December

Playing catch-up is starting to get old, so in the interest of not losing steam, this post is heavy on pictures and light on commentary.

Our Elf: Kelly Serenity. I had no influence whatsoever in the name selection process. If I had, she would have ended up with a name that sounded a little bit less like the name of an exotic dancer.

This was the first year that an elf came to our house, so the creativity was a little bit lacking. So I don't have a whole passel of cute pictures of Kelly to show you.  But as long as Pinterest doesn't crash and burn, I should have a lot more ideas to work with next year...

Like any good medical professional should, Dr. Charlie did his paperwork for Antonia and Dorothea's checkups. I particularly like that the first order of business for Thea was to have her leg cut, followed promptly by checking her teeth.  (Full-service doctor's office.)  And Antonia was apparently put into a medically-induced coma for 300 hours, a completely understandable procedure when dealing with a patient like Antonia.

This girl loves to sleep with her bum in the air and her thumb in her mouth. The first in our family on both counts.

Antonia's preschool Christmas performance. They performed at an elder care home. She surprised me by how shy and self-conscious she was. She would start to get really enthusiastic with her singing and hand motions, and then she would catch herself and give an embarrassed little smile. The over-70 crowd can be a little intimidating, I guess. 

My two pretties. Eve plunged to the floor right after I took this picture. JUST KIDDING! I would never let anything like that happen. ahem. 

Cousins. We're going to be very sad when this little twosome is torn apart up in a couple of months because of something as trivial as a medical residency. Sheesh.

Every year in December, Will's jazz band performs at the mall, and we always take the kids because it's very casual, and I normally don't like to take little-'uns to jazz band performances. Or any performances, for that matter. This year, in the mad rush to get out the door, I neglected to do a threat-level check on the diaper situation, or bring supplies in case of detonation. As a result, I discovered a dismal state of affairs in Eve's bottom region, right before the performance began and I had to take her home and give her a bath. As I bathed her, I thought about how I had spend at least ten minutes fixing the girls' hair, and yet I couldn't take one measly minute to do a diaper check. My priorities deserved a scathing assessment, and it was a wake-up call. So we missed the performance, and Eve had a sore bum. She probably didn't care much about the jazz band, but she was quite put out about the sore bum. I supposed I'm including this lengthy story, which probably has you scratching your head and thinking "Yeah, so? I'd expect no less from that superficial flake." because I have committed to being better about prioritizing the things that matter, and this is basically me giving everyone permission to point it out to me when I fall short. How fun for you!

I feel such pangs of guilt looking at this sweet smile, tinged with the pain of diaper rash.

I already posted a video from the gymnastics festival,  consider these pictures icing on the cake. Or gilding the lily. Or --heaven forbid!--overkill. 

That grin is what makes it all worthwile.

This is called a pullover, (she does a little flip around the bars) and it's one of the things she is most proud of in gymnastics.

It wouldn't be a modern sporting event if every kid didn't come home with a medal celebrating her participation

We did the first part of our Christmas break in Orem, and thank goodness for that! because Charlie has been asking for a chance to build a snowman since April. And there was no shortage of snow in Utah this Christmas. It snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed some more. Charlie borrowed some nice snow boots from cousin Hunter and he STILL talks about those boots. He's a snowboot-loving, flip-flop-eschewing kid living in one of the warmest climates in America. Fate is a cruel mistress.  It was fun and romantic to have a white Christmas, and we all very much enjoyed being in Utah with Will's family for Christmas, but I was not sad to say goodbye to the snow and slush.

All the ex utero Daines grandkids. (No, this is not an announcement! Jaclyn is due  with #2 next week)

We're all smiling! And looking in the general direction of the camera! It's a Christmas miracle!

Eve was pretty ambivalent about all the layers of clothes we made her wear in Utah. She needed her focus for more important things, like being deathly afraid of Aunt Jaclyn and Uncle Cole's sweet and adorable collies. Actually, she rather liked their hind ends, it was only their fronts--noses, mostly--that terrified her. (She's a little unconventional like that.) Antonia also harbored deep suspicions of the dogs and avoided them if at all possible.

Fun times at the dinosaur museum. Is it just me, or do dinosaurs actually seem kind of ridiculous, if you think about them long enough?  Take T-Rex, for example: huge tail, ginormous head, stood on two legs, two comical and utterly useless little arms out front...it all seems a little made up to me. Ok, there, I said it. I think dinosaurs are made up. 

Antonia gets freaky excited about dinosaurs, so don't tell her that they're not real.

Lights at Temple Square- I've been wanting to do this with the kids for a long time. Yay Christmas in Utah!

Christmas Eve- Christmas jammies. 

Christmas morning

I think this picture pretty well captures the dynamic between these two: Antonia  makes somewhat of an effort to accommodate, but is ultimately undone by Eve's playful harassment. You can see her smile is starting to crack...

Charlie makes bratseli, a Daines family tradition honoring their Swiss heritage. Also a tradition that honors awesomeness, because those cookies are possibly the best cookies I've ever put in my mouth. I'm still trying to work through the shame I feel when I think about how many bratseli I ate. 

Some highlights of our time in Idaho over New Years: little girls playing in the princess dresses Baca made, (pictures below are mostly for her benefit :) New Year's bowling, running with my dad in below-freezing temps, cousins playing together, plenty of good eats and good conversation. (And by 'good conversation,' I mean heated discussions about things like whether it can be just as effective to floss in the shower with wet floss, rather than dry. Very stimulating, and insightful stuff.)

New Year's Eve Festivities

New Year's Party Hats (thanks, Pinterest!)

The cousins had a sleepover on NYE, the first for most of them. The little girls were, not surprisingly, still up talking MUCH later than the boys. Oh, to have been able to listen in on that conversation.