree and logging truck cake. Garnet hosted mostly locals, but Kempo and Kate made the trip and Grandpa, of course! 

 OK, gang... One for the album...?

 And now act like monsters...?

 And now just be yourselves...?

 Lydia did NOT get her ears pierced as it may appear in these pictures. She was given some fun, girly glue-ons along with some eye shadow and lip gloss. She drew this picture of a dragon so we took a picture of her HOLDING her picture with Kempo and Nan.

 Lydia, Garnet and I made dough ornaments for all the friends to paint and glitter. How many times can you say "These are NOT edible, kids".

 Only 1 fine adult participated in the ornament decorating. GO, James.

 Lydia took her project very seriously, as always. I wish I took a picture of all the decorated ornaments together, this really was a fun, manageable project for the kids and parents. Lots of Garnet FUN!

Random Ski 2012

Garnet and Lydia became quite the expert skiers this year. We (they) can't wait for the snow to fall and the season to begin.

MooMoo, the Stick House and Other Spring 2012

Happy Spring! HUH? Yes, Spring, folks. MooMoo visited to showcase our stick house, enjoy the new goat kids and walk along the river. We love you, MooMoo

Gymnastics!

The kids started gymnastics a couple weeks ago... So here are some of the fun moments maybe only a parent can dig into.  Initially, we wanted to get Lydia into gymnastics so she could use/harness her crazy muscles and we then decided Garnet might benefit from the focus it requires and even more so from the soft, bouncy floors. They both love love love this activity and have even surprised us a couple times.

Garnet is practically olympic on balance beam.

And Lydia can tumble, pop and spring any way you want.

Sky and Crazy Moon

This was this picture posted on Craigslist for 2 sister kittens needing a home...

And here they are at home with us on Wednesday! The kids had chosen "their" kitten the day we went to meet them at the shelter. We weren't sure whether we'd take home one never mind both, but they had made up their minds independently. We waited 5 days to find out whether our application was accepted and whether we could even afford two. Look at them, though... we wanted to keep them together.

Crazy Moon (Garnet's girl). She has yellow markings on her face and tail and white on her belly.

 "Oh yeah, I got this! Kittens love dangling in mid-air."

 And Lydia practicing with Crazy Moon.

This all-blue (gray) beauty is Sky (Lydia's girl). She was much more shy than Crazy Moon when she came home, so I don't have any pictures of her with the kids, yet, BUT it turns out it only took her a couple hours and now she's all about playing and socializing.

More Crazy Moon...

We've had a wonderful couple days (already) playing with, watching these little girls. And look at this comfortable, happy family...

Happy Birthday, MooMoo

We love you with ALL our hearts!

Lydia's 6th Birthday

Forgive the design, here. I can't fix the layout for some reason, just scroll and I'll work on for next time.

Here we are. Six years old. She went to bed tossing and turning with excitement and then woke up having completely forgotten until we reminded her. She smiled and pulled the covers over her face to hide her embarrassed happiness. Of course, there was the birthday dress and hairdo.

What WAS unexpected was her immediate morning project of beginning to make her own thank you cards. I didn't notice what she was doing until she already had 2 cards made, writing, spelling, drawing and designing all on her own. Front: Thank You, Back: Thank You, I'm 6. A proud moment I'll be sure to tell Great Gram in person.

A birthday eggplant and tomato raid.

Sunday was Lydia's birthday PARTY, with friends. Home made cake by her design...

Five friends, along with their parents and even grandparents in one case and (SO happily) each of these friends of mine and Chandler's as well. MooMoo, Uncle Nick and Aunt Melissa came in for the weekend to celebrate and remind us of a fantastic game we played throughout my childhood: Pies. And here is MooMoo sharing the rules, Garnet playing along to help demonstrate...

1. All kids sit and decide/choose which kind of pie each will be...

2. The customer (in this case, Garnet) comes along to order a pie. "Are there any apple pies?".

3. If the customer orders a pie the kids don't have "in stock", he/she asks again and again until...

4. The pie called is in stock, The Pie jumps up, runs around a designated area, chased by the customer, trying to get "home" before being tagged. 

YAY, Pies! I love this picture because it shows you CAN have fun deciding which kind of pie (dogfood pie?) you might be.

The kids seemed to enjoy this, which made Lydia (and me) sooooo happy. You never know what they'll shine to. I always loved this game, but kids these days think I was born before fun was invented.

Beauty shots of the kids, Uncle Nick, Aunt Melissa and MooMoo.