On Wednesday Swathi had to work and Balu had things to do at home, but the rest of us drove down to Seattle and walked to Pike’s Place market. We went to my favorite store there, Piroshky Piroshky, and my mom treated us all to TWENTY-ONE piroshkies. The sad thing is that we ate probably half of them on the spot.
Abe was so excited to be in Seattle that he took this picture in the parking lot.
Then we walked through the rest of Pike’s Place market and took two elevators down to the Seattle Aquarium.
Trying out their puddle jumpers by the river ottersSoren and Lydia were great buddies for the whole trip.
Then we drove home and got home right in time for my friend, Julie, and her four kids to join us for a dinner cooked by one of Clark and Swathi’s chefs. It was so delicious and so fun to see Julie! It was also crazy having ten kids run around the house, but Swathi was such a sweet host and even enjoys the chaos that naturally happens when that many kids get together. I was grateful for a chance to see my friend and get to know her kids a bit better.
After the excitement, we put everyone to bed, cleaned up, and nostalgically watched Home Alone together.
On Tuesday morning Swathi and I went on an early morning Christmas run around her neighborhood. It was fun running in the Seattle air past all of the lit houses. That was one of my favorite parts of the whole day.
After we got home and ready, the kids all jumped on Balu to wake him up. He was the kids’ favorite thing about Seattle and was so fun with them the whole time he was in town. I couldn’t believe how much patience and energy he had for them!
When everyone was ready, the kids opened their family presents:
Soren opening his presents.
After presents, we all played baseball outside and ended with s’mores around the fire in Clark and Swathi’s backyard. It was pretty magical.
Swathi surrounded by her entourage! Also, we thought Mary’s pose was hilarious. I don’t know what got into her, but apparently she’s ready for the runway.
After all of this outdoor excitement, we had mushroom lasagna and put the kids to bed. Then the rest of us lounged around enjoying the hygge feeling of being together by the fire.
On Monday we were up at 3am and got everything and everyone loaded in the car within forty minutes. Against all of my worst fears, we had a really easy time at the airport and a relatively easy flight. Clarissa slept the first fifteen minutes in my baby carrier on me, and after she woke up Abe entertained her all the way to Seattle. Thank you, Abe.
When we got to Seattle, we couldn’t believe how fresh and clean the air was. Clark and Swathi live in a forested area, and the air was incredible. We spent a lot of the rest of the day breathing deeply and napping.
The shuttle. The kids were very cheerful, especially considering the hour. I think they were very excited for our trip.
There was a dead mouse in our airport gate, and I had to really control myself not to freak out at the fact that our little kids could not help crawling all over and playing on the floor. It was so disgusting.happy Ammon on the plane.Abe’s team noticed his bashed up travel bag and gifted him this beautiful carry on for Christmas. Abe was incredibly touched. Mary loved wheeling it around.
We made it to Clark and Swathi’s house!!! After a snack, Clark went out and picked up a feast of Filipino food. We had chicken adobo, tofu curry, pansit, and eggrolls. It was so delicious.
On Sunday Lydia played Andante, Silent Night, and Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing (Go Tell Aunt Rhody) at church. She did an incredible job and we were so proud of her.
Afterward we drove around delivering our neighbor gifts, and then we came home for Christmas round 3 with Karin, Jay, and Jere. They brought delicious Thai food, and we opened presents and feasted together.
After it was all over and the kids were in bed, Abe and I looked at each other and realized we had to clean up the house AND pack for our trip. We had to get up at 3am to make our flight, so we spent the rest of the night scrambling and working as fast and hard as we could. We got it all done and were in bed before midnight, which we considered a miracle.
Pictures:
The babies were crazy at church and gave Abe a real run for his money during sacrament.
Lydia made Abe this pop up Christmas card. Mine was an elaborate Santa’s sleigh, but I was too rushed to get a picture. I feel so bad about that.
On Saturday we had Christmas with Tom, Suzanne and Jere. They brought bagels and we had a laid back morning opening and playing with presents. They got the girls two bears that repeat everything you say to them, and the girls went totally nuts with them. They didn’t want to be separated from their bears for a minute, so they brought them to Salt Lake with Tom and Suzanne, who took them to The Nutcracker there.
Afterward I picked the girls up while Abe kept cleaning our house. (We started a lot of decluttering projects this week on account of our flooded basement.) After I picked the girls up from Tom and Suzanne’s, we drove past our old house on G Street. Someone built an ugly addition to it! I was shocked and kind of horrified. I should have taken a picture but it looked like there were people there, so we just circled the block and talked about memories. Mary doesn’t remember living there at all, and Lydia has a couple memories.
On Friday Abe and I went to bikram yoga in the morning. It was the first time Abe has done bikram yoga, and I loved having him there experiencing it for the first time. It’s a major part of my life, so sharing it with Abe felt so fun and meaningful. He grinned the whole time and waved a ton at me in the mirror, which made the teacher laugh. I love him.
He also hit his quota on Friday!!! He has had so much adversity at work and has been working SO HARD all year. I was so thrilled for him that he finally is seeing his blood, sweat and tears start to pay off. Six of eight of his guys hit their quotas, which is amazing. We celebrated by going to the Provo Mall to see The Crimes of Grindelwald while Charissa and Tiffany babysat our kids.
Congratulations, Abe!!! You deserve every good thing, especially this particular milestone!!!
On Thursday the kids played with play dough all day. Since we don’t have it around all the time, when we do have play dough, it tends to keep the kids’ attention for wonderfully long spans of time. I moved them outside to do the play dough outside since I was cleaning inside most of the time:
On Wednesday the girls had their parent ballet recital. Abe, my mom, the babies and I all took turns going from class to class so we could see both Mary and Lydia, who are in different classes. They were both very serious and cute about their dances.
After we went to the next door restaurant to warm up and bumped into Clive Moon, our minister friend. He invited us to his rare book store and took us to the back room where he opened his vaults and showed us treasure after treasure.
Sitting in the store sleigh.Clarissa enjoying the warm book store right before she freaked out and compelled Abe to take her outside in the freezing cold and entertain her for an hour.Clive showed us the Book of Mormon used by Samuel Smith, the first missionary from our church, on his first mission.This is Joseph Smith’s thumb Bible.Lydia got to hold the thumb Bible and Mary held Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon.Lydia asked if he had a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Clive turned around and grabbed a first edition copy signed by Harriet Beecher Stowe and let Lydia hold it. AMAZING.Mary got to hold an important copy of the Book of Mormon. Clive has copies owned by Joseph, Samuel, Sophronia, and Alvin Smith, as well every other important Book of Mormon you could imagine, AND all of the personal scriptures from the latter day prophets, so I can’t remember which one this was.Marie Antoinette’s personal thumb Bible.The store cash register (that they actually use) dates to 1819.Bonaparte’s signature.Helen Keller’s signature.Dr. Seuss’s letter and signature.King George’s signed copy of Handel’s Messiah
On Tuesday the kids had a play date with Grace. The kids decorated cookies, and at some point Mary felt like Grace and Lydia were leaving her out, so she went to her room to be sad.
I went up and read her some of the love books we gave her for Christmas. Then the other kids joined and we played the foam game Lydia got for Christmas. I stuck some on my eye to try to convey the concept of sailor and felt sticky glue on my eye for the rest of the day. To be honest, it’s the day after (I am back blogging) and I still feel sticky. That was dumb of me! But we had a lot of fun playing together.
When Clarissa woke up for her nap and had had a snack, we all went to the park. It wasn’t too cold out, and at one point right before sunset, the lighting was GORGEOUS. Everything everywhere was bathed in pink and gold! But my phone was out of memory so I couldn’t take pictures, so I am writing it down to preserve the image in memory. It was a beautiful evening.
On Monday I realized that we had to make it until next Monday with all of the kids at home, half of the house space, and with half of their normal toys and activities packed somewhere in the garage. Since we were going to have Christmas on Saturday anyway (we are flying to Seattle on Monday and don’t want to carry toys there and back), we made a spur of the minute decision and had Christmas Monday…night. The reasoning was that: a) the thought to have it on Monday did not occur to me until Monday at noon and b) I realized that the kids would actually have time to play with their new toys if they got them sooner rather than later.
We explained that we had a hotline to Santa and that he agreed to come early. The kids were very excited. I took them out to the toy store to pick out presents for each other while Abe came home early and put out all of the presents. Thankfully we had everything wrapped on Saturday, so all he had to do was dig them out of the garage, put nicer labels on them, and stick them under the tree.
When we came home, the kids had so much fun unwrapping their presents.
All Mary put on her Christmas list this year were two things: Crayon erasers and love. My mom was right on top of that request for love and immediately started brainstorming a love basket with little notes from everyone in Mary’s life for her. She got Mary’s teacher and other family members (including Abe and me) to write notes, and she wrote Mary the sweetest note I’ve ever heard. She cried when she read it and honestly, so did I. She said that Mary is a shining jewel in her life and that she will always love and treasure her. Mary gave Nana a big hug after that.
Abe and I also gave Mary about five “love books” that symbolize our love for her, including Mary’s favorite so far: Be Brave, Little One.
We let all of the kids stay up later than usual playing with them all. Actually, Abe wanted to play Playmobile with Ammon, and he would have probably kept going until midnight if I had not intervened earlier. Those two were having so much fun playing together!
While I was putting Ammon to bed, Ammon announced for the first time ever that I should stop giving him back scratches. Surprised, I stopped, turned out the lights, and said goodnight. A minute later I noticed a crack of light shining underneath his door. Ammon just wanted to get out of bed and play more with his new playmobile set!! This warmed Abe’s heart (especially since Playmobiles were his idea).
Pictures:
Abe, super dad that he is, managed to write the kids their annual Santa note in the short time frame he had to set up Christmas.Abe and my mom did SUCH a good job setting everything up!
