a snowy day

We've had several snowy days around here lately (and cold....very, very cold). But yesterday it was a balmy 23 degrees, so Daddy and Rachel went out to play in it. It was her first time out to play in snow since last winter, which she didn't remember, so it was like learning how to play in the snow all over again!

First she was thrilled to get to wear a snow suit. She has snow pants to go with her coat, but I decided to try out the snow suit (a $3 garage sale find last summer, which she didn't really need, but it was easier than snow pants and a coat).

When she got out, all she wanted to do was stomp around in the deep snow (up to her knees!). Daddy got out her sled (the nice, big one her Granny and Papa gave her for Christmas) and took her for a ride. She was laughing and laughing, until she fell out, got snow in her face, and then decided she didn't want to sled anymore. Maybe next time. I took some video of it, but I can never figure out how to make it work on here. Maybe I'll try later.

Daddy taught her how to make snow angels and the two of them tromped around for about a half hour before coming in.


She enjoyed finding some of her old haunts all covered in snow (the rock she always sits on, her sand box, and her swingset, to name a few). She came in to some hot (well, lukewarm...I didn't want to burn her mouth!) cocoa, also a first for her. She declared it, "Dewishus!"

the good, the bad, and the ugly

Yesterday was an up and down kind of day.....

The Good

I recently started reading the blog of a friend of mine with two little ones. Her daughter is a year or so older than Rachel, and she has a younger son. I went back and read the archives over the course of the last couple of weeks. One of the things she wrote about was using a timer, and how much it has helped her at home. For instance, her daughter kept asking her to play with her, but she kept telling her, "Mommy has work to do," so she felt guilty for not playing with her daughter. Or she'd play with her daughter and feel guilty that nothing was getting done. This is a constant struggle for me, as well. So one day she set a timer and told her daughter Mommy would work until the timer beeped, and then when it was done, she'd play. Then when it was time to play she set it again and told her daughter, "Mommy will play with you until the timer beeps, and then I need to get some more work done." She wrote about the freedom this brought her--freedom to do work without feeling guilty because she knew she'd soon have time to play, and freedom to play with her daughter without feeling guilty for not working because she had already gotten some done and would soon get more done.

So yesterday I wanted to get some cleaning done, and Rachel started asking me over and over to play with her. I kept telling her that Mommy had work to do, but felt sad for constantly turning her down. Then I remembered the timer technique. So I told Rachel that she needed to play by herself until the timer beeped, and then Mommy would play with her. I set it for 15 minutes to start with. And it worked! She played happily by herself and I got 15 minutes worth of cleaning done (and 15 minutes actually allows me to get a lot more done when I don't have to be constantly shooing her off to play). After it beeped she ran in and said, "Mommy, you pway wif me now?" So I set it for another 15 minutes and told her I would play until it beeped again. She wanted to play her Wiggles Memory game, so we did, for a solid 15 minutes. And I didn't once feel bad for sitting on the floor playing with my daughter when I had work to do. I knew I would get to it soon. The timer beeped and she looked up and said, "Time for Mommy work!" The next time I set it for 20 minutes. Worked great and got a lot done. Then we played princess castle for 20 minutes. Actually, she played most of it by herself and liked just having me there watching her. Occasionally she'd give me a role to play, but mostly she moved the people around and used her high pitch pretend voice (where do kids learn that, anyway? I remember using that same voice when playing Strawberry Shortcake and other pretend scenarios growing up!) and played by herself.

I thought this was funny....the princesses and prince got thrown aside so the Yo Gabba Gabba gang could take a ride in the carriage. Oh, and she calls the knight in shining armor an "astwonot." I guess armor does slightly resemble an astronaut's suit, if you squint a bit!



So the timer....a new good thing around our house.



The Bad

There was absolutely no success in the potty training department yesterday, after a nearly perfect day the day before. Ugh. So frustrating--just when you think you're getting somewhere, there are nothing but accidents. And worst of all, the last one happened while she was sitting on the couch. Right on the crack between two cushions. Pee went down the crack and onto the material below, which soaked the bottom portion of the cushions, too. Top, sides and bottom of two cushions, completely soaked with pee. Gross.

Before dinner last night I started having an upset stomach and spent a good portion of the evening laying on the couch or in the bathroom. My husband was gone at the gym. So I had to clean up wet cushions (and a wet kitchen floor from another accident) and deal with not feeling well by myself. Not a fun evening.

The Ugly

I thought the evening was bad. The night was positively awful. At 9:55 or so, as we were finishing up watching The Biggest Loser and thinking about getting to bed, Rachel woke up crying. It was then that I remembered that she had been slowly developing a stuffy nose all day and I meant to give her some benadryl before she went to bed to help her sleep (she woke up crying from her nap yesterday, too, because she couldn't breathe, so I knew the night would be worse). But after the rough evening, my husband gave her her bath and put her to bed, since I wasn't feeling well, and since I wasn't up there, I completely forgot about the benadryl. So I went into her room to console her and give her some medicine. Only she wouldn't be consoled or take the medicine. She cried and cried and cried, half asleep, but unable to breathe. She kept pushing the medicine away. I tried, my husband tried, and finally I just had to force it into her mouth. About half of it spilled back out of her mouth, so she really didn't get very much.

I finally got her calmed down and back to sleep. But this scenario repeated itself (with ever increasing intensity) about every hour or hour and a half throughout the course of the night. I'm exhausted. Her longest (and therefore my longest) stretch of sleep was from about 3:30 until 7 this morning. At one point in the middle of the night I just couldn't get her to calm down. She was crying and crying, making her stuffy nose worse, of course. She kept sniffing really hard and then crying, "I can't do it!" At first I didn't understand why she was saying that--what couldn't she do? But I finally realized that she couldn't put words to it, but what she meant was that she couldn't breathe! She was trying hard to inhale and get air into her lungs, but she just couldn't. Poor little girl.

Today she woke up just as happy as can be, but still totally stuffed up with watery eyes all morning. Hopefully tonight with the benadryl I'll make sure not to forget, we'll all sleep much better.

saving

Several of my blogging friends have posted lately about their deals and savings at the grocery, so I'm following in their footsteps and am going to brag on my frugal self.

Tonight I went to the grocery (by myself--BLISS!!) with the sole purpose of buying things on sale for which I also had coupons. And there were lots and lots of those things. (Okay, so I also bought milk, eggs, apples, and dry onion soup mix for my roast beef tomorrow....those things weren't on sale.)

The cost of everything I bought without sales and coupons? $140

The cost of everything I bought with sales and coupons? $64!!

I really, really was hoping I could get it down to $50; I didn't quite get there, but I'm still pleased.

Then I came home and realized I forgot contact solution, which just ran out tonight. Ugh....another trip tomorrow, I guess (and yes, I do have a coupon for that, too!).


(Potty Training Update: Almost a completely successful day! She pooped in the potty for the first time today, which was quite exciting for us all, and she used the potty each time she needed it, staying dry all day, including through her nap! Just before bathtime, though, she ruined the perfect potty day and put a small wet puddle on the dining room floor. We almost made it!)

in other news

Since all I've written about lately is the potty, I thought maybe I should write about something else (though there's not much else going on around here).

In the evenings after Rachel's in bed we've been working on our vacation plans. We're headed, without Rachel, to Arizona and the Grand Canyon in May. After a tour of Arizona (Canyon de Chelly, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Painted Desert, and other National Monuments and places like that), we'll be arriving at the Grand Canyon on my husband's birthday--how's that for a birthday present!? The next day he's going to attempt to hike the canyon, down and up, all in one day. I'm alternatively completely freaked out and fairly calm about this hike. I'm not going, so he'll be alone (although he assures me the trail will be heavily traveled and there will be lots of people to help him if he needs it). I did find the other day a place there where you can rent a sattelite phone to take down with him. He thinks I'm a worry wart, but he actually thought this was a good idea, so we're going to look into it.

I wrote a month or so ago that I was struggling with headaches. It's actually been an ongoing struggle since I was 13. No one's really been able to figure them out. They're not migraines, though they seem just as bad (they hurt horribly and are really dibilitating when I have them). So last month I went to a headache specialist (I'd tried several other specialists over the years, but they all wanted to give me pain medicine, whereas I've always wanted to find out what causes them and get to the root of the problem, not just cover up the pain. I didn't go to those doctors more than once.) When I was expecting Rachel my headaches seemed to magically disappear! I had a whole host of other pregnancy related issues, but thankfully headaches wasn't one of them. And after she was born I went for over two years without problems with them either. It was wonderful. But over the summer they started up again. I resorted to what I've always fallen back on, Excedrin. I had broken myself of it several years ago (with really bad caffeine withdrawl headaches to show for it), but it's really the only thing that took them away. So I started taking it again. And of course one of the first things the doctor wanted me to do was to stop taking Excedrin. He also put me on a medication to help me sleep (regular sleep patterns are a must for migraine sufferers, I've learned, and even though mine aren't technically migraines, it helped! My headaches went away for about three weeks! I was sleeping great, too, which was an added bonus. The drawback was that I was sleepy ALL the time, not just at night. I also started feeling dizzy and lightheaded. And my headaches came back. So yesterday I went back to the doctor. My blood pressure was high while I was there, and he said that was probably causing my dizziness and he didn't want me on a medication that was doing that to me. So he switched my medication yesterday. It's still supposed to help me sleep and keep my headaches away, but hopefully the other problems will go away. He also put me on magnesium, which I guess is supposed to help with headaches. At any rate, today I didn't have a headache! And I haven't been tired. So hopefully this new medicine will do the trick and we'll have solved the 21 year headache problem! And now that I've told you my life story of headaches, let's move on to something more exciting.

Today we went to a birthday party for a friend's little girl who was turning five. Rachel's friends with her and her younger sister, who is actually just a week older than Rachel. It was a soccer party, because my friend teaches soccer at this indoor soccer place, called "Locker Soccer." They played lots of games with soccer balls. I thought Rachel would love it, and I think she would've done great if I hadn't been there, but because I was there she wanted me to hold her hand and be with her every minute. She was afraid to venture out on her own to play the games with the other kids. She ran around and kicked balls a little, but after a couple of minutes she kept coming back to me. I hope she's over this phase before it's time for me to be a room mother or a brownie leader or something like that. Otherwise I may never be able to do those things, because she'll be clinging to me the whole time! She also thought she should be able to open a present (she doesn't quite get it that only the birthday girl gets to do that), and wanted her cake NOW, rather than waiting for them to take pictures of the birthday girl with her cake, sing happy birthday, and wait for the cake to be cut and passed out. She has a lot to learn in birthday party ettiquite, I've discovered!

So that's about everything that's going on in my world besides potty training. We'll see how this next week goes in that department. She's been kind of on-again, off-again with it the last couple of days. Hopefully it'll keep improving.

cabin fever

Because there's nothing else going on in my world right now, and it's truly the biggest thing on my mind at the moment, how about we talk about the potty some more!

Seriously, does everyone stay home all day every day when they potty train their children? Because that part of this process is really grueling. At least it's the dead of winter and there's snow and ice outside, so I'm not quite as tempted to get out as I would be in, say, June, when the weather is warm and sunny (but at least then she could run around outside in her underwear and we could get out). But I really, really, need to go somewhere, or I'm going to go crazy. Monday I ran quickly to the library after my husband got home, but I couldn't stay out long because he had to get to the gym. Tuesday I went to the grocery store after I put Rachel to bed (I really did need a few things, but I also just needed to leave!). Yesterday I made a quick trip to the post office after he got home, but again, I couldn't linger because on Wednesdays he helps with the youth group at church, so I had to get home so he could leave. Today I think I may put a pull up on her and leave, because, well, just because I want to. And she must be going crazy because she hasn't stepped foot out of the house since Sunday morning! Poor girl!

My friend Nancy suggested the plastic training pants. Maybe I'll go try to find some today so I won't have to resort to a pull up when we go out. They're basically the same as diapers, plus they're more expensive than diapers. I'm trying to avoid them as much as possible, but I did buy one pack, and someone gave me an almost brand new pack that their daughter didn't use.

We've had another successful morning, potty-wise, so far today. Let's hope it continues! Everyone told me that by the third day it would get better. I guess they were right! It was rough getting to that day, though. I hope it can only get better from here!

the potty update--UPDATED FURTHER

For those of you who are interested, here's what's been happening in the potty training adventure the last day and a half. Those of you who aren't interested (and I'm sure there are plenty, because, really, who wants to hear about a two year old's bathroom habits????), you can just skip this post.

Yesterday was a bad, bad day, which is why I didn't post. I was really discouraged because we had many accidents and really no success (unless you count the time she was standing near the potty when she started to go on the floor, and I got her on the potty in time to catch the tail end of it. I still made a celebration of it, because it was the only thing close to success we'd had so far, and the poor girl needed some encouragement, so she finally got her sticker then. But that was the only glimpse of sunshine the whole day). I was ready to give up, especially after her nap when she asked me several times to wear a diaper. I really, really wanted to give in, but I decided to keep trying.

Last night my husband suggested that we try it for one more day to see if there was any improvement, and if there wasn't that we could take a break and try again in a month or so. So I decided to stick it out one more day.

This morning she was dancing around like I saw her doing yesterday just before she started to go (but yesterday it didn't really dawn on me that that's what she was doing). Today I recognized the little dance and put her on the potty. She sat there for a few minutes and all of sudden she stood up with a steady stream down her leg. I don't know if she had started and stood up because it felt funny or if she stood up and then started to go, but at any rate, I said, "No, Rachel! Sit on the potty! Put it in the potty!" She sat back down and finished the job. I was so excited and so proud of her! (Yeah, I know, get a life, Weed! Excited about pee???) I made a huge deal out of it. She finally got the Baby Jaguar sticker she had been hoping for all day yesterday (yesterday she chose Diego, and after that she decided she really wanted the Baby Jaguar one), and she had an ear to ear grin on her face.

Daddy was very excited, too, when he came home for lunch and we told him.

There weren't any accidents this morning, so I'd call it a successful morning! We'll see how this afternoon goes. But I feel much, much better and hopeful today about the whole thing.

UPDATE: 6:55 PM

Guess who just went on the potty two times!? Still no accidents today, either.

So I guess it's good that I didn't give up. Maybe we're getting somewhere!

day one...a lesson in perserverance

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, what a day.

By the time naptime rolled around today, I'd cleaned up four wet accidents (thankfully all but one of them happened on the kitchen floor) and we hadn't had a single success on the potty yet. I was ready to throw in the towel.

Rachel woke up around 7:00 this morning and immediately remembered that last night I showed her a Dora sticker chart and told her that tomorrow she'd be wearing big girl pants and using the potty, and if she used her potty she'd get to put a Dora sticker on her chart. She was so excited, and as soon as she remembered this morning, she asked to sit on the potty. So she did--for almost 45 minutes, the trooper! But nothing happened. I gave her apple juice. Nothing. We read books. Nothing. She drank milk and ate cheerios. Nothing. At one point she looked down and said, "Come on, pee pee!" Oh, how I wanted to give her one of those Dora stickers! She was trying so hard and wanted one so badly.

All morning she'd go to the potty as soon as I'd tell her to, sit for quite awhile, and do nothing. She'd get up to play some more and within a few minutes, produce a puddle on the floor. "Uh oh," she'd tell me.

Naptime came. I had her sit one more time and we read books (we normally read books before naptime, but usually it's in the rocking chair with her in my lap). I sat next to her on the bathroom floor, and she kept slowly inching her little bottom from the potty over to my lap. I'd move her back over to the potty, and slowly she'd make her way back over to my lap. Poor little girl--just wanted to be held. And I wanted to hold her. But not with a bare bottom which was a ticking time bomb. Finally I put a pull up diaper on her and let her sit and snuggle in my lap for a few minutes before bed. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Comfort and relief for both of us.

I was really hoping her pull up would be dry when I got her up. No such luck. When she got out of bed I put her on the potty, where she sat for about an hour (watching a video, so she was happy to sit still to watch). But nothing happened. Daddy came home and I left for a half hour or so to go the library (truth be told, I really needed to get out of the house!). While I was gone she had another accident. Daddy didn't do too well with that, I guess. She sat on the potty several times after that, but to no avail.

Now it's bedtime. No more chances for her sticker today. Poor little thing. She's been such a good sport and tried so hard all day. No tears or complaining, just asking every so often, "Can I have my sicker now?" My heart breaks as I have to tell her no, that she needs to use the potty first. She struggles to wiggle her pants down and sits back down to try some more, even without my telling her to. You can't fault her for not trying. It makes me so sad that she didn't get it.

So many times today I've wanted to just put a diaper on and have our happy day of play back. I want to hold her on my lap (without fear of getting wet). But I know I wouldn't be doing either of us any favors if I gave up now. I might have to, if we keep having unsuccessful days--maybe she just isn't ready--but I'm not quite ready to stop yet. Close, but not quite. Tomorrow is another day.

t-minus 11 hours and counting...

...until we embark on the potty training adventure of 2009.

Starting tomorrow morning there will be no more diaper changing.... just messes to clean up. I've contemplated just letting her run around with no pants on, but I don't think she'd like that very much, so I'll put her in her cloth training pants (she calls them "big girl pants") and we'll see what happens. I have apple juice boxes for her to have to make her have to go more often, (these are a big treat because she normally only drinks milk or water, and she loves the boxes) and I plan to put her on the potty every 30 minutes so she can hopefully have some success. It's going to be a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong day, but hopefully by doing it this way, instead of with pull ups, she'll get the idea faster, since who wants to wear wet underwear????

Make that a loooooooooooooooooooong week: I've purposely left this week's schedule clear, and my one agenda item is to stay home and put her on the potty. Anything else that gets done is icing on the cake, in my mind. Wish us luck. Here we go!

all of us

Here's the picture I mentioned of us all.

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2008: the recap

Christmas Eve

We decided to go to the earliest service at church (3:00!!) because last year we went at 4:30 and it was so packed that we barely got a space for Rachel in the nursery and we barely got a seat (had to sit in the second or third row, squished together). They were asking people with flexible schedules to go to the earlier one, but apparently, everyone else had flexible schedules too, because EVERYONE was at our service. We got there early enough that we got Rachel a nursery spot and we got some seats, but by the end it was packed to the gills. My friend, Emily, said they had to stand! It was strange to walk out of a candlelight service and have it still be light outside. I didn't like that part. Oh, and the rain. I didn't like that either. It's not supposed to rain on Christmas Eve. But it did. All day. Here's Rachel before we went, all dressed up.


We came home and made our annual Christmas dinner. We always make something special. Last year it was scallops. This year we made king crab legs. They were great, and I've never heard my husband go on so about a home cooked meal. I wish he was always so complimentary! Even Rachel ate (and liked!) some crab.

After dinner we had Rachel decorate her own little Christmas tree, which we decided to call our Santa Tree, the place where Santa would place his gifts, to keep them separate from the gifts from Mommy and Daddy. She had a great time decorating it. We got milk and a snack ready for Santa (we didn't have any cookies, so we left him graham crackers and a piece of fudge--he still ate them and said he enjoyed them in the note he left!) and carrots for the reindeer.

She opened her one present on Christmas eve (PJs--a tradition left over from my childhood) and Daddy read her "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and the Bible Christmas story before bed, also a tradition we started (he even read them to her on her first Christmas eve, when she was only 8 months old--hopefully she'll enjoy them even more with each coming year).


After she went to bed, Santa's Elves got to work and then we watched "A Christmas Story" (on for 24 hours on TBS--we just watched it once!).


Christmas Morning

Rachel woke us up talking around 5:50. This is becoming a trend lately that we don't like. Usually if she's awake before 6, I go in and tell her that it's still nigh-night time, and she needs to go back to sleep. But since we knew we needed to get going, we decided not to do that. We let her talk awhile, while my husband took and shower and got ready to go downstairs to turn the lights on and the video camera ready. Meanwhile, I went into her room and said, "Merry Christmas! It's Christmas morning!" In the last week or so since the presents had been wrapped, she'd ask to open them and we'd say, "Not 'till Christmas morning!" So when I told her, "It's Christmas morning!" she immediately said, "Open 'em? Open 'em?" She knew immediately what we were going to do that morning.

Once Daddy was ready she and I went downstairs. The first thing she saw was the train table. "Ohhhhhh......trains!" she said, as she ran over to the table. She discovered the sounds it made as she moved the trains around the track. We let her play with it for quite awhile, but then tried to get her to come open the gifts and stocking Santa had left under her little tree. It took a lot of coercing to get her to stop what she was doing--and this continued the whole morning. Everything she opened, she was soooo excited about and wanted to play with. She'd play with it awhile, go back to something else she had already opened, and finally we'd get her to come over and open something else.

Some of her favorite things she opened were the tutu I made her (which she put on over her PJs and then later with her new cowboy hat and bandanna!), chalk for her easel, and the Tinkerbell video (which we bought to go with her portable DVD player she also opened--more a present for us than for her, though, since it means she'll be quiet on long trips from now on!!!). But really, she loved every single thing--even the outfit she opened, which most kids wouldn't be too excited about. She wanted to put it on right away. It was just so fun to see her so excited and enjoying everything so much.


She kept going back to the train table, though. I thought this was so funny--her PJs, tutu, cowboy bandanna, and playing with her trains..... This is how she spent most of the morning.

There was a leotard to go with the tutu. After awhile I finally put it on her. She loved it, but kept saying, "Mommy, where's my pants?"My husband and I exchanged several gifts, too. He had asked for an iPod classic, and I was determined to get it for him, but that meant I couldn't get him much else. But I wanted there to be more presents under the tree, so I wrote a bunch of little poems and wrapped them up in boxes. The first one said something about his gifts being under the tree, "but ten push ups you first must do before you get gift number two." Each box had some task he had to complete, like jumping jacks, running up and down the stairs, and things like that. So after he opened the first five poem gifts, gift number six was his iPod. He spent most of the rest of the morning transferring his music over to it. And if you know him, you know just how much music that is! But there's still over half the memory left, so he has lots more room.

He surprised me on a few things (namely a card table, which I really thought was a painting for the wall when I saw it all wrapped up!). I got the new lamps I wanted for our family room, a microwave, which we desperately needed, since ours is on its last leg, a necklace, some gift cards to some of my favorite places, and a few other things.

This is the marble run Daddy made for Rachel. She loves it, especially the marbles. She sat at breakfast that morning and just watched them speed down the track over and over.

After the presents were all opened, we had to get everything packed and ready to go by 11:00 so we could be at my parents' house by 2:00. Rachel watched some of her Tinkerbell movie on the drive up, but she fell asleep after about 40 minutes and slept almost the rest of the way. We were really glad, since last year she didn't sleep on the ride and it resulted in a way too wound-up/overly tired little girl come evening.


Christmas Afternoon

When we arrived at my parents' house Rachel's cousins were there, and anxious to open more presents. My younger brother, Jack, and his wife, Megan, weren't there yet, but my mom decided to go ahead and have the kids open their presents. It actually worked out really well this way, because we all weren't trying to open our own presents at the same time, so the parents and grandparents could concentrate on watching the kids open their presents and help them get them out of the package so they could play with each one (those awful twist ties and plastic wrap are SO annoying!!!). Since her cousins are older and more experienced, they whipped through their presents pretty quickly, while Rachel wanted to stop and play with each one, so her present opening lasted a lot longer. Some of her favorites were her Little People princess castle and coach, Leo's baton (from The Little Einsteins--here she is conducting), and some Thomas trains: Rosie, Lady, and the musical caboose.

She loved pretending she was "Dr. Rachel" with her new doctor's kit. Here she is giving Grandpa a checkup (looking in his ears and giving him a shot).

Grandma wanted a picture with all of the grandkids. Trying to get four children to sit still, smile, and look at the camera at the same time is nearly impossible. Alex wouldn't get in the picture at first, and then even after he did, he was sad.

We also took a group photo later in the day. My brother, Ted, gave us all picture frames covered in slate from the house where we all grew up (the house has since been destroyed by a fire, which is devastating to all of us, but when he went once to walk around and look at the property, he found the slate from what was once our front hall), and he wanted us to get a family picture to put in it. He got the best one, which I'll try to put on here on another post.

My mom then gave us all our presents--we each got a huge box and she told us to open them at the same time. Inside were all of our gifts, so we only had one to unwrap! My brother said, "It's like a goodie bag of all the things I like!"

The rest of the day was spent playing with toys, talking, eating, laughing, and having a good time together as a family. Rachel was as good as gold the whole time and just had the best time playing with her cousins, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. It was a great day.

The Day After Christmas

The next day we got up and went to celebrate with my husband's family. Rachel had a good time playing with her cousins (especially with Ashley's tent, which was a big Tinkerbell tent that went over her bed) and Granny and Papa. There she opened a present that was more than twice her size! Her uncle wanted to know who was getting the coffin for Christmas.... Can you tell what it is?

If you guessed a sled, you're right! It's the biggest sled I've ever seen! When she told me on the phone before Christmas that we could all three fit on it, she wasn't kidding!

After lunch Rachel and Ashley took a nap and the adults were able to play a game, which was fun. We spent the rest of afternoon with them and then headed back to my parents' house, where my aunt, uncle, and cousins had arrived. It's always fun to see them, and we spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other. We all stayed up late playing a game, which was full of laughs.

It was a great weekend, full of lots of food and fun with family. I'm sad it's over, after looking forward to it for so long, but it'll make it all the more exciting when it comes along next year.

odds and ends

We're home again, recovering from the hustle and bustle of the last week. I'm sad it's all over, but it was really, really fun. I'll write a recap with pictures soon, but wanted to get a short post up now. Here are a couple of funny things that happened before Christmas that I wanted to make sure to remember for posterity.

*Daddy was working on Rachel's marble run he made for her for Christmas, and was covered in saw dust. He came in from the garage as Rachel was sitting at the table eating a snack of graham crackers. "Daddy, you eat gwam cwackers too?" she asked, innocently, as she looked at the "crumbs" on the front of his jacket.

*She was feeding me pretend letter cookies, which were actually pieces of her letter puzzle. She gave me the "N" cookie. I pretended to take a bite and said, "Mmmmm, it's scrumptious!" "No, it's N, Mommy!" she replied!


*We went to a very crowded Christmas Eve service at our church. Rachel was in the nursery, which is only for 2 year olds and under on Christmas Eve, so there were lots and lots of kids in the service (hard to believe that next year she'll be old enough to have to come sit with us!). Anyway, there was this little girl sitting on her daddy's lap right next to me. She was probably 3. She had a hard time staying quiet, and was asking her dad a million questions. After the music, when our pastor went up on the stage to give the short sermon, the little girl asked, "Who's that, Daddy? Is that Jesus?"

run, run, as fast as you can...

Yesterday our house was overrun by gingerbread men!

My mom came down to introduce Rachel to the story by making gingerbread men with her.

It started with the cutest gingerbread men matching aprons (which she then gave to me, so now Rachel and I have matching aprons).

And making the dough.

While the dough was chilling, they read the story.

After naptime they rolled and cut out the cookies.

And decorated them with buttons and eyes (some have more eyes than others....you can guess who did those!).

After they cooled, the frosting was added and then they were ready to eat..

Judging by the amount of dough she ate

and the fact that she ate the entire cookie (and asked for more all night long),

I'd say she enjoyed it!

Thank you, Grandma!!

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

It's hard to believe it's less than 2 weeks until Christmas!

Yesterday my husband took the day off because I had a doctor's appointment (still dealing with the headache issues, which I'll write about one of these days) and because he had a day to use before the end of the year. We had decided to spend it doing Christmas things. So after I got home from the doctor, he and Rachel went shopping for Mommy's present while I went grocery shopping. It was so nice to go to the store all by myself! He, unfortunately, didn't have as good as an experience, as Rachel decided to fuss and tell Daddy she was tired and wanted to go home for most of their trip. I guess she really was tired, though, since she fell asleep in the car on the way home! At least she knows what she needs.

During her nap he and I wrapped all of her presents. He grew up having most of the presents under the tree throughout the weeks before Christmas, and that's the way he likes it. He thinks it allows the anticipation to build. It was never that way in our house, so I would prefer to keep them hidden until Christmas morning, but it isn't something I felt was worth arguing about, so her presents are now under the tree. She noticed, of course, after her nap, and wanted to open them right away. I can't count the number of times since then that she's asked to open them. I have to keep telling her that she can't open them until Christmas morning.

Yesterday afternoon Rachel and I made a "gingerbread house," minus the gingerbread. We used graham crackers instead.

She liked making it, but was mostly just interested in eating the candy!

So it's very Christmas-y around here these days!

a fun visit

So we made it! Weather didn't interfere, and though my cold was quite annoying and I couldn't be quite as helpful to Allecia as I would've liked to have been as a result of feeling yucky, I hope that our being there was still a blessing to her (and didn't make any of them sick!).

Sweet Marin was so precious and such a good baby. I had forgotten how light newborns are! And how sweet their little noises are! I enjoyed seeing Allecia dress her up in one of the outfits we gave her, complete with a bow in her hair.

We went to the children's museum for a couple of hours, where I met up with my college roommate and her youngest son (sadly, I didn't get any pictures!....just a few of Rachel playing).She hadn't met Rachel, so it was fun to see them, although we didn't get to talk much, with our kids all running off in different directions.

To help entertain Kaden we made and decorated cookies

played with play doh (over and over and over...and they never tired of it!)

painted, and did some crafts. The kids had a great time. They played hide and seek several times (and each hid in the same place every time....at least it's not just Rachel who does that!) and squealed with glee each time they found the other. Here they are playing horsie....sort of.

I was very sad to leave my friend, not knowing when we'll see each other again. It is nice to be home, though (especially since I won't have to sleep in the same room as Rachel...which resulted in her in my bed on the first night, kicking, singing, and throwing her arms across me declaring, "Mommy, I vewy, vewy hungwy" at 4:00 AM! It was not a good night!). I just wish she didn't live so far away.

(Here's Rachel kissing "Baby Mahwin." She asked to hold her several times and was very gentle.)

my thoughts on winter (and it's not even winter yet!)

Yuck, yuck, yuck.

I can't believe winter technically is not even here yet. I already despise it. Yes, the snow was really pretty the other day. Yes, I'm looking forward to Christmas. But otherwise, winter, I don't like you. Don't bother coming this year, if you please.

Why? The number one reason is sickness. You already read about our "Thanksgiving from hell," as my dad called it many times. (Actually, Thanksgiving was nice. It was the days following Thanksgiving which were less than ideal.) It took my husband and me all week to feel normal again, stomach-wise. And then Saturday night, while on a date together (a once or twice a year event that I had been anticipating for quite awhile), I had a relapse. Ugh. In a public restroom. Not. Fun. At. All. Otherwise, the date was great! Then yesterday I woke up feeling like I was getting a cold. A cold. After just finishing up an antibiotic for a sinus infection less than a week ago! What is going on????

Rachel and I are leaving in a few hours to go visit Allecia, Kaden, and new baby Marin. I've been looking forward to it for months. Now I have a cold (not to mention headache issues, which is its own post for some other day) to contend with. But another reason I despise winter is related to this trip....the road conditions. This trip, like I said, has been planned for months. We knew that after Allecia had the baby, Rachel and I would go visit for several days to help entertain Kaden, cook dinner, and try to help out Allecia in any way we could. But everything has to be dependent on the weather in the winter. You can look forward to a visit forever, but unless the weather cooperates, in the winter, you can't count on that visit. Thankfully, it looks like the weather is going to cooperate for the traveling days for this visit, but sometimes it doesn't always work out that way.

For instance, my mom is planning on coming down next week for a couple of days because she's been wanting to make gingerbread men with Rachel. She got her the story, a stuffed gingerbread man, and even a cute little pink gingerbread shirt, and I've been looking forward to it for weeks (Rachel, I'm sure, would be too if she knew about it....but you can't tell that girl anything more than a couple of hours in advance. I made the mistake of telling her about our trip to see Kaden a couple of days ago and I haven't heard the end of it!) But I can't bank on any of it happening because who knows what the weather will be next week. I really hope it works out.

Ugh. Winter, please don't come. You can sprinkle a little more snow so we have a white Christmas (but please don't interfere with any of our travel plans!), and maybe even play out in it a bit (Rachel really, REALLY wants to build a snowman!!) but then you must go away. Got it?

Note: Yes, it really is 5:40 AM....I've been up since 3:30 with way too much on my mind about this trip--I haven't packed, due to the-worst-headache-in-my-life which I dealt with yesterday. As soon as my husband wakes up I'll be springing into action. Meanwhile, I've been making a list and checking it twice...no, three times.....

kwissmiss time!

Yesterday I spent most of the morning putting up Christmas decorations around the house (all except the tree). Rachel was SO excited and kept going all around the house looking at them, playing with the stuffed animals, and especially with her Little People Nativity set, declaring with glee every few minutes, "It's Kwissmiss Time!"

When it was naptime she asked me sadly, "Kwissmiss over?" I had to try to explain that it's not Christmas day, just Christmas time, and we were getting ready for Christmas day, which wasn't for a few weeks. Time is lost on a two year old.

Today after church we put up our tree, which is what Rachel's been talking about wanting for weeks and weeks, every time we ask her what she hopes Santa brings. We kept trying to tell her that we would put up a tree before Santa came, but again, try explaining timing to a two year old. It doesn't work well. But anyway, she was thrilled today. She was mostly in the way while she "helped," but she had fun trying. We did a little while she was up and the majority of it while she was napping, which made it go much more quickly. After her nap she came down to this

and couldn't have been happier. (Notice her Wonder Pets cape....she wears it almost constantly these days, taking it off only for meals and sleeping.)

comfort

Yesterday was a bad day. Nothing really bad....just lots of little annoying things happened, which, when built up, amounted to a frustrated Weed. At dinner last night my husband was trying to cheer me up, which usually doesn't work, but he always tries, bless his heart.

Then he said to Rachel, "Rachel, what should we do to help Mommy get happy?"

She thought a minute, looking at me.

With a big smile and her two year old confidence she declared, "A KWEENEX!"

I started to laugh, and it was just what I needed to pull me out of my funk. See, anytime Rachel starts to get sad about something, she says she needs a kleenex. Whether she's crying or not, a kleenex always makes her feel better. So what else would she think of to make her Mommy feel better!? Of course! A kleenex brings everyone comfort, doesn't it?

some new sayings

Just in the last few days she's developed some new phrases....



*It's so cute, Mommy! (when talking about her baby dolls)



*Yo-ah kidding! (You're kidding--when talking on her play phone--I asked her where she heard that and she said on Max and Ruby)



*Wisten Kwismiss Moosic? (listen to Christmas music? She says this when I take her in to play in her play pen each morning. She has a children's Christmas music CD that I started playing for her and she loves it)



*Jus 'tend, Mommy (I'm just pretending, Mommy. She tells me this when she makes an animal sound and I say, "Are you an elephant?" Or if she fake cries, and I say, "Are you a baby?")

Thanksgiving pictures

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving day--before all of the sickness began.

One of the toys my older nephew and niece enjoyed at Grandma and Grandpa's house was this "Bop It Extreme." My parents have had it for several years and every once in awhile someone gets it out and everyone enjoys playing it a few times. At one point I had the high score, but I don't know if anyone ever beat it.

The kids all love playing with Legos,

and Rachel was finally allowed to join in the fun this year. Up until this year she had been too young because she would've put the pieces in her mouth. I don't think she even tried this time (although there are plenty of times she still does try to put things in her mouth that she shouldn't). She had a great time, mostly pulling the pieces apart (sometimes with help) and making a tower by stacking a bunch of bricks on top of one another.

At dinner time my husband tried to take a picture. Sadly, Rachel was already eating and was in the highchair back in the corner between my husband and me, so you can't even see her in the picture! I'm sad she won't be able to see herself in the future and know she was there, too!

home at last

Two days later than planned, but we made it home this morning around 11:30. I'm feeling much better today after a miserable day yesterday. My husband's still not feeling great, but much better than Saturday, and thankfully Rachel hasn't seemed to catch it.

Today's December 1st, and I had to acknowledge the day with my mom's traditional Dec. 1st song that she used to sing us every year and her mom used to sing her every year.

Oh, December how I love you,
And the joyous sounds you bring.
Winter snow and winter sleighrides,
Hear the merry sleighbells ri--ing,

chorus:
"Jingle, jingle, jingle on the frosty air
Tis a jolly sleighride I de-clar--er--er--er.
Jingle, jingle, jingle all the world is fair,
Jingle, jingle, jingle everywhere.

Hear the voices of the sleighbells
Ringing out so loud and clear
Telling with their merry voices,
"Santa Claus will soon be here---re"

chorus