Their Wish Is My Pleasure

After seeing the pictures of his cousin’s green dinosaur costume, our other three year old McBobber asked me to make him a blue and orange dinosaur after Christmas. Knowing how much our grandsons all like to dress up and play (much like my own kids did in their day) and always wanting to make my boys happy, I set out to find the exact requested blue and orange shade of fleece. Making the costumes is something that makes my heart happy and I enjoyed making the dinosaur for McBobber as much as I did making it for Bashosaurusrex.

Bashosaurex

McBobber’s Dinosaur

In addition, our oldest son sent a note saying he too wanted a dinosaur costume, in maroon and orange (Va Tech colors). He forwarded a photo to show me what he thought he needed.

What? Isn’t this a dragon?

Anyway, when I finished laughing at his request, I told him I’d see if I could find a onesie pattern to fit a giant.

I did a little creative thinking and searched online for sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt in the perfect burgundy and ordered them. I found matching fleece in burgundy and orange. I added the nose, spikes and a tail to the sweats. I’m excited to see what McBobber’s dad will think of his gift. Fortunately he is working over on this side of Washington for a couple more weeks and I will get to deliver it soon enough.

(I had to try it on for my own amusement!)

FEBRUARY UPDATE:

McBobber, Mr. T and Mom drove over from Western Washington early February.  Dad was working in Pullman so we got to have them stay with us as well.  McBobber loves his ‘surprise’ and I think Dad was speechless!  #thatdoesnthappenoften

McKay and his Blue Dinosauer

Admiring Daddy’s costume.

Dad is a dragon.

Let’s put this one in the success column.

FELIZ NAVIDAD

As the turkey leftovers disappeared, we settled in for our first Christmas in our new home.  Much of our efforts for downsizing continued in our decorations.  I thought I would feel less about the season or sad about the changes in our life.  Instead I found it was comforting, to bring out the favorite decorations (which made the downsizing cut) and place them around the  house.  Instead of multiple trees we had one to decorate.  I slowly went through our ornaments, many are special gifts from family and friends, or souvenirs from places we have lived or visited. The tree was genuinely filled with memories.  Our fireplace was lined with eight very special stockings – one for each of our “littles”.

Our special old world Santas had a special place (out of reach of curious hands and clumsy feet). We even had a special place for the artwork by our good friend Helen Morlock de Gil. We met Helen in Caracas, Venezuela.  She was once the art teacher at the school Erin attended.  She was also married to a Venezuelan Navy Commander.

We managed to see each of our families to celebrate.  We drove to Boise for a weekend with Krieg, Karissa and Princess Lu.  It’s been a long while since we have actually gone down Hwy 55 through Long Valley, and McCall.  We were not disappointed.

We spent some time Saturday at a Craft Show where I got to see my good friend Vonda and her hubby “Stogie Joe” and his woodworking.  We wandered around the Meridian Village, enjoying the decorations and feeling the Christmas spirit.

                                                          

I wanted to make Princess Lu something special for Christmas.  I spent a couple of weeks at the kitchen table with my sewing machine making a felt activity book just for her.  It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be.  Or maybe it was just exciting to find that creative side of me again.  I ended up with 14 pages and my mind has already come up with several more.  Time to start some more pages for some future projects.

We shared Christmas Eve dinner with the Country Shaw’s.  Second Christmas was in Plummer with Erin, Chris, Cheeks, Bash, Michael, Andi, Miss G, A and E-man on Christmas day.

 

I confess…  I tried to compete with our daughter by wearing a Christmas sweater to surprise her. She has the biggest collection of Ugly Christmas sweaters!

Please disregard the TV  it only  looks like the Stripper Santa competition scene from “Bad Mom’s Christmas”.  (snicker)

Even wore ornament earrings.

  Sadly I didn’t take many pictures through gift opening or our delicious meal.  We all gathered in the living room to watch Polar Express together, huddled in our blankets piled on the floor.

Erin, Chris and boys stayed the night.  Our first sleepover with their mom and dad.  It was so fun to have them all around.

Third Christmas was with the Bremerton Shaws for New Years Weekend.  The trip over was beautiful until we got to the west side – situation normal.  Nonetheless we enjoyed hanging out our family.

We had the bonus of sharing a meal with Burt’s family, who were visiting them as well.  Burt has a sister in the area too.  We treated ourselves to the new Mary Poppins Returns.  I adore Mary Poppins and I was NOT disappointed.  The best part was being able to look over a couple cinema seats and see three year old McBobber with a huge grin watching the movie.

We were blessed with another beautiful drive across Washington when we headed home.  We put a few miles on the car but it was worth every driving moment to have the opportunity to see our “littles” and their folks.  Having everyone spread around is a big change from our big gatherings of earlier years.  There is a part of me that misses those moments…  but it just makes me more determined to value every moment we are together.

Midget Hockey Anyone?

Cheeks is playing hockey.  This is the third year he has been on the ice.  It’s so cute.  And scary.  Those kids have no fear, skate way faster than you might image and don’t even seem to mind when they apparently dive to the ice on purpose.

He had a game in Lewiston Friday night and then again Saturday morning.  We weren’t able to go on Saturday so we drove down Friday.

If you are familiar with this level of sports, they don’t keep score.  Well officially anyway.  I’m fairly certain every player knows the score.  I can confirm the Papa in the stands knew the score. (If you’re wondering, the score that wasn’t kept on Friday was something like 20-3.)