I think the bedroom says a lot about the personality and interests of kids. Here we show a (literal and figurative) snapshot in time of Anya at 7.
From the hallway looking at her door. Just a few Harry Potter posters. She's all about Hermione Granger right now.
This is how her room typically looks on a weekday. She has to clean it on Saturday mornings, but within a day or two it reverts back to its normal, messy state. We have some books on the floor (I spy Stick Dog Chases a Pizza, which she has been reading to us at night), shed pajamas and underwear from quick changes. The thing dangling from the light was a gift brought back from Grandma and Grandpa Lodwig's trip to China. I see some scissors on the floor, so she was working on a project (probably after bedtime).
The drawer that contains most of her school uniform pieces is open (typical), since she was in a hurry to get dressed this morning after being distracted by toys/books/etc. Half of the clothes in the laundry basket are probably clean. She's going to have to fix that after school and put the clean ones away.The red thing is a bean bag chair she received from a neighbor. It doesn't really fit neatly in the room, but she loves it. On top of the dresser is a hairdressing mannequin and some other items. That white horse by the laundry basked was passed down from friends. I'm not a fan of that thing (it scratches the floors and never stays upright) and look forward to passing it on to someone else when Anya will let me.
The mural was created by our good friend, T., maybe 3 years ago. We think it's very "Anya". The HugglePod in the corner was a gift last Christmas from Santa. It's like a hanging, teardrop-shaped fort/nook and was a great purchase for her. She sometimes reads in it, but mostly she climbs it to the ceiling or uses it to chill out or calm down when she's upset.
Unmade bed, more Harry Potter posters. Elephant is still here. She always sleeps with him, sometimes uses him as a pillow. I see a notebook on the bed. She often writes and draws after bedtime. She was also doing it this morning when she was supposed to be getting ready for school. The pentagonal ball thing is stuffed and has her name appliqued on it. I got it for her when she was a baby. She only showed interest in it this year and likes to keep it on her bed, but, man, it takes up a lot of room. The duvet cover needs to be washed, since the dogs lay on it with the whole family during bedtime reading.
Book shelf and toybox. The books are a mess, but again will be straightened this weekend. It's hard to be upset about a messy bookshelf, since that means she's often grabbing books. On top of the books is her robot dog (received this Christmas) that's charging. In the toybox (which was mine when I was little), she has various dressup items, her American Girl doll (Kit Kittredge), a box with some horse fairy things that were passed down to her from an older child. The picture on the wall was put up before she was born, Curtains were made by me when she was about 3 or so.
So there you have it. She doesn't mind clutter, loves to read, write, and has plenty of active, creative time in her room.
Now that school has been back in session for a week (yay!), it's time to revisit Anya's winter break.
It was actually kind of mellow. Chris, unfortunately, didn't have any time off (other than holidays), since he had just started his job at eBay. I had decided not to enroll Anya in any mini-camps or activities, since I had envisioned a few weeks of mom-kid spur-of-the-moment fun days. In the end, we mainly went to parks, the zoo, had a few play dates. It was a quiet break, punctuated by Christmas and our annual PEPS trek to the snow. We didn't do the downtown Christmas activities, as she didn't seem to appreciate them last year. She also wasn't in the mood for Wildlights at the zoo, so that was skipped. We did manage our Candy Cane Lane tradition (this year walking in the rain with Todd, Tracey, Eva, and Greta). We went ice skating, decorated a gingerbread house, and other standard assorted Christmassy things we do around the house.
A few times, Anya (once with Liam) set up a table on the side walk and sold some of her (and his) old toys/trinkets. The plan was to raise money for supplies for their planned escape to the wilderness at our Suncadia Trip (see earlier blog post for Anya's packing list). They managed to rake in over $30, excellent little salespeople that they were. It was actually rather impressive - they'd yell to people over a block away to come over and buy, people even pulled over in their cars to buy things. So their tactics certainly worked.
Christmas Eve (eve-eve-eve really, as it was a few days early) was spent at Uncle Terry and Aunt Linda's, as per usual. A nice time. Anya played with her cousins, doing things like sliding head-first down the stairs. We scored an awesome dart board in the white elephant gift exchange. The dart board is now proudly hanging in the den and is getting lots of use.
Christmas Eve. Anya barely made it into the pic.
While the following didn't technically happen during winter break, we're throwing it in here anyway. We finally did the Jingle Bell Run as a family. We had signed up last year, but it was too cold (in the teens) to be running with the kiddo and we skipped it. It's stupid fun. A 5k where you dress up in silly Christmas attire and sing carols. They shut down the I-5 express lanes and we got to run on them in the tunnel. Anya didn't enjoy the actual running as much as we thought she would, but managed to run most of the way. Chris had to carry her over the finish line, not because she was tired, but because she was being obstinate. We're looking forward to next year's run.
family selfie in the crowds about a minute before we started the run
Christmas Eve we met up with Lynn, Steve, and Eileen (Chris' grandmother/Anya's great-grandma) and some friends at St. Catherine for the children's mass. Afterward, we all came back to our house for dinner. And then it was time for Anya to go to bed because Santa was coming. Unfortunately, this year she was wired and would.not.go.To.SLEEP. It didn't help that our neighbors were having a loud, festive gathering. Chris eventually kindly asked them to quiet down and Anya fell asleep sometime in the 10pm hour.
The next morning, Anya was up around 3, 4:30, and finally 7 so we were all pretty tired. Fortunately, Santa came and left some presents. She got some great things, but that morning the Zoomer Dog she received was by far the favorite. We lazed around the house and then had a nice afternoon with Lynn and Steve.
The rest of the week to follow was playdates and mom-kid days.
New Years was pretty low key. We all played darts on our new dart board, and watched a Carol Burnett special on PBS. We found a live (non-Jenny McCarthy) feed of the ball dropping in NYC and hooked and hollered at 9PM and sent the kiddo to bed, and we followed shortly there after.
After new years, we drove to Suncadia to for our annual PEPS gathering in the snow. It's one of our favorite things we do all year and this year did not disappoint. We played in the snow, cooked, visited, etc.
Moments after our arrival at the cabin Liam and Anya decided it was time to execute on their run away plan. We spent a lot of time prior to going trying to decide the right way to deal with the kids' plans so they both felt supported, but didn't get themselves frostbitten to death. Eventually Jeff and Chris opted for sitting on the porch of the cabin, drinking a beer and watching the kids try to set up a tent after dark while refusing to help them (If you run away, you'll need to get used to doing everything yourselves). The kids lasted exactly one dad-beer before they threw in the towel and went in to the warm house to play with their other friends.
On Saturday, Amy went for a 3-hour snowy walk with a few of the moms, while everyone else made an amazing Rube Goldberg machine.
Here are some choice Rube Goldberg set up shots
This is the final mechanism, rigged up to turn on Despicable Me 2 for the kids
The long run of wooden dominoes
Brian setting up the weight which would release the zip-line
precariously balanced basket of Christmas Ornaments and poker chips
The final product from Tatiana's angle
From Chris' Angle
One of the awesome meals provided by one of the families
The place had a ridiculous bunk jungle for the kids. We had group story time at night. This one led by Amy
Kids in bunk jungle (resting peacefully an hour after bed time)
There wasn't much snow, but we make the most of it.
kids posing for a quick pic before we headed back to Seattle
