Our 4th is getting super predictable... this is 9 straight years now. Decorate the bikes, parade, picnic, games, go home and crash, stay up way too late watching the fireworks over the bay. Oh well, it works :)
We were pleasantly surprised that Ashi finally enjoyed the fireworks, courtesy of papa's enormous ear protection. Once again, whatever works!
Ashi was in two programs, one at his daycare where he sang "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him", which in recent days has been sounding a lot more like, "Oh Come Let Us Adore Me" and the new interpretation cracks me up. He also got to sing at church in the little kid choir (I'll give you a hint, he's the brown one in the front row!). It went pretty well until the end when he discovered Carrot Top two rows behind him and spent the remainder of the show trying to get his attention (note the last photo- he's the only child on stage with his back to the audience).
It seems like we're starting to dig out way out finally. Much to the despair of a few little boys who quite adore the snow.
Just to balance things out we put up the tree too. I would post a photo of the awesome decorating job the boys did (you can tell EXACTLY how tall they are and what point on the tree made the nearest beeline between mom handing out ornaments and the tree itself) but I'm feeling too lazy to edit Carrot Top's face out of those. So take my word for it, AWESOMENESS is our tree.
On another note, have you ever noticed how much little kids look like Oompa Loompas when they wear snowsuits? Mmmm, yummy.
And speaking of yummy, we made cocoa yesterday. Carrot Top had NEVER had cocoa OR marshmallows before! Can you fathom that? He'd also never had a Christmas tree and was a bit concerned he did not know how to decorate one. Luckily neither does Ashi so it's all good. 
We did something unusual this year, we invited ourselves over to dinner at someone else's house. I highly recommend that plan. While my mother seems to think six children 8 and under is a "zoo", (is our family hopelessly small or what?) I thought it was great for the kids to have buddies to play with. Hopefully the Boyles thought so too because I'm pining to get invited back next year.
That would be Ashi (looking frighteningly grown up) eating the snowman's nose. It was a big carrot, he didn't seem to mind.
We traded our cute little townhouse apartment for a big backyard out in the burbs. If Bellingham really could have burbs this would be it, but don't turn around or you'll realize we're really a lot closer to Ferndale. Even the planners couldn't figure out what city we're in so they named the street Belfern and called it a day.
I was totally convinced the big back yard was the best thing about the new house until we moved in and I fell in love with our big living room that is totally and completely separate from the kitchen and dining room. I can tolerate a whole lot more mess and distruction when it remains largely out of sight while I cook dinner. And we finally have one of those race track layouts, where the kids can pick up speed and run laps around the fireplace. Our first night here I yelled at the boys to stop running in the house, and started cracking up when I realized I had never, ever said that before. We have never been able to run in the house before, it just wasn't physically possible. I secretly kind of like it.
For Halloween we were delighted to discover that we have a rockin' trick or treat 'hood. Tons of kids, tons of candy, no cars and the perfect location on a dead-end so we don't get that many kids ourselves. The boys were going to both be karate guys (because Ashi wants "same like Bubba" on everything), but I couldn't find Ashi's pants to save my life (must be in one of those pesky boxes in the garage) so we just started throwing things together from the dress-up box. He ended up in Skeleton jammies with his "super Ashi cape", his "super duper shoes" and a light saber. Which is so stinkin adorable when you are Ashi. Ash just loved trick-or-treating. He carried the candy spider the whole time and proudly announced to each person that they were sharing their candy. The little secret there is that when you tell the person at the door that you and your brother are sharing your candy, 9 times out of 10 they don't give you guys two pieces but 3 or 4 instead. It's an absolute riot to watch because they are so delighted at the "sweet children" it's such a lark. Christian finds the whole thing a fantastic laugh.
Christian made all these valentines for his classmates, I love how he made the "o"s into hearts on their names. He was very proud of his heart drawing skills.
Then Miss Elizabeth sugared my kids up after church. She had this lame cover story about wanting to get some cute pics, but I know she really gets off on feeding my kids red 4 and strawberry crack just to bug me.
