christmas (our advent calendar & the big day)

It's December! Another Christmas, come and gone. Here are some highlights....

Once again, I did a Christmas advent. I'm a big fan. In each stocking there is a candy for each kid, a magnet for our magnetic (secular) Christmas scene, a magnet for our magnetic (Biblical) nativity, an ornament for our (ceramic) gingerbread house, and an activity. Next year I'll also have a Jesus ornament; I did a crafts project a few Saturdays ago where I made 28 wooden ornaments with different names for the Savior. I need myself a "Jesus tree" or something, haha.

Anyway.... the advent is always so fun.

Activities included making/taking treats for our neighbors...

Going to the Warm Beach lights for Laurel's birthday (and I'm so very grateful for a family in our ward who had free passes and gave their passes to us)...

Making gingerbread houses with friends...

Making packages for the missionaries (I ended up sending three, and the most fun was decorating the cards, haha)...

Attending the ward Christmas party (Laurel didn't want to sit on Santa's lap!! She was tired, cranky, and hungry)...

And of course, putting up the tree...

I didn't fit in the downtown Christmas adventure with the kids this year, bummer. I'll try again next year. I love the gingerbread houses though and I went to see them with some friends. It was a Star Wars theme which was just so fun!

My favorite advent activity is the Nativity Festival at the Bellevue Stake Center. I love it! More than 550 nativities on display! This year I persuaded another family in our ward to go with us, a single dad and his awesome kids. I'm kind of crazy about all of them! Highlights were the rubber ducky nativity and Lego nativity, among others. My favorite was the beaded one. I just wanted to touch it! I didn't though. I had to be good. They also had a dress up room and I loved that we all did it! Laurel is the sweet angel and Wesley had the horn.

My first Christmas spirit activity was wrapping 32 Pinewood Derby cars for the Cub Scouts in the ward. I was behind schedule and stressed, but instead of begging Laurel to leave me alone I let her help. She loved it. She handed me scotch tape and then she lined them up. I'm glad I calmed down and included her. It was a sweet experience, and we got done in enough time!

The other wild and crazy part of Christmas that I must mention is that we had a Secret Santa this year. One morning, Wesley opened the door to run to the school bus and there were five wrapped gifts on our doorstep. They were each tagged, "Day 1" through "Day 5." We opened them a day at a time. At first I thought, "oh, someone must know the kids are going to Shane's house so they only gave us five gifts," but then on Day 4 five more presents showed up, "Day 6" through "Day 10." The gifts were great... a game we could play, a gingerbread cookie kit, Christmas socks for all of us, a tub of cookies, toys for the kids and jewelry for me, Martinelli's, all sorts of stuff. They were all nice, thoughtful gifts, and I'm completely overwhelmed with love. I mean, wow. A family must have sat down for an FHE and decided they wanted to Secret Santa someone this year and they picked us. Of course Day 11 and Day 12 were also miraculously dropped off, with no people in sight. The last gift was a nativity figurine. With no note, no name. I may never know who did this for my family. The kids loved it, I loved it. I'm suspicious of everyone. I'm so grateful and humbled and overwhelmed with love. If I think about it too much I'll cry.

In the midst of all the chaos and surprises, I have been busy planning Christmas. I've been shopping online, making a budget and Excel spreadsheet, and hoping it all turns out perfect.

Shane had the kids from Dec 18 until Christmas morning. I spent a lot of time with friends, taking one to the airport, having Christmas Eve dinner, plus attending THREE white elephant Christmas events! (1 - I took a Super Dooper Reindeer Pooper and came home with a boxful of Avon perfumes; 2 - I took a Beanboozled Jelly Belly game and came home with a Blue Angels airplane that I wrapped up for Laurel, and 3 - I took a Chia pet and garden gloves and came home with a reindeer serving plate and Subway gift card!) I also got some work and house projects done, and some shopping and wrapping. Oh and I went and changed my name at the Social Security office. My divorce has only been final for 6 months :-)  It was good to have the time to myself, although I did miss my sweet little people.

Santa brought me a desk chair and a new phone(!!!!), and brought the kids scooters, plus a shark kit for Laurel (books, stickers, 3D models, figurines) and a camcorder for Wesley (he's obsessed with taking videos these days).

Christmas morning was great.

Wesley's favorite gift was a kitchen timer from the Dollar Store that Santa bought at the last minute because there was one less thing in his stocking than in Laurel's stocking. Of course it's basically dead by now, the screen isn't working right. I should have known he'd beat it to death. (He also got two pedometers, here he is holding his timer and a pedometer.)

 The aftermath. I call it, "Christmas threw up in my living room."

Shane bought them HUGE stuffed animals. Wesley's caterpillar was a HUGE hit. So it had to come to my house. The matching pajamas were from me (well, they were stuffed in their stockings), and the kids love them! I thought they'd completely flip to match. It's adorable.

I'm going to say that Laurel's favorite gift is this crochet kit from Uncle Kurt and Aunt Melani. She begs at least three times a day to open it and do it. Frankly, I am terrified. Someone help?

Christmas selfie!!!!!! My phone has a better forward facing camera so I don't hate selfies nearly as much as I used to. So did I always look good but my old phone made me look terrible? Or, do I merely look OK and the new camera makes me look better? Who knows. It's a Samsung S6. I like it but I'm terrified I'll break it (since I dropped and/or threw my last phone all the time), so I have it encased in an Otterbox with a tempered glass screen cover and basically there are parts of the touch screen that stop working sometimes because it's safer than the President. Sigh. #whitepeopleproblems

Overall, it was a lovely day.

Christmas definitely felt different this year. It was hard to be away from my family, and it's hard to see pictures on Facebook of everyone else's perfect families and to realize mine isn't exactly perfect. But, I still have a family and we're just not like everyone else and that's OK. I'm trying to be OK with it. Oddly enough, Shane came to church for the Christmas program, and sat with us, which was kind of weird but nice I guess. The kids enjoyed having him there. He came over this morning to give me some mail that ended up at his place and transfer some pictures from his phone to my computer of the kids. It was taking awhile so we all played a card game. Laurel asked if he could move back in. It's been a year now since he moved out. I know we are all happier, but it's just different.

Now we're at the strange part of year where we recover from Christmas but continue to enjoy the break. We're not sure if we should start our diets now or quickly eat all the chocolate in the house to get ready for January 1. I am giving up carbs and sugar. It's going to be BRUTAL but it absolutely must be done and I am feeling very determined. I have men to impress! I have myself to conquer! I have life to live and adventures to go on. And clothes I want to wear.

I'm grateful for my children. I'm grateful for their love and excitement. I'm grateful for another year on this planet. I'm grateful for the Savior, and I really hope He continues to heal me, my heart and my soul and my hurts. Let's see what happens in 2016! Merry Christmas.

PS -- one last piece of Christmas hilarity. We watch it maybe 10 times a day. The kids LOVE it.

my little laurel

Well, I am officially bad at this blog thing, but it is not for lack of subject matter. I'll have a whole week to myself over break when the kids will be with their dad, so maybe I can catch up on some things (like, we went camping! I have crazy dating stories! I went on a cruise!)

As for right now, this is the most important thing ever. I have a beautiful daughter and she is FOUR. The worst part about being four is that there are no more diapers in our house, for better or worse. We actually ran out a couple says before she was four and I'm like, 'sorry girl. I'm not buying any more.' None. There has been poop on the potty but there has been a LOT of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But that just puts a damper on this entire happy blog post.

I should start with December 11, when she got her very first haircut. Shane has been complaining she had a mullet. I don't really know what to think other than I wish she had more hair, but whatever, I was OK for a haircut. The stylist "layered" it some to make it look more full. We were there for 13 whole minutes.

She chose the Thomas seat over the pink Cadillac. Interesting!

Then we played for a bit at Bothell's Country Village.

That night she stayed at her dad's so she saw him for breakfast, then after playing at my house in the morning Shane came and took her to the Lego store for birthday shopping. After that, we were off on an adventure!! I took Laurel and Wesley to my friend Vicki's cabin, mere minutes away from the Festival of Christmas at Warm Beach in Stanwood, which advertises itself as having a million Christmas lights. Literally a million lights. It was cool. Luckily it had stopped raining although there was plenty of mud and puddles (thank goodness for the kids in boots). Wesley and Laurel both fell and got filthy, but who cares. I actually forgot my coat at home which makes no sense but is totally true. Luckily Vicki had a coat I could borrow. We had no gloves or hats but we survived. It was cold but it wasn't that cold.

We rode their little train and we did the light maze. We heard some live Christmas music and we went under tunnels of lights. There was a talking tree and an elf toy shop. There was a ton to do and see, and after 2.5 hours we were exhausted but hadn't even seen everything it seemed. I'm glad Vicki and her family invited us to go along with them, it was wonderful to make a fun Christmas memory with friends and celebrate Laurel.

Afterwards we had rainbow cupcakes with homemade frosting and shark gummies, and she opened presents! (Notice the shark wrapping paper.) The big gift was a doctor kit which I was really excited about giving her. When we go to the children's museum nearby she plays in the veterinarian area almost exclusively. I have to beg her to try something else. So I know she's excited to take care of our stuffed animals at home.

Here is our annual birthday quiz:

1. What is your favorite color?  I don’t have a favorite color, I just like rainbow.

2. What is your favorite toy?   Everything is my favorite (this is totally true... I've been trying to figure out for 10 minutes her favorite thing and I can't. Her kitchen stuff, her Legos, the magnetic alphabet, the art kits, the wooden trains... she can't decide.)

3. What is your favorite fruit?   All of the fruit (sigh, also true)

4. What is your favorite tv show?   Shark TV show (check out Johnathon Bird's Blue World on YouTube)

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?   Macaroni and cheese
6. What is your favorite outfit?   Shark pajamas (these pictured above, haha)

7. What is your favorite game?   Spot It
8. What is your favorite snack?   Orange chips (aka Doritoes)

9. What is your favorite animal?   shark (duh!) 

10. What is your favorite song?  Hallelujah  (this may be just a seasonal choice... it's the Mannheim Steamroller version that Wesley loves so it's on repeat essentially)

11. What is your favorite book?  The poems book (Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein, which my kids just eat up)

12. Who is your best friend?   Sofie
13. What is your favorite cereal?   Honey cheerios
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  I usually want to be at beaches outside so I can watch for sharks outside
15. What is your favorite drink?   lemonade
16. What is your favorite holiday?   I don’t know

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  Paris (a stuffed dog her dad got her from France... she actually doesn't play with it that often but she was certain that was her answer for this)

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?   Granola bar

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday?   cantaloupe

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?   study sharks (cool! a legit profession! I explained to her once she could grow up and study sharks and I didn't realize she was actually listening to me!)

Today in preschool they sang to her and gave her a crown... for your viewing pleasure. Not sure why my phone camera is all washed out? Weirdo.

Happy birthday, Laurel!!! Wow, my girl. She is smart, thoughtful, observant, sweet, sincere, and so very happy. I am grateful for her every day! I'm so glad she was born and is my daughter. 

happy birthday to me

A photo essay for my 35th birthday.

A selfie. I am finally starting to dig this new haircut.

I took the kids in the afternoon to the Olive Garden for my birthday "cake." All we got was dessert. The waitress had Wesley & Laurel sing to me, it was cute.

My girlfriends took me out to Diamond Knot Brew Pub for some rootbeer and a great salmon caesar salad (yayyy) and then KARAOKE!!! Christi, my cool friend who organized it, got me a blinking tiara crown, a chunky necklace, and a prop microphone. I loved it! I felt so special.

I had mommy friends, the standard karaoke crew, and some single adult churchy friends all come. It was awesome!

I think I sung 6 times?? Let's see... Joan Jett "I Love Rock & Roll," All American Rejects "Gives You Hell" (my personal favorite!!!), Barenaked Ladies "One Week" (nailed it!!), John Michael Montgomery "Grundy County Auction" (with Karly), Lisa Loeb "Stay" (first time trying it, and it went well!!!), and John Cougar "Jack & Diane" (with Megan, Rikayla, and Julie). I had a blast. I LOVE karaoke. It was an awesome birthday. This year was quite the year. I have had A LOT of wild things happen to me.

OH! The best part of the day was that I called up a guy from church and asked him on a date and he said YES! Whew. Thanks for not ruining my birthday, cute man.

Allright, well here we go, embarking upon another year on this planet.

first day of school

Let me squeeze these in here. LOVE these cuties.

Wesley, first day of 2nd grade, September 2015.

Laurel, first day of AM preschool, September 2015.

fun in july

Welp, summer is officially over here in Western Washington but I am reliving our summer adventures in blog form. Here are the awesome things we did... just wait until I finally get to August!

Swim Lessons

Ha! Just once my goal is to have my children graduate from a level of swimming lessons into the next level without aging out. We'll see. I have a love/hate relationship with swimming lessons. We do it for two weeks, four days a week, so eight lessons total, right in a row. Usually the first week is bleh; the kids are still adjusting and somewhat aggravated by the entire swimming lessons concept. Laurel cried when she realized this was her first swimming lessons in the pool without Mom. I felt super bad for her instructor. Sigh. Wesley had the same instructor as last year, and I wonder if he thought, "oh dear heavens, here we go again." Thank you Noble and Jordan for taking one for my team.

Both of them are in this photo...

Anyway, what happened was this:  after swimming lessons concluded, they both kept talking about how much the loved swimming lessons. They came home and played swimming lessons, wherein they threw a blanket on the floor in front of the couch, they jumped off the couch onto the floor, and one caught the other and they took turns. It was um, kinda crazy? So I did the most reasonable thing I could think of and signed up for more swimming lessons. Yup, we did two rounds in July. Each child had different instructors the second time around, but they both did great and that one-week "adjustment" period didn't happen. And yet, still neither of them "graduated" their level. Oh well.

Watch Wesley use the rope swing... I'm so proud of him!!


We'll do it again next year.

July 4th

I'm grateful for my amazing friends. So very grateful. Vicki invited us to her cabin on Lake Goodwin for July 4th and my kids were beyond excited. Vicki has a boat (and Laurel sang her the motorboat song), and there was swimming and s'mores and sleepovers and glowsticks and Legos and simply everything wonderful. I am so grateful to my friends for inviting us to be part of their holiday tradition. I felt so loved and included and I was just thrilled.

Vicki invited a couple families up, plus her sister and her family were there. We loved it.

We ate food outside....

Checked out nature (there's a butterfly)...

And played in the water.

There was also a hot tub and squirt guns and campfires and boat rides and FIREWORKS. Laurel sat on my lap and we watched, but Wesley said he was "scared" and stayed inside, although he stood by the door in awe all night. They were loud. I didn't put either of them to bed; at one point Wesley told me he was going to bed, then Laurel said she wanted to go, too. Um, it was awesome?! Can my kids always put themselves to bed calmly as their bodies need it? Wouldn't that be great. Even if it's 11 PM.

The next day was Sunday, the Sunday where I sideswiped Vicki's brother-in-law's boat trailer and did this to my car:

Yayyyyy. It's currently September and things were finally squared away with this. I got it fixed by filing an accident claim with my insurance, but I had to go back to the body shop twice because some damage was done to the gas tank and some seals were broken that they didn't catch at first. Finally, all better. My poor baby car.

More Summer Fun

What's summer without carefree fun?

There's painting with monster trucks...

And the best part:  cleaning them in the sink...

There's Legos. Lots of Legos. This is a campfire and s'mores. I LOVE their creativity.

Plus, there's been play-doh. Here are some sharks (with gills).

Golly she's adorable.

Colorado

Here is an interesting story. Last year, on our way to swimming lessons in the car, I got a call from my dad that my Grandpa Twining passed away. It wasn't unexpected but it was quite sad to lose a member of my family. This year, while trying hurriedly to get out the door for swimming lessons, I got a call from my brother that my 26-year-old cousin Jessica has passed away. Um, what?! Maybe I shouldn't answer the phone when it's swimming lessons time.

Jessica fell down the stairs in her townhome apartment and broke her neck. It was terribly sudden. She left behind a very upset, grieving, and somewhat bitter husband and three lovely little children, ages 6, 5, and 2. They live in Colorado Springs.

My mom and I decided to fly to Denver, although in retrospect we might not have gone. There has been some conflict and drama in the family, and my dad's brother, Jessica's father Sidney, was un-invited to the funeral service. I have lots to say about it, but perhaps you'll have to call me up to hear that story. I did get to see my dad's sister Nancy and Grandma Twining, who flew in from Ohio, as well as Kurt and Melani and their crew of kids, who drove in from Utah. I got to see all of other cousins, like ALL of them.... Jessica was the baby. There is Mark, who is closest to Kurt and lives in Kansas City now; Dawn, who is closest to me and was also going through a divorce; Jonathan, whose kids are freaking teenagers now; Ryan, who is married to lovely gal and has such a warm and giving heart and home; Kristi, who is married to a spiritual rockstar and has raised a wonderful little family; and Ray, the oldest cousin we haven't seen in ages because he lives in France! Yes, Ray came to the funeral!  (Excuse the weirdo picture which doesn't even get us all in there. The woman taking it was somewhat clueless. Maybe she thinks we all know how to use Photoshop?)

Um, funny story. There were several HUGE lacrosse tournaments in Denver that weekend. I was just there for like 3 days total. The cost to rent a small compact car was twice as much as to rent a minivan? So just rented a minivan. And here is what I got:

Um yeah. A Chevy Suburban. For ME. Like, JUST ME. On the way out of the car rental facility, I saw this family of four cram all of their stuff into a Ford Focus and I almost begged them to swap with me, like for free. Unfortunately they were going to be there for several days longer than me, and then drive their car to New Mexico. Well, boo for you having more complicated plans.

Anyway, the best part of the weekend, I think, was Sunday after Church when all of "my" family -- my brother, Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Nancy, all gathered around a laptop in Nancy's awesome hotel room and did family history together. Oh man, I LOVE this stuff. We played around on FamilySearch and RelativeFinder and we talked about life and temple work and experiences and testimony. I love my family. I love that our hearts are knit together. It was crazy awesome.

July 14

This deserves its own entry even though I have no images. On Tuesday, July 14, I appeared in front of a judge in Everett, the Snohomish County seat, and my marriage to Shane Gottula was officially dissolved. I am divorced. I legally changed my name to Angela Lois Gottula Twining, and now I'm single. I'm very grateful that it's over and we are friendly.

Midsingles Conference

Three days later, I went to my first LDS single-adult activity! It was a huge conference that cost money and lasted all weekend. Friday night was a dinner and dance with a live band. I took my friend Eva and we ran into a couple people we knew and we rocked all night.

Saturday there was an "Amazing Race" activity, which I aced. I saw some familiar faces and we assembled a team of eight people, and we had these clues and we ran around South Lake Union and Seattle Center and got pictures and stuff. This guy Ryan and I were smarty pants people and we planned out our journey to make good use of time. Our team came in second! First Place beat us by 15 minutes! I'm proud of second place. It felt good that I knew the answers to a lot of the riddles.

Here are some of our scavenger hunt pictures...

I took my friend Kalei with me on Saturday, along with Eva, so it was three of us girls. For lunch we got to wander around the Bite of Seattle at Seattle Center, which was SO COOL.

We got food at a Taster's Table sort of things, where we got eight "tastes" from eight local restaurants. It was awesome. The thing in the middle there was chicken & waffles which now I'm obsessed with. The tomato mozzarella thing was also completely amazing, it had a Mexican flare with cilantro instead of basil or something? Blew my mind. It was all so good. I had a great time and will totally go again with friends. Maybe not kids? It was really busy. Lots of people. But so fun.

Later that afternoon we went to Magnuson Park for some beach time. This was where the most memorable moment of the weekend occurred. I'm wading in the water. There's this totally cute guy there. We started talking. I ask him what he thinks about these things or whatever, and he says something like, "I don't like to be friendly because then people think I want to be friends." OMG. I just couldn't believe this guy was so full of himself. I tried to brush off his comment and we continued to talk about how he likes to shoot guns, but the whole time he was just all smug with me. I'm kinda like, dude, you came up and started talking to ME? Like whatever. Get over yourself.

Sooo I didn't meet any great guys. I got two or three Facebook friends out of the weekend. Saturday night was another dance where they played questionable music (Honey I'm Good? Really? TWICE?) and I did meet a gal named Jamie that I reeeeeeally like. I have a serious girl crush on her. She's awesome, I'm dying to see her again. We've emailed.

There you have it. I'm single and going to single stuff. It's like going back to kindergarten. With cell phones and texting and Facebook, as if being single was complicated enough.

Ducks

Father's Day was in June. It was a hard day for me, since I um, have no father in my home and my earthly father has died, so I was feeling a bit blue and everyone was talking about it on Facebook and I kinda wanted to barf. The coolest thing about Father's Day was when I got out of my car on a busy road near my home and helped a momma duck and her babies cross the street. I stopped traffic and made a guy with a beard and black leather jacket on a Harley totally chuckle. Then another woman rolled down her window and thanked me. I just wish I had my camera!!

Well lucky me! In July we got to help some more ducks cross the street. I noticed them leaving our neighborhood so we followed them. We kept a safe distance :-)

It was sweet. The kids laughed. There's a retaining pond over there so I hope the ducks figured out how to get in there.

Instrument Petting Zoo

One of my favorite summer activities is the Instrument Petting Zoo at the Mukilteo Community Center. I love it!!! I love watching my kids experience the instruments.

Oh man, their little faces. LOVE IT!

And because I'm so nice, enjoy these awesome videos!




Raspberries

We picked raspberries. I was super happy that day. I found an awesome place and we were some of the only people there. We listed to Spotify on my phone and picked berries and danced.

The only downside was I came home and made fruit leather and it was a TOTAL FAIL. EPIC FAIL. I had to throw all of it away. I was so disappointed. Let's just say wax paper isn't the same as parchment paper. I didn't know OK?! I feel stupid enough.

Picnic Point & the Splashpad

Picnic Point is our favorite beach. Here they are making a bridge across the creek. They did a lot of cooperative play this summer which was been so fun.

Here is Laurel's adorable "shark bite" swimsuit that her Grandma Gottula hand-sewed for her. She loves it. Girlie loves sharks. 

Splashpads are fun. We actually didn't get to our favorite this summer, which is a bummer. But we stayed cool when we needed it, nonetheless.

Jetty Island

Of course we did Jetty Island. It was just as wonderful as every year.

The kids played in the mud. There was a cool teepee they played in.

We walked alllllll the way out (the tide was way way way out) in the afternoon and even I went swimming. Gosh it was perfect. I love these memories, I just love them. I love the carefree days of summer. I love LESS that they stayed up until 11PM most nights, but I loved that it didn't matter. We stayed up, we slept in. Sure I haven't cleaned my bathroom in ages, but the dishes and laundry get done and we are fed and we have laughed a lot. I never want to forget this.

Our other big thing was our CAMPING TRIP!!, but I'll make that its own post!

It was a fabulous July!