The Rest of The Christmas Pictures

 I finally got pictures off from the camera. So here is the rest from Christmas 2023 which was pretty wonderful. Gideon said that Christmas is everyone's birthday. 

Happy Birthday, Gideon

 Gideon is 5 now! I think this has been the fastest 5 years of my life. Gideon is such a fun kid. He loves all things super heroes and battles. He is always smashing his toys together or dressed up as Batman, the Hulk, or Spider-Man. And then there are times, he is very affectionate and sweet. He still comes and cuddles up with me in bed in the mornings. 

Happy Birthday, Joshua

 Joshua has officially joined the teenagers. He is 13, though Josh is like Rachel. He is small for his age and immature.He seems more like a 10 to 11 year old. I don’t mind. He is sweet and affection and generally does whatever he is asked to do. Josh is I. The 7th grade and he is doing okay with that. He is finally reading better. He is doing algebra 1, but going through it slowly. He still loves animals, lizards, bugs, trains, and especially video games. Josh will do almost anything for video game time.

Happy Birthday, Anya

 Anya is 16 now. She is in 10th grade and doing great with her schooling. She is sweet and obedient. She is best friends with Rachel and gives Rachel a lot of comfort. Anya likes to put anime clips to music. It’s called AMV’s. Anya is a really good artist and a good writer.

Eliza is a Chatterbox

 Eliza says a lot and what she says is hilarious and interesting and often cute and sometimes terrible, but I have a lot of Eliza stories, so here goes.

Story 1 from Kate:

She was snuggling under my blanket with me watching all the animals in my room as she sometimes does on a cold morning. Eliza was watching the white pigeon Agatha and calling it "pigeon pigeon" when Edith walked up from behind her to say hello. Eliza turned round and said, "Oh that's pigeon," and turning back pointed to Agatha and said "That's bird."
"No," I said, "That's a pigeon too."
"That pigeon two?" she repeated.
"Yes 'that pigeon too,'" I confirmed.
The she pointed to Charles the parakeet and said, "and that bird three." I laughed and agreed with her and she stared counting the birds in a sing-song voice "Pigeon one (pointing to Edith) Pigeon two (pointing back to Agatha and the parakeet) bird three!"


Stories collected by Ruth:
1. Eliza ate a piece of cookie dough off of the tray of cookies Joshua
made and was going to bake she then came into my room jumped on the
bed and said "I eat kiki dough. Joswa is grumpy."

From me:

Susan was lying on the couch eating a clementine. Eliza came up to her and tried to take the clementine. Susan stopped her, Eliza said that Susan was bad. Susan said, “I am not bad, Eliza. You are stealing my food.” Eliza then pushed Susan, grabbed her clementine aggressively and fast and then stepped back, turned to me and said, “Mom, Susan is stealing my food.”


One morning Eliza woke up yelling, “Mommy, get me. Get me, mommy. Get me, get me, get me.”




Later that morning while I was vacuuming, Eliza was setting up her tiny plastic animals on the couch. When I turned off the vacuum Eliza immediately called to me, “Mom help me, this is hard.”