Kyla chose to demonstrate the elements of a cell through cake decorating. I was really impressed with the result!

Piper took Wes’s Devil’-Food-and-Oreo-Ice-Cream Cake, scraped off the inferior frosting and (Mine)crafted the cake as an exploding Creeper. She was also the one to make him an Among Us card. This inspired Reason #1.

Reasons His Family Loves 11-Year-Old Wes:

1. He plays video games with Piper and gives her interesting craft project inspiration.
2. He’s funny.
3. He’s Papa’s Halo buddy.
4. He plays foosball like a Tasmanian Devil.
5. He took Daddy’s snuggle genes and combined with Mama’s, and then doubled it.
6. It is so fun to watch Wes and Piper sled together.
7. Wes and Piper have a funny baby-voice interaction.  “It’s me!”
8. He thinks he wants his own almond mocha and can only drink 2 ounces of it.
9. I love him in spite of him eating—and enjoying!!—MY 100% dark chocolate.
10. He loves it when I read aloud.
11. He adorably loves tummy rubs.
12. He is wonderfully enthusiastic about board games and has a great attitude win or lose.  He always says “GG”, for good game.
13. We love his enthusiasm for being playful, like wrestling matches.
14. His enthusiasm for camping in the RV is contagious.
15. Mama loves Wes’s supernatural ability to balance on anything, especially Frederick and anything with wheels.
16. He was a wonderful hamster parent.
17. Wes was kind and interactive toward Ruby, and showed how he can be a really nice “big kid”.
18. I love that he is so likeable among his peers.  He can be with Abigail, Collin, Sumarth, Lily, etc.
19. He showed lots of maturity when he found out he probably had to get braces and on his own, he started practicing brushing his teeth 3 times a day.
20. I love his choice in friends!
21. He is a master fort builder.
22. He is a trooper about physical pain.
23. Even when he dislikes doing something, he will do it with minimal complaint, like going to tutoring. This compliment does not include Mama’s Forced Marches of Misery.
24. He embodies “it is better to give that receive”.  He is generous and thoughtful, getting gifts to his loved ones beyond expectation.

What is Wes looking forward to this year?

I want Covid to end. I want to get to round 200 in Bloon TD 6. Kill the enderdragon in no cheat survival.  Go back to CA in the RV. 

And Piper pipes: He will be sleeping by himself every night! (Kyla and Wes have to wean themselves off each other by September this year. They are sad just thinking of it.)

My outlook calendar is not just a metaphor for my brain; it IS my brain. When I add events for the kids, like an appt or a meeting, I “invite” them and have it added to their calendar, which auto-sends an email and a reminder. I just made an appt for a new orthodontist for Wes, and almost immediately got back his thoughtful reply and feedback:

I no

Sorry, kid. My brain has already spoken.

But sledding does it faster.

We went to Leavenworth for our January Snow fix, but really just got ice disguised as snow. I don’t have a good shot of Kyla sledding, as it doesn’t seem nice to take a picture of a girl lying on the ground who would be sobbing from pain if she were able to breathe. Yeah, conditions were brutal, but that didn’t stop the youngers who were having a great time together.

Fortunately, the Sunday afternoon snow was a little more on the slush side, making for decent XCountry skiing, at least for us beginners. Piper the Contrarian decided it was easier to move without poles. Sherpa Mama then ended up carrying two sets of poles. Good thing I have a theory that making the conditions tough make me better faster. Sunday evening, when we returned the skis, I kept mine and went again Monday morning (perfect ice, lousy snow–again, I think I got better by being so awful at it) and then Monday afternoon at Ski Hill (much more advanced course, better snow, still lapped by every other skier I saw). Like I told Dwayne, I skied for miles and miles on my feet…and only a little ways on my face.

After sledding, I took the kids either, depending upon your family role, 1) on a beautiful walk through one of my favorite run-on parks, or 2) out for their favorite gelato that they had to walk to.

We had really come to Leavenworth this holiday weekend because our Eastern Washington friends were going to be there, and so we got some lovely time with them in one of our favorite places, iced snow notwithstanding. Love our friends…and this town!

Since we finally have Yeti home, it was so much easier to decide to take her out for another spin. This adventure was a short 24-hour trip up to Birch Bay, bringing along one of the kids I didn’t give birth to, but wish I had. Birch Bay was one of those places I have never been….YETI!, as we now say in our family.

We were close to the beach and wooded trails, and we even explored some of it by daylight while the lasagna cooked back in the trailer. (I won’t bring up how far we explored by moonlight, as certain kids think it is Not Alright to have to do Forced Marches of Misery in the dark.) Two movies and a few bowls of popcorn later, we reminded ourselves we were camping and went to bed. I really love this Yeti life!

The big part is done, though I’m sure it will take many more months to get ‘er complete. But it’s really nice to have the newly named Yeti (“We haven’t adventured there… YETI!”) home in the driveway.

Dwayne likes to call this the “reality check” look. That water was ice-knife cold, and we all tingled longer than we were in the water. We were very pleased with ourselves, but boy! I’m glad I’ve got another 364 days before we do it again.

What is this? We were told to stay in bed until Piper brought me tea. I got to up…

…a white Christmas! She had made far more snowflakes than this shows, and her bedroom floor was very much a white mess.

The kids snuggled up to read their Christmas morning books while we prepped breakfast.

My stocking had yummy breakfast scones and jams, and so Santa Dwayne made us a lovely breakfast. It was the only meal we made that day, sustaining ourselves with cookies, leftovers, and cookies, cookies, cookies.

This Christmas Eve is (hopefully) unlike any other.

The weather had not been cooperative this week, and the schedule dictated our driveway would be poured the morning of the 24th…at the same time as our neighbors were getting married. At home. If a homeowner pours a driveway every 40 years and a person gets married just once in a lifetime, what are the chances that those two things will happen within 300 yards of each other during the same 3 hours? A 1 in 2020 chance, I bet.

We took a break midday to meet up with family at a nearby park to exchange gifts and let the cousins run and play, and hopefully take the edge of their Christmas energy. Better than rain, it was still hard to be out for too long in the frigid temperatures.

But eventually, the driveway was poured, most of the crew and all their noisy trucks had left, and Dwayne and I made our fancy Christmas Eve prime rib dinner. The kids set the table extra fancy, Wes wore his nicest jammies while the rest of us dressed up to watch (!) our church’s Candlelight services, before sitting down together and enjoying our feast, feast, feast. Even when everything was a never-before-today experience, it was our prefect evening together.

Merry Christmas, all!