Stocking Unstuffers

The morning after we celebrate Christmas the girls (and Joe) wake up to stockings full of goodies. I especially love stuffing the stockings full of items I know they will love.

This year the girls got new hairbows. They also got a set of butterfly cup, plate, and placemat from the dollar aisle at Target. Theia refuses to wear the hairbows in her hair for more than 20 seconds, but they both love the bowl/plate/placemat combo. They eat on their placemats for every meal and use their new bowls/plates as often as they are clean.

They also got crayon wallets. I had a lot of fun creating this pattern and sewing these little wallets. They were especially great for our travels home the following day!

Theia LOVES little things, so included in her stocking were little tiny playing cards. She has enjoyed picking them up, putting them in various carrying devices and happily toting them around the house. This is hours of entertainment.

Also in the stockings were Christmas kitty pillowcases for the girls to put on their pillows at Christmas time (we took them home for their pillows while we were travelling so they'd get to use them this year), socks, underwear, clips, some candy, and an angel ornament Great Grandma Friess made for each of them.

There are no pictures of Joe opening his goods, but he got a stud finder which doesn't work, a wireless mouse, and lots of candy.

Meet Quincy

We've updated the bookshelf picture, we thought you'd like to see it:

We'll post a more complete update sometime in mid-September.

A Christmas Story

Our family Christmas celebration was on Saturday, December 19th, just two days before we planned to board a plane to head to the midwest. We started the evening with dinner. Joe and I were the only ones that ate since cheesy tortilla and applesauce weren't on the menu. The girls enjoyed their milk and bread, however.

After dinner, we put the Yule log on.

For those unfamiliar with this tradition (I'm guessing that's nearly everyone), I will explain. It started many years ago with Crazy Man Tim. Each year after Christmas when the tree was being taken down he would save a piece of the trunk from the Christmas tree, remove its branches and store it for use to ceremonially begin the Christmas festivities on the following year. The tradition continues at our house, which is a good thing, since Joe's dad LOST the Yule log at his house this year. There's usually some fanfare, spinning of the log, and ridiculous singing involved as the yule log makes it's way into the fire (thus the goofy expression on Joe's face). Each family makes the yule log tradition it's own, and Joe has made our home unique in that he saves our ENTIRE tree in the backyard all year long in some hidden corner of the yard until he cuts it up the day before Christmas. Less chance of losing a whole tree, I guess. Either way, it was a beautiful fire.

After the Yule Log hit the fire, Joe read the Christmas story from Luke 2. As he began reading, Xandra, on her own accord, ran over to the Christmas tree where we kept our Nativity set, and dutifully brought back each of the characters in the story one by one as Joe mentioned them until the scene and story were complete. It was very sweet that she understood enough of the story of Jesus to be able to identify the characters and find them under the tree. Theia, of course, got in on the action, too,

and happily wrestled Liyah to the ground when she curiously crawled over to see what the fun was all about.

The wrestling quickly stopped at the mention of present opening.

Liyah went first, as she had just two presents:

clearance onesies, a homemade skirt, and a matching shirt.

She headed off to bed and the big girls dug into their presents.

Xandra opened her kitty skirt, pink shirt, and matching bear outfit first. She and bear promptly tried on the outfits and found the fit to be perfect.

Theia went next, and surprisingly enough, found the same contents inside her package. She and her bear also tried their new clothes on.

One of her other gifts was a bear pillowcase (pictured above). She happily sleeps with it on her pillow every night.

Outfit number two for Xandra and some feety jammies (pandas and polka dots). She had outgrown all of her feeted jammies recently and was quite saddened by this, so seeing new jammies was VERY exciting!

The girls also received a table and chairs. My grandmother and I both played with this table and chairs when we were children. They have been sitting in one of our sheds for the two years we've lived here, and finally this winter I decided to get them out and refinish them for the girls.

Since I do most of the shopping and planning at Christmas, it is our tradition that Joe buys the girls one present just from him. His present is usually a big hit and this year was no exception.

This lion has a steel frame and can hold up to 150 pounds, yet he's light enough for the girls to drag him from one corner of the house to the other many times each day.

We finished the night off wrapped in blankets on the front porch drinking hot cocoa from snowman cups. The cups were a present from Joe to Xandra our very first Christmas with her. Our tradition is to drink from them each year after present opening.

The girls headed to bed and Joe and I shared a quiet present opening of our own before we said, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

Winter Wonderland

On Saturday, December 19th, Maryland received a dumping of record breaking snow. It was our second snow this winter (we had some great pictures of the girls playing in the first snow, but they've gone missing). We had a beautfiul fire burning in the fireplace all day while the snow fell and fell and fell.

Joe did most of the snow shoveling, but I helped out with a small patch between our living room and this small out building which houses my craft supplies, overflow groceries, and presents.

No, a robe, sweatpants and Joe's slippers are not standard issue snow shoveling gear in Nebraska.

It was a beautiful way to spend a weekend watching the snow fall and celebrating Christmas together.

Birthday Man

Joe's December 16th (for those not keeping track) birthday was celebrated with a Pumpkin Pancake breakfast. The pumpkin, of course, compliments of Farmer Joe's garden.

No birthday at our house is complete without the birthday plate, cup, and hat, although those sporting it are usually much smaller.

One of Joe's presents was a set of premium headphones from Hewlitt Packard. He purchased a set just like this in July with a laptop and his wife, upon wearing them for the first time, broke them in half. Not to worry, they were under warranty! It only took three months, two shipments (one to the wrong address), and hours on the phone, to straighten everything out. He had the new set just in time for his birthday.

The girls woke up in time to share some pancakes and presents with daddy.

Joe's real present: a Kindle. His Kindle came complete with a custom, handmade sleve for storage. Okay, it's really not that fancy, I made it, but it is one-of-a-kind. He's been downloading books like a madman, reading on the train, the treadmill, and I suspect anywhere else he's able.

Platypus Turns Two

Happy 2nd Birthday Platypus!

We love you very much!

Hide and Go Seek

In December Xandra and Theia began playing their first rounds of hide-and-go-seek together. It's been over a month and they're still playing. Here's what hide and go seek looks like at our house with a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 2 year old.

Location:
Aliyah's room, during diaper changes

Xandra hunts for Theia:
Xandra stands behind the blue chair in the nursery and counts, "One, two, three..." as quickly as she can all the way to 10. Theia runs around the room in circles (which is hard because the room is small) and then tries to get into the closet before Xandra is done counting. When Xandra's finished counting she walks directly to the closet and surprisingly finds Theia.

Theia hunts for Xandra:
When it's Theia's turn to count she goes behind the blue chair, says "Two (this is the only number she knows right now)," and then runs to find Xandra, who is surprisingly enough is also hiding in the closet. When Theia finds Xandra in the closet, she comes in the closet with Xandra to hide (I'm not sure who they are hiding from).

Variations:
In plain sight:
For a really tricky game of hide and go seek Xandra will run into my bedroom and stand in the middle of the room to hide.

Xandra hunts for Daddy:
About the time they were beginning to play hide and go seek, Xandra asked Joe to hide from her one night while she was preparing for bed. Xandra went to the bathroom and when she came back daddy was hiding on the top bunk of her bed. She came in and out of the room several times, as did Theia, and never saw him up there. Finally he broke his silence and everyone, including Liyah, pigpiled on the top bunk. Those daddies are so tricky!

Standing Tall

It's old news by now, but in mid December Xandra proclaimed, "Look, mommy, Aliyah's standing." Sure enough, Aliyah had pulled herself to a standing position. While I didn't see her pull to a stand, I was happy she stayed in position long enough to allow a picture of her in the act. I'm confident that the reason she stood for so long was that once she stood, she had no idea how to get back down.

Potty Talk

At the beginning of December we put away the training pants, got out the big girl panties and deemed Theia officially potty trained. Hooray! After about three and a half months of potty talk, lots of candy for successful pottying, and lots of accidents, we've now crossed into the land of one child in diapers.

It hasn't been easy. For awhile, I think the whole process was very confusing for Theia:

But now she knows: panties go on our bottoms and pee pee and poopy go in the potty.

We're experiencing a little regression this week on the pooping in your panties front, so we're back to candy and pep talks. My hope is for a short lived forray into changing poopy underwear, especially since we woke up this morning to a crib full of orange Aliyah puke.

Rolling in the Dough

Also on the tradition list at our house: Frosted Christmas Cookie Cutouts. Xandra and Theia assisted me in carefully measuring, dumping, and mixing up some dough for the cookies. After avoiding any major catastrophes and getting some usable and edible dough, they busily set to work with rolling pins and cookie cutters in hand cutting out the cookie shapes.

Theia's effort resulted in making a large mess and then eating her dough ball. Xandra's efforts also resulted in a large mess with her eating some dough and producing some recognizable Christmas shaped cookies. She was able to roll the dough out and cut the cookies herself. She only needed assistance transferring the cookies to the cookie sheets, otherwise the product was like Theia's, unrecognizable.

After baking the cookies we let them cool until Joe came home. After dinner, I frosted the cookies and he assisted the girls in decorating with sprinkles and candy. They immensely enjoyed this and were happy to put the sprinkles on one by one if given the opportunity.

A little video clip of the evening fun:

We shared the finished product with friends from MOPS, neighbors, and our Awana teachers. Xandra and I gobbled up a few, too, before they all went out the door.