Fourth Day of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas my children gave to me... an evening of complete chaos opening presents!

Yesterday we opened presents with my family. I was the only person sitting on the floor helping the girls with their gifts. After every gift I was left with wrapping paper and an empty box piled in front of me. They were also handing me the new toy and requesting "open please", which led to more trash surrounding me. I didn't have a trash can near me for awhile. Eventually I got one, but it got too hard to keep up with the girls. At one point I wondered if I could hide behind all of the mess and read my new book in peace and quiet.

What a chaotic, but fun time.

*Picture to be added after Mom gets home with the camera.

Third Day of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas my children gave to me... a semi-peaceful time at church and a peaceful 2 1/2 hour drive to my parents' house. Yay!

It's quite clear that Julia understands the concept of gift-giving now. Once we got into the living room she looked under the Christmas tree, gasped, and exclaimed "Presents!". Luckily she had no problem waiting to open them until the next day.

On the Second Day of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas my children gave to me... an extra hour or so of sleep. I awoke to find everybody cozy on the couch reading their new books.




They also gave me time alone in the house while they went to the bank, post office and video store. They braved the cold weather to take a walk there. I was offered the opportunity to take a walk too, but I decided to stay home and clean. Here is Julia all bundled for her trip. Yes, she's wearing three hats. She was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, her winter hat, and the coat's hood. Probably overkill, but I didn't do it. I don't think she could turn her head without turning her whole torso.

Doesn't it look like a lot of work to get Chloe ready for a walk?

You might not think it would be fun to clean the house while everybody is gone, but I loved it! I got done in 1/3 of the time I would have otherwise. And the toys stayed right where I put them because there weren't two little girls running around behind me taking them out again.

On the First Day of Christmas

Dressed up for Christmas Eve service:

Christmas morning service:

the meal: chicken cacciatore, peas, wine, and red velvet cake for dessert

the tree:

and not one picture of children opening presents!

On the first day of Christmas I asked for peaceful children during the church service. I received peaceful children during the opening hymn. What more should I have really expected during the third church service in three days? The service at the other church was cancelled on Christmas day due to inclement weather. So we got a couple extra hours to spend with Kevin.

On the first day of Christmas my children gave to me... a day filled with precious memories. Chloe seemed to understand every aspect of the day this year. Julia enjoyed opening presents. I had more fun watching them open gifts than I have in past years. We played games together later in the day. The day ended with French toast for supper and a phone call to Michigan. One more Christmas story read before bed, a movie after the kids went to bed, and the day was over. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable day.

God's blessings to you all during this Christmas season!

Plan for the Day

It's not feeling especially Christmas-y around here with all of the rain we're getting, but it's Christmas Eve nonetheless and we have a few special Christmas Eve activities planned here. Note: After Kevin reads this, he'll once again tell me that it's not Christmas Eve until the sun goes down. Another note: Sorry the paragraphs have no spaces between them at the bottom. For some reason blogger takes all of the spaces out after I add pictures. Grrr.

The girls are decked out in their light-up Christmas sweatshirts their grandma sent them last year.

My, my, isn't Julia looking very grown up in that picture?

Every day in Advent, we've let Chloe open a little envelope I've had hanging in the dining room. Inside each envelope is a special activity to do that day. Some of them have been quite simple -- drink hot chocolate with supper. Some of them have been a bit more time consuming -- help bake and decorate cookies. Today she will be helping me make a red velvet birthday cake for us to enjoy tomorrow.

Aside from that, we'll be having a pretty normal day until we head to church. We'll be going to 5:30 service. While Kevin is at the second service, we'll be making homemade pizza. We had homemade pizza last year on Christmas Eve. I liked the idea so much, it might become a tradition for us.

After supper we'll let the girls open two presents -- matching pajamas and their new ornament for the year. Then it will be time to head to bed; we don't want Santa to skip over our house because the children stayed up too late!

Our local video store is having a "rent two movies, get one free" special today. We will head up at some point to pick out two movies for the adults for tonight and tomorrow night and one for the children to enjoy tomorrow.

So there are our exciting plans for the day. Hope your day is relaxing and exciting as you await the time for the full-blown celebration of our Savior's birth!

Now What?

The presents are all wrapped.

The cards have been mailed.

The cookies are all baked.

Kevin's vestments are freshly laundered and a beautiful white again (sure, he technically washed those himself, but I pulled them out of the dryer in a timely fashion to make sure they didn't wrinkle).

The Christmas dresses have been retrieved from the attic.

The house is clean(ish). The floors haven't been vacuumed because the vacuum has yet another broken belt.

I'm caught up on thank you cards.

I think the only thing left to do is wash the dresses so they don't smell like cardboard boxes!

So... now what? Anybody have any last minute wrapping they'd like me to do? It really is my favorite thing to do! No? Guess I'll have to go read a book.

Christmas Firsts

We have had a weekend of firsts for the girls. Yesterday we made our Christmas cutout cookies. Kevin and Chloe helped me roll them out and bake them while Julia napped. Shhh... we also frosted a few while she napped. After supper, we let Julia help out with pouring the sprinkles on the tops of some of the cookies (because that's as complicated as I get -- white frosting with colored sprinkles dumped on the top). She was a bit hesitant at first:



But after watching Daddy, an "I can do that" look flashed briefly on her face:

Once he took the cookie away to get a new one, she felt it was her obligation to taste test the sprinkles:

Let's give that girl a clean spoon. Aha, I think we've got the idea now: (And if you're really bored, you can bounce back and forth between the next two pictures to see the decorating in action!)

Chloe wanted to show off her decorating skills also:

And what is Julia up to?

...apparently scraping all of the frosting that dripped off the cookie. Delicious!

Chloe had her "first" today. This was her first Christmas program at church! Doesn't she look like such a proud little angel?

She had three lines to say -- a total of 12 words. And if you know Chloe at all, you've probably already guessed that she didn't say even one of them. Not surprising, she didn't say them in practice either. You should have heard her saying them at home though!

Although she didn't talk, she was full of smiles throughout the songs and really sang her heart out. I could see her singing nearly every word. And for the phrases I heard her singing loudly and quite enthusiastically, well, I'm convinced that no heavenly chorus of angels could ever sound so sweet... but maybe I'm biased.

Cards

Just in case you were wondering...

why your Christmas card arrived with the address label just slightly crooked...



or why the sticker on the back of the envelope drifted a bit to the side...

You should probably feel lucky that the card even made it through this assembly line to get into the mail.

I signed, stuffed, added the return address and stamp, and sealed. Kevin helped Julia with the address labels. Chloe handled all of the stickers on the back. And don't worry, Julia only licked a couple of the envelopes after she added her label. Chances are, she didn't lick yours!

Christmas Letter

Every year we go through the same thing. Who's going to write the Christmas letter? This year Kevin drew the metaphorical short stick and was stuck writing it. Then I noticed at the bottom of the page that this blog was listed. Hmmm... haven't written there in over 6 months. So for those of you who are here checking to see what else has been going on in our lives, here's my version of the past year.

Julia has had the most changes this year (not surprising in the case of a one-year-old). She reached all those milestones that children her age should. Her vocabulary is pretty vast, but she doesn't always know when to use the appropriate words. For example, she will scream and keep saying please and me too without letting us know exactly what she wants. It sometimes takes quite a while before we can decipher what the want was. Julia enjoys reading a lot just like her big sister does, but she has also really taken to some math concepts (somebody had to have mommy's love of math). She loves to count. Okay, she loves to count in her own unique counting system: One, two, three, eight, nine, ten! She knows shapes very well. She is still quite the mommy's girl. She wants to be by my side constantly, but would rather be "up". She adores her big sister. And of course, nobody knows how to have fun quite like daddy. Despite her early "terrible two" attitude of late, it has been quite the pleasure watching her personality develop more and more.

Chloe has also grown a lot (again, what else would you expect in a young child). She adores her little sister and spends most afternoons bored while Julia is napping. Reading is still her favorite activity. Some stories she can "read" to us based on the pictures and her memory. Other stories she likes to read by trying out some rhyming words. Often stories go something like this: it, kit, hit, tit, rit, vit. Arch books are among her favorites. It's so much fun to hear her retelling the Bible stories. She has learned a lot this year during our family devotional time. She can recite much of the catechism and knows several hymns. If she's in the right mood, she can outsing part of the congregation on a Sunday morning. Chloe enjoys trying out all kinds of grown up activities. She likes to help me cook, sort and fold laundry, dust, vacuum and anything else I will let her do. I try to let her help me as much as possible; I know this stage of willing participation won't last forever.

As for me, well, there's a reason I don't like to write the Christmas letter. Nothing new has happened to me aside from all of the new stages my children are entering. While sometimes the daily routines are quite monotonous, there are other times I'm happy to lead a quiet life. As with any other vocation, motherhood has its ups and downs, but there is always something to bring a smile or something new to cherish in my heart. I'm blessed to have a wonderful family. Kevin mentioned my brother Andy who was diagnosed with leukemia in September. I have added a link at the top of the blog to Caring Bridge. My mom has been updating there, and you can look back to read the whole story.

And Kevin? He's just as hard to write about as I am! He's still enjoying being a pastor (again, aside from problems that arise). He's still a wonderful husband and father; the girls and I are blessed to have him. Doesn't sound like much has changed. He tried to take on a new hobby -- finishing our basement. Early in the year he spent one day working on it with his dad and brothers. Nothing much has happened down there since then. You'll have to ask Kevin about that new hobby of his sometimes.

So there's our year as best as I can remember at this point. No big events to report this year. Now that I've written this long summary, I can go tell Kevin that I wrote our Christmas letter too. He'll be so pleased to hear his work was not done in vain!

Three Years Old

Three years ago today... (and yes, I still remember it vividly)



And today, posing with her "I'm so happy it's finally my birthday" smile...

I can't usually tell if she looks more like Kevin or more like me, but in this picture I can completely see Kevin.

After the happy picture she insisted that she have a picture taken with her baby. I suppose she was too busy concentrating on her role as mother to smile for the camera. Funny girl.

It has already been an eventful day. She kept asking to open her presents all during breakfast. We gave in and let her open them after breakfast was finished.

All of the presents were very exciting to her. She opened a dress, a necklace, a book, 2 tractors, 3 pairs of "fancy" socks, and a letter toy (as Chloe would call it). Here she is checking out the toy with Daddy.

After playing with her toys for awhile and playing a game of Candyland with Mommy, it was time for lunch. Since today is Cinco de Mayo, we made chicken quesadillas. Silly Chloe thought it was yummy until she started examining the salsa and noticed it has tomatoes and peppers (or pickles, as she calls them) in it.

We tried to have cake immediately after lunch, but our camcorder has a dead battery. We convinced Chloe to go to the park first. After about an hour of playing at the park we came home to eat our cake. Here is my first attempt at decorating a cake.

Chloe deemed it "beautiful"! She also decided it was "very yummy".

Now Chloe is taking a nap, resting up for the evening's activities. We are going to order pizza (one of Chloe's favorite foods) and let her stay up a bit later than usual to watch a movie.

Time sure does fly by quickly.

Happy Birthday, sweet little Chlo-bug!

A Joke

Chloe has apparently heard of knock-knock jokes somewhere... probably Sesame Street. We certainly didn't introduce them! One evening at supper we were treated to this joke from Chloe. She spoke all parts of the joke just in case we didn't know what the appropriate response was.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Finger.
Where's my finger?
Here's my finger!

I know, it's hard to believe she made it up all by herself. A comedian in the making.

12 Month Stats

Here are just a few of milestones Julia has reached.

• Julia weighs in at 20 pounds and 9 ounces and measures 27 3/4 inches.
• She is becoming much more steady on her feet. Walking is her first choice of transportation, but if she falls she will continue crawling to her destination. (Correction: Being carried is her first choice of transportation.)
• She folds her hands when we say it's time to pray. She has even started to jibber while we pray.
• One of her favorite activities is reading books. She doesn't have the patience to sit long enough for somebody to read to her. Instead, she'll sit for long periods of time flipping through books and reading to herself.
• She simply ADORES her big sister. Few things are better than playing with Chloe.
• She feeds herself with a spoon or fork after I put the food on the utensil. After she's done with that bite, she politely hands the fork back to me for a refill. I've tried giving her a small bowl or plate to see if she can feed herself that way, but it always results in a bowl of food dumped all over the place.
• She is very vocal -- much more than Chloe was at her age! She has a variety of consonant and vowel sounds. Her favorites are currently dada and growling like a bear. Yesterday she finally said mama over and over. Hurray!
• Sometimes she will sing. She has even been caught dancing. She has two forms of dancing: Standing directly in front of the stereo, holding onto the table, and bouncing her right leg up and down. The other is crawling around in a small circle in front of the stereo. Both are very cute. I would love to get them on tape.
• She has upgraded to drinking whole milk, but refuses to give up the bottle at this point.

What's Been Happening

Kevin was kind enough to write down notes of things I should be blogging while I was absent from this site for a couple months. However, the list is currently missing on this messy desk somewhere. I'll write the couple of stories that I remember and will add more when the list is found.

Chloe has become a big fan of Hide-and-Seek. She understands most of the concepts of playing. She covers her eyes, counts to ten, and looks until she finds the person hiding. However, if she's hiding, she doesn't understand the concept of staying quiet. As soon as we say "Ready or not, here I come" she shouts "Okay!" Her shouting isn't what gives away her hiding spot though. She only hides in two different places. I can't tell you where they are because I can't reveal her hiding spots to those who may play with her in the future.

One day Chloe was looking for her bowl that she uses to feed her baby, and she couldn't find it. She covered her eyes, counted to ten, and said "Ready or not, here I come!" Sure enough, she found the "hiding" bowl after that. It has become her new favorite way of searching for lost items.

A favorite expression lately has been "I nn like it" (I don't like it). The N sound is very, very subtle. Usually it can't even be heard. So we never know if she's saying she likes something or doesn't like something. Conversations usually go something like this:
"I like that."
"You like that? Well, good."
"No! I like that!"

One book that Chloe has really been enjoying is Green Eggs and Ham. After making pumpkin pancakes for supper one evening, Kevin offered to put some peach honey on her pancakes. "I like peach honey" (meaning, I don't like it). I told her she was just like the guy from Green Eggs and Ham because she hadn't even tried it yet. So she tried it and told us "I do like it, Sam-I-am!"

The Big ONE

Happy birthday Julia!

What a day it was! Julia sure appeared to enjoy her birthday tremendously. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happy for so long. She was giggles and grins almost all day. We had a simple celebration, but did a lot of things that she really enjoys.

She had special treats to eat -- Fruit Loops for breakfast and pizza (for the first time) and peas for lunch. She had a hard time deciding which was better (the pizza or the peas), but decided to eat more peas in the end. We got out of the house this morning and ran some errands. We played throughout the day. When Kevin got home around 5:30 I was finishing up supper. He took over playing for a bit before we ate. After supper (corned beef and cabbage) I had to run out to Walmart to get more tapes for our video camera. Then we finally got to eat cake and open presents just shortly before heading to bed.

Looking through my pictures now I see that I don’t have really great ones. She was just a baby on the move all day long. I had a hard time catching her sitting still. Here are the best I could find. Sorry I don't have more that are worthy of sharing.

She had to pose with my old green feather boa. Poor girl -- I sure hope she likes green as she gets older.

We had balloons hanging from the doorway for her to bat around. She LOVED playing with them.

She started off eating so neatly.

The end result wasn't neat, but much better than I thought it might be!

She didn't need any instructions on what to do with the gifts. As soon as I put the pile of presents on the floor, she spread them out and immediately tried opening one.

Happy birthday, sweet girl!

A Year Ago

One year ago today Kevin and I went on one last date before welcoming a new baby. Where has the time gone?

Right now there's a cake in the oven for tomorrow's celebration. I tried telling Julia that we could just skip her birthday tomorrow so that she can stay my baby awhile longer; she seemed to think that was funny and laughed at me.

Check back tomorrow evening for birthday pictures.

Chloe Quips

(in whatever order I happen to remember them)

Last night Chloe was talking to my mom on the phone, and Kevin asked her who was coming to see her. She said grandma, and Kevin asked who else. “Uncle Ethan!” We told her that wasn’t the right name. Which uncle is coming? “Ummm….I don’t know.” Yes you do. “Uncle Who!” That was the only answer she would give for the rest of the conversation.

When she was talking to my dad on the phone, he mentioned how he couldn’t come see her this time because he has to work. In a very sad tone she said, “Oh…poor Grandpa.”

She is really picking up on what people say to her. It’s not uncommon for Kevin or me to tell her that we love her bunches and bunches. It was quite cute the first time she told me that. Then the other day she had her own variation. I got a hug and was told “I love you sooo muches!” She also told Grandma she would miss her when she said goodnight last night because that's what Grandma always tells her.

Chloe was curled up on the couch under one of her blankets, and Kevin told her that somebody gave her that blanket before she was even born. Then he asked her if she remembered where she was before she was born (wondering if she would remember that Julia was in Mommy‘s belly). “Ummm…..” He told her she didn’t remember. “I remember!” Where? “Ummm….in a drawer!”

De-decorated

All of the Christmas decorations are down now. Everything is boxed up, waiting for Kevin to get home so he can carry them back to the attic. I always have mixed feelings about the decorations being gone. On the one hand, my house always seems so much bigger after the Christmas season (even though there are new, big toys to take up space). On the other hand, the house seems a little magical with all of the decorations out. I started taking ornaments off the tree on Wednesday. Chloe was lying on the couch watching me with such a sad look on her face. She never told me what was wrong, but I think she was just sad to see the decorations leave. It makes me think I maybe should have done it all one night after the girls went to bed. I'm hoping that Kevin gets home before Chloe wakes up from nap. I want him to take the tree outside before she gets out of bed and gets really upset about it. So sad to go back to the plain house, but I have been able to keep Chloe excited by reminding her about all the company we'll be having next week!

Distractions

I’ve been in a bit of a writing rut lately. I had been wanting to write shortly after Christmas and include pictures, but since the pictures didn’t work I wanted to wait. Now I have the pictures and I’m not much in the mood to write about them. I stumbled across this blog yesterday -- The One-Minute Writer -- and thought it was a neat idea.

Today’s writing prompt is: What do you need to make more time for? I sat and thought about my answer for awhile. When I went downstairs to get the kitchen timer, I noticed it was snowing outside. Instead of writing my one-minute answer, I decided to spend some time with Chloe outside. We bundled up and tried to catch some snowflakes.

The snowflakes weren't very big, so it was hard for her to see them on her hands.


Next she tried catching them with her tongue. I couldn't convince her that she'd have an easier time if she would tip her head back.

This is when she decided it was getting cold outside. (Just a side note: Yes, that's a sidewalk that goes to nothing. I wish I knew what it used to go to.)

After playing ball for a bit we came inside and made some hot cocoa -- Chloe's first time.

As you can see, the hot cocoa was well received.

She insisted I take a picture of her snowman mug.

I still haven't written my one-minute answer to the writing prompt. The problem is I know I won't get half of the items listed in that one minute time period!