Rain in Los Angeles for Christmas?

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We had rain for Christmas eve and Christmas day, and for just a moment we were hoping it might get cold enough for snow. But then we came to our senses and realized we couldn't handle actual freezing weather and just enjoyed the rain. Inspired by Jerri and Bren, we welcomed Loredo the Lemon Tree to the family. A Eureka Lemon Tree is the newest member of the Nash clan and will be going in the ground in another month or two when we redo the back garden. Yes Dorothy, we are going to finally redo the back garden. "It's the land Katie O'Hara. Nothing matters but the land."

Getting Ready for Santa

Jess made a real effort this year. Wrapping most of the presents, baking cookies, and helping to cook Christmas dinner. Santa loved his snacks and Barbie even helped out in the kitchen. Barbie prefers to cook au natural.

Santa Makes His Mark

Santa and his reindeer were happy this year with cookies, muffins, celery and carrots. Magic North Pole Santa Snow was tracked all over the front porch, and through the living room from the fireplace. The reindeer made quite a mess of their snack with typical deer enthusiasm.

The School Xmas Show 2008

So this year Jessica moved up in the school show ranks and had a speaking part for the first time. Grades Pre-K through 2nd just do a class song, but 3rd through 6th do a short play. This year Jess was Reindeer #1 and had three lines. Finding the all-brown reindeer ensemble was a challenge, but Jess managed to accessorize well with a freshwater pearl necklace (those genetics courtesy of Adrian's side of the family). A fun night overall and pics above with friends Ananda, Sydney, little pre-K Samantha and new friend Leah in 4th grade.

The Bubble Mustache

Jess LOVED the TPT Parties this Year!!

Tons more pics to come of Jess at TPT, but I'm too bushed tonight to finish. Many parties, warm weather and tons of pool time made this Jessica's favorite TPT to date. Overall, I believe Jess was the Segway champion for the entire night and beat all-comers in the obstacle course. There was also plenty of rock-climbing and other games galore at our F1 Raceway party.

The Many Faces of Carroll at TPT

We had many options during TPT . . . family Carroll, serious working Carroll, disco Carroll, tired Carroll, bad hair day Carroll, Segway Carroll, rock climbing Carroll, chesty Carroll. Quite a few wardrobe changes!

A Moment in History

I told Jess she won't realize until she's older, but she was a part of history today.

Family Night Takes on a Whole New Meaning

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So just before Halloween (and no, these posts are not in order), we had a family night at Jessica's school. Somehow Carroll was stupid enough, errr, lucky enough to volunteer to babysit Lucy and Charlie for an overnighter so Bren and Jerri could wing off to Vegas for a quick jaunt. Amazing kizmet that the overnighter was the same day as Jessica's school family-night show. So, off we all went to the show. The kids had an amazing time. Charlie played some manly basketball, and then worked his way into the crowd until he was hanging out with some 'older women' - first grade triplets. Go Charlie! Lucky he left his princess skirts at home.

Jess sang two songs with her class and then all three kids mostly sat and watched the show. An exhausted Carroll then took the kids home to a dinner-of-champions - McDonalds. Big shock that Adrian had to 'work late' and arrived just as the kids were all down for bed.

The next day Lucy did some gardening duty and we all had a dance party starting around 6am. It was a hugely long 24-hours, but the kids were fab and a good time was had by all.

Vampire Jessica

Jess goes all out this year as an evil Vampire. GREAT fun trick-or-treating and wearing the vamp ensemble to the school carnival day.

Halloween Preparations 2008

After the traditional big gap that starts before TPT and extends until several weeks after - we have finally returned with some Nash photos. Getting the house ready for Halloween was good fun with our standard webs, rats, giant spiders and Skeleton Steve.

Adrian in New York for the Week

So mom and Jess have to find fun things to do after school. Last night we decided to stage our own Nash version of Project Runway. We used toilet paper as our challenge and got to work. Carroll made Jess a supermodel dress only suitable for a magazine fashion shoot. Jess decided to make mom a more 'covered' cocktail dress since mom 'is not built like those fashion ladies on the show.' We had many huge laughs and now Jess wants to do it again with something other than TP!!!

Well duh!

FIRST DAY OF THIRD GRADE

Oh just rip my heart out and show it to me as I die!! Jessica started third grade this week and I cannot believe she is this old. I pretty much got a lot of 'DON'T bring your camera into school and embarrass me.' And 'DON'T start crying until you get out to the car.' Big sigh. Isn't this what all moms do?! Jess was very excited to start 3rd grade this year and we're hoping for another great academic year. I'm already thinking of ideas for our, I mean HER, science project. Two years at second place . . . this year we CRUSH the opposition and go for NUMBER ONE. I mean, hopefully we can do well, and have a good learning experience in the process. (And Ali wonders why we Americans like the Olympics.)

Last Week Before School Starts

Summer finally had to end and for our last week off we had a great day out with the Heffernan clan (sans Bren) to see the Peacocks at the Pasadena Arboretum. VERY hot, but great fun with the kids. I've got some peacock shots around here somewhere, so I'll dig those out and get them up shortly. Trying to get this blog updated a bit before Adrian beats me for doing something other than TPT work. (Only where the bruises won't show!!)

What a Summer!!

So it started with bees making a huge hive in the crawl space above our living room. Then inside plumbing issues made us finally face our mostly collapsed sewage line from the house to the street. We've had a great summer of home improvements that cost a ton of money, but can't actually be SEEN. The sewage line was fun and I snapped a nice pic of a chunk of pipe that was so filled with tree roots they could not even cut through it until they dug 6 feet down. Part of the pipe was so eaten away by tree roots it had just collapsed. No big surprise to us, the sewage pipes were the original from when the house was built, so now we're set for another 20-30 years. If only we could redo the damn bathrooms!!!