Holidays – Page 2 – The Mothners

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We started celebrating the day before at a St. Patrick’s Day themed birthday party with green mustaches, green cupcakes, and green balloons

On March 17th we had spinach pancakes that were supposed to be shaped like four leaf clovers and Irish soda bread (with lots of chocolate chips). Later we had some green kale/seaweed juice that Julie loved.

We went to the Natural History Museum for a tree-themed storytime and looked for animals in a diorama. Max was very proud of his worksheet. Julie wore her Michigan hat to keep the Notre Dame leprechauns away.

We took a quick trip to the moon and hung out with some dinosaurs.

Then Julie got really overtired and silly (or maybe got into some St. Patty’s Day beer?)

Later we went to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue and saw bag pipers, bands and dancing. Max was a little disappointed and confused that his favorite physical therapist Patrick wasn’t at his own parade but still enjoyed watching the marching. These kids are so much fun to celebrate holidays with!

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Max’s 4th Birthday at Home

Max’s birthday celebration continued the day after his pirate party on his actual birthday. He had two of his favorite foods for breakfast – nova and a ‘super bagel.’

He asked for ‘numbers’ for his birthday dinner. When I pressed for something edible, he said ‘numbers made out of Prosciutto ‘

Lots of fun presents from our family.

Julie just wanted to play with her pirate booty.

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Happy Valentines Day!

Afte Max made 26 Valentines for his classmates and teachers (he wanted to make ‘puzzle valentines’ he cut up into pieces, cute but a lot of work), we were ready for our Valentines Day party ‘as a family’ as Max likes to say. We had make-your own heart-shaped (sort of) pizza. Julie was more adventurous with toppings than Max; he preferred his artichoke, prosciutto and olives as antipasto.

The kids and Brittney made ugly but super yummy homemade chocolate peanut butter cups for Mark (a messy process). Julie wanted them all.

We got the kids the coolest Elmo & Dora books ever starring themselves (and mommy got a massage & facial, much needed after a tough slushy cold week).

The next day Max and Mommy had a special date to Gustafer Yellowgold’s Valentines Ball, a bizarro hipster show we got free tickets to through Kid On The Town. Max loved his booster seat and this silly song, “I Jump On Cake”.

On Sunday we decorated Valentines cookies with our neighbors the Claytons (for Brittney’s family, that’s Billy Clayton, nephew of Whitney Clayton, who lives in our building, small world!). Max was ane xcellent dough cutter outer. Julie occasionally took a break from eating cookies to frost one, and when we weren’t looking, she attacked the frosting bowl with a spoon.

Feeling the love! xoxo

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Christmas Eve & Day

On Christmas Eve we made cookies for Santa (chocolate chip of course, though not quite as good as Nonna’s). Breanne and Maya were great at making the dough into balls while Max cleaned the beater.

Dancing off the chocolate chips.

We opened up one present Christmas Eve, matching pjs! Kids had fun picking out stockings, riding pj trains, and dancing while Breanne, Sophie and Maya sang all the songs from their school’s holiday program.

Christmas morning we opened a few presents while we waited for everyone else to get up/come over. Max asked for ‘Santa’ from Santa, so he got a Santa puzzle. Apparently Santa is a Michigan fan.

It got pretty chaotic once all nine grandkids were together with presents to open.

We skyped with Nonna and Papa in Moscow who got to witness the tree almost falling on Soren after some kids snuck behind it.

Julie was excited about an Elmo dress (she wants to wear her Elmo shirt everyday) and all her stocking loot – candy cane , artichoke (it’s a Jensen family tradition), expandable dinosaurs, and most of all her bowl.

We made graham cracker houses with peanut butter and healthy snacks. Max and Breanne were the only ones that completed their house without eating it.

Five siblings all grown up (sort of). We missed our parents but managed to pull off a pretty awesome Christmas with only minor injuries and food fiascos. Glad we are all friends and our kids like to party together.

We also enjoyed getting to spend lots of time as a family of four.

Max and Julie liked all their presents, especially all the Michigan gear.

But of course the best present was so much playtime, dance parties, singing, laughing, trains, cooking and eating with family. Here’s the best we could do with an all-grandkid photo.

We’ll try again next year, with Nonna and Papa to help.

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Christmas In Utah

So we’re a little behind on our posts, Brittney’s been busy working on kidonthetown.com and it takes so long to get ready to go anywhere in this brutal weather. Here are some photos from our Christmas trip to Utah, and we hope to catch up on everything else soon. Both kids were very excited to go on the airplane to see their relatives. The security line is still one of the most exciting things ever for Max, and Julie has a new favorite word.

Max and Julie had so much fun playing with their 7 cousins between the ages of 1 and 5.

Uncle Jeff is fun too. Julie convinced him to play ‘ten little piggies’ with her.

Max was surprisingly good at this game where you guess what’s on your forehead. The kids don’t quite understand competition yet, they just helped each other figure it out.

Loving the trampoline in Jeff’s basement

Good we had so many indoor options as it snowed (and snowed) most of the time we were there. Mark was not looking forward to shoveling it and found some teenage boys on the block to help out. They offered to do it for free as a service, baffling Mark, who insisted on paying them Manhattan rates.

Max was so excited to make a snowman.

We got creative with what we had and turned it into a snow princess with a tiara, boa and banana mouth.

The roads were too icy for the California cars to get to Temple Square in Salt Lake as planned, so we saw the lights at nearby Thanksgiving Point. Julie loved the ‘neigh-neighs’ that drove our wagon.

We also went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, we’re pretty lucky to have so much kids stuff nearby.

Brittney’s parents couldn’t make it from Russia so it was just the five siblings organizing everything. Courtney and her family are staying in Jon and Janet’s house and were great hosts to our family. We ended up eating pretty well and even eventually figured out how to set up the Christmas tree.

Does the tree stay up? Do we ever get a photo of all nine grandkids? Find out in our Christmas Eve/Day post coming soon.

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