The rest of 2013

So I have been dealing with the nausea and fatigue of a fourth pregnancy that I wasn't exactly anticipating since the day after Christmas.  And since my blogging has never been timely, my current state just exacerbated the problem.  So here's Christmas and a few other tidbits from the end of 2013...

Simon with his binoculars watching TV via his goofy squint

Amelia's paper log cabin for her book The Sign of the Beaver

Simon's lunch truck

Kids on the boat for the boat parade at Tempe Town Lake...

We bundled up as best as we could with life jackets and drank hot chocolate and ate cookies.  Our boat was not nearly as snazzy as some of the lit up wonders that floated by, but we had fun music blasting and a gaggle of cute waving kids.

My parents came this year and helped us manage the kids.

Simon is pretty cautious on the boat (thank heaven!) and since he was the smallest, we kept him close.

This must have been earlier in the fall since the boys are still wearing shorts, but to catch the two of them so deep in play is darling, so I had to snap a shot.

When Amelia was three, her preschool teacher took a picture of her by their paper fireside in the classroom and had her decorate the frame.  She gave it to us as a gift.  So when Dylan was the same age and he saw Amelia's photo that I set up with the Christmas decorations, he cried alligator tears because he didn't have one, too.  So We dried his tears and I promptly took a picture of him and printed it on the computer.  Then we went to Target and purchased a picture frame and some ribbon and other crafty details for him to glue on the frame.  And, lo, Dylan had his own frame.

This last Christmas, Simon wasn't so concerned about having his own decorated photo as I was setting out  the other two.  But when I asked him if he wanted to take a picture in front of the tree he said, "OK," and sat right down with the snowman ornaments he had just removed from the tree to play with in hand.

Instead of decorating a frame, he just picked one out at Target that had a cute little snowman on it and, frankly, that was just fine with me.

Here's a little bit of blurry Christmas morning...

And the leaf pile...every winter break we have this lovely pile and this year was no exception.  It didn't stay as long as it has some years, thanks to a dad who has to get things done when he can, but the kids made good use of it while it was here.