phone dump

It's that time of year again, the time when I post of blurry photos from my phone.

I love the magic of our Christmas tree. Sure, it's made of cheap, plastic paper and was designed to look as fake as possible but it's full of ornaments from the places we've visited and lived in the last three and a half years and holds great memories. This year we added ornaments from Singapore, Athens, Santorini, Bangalore, Chiang Rai, Amalfi, Rome, and Dubai.

 Violet got a chocolate donut as a reward for only being marginally bad in Ikea and it immediately turned her into Snidely Whiplash.

 My YW were invited to play Quidditch with the other international ward. I picked them up a dozen Nimbus 2000's.

 With scooter life you risk getting dumped on from a rainstorm.

 It's uncanny how well Violet can fill, aim, empty and refill her gigantic water gun. The only one who doesn't immediatly hide when she's comes around lugging it behind her, is Scooter who I assume loves to be cooled off.

 E has a Dutch friend, who has been her best friend for three years, and she is the sweetest girl on the planet. Because of this, Eliot puts her shoes out for about a week and finally St. Nicholas filled them with candy. She's quite proud of her 'in' with St Nicholas. This year she even got to go to the Dutch Embassy to visit him--where he came on a steamboat. When I asked about it she told me he looks like Santa Claus but with a weird hat that has a sideways X on it and his handshake hurts.

 After a hot T-ball game we thought it would be nice to swing by Icy Wonderland, a warehouse filled with ice sculptures and ice slides all kept at a cool -15C or 5F.

We bundled up the best we were able to with our meager supply of warm clothes. Despite our Rocky Mountain blood we only lasted about 15 minutes. Winston was silent the entire time, I assume he was in shock. Violet was the opposite of silent. She tried a variety of different words to try to describe the new feeling she was experiencing but was most successful in communicating by just screaming, "Me not like dis. Me want to go 'ome! Me Me Me....Me told!"

Eliot was on cloud 9.

I took the younger two out and Rocky stayed with E and made good use of Vi's gloves. And for one time I was right when I had told him flip flops were not a good choice.

 While rushing to get ready for TBall one morning I told Eliot to grab her hat and shoes and get in the car. She didn't. We found this out when we got to the field, 30 minutes from our house. I tried to make her feel bad for ignoring me, hoping this would prove to be a natural consequence. Instead she calmly told me, "It's okay, mom, I can just play in my socks." Then I overheard her exclaiming to her friend, "I've never played baseball in socks before!"

 The weather's cooling off here and we've been enjoying being outside. Set your stop watches, we probably only have about 56 more hours of weather that does not make your skin boil off.

 Winst is still figuring out popsicles work.

 Violet is Scooter's best friend. Except when she's not and then she tells him, "Scooter me not wike you." and walks off in a huff.

I am still his nemesis. 

 E came home with this drawing of our little neighborhood amidst the all the tall buildings in the heart of Bangkok. I love it. Except I think all the houses are on fire.

E invited the neighborhood kids over to decorate gingerbread cookies several times in one week. Finally I decided I should make good on her empty invitations and actually make gingerbread cookies.