The Wristband

I'm trying to think of how this got started.  I'm remembering that my friend Krista invited Bitty to her son Luke's 5th birthday party almost a year and a half ago, and that the party had a pirate theme.  Krista did a great job putting together these cute little cardstock treasure boxes with booty for each party goer inside.  The treasure that was the most contested at our house was a black terry cloth sweat band with a skull and cross bones stitched into it.  And when I say "contested," do you really have to ask by whom?  Bitty brings it home, Stomper sees it and desires it; she, in a moment of love and kindness hands it over and then later feels sorry and wants it back....sheesh.  It was the topic of their bickering for quite some time.  I think it only took about six months for Bitty to finally give in and just forget about it.  And Stomper has worn the thing nearly every single day since then.  Every. Single. Day. He often takes it into the shower with him to get it clean though that is having less and less affect these days; it is now starting to dissintegrate and the pirate skull is certainly white no longer.  It's more of a dingy grey color but as long as the jolly roger is still recognizable I think he'll keep it up.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the wristband arrived in our home just days before Stomper started second grade with the revered Mrs. Lloyd, who, on every child's birthday, dresses as a pirate and leaps into the class room so the birthday child can battle her with a saber.  She loves pirates.  In fact, for about the first three months of the school year she has a pirate theme to every stitch of homework the kids have.  It's kind of great; the kids sure love it.  So I think I need to let her know that her love of pirates has rubbed off on my child and doesn't seem to be wearing off. She'll be so proud.

I do not know what is going to happen when Stomper's permanent accessory finally decays and crumbles into dust from off his wrist.  I've tried getting him replacements - that was one attempt at solving the tug-o-war over the wristband between Stomper and Bitty, but both of them wanted the original, don't ask me why.  But at some point, he is going to have to let it go.  I am curious to see how long this lasts and what state the wrist band is in before he finally sends it to its final resting place.

I have to mention one other current passion of Stomper's.  It's called Hero Factory. It's a series of toys made by Lego, bless their expensive little selves.  They don't appear to be anything spectacular at first - basically they're these guys made up of a bunch of pieces that can interchange with legos but more importantly they interchange with each other.  This means, as long as your child picks up a few (or a ton) of them through various holidays, birthdays, prizes and earned cash, you can get quite a collection of them and then you know what you get?  Hours and hours of little boys playing happily together building, imagining and creating.  It is quite amazing.  I highly recommend obtaining a few characters and setting your boys free with them.  It's awesome.

Hairstyles and Sing-a-Longs

Bundle.  What a gal she is.  Troy and I have been watching her every day just getting to be such a big girl.  Most of the time we're enjoying her various antics, although I have to say that she is proving to me once again that there is no such thing as the terrible two's - the hard part doesn't come until the threes, that's for sure.  Okay, I guess she isn't three quite yet but we're getting closer and her mood swings and power struggles are gaining momentum.  She especially loves to cross her arms across her chest, look at the floor and scowl to express her anger and displeasure.  How do kids learn that?  Is it just instinctual?  How they figure out that pose is beyond me but I sure laughed my head off at her today as she was doing that and also telling me that she was "still very very mad about me."  But like I said for the most part we just eat her up.

I do have a little bit of a love affair/constant battle with Bundle's hair.  Even before she was born she had quite the head of hair - I had an ultrasound late in her pregnancy and it was so funny - there was something blurry waving around her head as she floated lazily in her little pool and when I asked the tech what it was I was surprised to learn that it was her hair.  She was born with a head full of this caramel colored curly hair, and I have never been able to bring myself to cut it.  Thus, as she is now 2 1/2, it is half-way down her back.  Mostly it's a big fuzzy mess all the time, but after she gets out of the tub it falls in the most wonderful ringlets down her back and I just love it.  And then she spends the rest of the day with it floating in a haze around her head except for the one little bit in front I've been able to plaster back in a rubber band.  Basically if I take the time to do it it is adorable, other than that she looks slightly like one of Orphan Annie's friends.

Best of all, Bundle loves to sing.  Troy has managed to capture a little of her singing, which I have not been able to do because when she sees me with a camera of any kind she instantly stops what she's doing and demands to see pictures of herself.  Troy, as it turns out, is much more sly.

My New Favorite

The kids and I can't stop watching this. Check out the making-of video too.  Wow.

Delightful

I may have mentioned before that one of my favorite things from my childhood is all the books my mother read aloud to us.  I am sure I’ve already mentioned my fondness for hearing Danny the Champion of the World, (Roald Dahl), but there was also Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan, (E.B. White), The Secret Garden, (Frances Hodgson Burnett), the Ramona books (Beverly Cleary) and the Hobbit (Duh) among so many others.  One of the very best was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.  I remember being completely enthralled by every moment of that book – it seemed to be the greatest adventure ever.  Funny, now that I’ve gone back and read it again I’m surprised by how short and simple it is, thought it still remains completely magical.

I think one of my clearest memories from the book is that of Edmund eating the Turkish Delight given to him by the White Queen.  I had never heard of the delicacy before and in my mind I imagined a treat so heavenly that I myself would have accepted it from the evil Witch.  How else could Edmund have succumbed?  It had to be the stuff of heaven, undoubtedly involving chocolate and possibly raspberries or toasted almonds and just got better from there.  Then one day my mom brought some actual Turkish Delight home in a little cardboard box.  Imagine our surprise when we saw the powdery little cubes and discovered that they were just these little squishy-jelly things with stuff in them, sort of like a cross between jello and fruitcake.  Horrors.  How could Edmund have been tricked with something as awful as that?  We were all disappointed and could only assume that C.S. Lewis had made a mistake.

Well.  Time has passed and now my  husband and I are the ones reading to our own children.  We also constantly listen to story CDs in the car as we putter along on our errands.  I find the distraction of great literature a tremendous help in staving off bickering. We are currently in the middle of Harry Potter 2, the Chamber of Secrets (my least favorite of all the books – my anxiety level gets elevated as we listen but we’ll persevere).  We just finished The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and my kids, as judged by their rapt attention, were just as drawn in as I had been.  I loved it all over again.  And then last night we attended a party to celebrate the graduation of our friend Cullen.  Guess what was on the table.  Turkish Delight!  I was so excited to show my kids and see what their reaction would be!  Certainly they would be as shocked and horrified as I had been.  However, it turned out that the only shocked and horrified person was…me.  My children were indeed excited to see what Turkish Delight really was.  And they ate every last piece and asked for more... 

Oh, my little Edmunds, perhaps I can procure an additional supply of the stuff and see if I can tempt you to do my bidding by offering it to you as a great reward.  (Cue menacing chuckle…..)

The Last Night

All alone, dark, quiet.  For a few minutes, anyway - I'm sure Bundle will be waking up and wanting snuggles soon.  In the meantime, I am sitting on the couch by the fire, enjoying the last night with our dear Christmas Tree.  Probably the last night, that is.  I don't think I've ever loved a tree like I've loved this one - it's so beautiful and I'm not sure I'm ready to take it down.  Of course, our living room has been full of Christmas stuff for more than a month now and I can't deny that even when I'm sad about saying goodbye to the holidays it is nice to clear out a few of the decorations and bring a little peace and space to the room.  Maybe we'll give the tree one more day, though.

It happens every year that I do my best to keep up with my blog posts all month long, and I do pretty well until the last week and then I'm done for.  There's no way I can celebrate Christmas and write about it too, and that's how it should be.  But I always find myself trying to remember it all a week later.  I'm so exhausted - mostly in a good way - I do love Christmas and we had a lot of wonderful times.  But it's hard too to have the kids home and over excited for so many days in a row.  No one should talk to me about summer vacation right now.

So let's see - where did I leave off?  I think I need to report first on Christmas Eve.  We were lucky enough to do something completely new and different this year - we've never celebrated Christmas ON Christmas with a member of Troy's family before - we always have a big family gathering the Saturday after Christmas.  But this year we found ourselves with no plans on Christmas Eve, plus we knew my brother-in-law Sam and his wife wouldn't be with her family like they usually are.  So we decided to spend the evening together.  I'm so glad we did.  In some ways we thought that it might have been fun to have a quiet evening at home with just us, but in my mind that would be happening after a long day of sledding and playing in the snow.  I don't think we've ever had such a green Christmas before.  Not a flake of snow in sight for days and days.  So we had already had a long day at home and I was so glad to head out that evening.

Kathleen, my sis-in-law, really worked hard to deck out her house with Christmas cheer - it looked so great. We had a wonderful time - we ate soup and yummy appetizers, we played games and made cookies.  Curtis, their oldest kid, spent the evening wearing his pajamas, trying to get us all to be quiet so he could go to sleep.  That was funny.  The 12 year old insisting he was exhausted so he could sleep. Anyway, it was a fun night and a great way to spend Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning the girls slept in just great.  Until 7:00 or so.  This is only considered late because their older brother had already been up twice.  Stomper apparently got Troy up at 4:00 but was convinced to go back to sleep. It wasn't until 5:00 that I felt someone grab my finger and start waggling it until I woke up just enough to send him back to bed again.  So yes, I'd say getting him to wait until 7:00 was pretty good.  Then we had a lovely morning opening gifts, watching Bundle get excited about getting "a baby named Niney," which she has been telling us for a month that Santa would bring her.  Stomper was excited about the additions to his lego collection and Bitty was greatly blessed in the Playmobile department.  So basically about 1000 new little tiny plastic objects were brought into our house.  Yahoo.  Actually the kids have been thrilled with their gifts and have played with them constantly, so that's a good sign.

I myself was blessed in the footwear department as I received the most beautiful pair of boots known to man. They've been on my wish list for a very long time and my husband was very nice to insist that we get the real pair I really wanted instead of a cheaper pair that looked a lot like them.  They've hardly left my feet since.

I also would like to claim a victory.  Troy and I decided long ago that a surprise is not what he wants for Christmas.  What he wants is getting something that he really wants, and that always means that he has already carefully decided what that is.  I gave up on surprising him long ago.  However, this year, I finally did it.  He doesn't have anything hanging on the walls of his cube at work and he spends a lot of time at home looking at pictures of his children and family.  So I made him these collages of the best pictures of his kids and framed them.  He had no idea.  I know it's just a simple little gift, but when he opened them he was delighted to the point of tears.  I finally did it!

After some awesome breakfast of sausage and eggs we got ourselves together and headed off to church.  Some people really don't care for church on Christmas day but I really enjoyed it.  Beautiful music and a great speaker.  Then we came home and the kids played while I cooked up a storm before we headed off to meet my parents and my sister and Troy's parents for dinner.  Roasted pork, perfect mashed potatoes, wild rice stuffing, peppermint ice cream.  A real treat.

After that it was time to scoop up our exhausted kiddos and tuck them into bed after a long and wonderful day.

By the way, it ended up taking me three days to finish this post due to the above mentioned "children," "excitement," and "wanting snuggles."  And our tree is still up.  That's next on the to-do list.  Probably.

The Big Day!

(And I’m not talking about Christmas.  Yet.)

I know many families whose children didn’t get out of school until just a few days before Christmas.  We ourselves had over a week to relax and get ready, which of course wasn’t relaxing in the slightest.  But we definitely had some fun over the past few days.  I can’t decide if it would be better to have fewer days off before Christmas or not.  I’m pretty tired out, I must admit, from keeping this train rolling over the past few days. 

Our biggest day of the week was probably Thursday.  Wow.  Big day.

We started by being bored, and happily I learned a terrific technique for staving off crazed children.  You just need some white glue and borax.  And look what you get - gak! It kept the kids quite busy while I tried to make a dent in the dishes.  I failed, but that’s beside the point.

After our gak-filled morning, we had the privilege of pulling together a little service project with my sister and her girls.  I was thrilled to add this activity to our holiday itinerary.  I had been trying to find something for my kids to do with their own hands to help someone in need.  We decided to not exchange gifts between the kids as we sometimes do and instead spend that money on something helpful.  We ended up going to the dollar store and purchasing large numbers of items with which to make hygiene kits for the YMCA.  We frustrated a few people in line behind us, but we had fun sending my kids off with their big-girl cousins on hunts for 20 bars of soap or shampoo and stuff like that.  Then we headed to my folks’ home to assemble the kits and enjoy some lunch.

I have to admit I rushed us through the last little bit because we had been invited to join my friend Krista in a Christmas outing and that was exactly I needed to boost my holiday spirit.  So we met up at the Gateway Mall (I was only ½ hour late or so…whoops) and then (another whoops) I discovered that the gingerbread house display I had told Krista about had shut down the week before.  Darn!  So after misleading Krista and her kids for a little while Krista mercifully took charge; we rallied the troops and headed over to The Grand America Hotel for a scavenger hunt of their window displays.  That was really fun.  Of course, Bundle and her little friend felt it entirely appropriate to find as many places as possible to lie down. Couches, floor, whatever, wherever. Kinda funny.

So that was an adventure that involved lots of parking and driving and directing the kids and breaking up arguments.  Worth it, (seriously tasty sugar cookies at the end...) but cost a lot of energy.  That was followed up by an evening of delivering neighbor gifts and then going on a drive to see Christmas Lights.  I have been wanting and wanting to go see the downtown lights this year but every night mustering the energy, not to mention the snowsuits and other gear necessary to prevent children from being cold and thus crying the whole time, has been beyond me.  So...we went for a drive.


By the time evening rolled around...mommy was all done.  

A Date With Bitty

Way back last July or something I had a date with Stomper. To Lagoon.  It was a really big date.  And ever since then I've been meaning to have a date with Bitty but we just haven't pulled it together.  Finally this week I managed some good one-on-one time with her, though the magnitude of our date certainly didn't compare with Lagoon.  I still owe her.  Although really, I don't thing kids care about the magnitude as much as they care about getting to spend time with their parents.  For now, that is.  I think when they're teenagers they compare price tags a little more than at the age of six.  Anyway, Bitty and I got to go out.

My sister Margaret got another gig playing cello up at Pioneer Memorial Theater, this time playing for Annie.  My Dad very generously bought us tickets to go see the show.  We didn't have time for dinner before, but Bitty and I had a great time sitting together.  I wasn't sure the show would hold her attention for the whole three hours but it totally did.  That gal loves the theater and any kind of live show.  She's sat through them since she was pretty little.  Annie has a lot of political stuff in it that goes over the head of young kids, but there was enough spectacle to keep her hooked.

I enjoyed the show too - Annie was a favorite at our house and so I pretty much knew every word and had to maintain control in order to not keep singing along with the cast.  Although, during the song Tomorrow, the entire audience couldn't keep themselves from joining in.  We all started out rather hesitantly or even unconsciously but then grew stronger and stronger as we all realized we weren't the only ones singing until everyone was just belting it out all together.

After it was over it was quite late but Bitty was happy and excited and I thought it might be nice to go get a treat together.  So we headed to Top It's - hello!  Closed for the season!  Bitty was slightly heartbroken - she's been dying to go there.  So then we tried my favorite - Dulcetti Gelato.  Also closed.  Boo hoo.  Third try's the charm - The Bakery.  Actually they were closed too but still had doors open and let us choose a few treats from the display.  Bitty's eyes were huge. Have you ever been there?  There are I think three long display cases, each absolutely packed with decadent treats and various delicacies.  She carefully picked out a couple of cookies, some cake balls decorated like ornaments and a mouse-shaped chocolate.  We sat at a table and nibbled at everything until we just had to go home and crawl into bed.

Bitty can be so charming.  She gets in her happy place and just showers cheer and joy everywhere.  Of course, the opposite can be true as well, but on good days there is no one as loving or thoughtful or kind or excited to do good than my little Bitty.  I hope I get a date with her again soon.

After 13 Years, A First!

Yes, it's Christmas Eve, late at night. Gifts have been set under the tree, Santa's cookies have been nibbled, a fire is crackling in the stove, and beautiful Christmas music is playing softly.  I really should be in bed; Troy is slumped over on the couch looking as exhausted as I feel and possibly wondering about my sanity as I sit here typing away, but since that has been in question for many years now it's nothing alarming.  I just felt that since I have a moment's peace I should take the chance to catch up on blogging about our busy week.  After all, chaos will reign all day tomorrow and by Monday I'll be even more behind on the blogging.  So I'm striking while the iron is hot, or while the children sleep in my case.  Also, Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the holidays and I'm not ready for it to be over yet.

I wanted to write first about last weekend - could it possibly have been only a week ago?  It feels like a month.  After 13 years of living in this house we have finally hosted our very first guests.  We've never attempted it before due mainly to the fact that our home only has one bathroom and it gets pretty crowded with just the five of us here.  We couldn't imagine getting that one bathroom to service an additional family as well.  But my brother Peter and his family were coming up from St. George to spend the weekend.  They had a friend party to attend plus we had to fit in our annual Waffles and Wassail night so we could see The Muppet's Christmas Carol together - third year in a row! My parents' kitchen was being remodeled and my sister was going nutty due to teaching and playing in the orchestra for a production of Annie.  These are two homes where Peter and Sheri normally stay during their trips up north. What to do!  Where to go! I mustered up my courage, checked in with my husband, and offered our home to them.  I think we were all wondering how it might work out.  The Romneys only ended up staying here for one night - it was a trial run, really, to see if this might be more of a possible landing spot for them in the future.

I'm so happy to report that their stay was very successful and I feel like we might be able to host other guests in the future.  By combining our air mattress and our foam camping pads (each somewhat uncomfortable on their own) we produced a seriously cozy bed in Chase's room.  Of course, if you're going to be a guest at our house you have to be really comfortable with us because the quarters are close and there is still just the one bathroom, but I thought it worked out great.

We had so much fun on our waffles night.  My favorite thing was that Stomper actually sat down and watched A Christmas Carol in its entirety.  The kids all enjoy the Muppets but they generally sit still for the first 20 minutes or so before getting restless and finally after that heading off to play in the other room. But Stomper was engaged with the story the entire time.  That's neat for me; A Christmas Carol is one of my very most beloved parts of the holiday season, and I usually watch at least 2 versions of it every year if not more.  I just don't seem to tire of it!  (Although this year I watched the Jim Carrey animated version for the first time and though several parts were wonderfully done I take serious issue with other bits and also question some of the really scary parts.  Sorry, I'm a movie critic in training.  I'll stop now.)

I so love spending time with Peter and Sheri and their darling girls.  I do wish they lived closer to us, but now that my other dear brother is in Seattle, St. George just doesn't seem that far away!

The One and Only Miss Kim

Is there such a thing as a mommy crush? Because if there is, I have one on my daughter's dance teacher.  Okay, not really a crush, but definitely some love and admiration for a woman who is a wonderful teacher for my girl.  Also she has the most amazing back ever and I would like to have one like it some day.  Observe:

Bitty took a long break from dance because for a while she refused to participate.  So we did a year of soccer.  Then when soccer ended I asked her if she'd like to do soccer again or give dancing another try.  (Sorry gal, I'm a one-thing-per-kid kind of mom.)  I was happy that she chose dance - ballet and tap.  I know there are a lot of places to go these days for dance but I'm pretty devoted to our Miss Kim who teaches up at the Steiner Rec Center.  She's just terrific.  I like how she teaches, I like how she handles problems, and I like that she doesn't do a big performance at the end of each semester.  We have a parent observation day where we get to go into class and the girls show off their dances for us and everything they've learned, but it's pretty laid back and that's how I like it.

Bitty was so happy in class, and last Friday during the final class I got to see how much she's really improved.  It's pretty neat. And I'm excited to continue on in January.  The best part of class had to be when Miss Kim demonstrated her tap dancing skills to show why she was teaching the girls the steps she was.  I really should have been taking a video or photos or something but I was too busy letting my chin hit the floor. Wow!  I just found out she teaches tap for grown ups....hmmm......I think I  might have to spend a little time with Miss Kim myself!

How to Get Really Sticky and Cold

Sometimes you have to read the fine print when purchasing a Groupon.  I was excited when I got my daily email notice and it was for a discounted admission to Hogle Zoo's Zoo Lights - I love going to Zoo Lights!  However, I didn't notice that the Groupon expired the first week of December - we really had to rush to fit the outing in our schedule and we were forced to go during a week of extremely freezing cold weather.

I think I did pretty well in preventing a miserable outing for the kids by making them all wear their snow suits despite the lack of a single snowflake on the ground.  Plus hats, gloves and a scarf or two.  We were well bundled. The girls were fine but Stomper grumbled about this.  Of course, he's the kid I have to bribe just to get him to wear a sweatshirt on top of his tee shirt every morning as he's leaving for school.  I guess he's more warm blooded than I thought.

All was well with our outing - the lights were lovely, the crowds were thin and the kids were happy.  Until they spotted the cotton candy hanging in the window of the snack bar by the big cats.  If you frequent Hogle Zoo at all you'll know that the cats are located at the single farthest point from the main gates you can go.  And silly me, I indulged them.  Of course, this means that the kids all pulled off their gloves in order to pluck at the puff of cotton candy and then suck it off their fingers.  So their fingers not only got completely sticky and pink but also wet and thus freezing cold.

I had so hoped we would have a night without tears and truly for the most part we had a great evening.  But for the last 15 minutes of our visit the Preslars could be seen running from one end of the zoo to the other while carrying at least one sobbing, sticky and pink child. Bundle was the most miserable of all but she seems to have forgotten that part and now asks me multiple times a day to take her "To the Zoo Lights Tomorrow."  Previously she had just asked to go to the zoo, but she's thrown the lights in there ever since our outing.  Lucky for me she has not figured out the actual meaning of the word "tomorrow." And since she never asks to go today, I can usually say, "Okay, we'll go tomorrow!"

The Finished Product and also Mommy Needs Therapy

Thought you might like to see our finished Christmas Tree:

I'm so fond of our tall scraggly trees. My mom calls them our "Charlie Brown Trees."  Yes indeed and proud of them!  They make me happy.

In other holiday news, we once again attended our annual first-Monday-in-December outing to The Mayfield's home for an evening of dinner, playing and of course building gingerbread houses.  I keep thinking, each year, that maybe THIS will be the year that I get  to make my very own very perfect little house and it will be all symmetrical and quaint and I'll magically have the perfect place in my house to display my creation.  It only took me one or two years to figure out that this would have to begin with me buying a separate house for myself than the children. And once you start down that path...there's no going back.  But you know, it just takes more than that.  You have to buy a little extra candy, which I didn't have time to do.  You have to also not have a young girl who insists on sitting on your lap and getting all handsy with your stuff.  Maybe next year Bundle will let me do my house in peace, but I seriously doubt it.  And also you have to not scurry through the assembly due to the fact that your kids all need help at the same time though you want them to just be quiet and leave you alone to obsess over your color coordination in peace.  So...I wasn't able to fulfill my OCD dreams of gingerbread perfection, but you know, gingerbread houses don't need much to turn out. I mean, stick some red and green candy on white frosting and you've got yourself a cute little house.  Pus I made a great discovery this year - Bed Bath and Beyond is selling a little kit that contains five tiny little houses instead of one big one.  It was really fun for each kid to get their own house, including wee Bundle who really did seem to thoroughly enjoy putting candy and frosting all over the thing. And when I say all over, I mean ALL OVER.   Luckily her daddy stepped in to help her out a bit while I was assembling houses and the like.

So it was that I resolved my feelings towards my less-than-spectacular house.  That is, until I took one look at The Misty's little house...shoot.  I suddenly had renewed compulsions and may just get myself one more house to do all by myself in the middle of the night so that I can stick it on top of the fridge with the other houses to collect dust until we smash them the day after Christmas.

(The Misty's House pictured below.  Like you couldn't have guessed yourself.)

I think I need therapy. But I hope we never discontinue our tradition.  Party because I love The Mayfields and partly because some day, oh yes, I will create my dream gingerbread house.