Pre-Christmas Christmasing

This has been a fun Christmas season. Though I feel like I've been involved in a lot more Christmas-related activities, it's actually felt relatively stress-free.

I attribute this to two things: firstly, I am no longer taking classes (Woohoo for graduating! Two years later and I'm still ecstatic!), which means that the first half of my December is not swarmed with papers and projects and grades and exams.

Secondly, we are going nowhere this Christmas. We had a lot of fun at my Dad's house over Thanksgiving (sorry that landed in one of my slacker no-posting months), but this Christmas technically belongs to Patrick's family. Since we live smack dab in the middle of that great group of people, we have NO travel plans. We even get to celebrate Christmas morning on our own. This will be the first time Patrick and I have done that since we've been married.

Here's a run-down of some of the ways we've been filling our December.

Christmas Piano Recital
I had a lot of fun putting on my first semi-formal piano recital. All nine of my students and one guest student played, and I resignedly played my requisite piece at the end. I've decided that, aside from having to play myself, I love recitals. Nothing quite prepared me for the sense of happiness and pride that came with hearing my students perform the pieces they'd been working on for so long. It was great!

Each student got a sparkly music ornament and a bag of candy. Cambrie has already appropriated one of the leftover ornaments for herself. I guess she likes glitter.

Sweater Stockings

Since we've never had Christmas at our own home before, we've never had a chance to collect stockings. A need for stockings plus a meager budget has led me on an exciting search for cheap stocking ideas. Eventually, I just want to make my own from cute fabric, but I wanted to go even cheaper this year. Enter a few of our old-and-no-longer-worn-sweaters...

As you can see from Cambrie's little finger in the above photo, she loves these stockings. Here are a few more pictures of her enjoying them as actual old school stockings, rather than toy-and-candy-holders. She still doesn't appreciate that function of theirs. Wait till tomorrow morning. It'll be a different story then.

When is too old to post a baby in a diaper? Ummm hopefully not yet...

Holiday Baking and Cooking

Luckily, my recent indifference toward sweets (courtesy of baby #2), has died down enough that I'm excited about baking yummy holiday treats. I don't have many pictures for this section, but I will say that I've had fun making everything from Black Bean, Sausage, and Sweet Potato Soup to classic Peanut Butter Blossoms. 

I also got together with a friend to try something completely new for me (to make, not to eat):

Pumpkin Roll

We both decided this recipe is a keeper. A bonus--though Pumpkin Rolls seem complicated, they're actually pretty straightforward. It has opened a whole new world of sugary pinwheel-ness to me.

Presents and Lights

Finally, we've had a lot of fun decorating for Christmas.

Making presents pretty is half the fun of Christmas!

There's always something about lights reflected in the windows. If I had an awesome camera, you would be able to see what I'm talking about.

These are the only decorations Cambrie is allowed to play with. Once I found a can of corn inside the stable. That's my kid, for ya.

Cambrie knows the people in the nativity pretty well, by now. So well, in fact, that if she had a little brother, she says his name should be "Baby Jesus." I think the choice for a little sister was "Lightbulb."

Christmas Joy

My favorite times this season have been singing and dancing with Cambrie to Christmas songs. Some of her favorites include The Twelve Days of Christmas (which I have to sing to her--I now know the order pretty well), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, Jingle Bells, and Away in a Manger.

This morning, however, it was too early for music--Grandma and Grandpa were still asleep. But when Cambrie came into the kitchen and asked me to dance with her in the living room, I couldn't resist. She even "put on her princess dress," first. (That meant going to my bead board for the piano students, pretending to pick off a bead, then having that turn into a beautiful, yellow dress. I really don't know where she gets these things, but I'm glad she does.)

Christmas glow, morning light, and spinning.

Taa-daa!

I know that Cambrie will never remember the details of this Christmas, but this is the first Christmas that she'll remember what generally goes on. You can bet that next year when we talk about stockings and Santa and Baby Jesus she'll know what we mean.

But I hope that even if she doesn't remember details, she'll remember the glowing lights, the fun and beautiful music, and the happy spirit. This will be trickier, but I hope that she'll think of Baby Jesus as often as she thinks about presents on Christmas morning. I hope that I can say as much for myself.

Merry Christmas, to all our family and friends! We hope you have a wonderful, fun-and-magic-filled day tomorrow, and, more especially, one filled with the Spirit of Christmas.

I Have a Question

"Mommy. Mommy!"

"What babe?"

"I hava quish...qu... ques-shtun for you."

That is a recent phrase for her. She must have discovered it's a good way to get our attention, but I don't think she realizes what it means. The habit she has of trying several times to get a difficult word right, however, is commonplace nowadays. I love to hear the syllables coming together, correctly, in her tiny mouth.

"Okay, babe. What's your question?"

Cambrie is sitting on a stool, leaning against the counter while I wash dishes. She's playing absentmindedly with this and that while we talk. "...Mommy?"

"What, babe?"

"A-Culios Geoge build a igloo ina house. A man a yellow hat sleeping a night."

"Yes, when the man in the yellow hat was sleeping, Curious George built an igloo inside the house. I remember that. Wasn't that silly?"

"Yes, was silly."

[small pause]

"Mommy, a-hava ques-shtun."

"Oh? What would you like to ask me?"

She pauses again, so I decide to help her out. "Hey, do you know what a question is? A question is when you ask somebody something. A question is something like, 'Do you like carrots?' or 'How far away is Christmas?' or 'Why is the sky blue?' "

"Oh." Another pause. "Mommy?"

"Yes, babe?"

A mischievous grin spreads across her face. "Why is the sky blue?"

Now I pause. I should have seen it coming. This is what I get for trying to be helpful. She repeats, this time her voice escalating into pure, two-year-old joy. "Why is the sky," big breath, then a huge exclamation, "BLUE!"

Oh boy. "The sky is blue because Heavenly Father made it that way."

Really? Is that the best I could come up with? I mean, sure, it's true, but even she is bored by my answer, barely acknowledging it. How is my daughter ever going to trust me to answer her big questions if I keep blowing the small ones off with the easy-road answers?

I try again.

"Hey, Cambrie, do you want to know why the sky is blue?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, do you remember watching Sid the Science Kid when they learned about rainbows?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, well remember how they got the rainbows by shining the light through crystals? Well waaaaay up in the sky there are lots of little water crystals, and when the light from the sun shines through the water crystals, it gives a blue color. So it makes the whole sky look blue."

Did I really just say all that to my two-year-old?

Yet another pause. I can't blame her, this time. Finally, ... "Oh."

I wait for more reaction, but as she starts playing again with whatever papers or tupperware or cups are sitting near her on the counter, I go back to scrubbing my pot. Well, for better or worse, that exchange is over. I'll be lucky if she remembers more than my reference to "Sid the Science Kid," but at least my mommy conscience is assuaged.

From the counter, though, comes that little voice. "Mommy?"

"What, babe?"

There's that little grin, again. It spreads slowly, the way it does when she knows what she's saying will get a reaction. My guess is this time, she's aiming for mommy's "flustered" reaction. "...Mommy, why is the sky blue? Blue! Why the sky BLUE!"

On she goes. By tomorrow, that phrase will be turned into a song she sings while she pushes her water-bottle-baby-brother around in her plastic shopping cart.

Well, I think it's safe to say my mommy conscience is no longer bothered. In fact, I think I've earned myself a good two more years of easy-road answers. Goodbye grammatical and scientific expositions, and hello "Because it is," and "Because I said so."

In the meantime, I'll just enjoy my little girl's musical compositions without saying a word.

This is Cambrie playing her "trumpet." Maybe she'll write in a trumpet part to "Why Is the Sky Blue?"

Straightening Up

Patrick and I currently live what I am generously calling a scattered lifestyle. It's a little bit of disorganization here, a little bit of clutter there, and a whole lot of great ideas that, while inspiring in the idea stage, get lost somewhere in the initiation and follow-through stages. I guess our redeeming quality is that we are constantly making little efforts at self-improvement, with...uh...varying degrees of success.

Today I get to share a few of our successes.

We'll start with Patrick. As he continues his recently revved-up search for what we are labelling a "legit" job, he's been struggling to come up with a system to track his efforts: people to contact, people and jobs to follow up with, and concrete outcomes he's seen. The last thing we want is for a good opportunity to fall through the cracks, and that, of course, requires (drumroll please...) organization!

Here's what the hubby came up with:



These are three of those four-to-a-pack little cork boards.



They're flimsy, so they're attached with screws to a scrap board found in the garage.

 I've got to give Patrick credit for this whole thing--all I did was ask that the horrible scrap-wood backing be invisible. The screws added a nice, rugged, manly look that I'm fine with, too. Mostly because I can't see the wood backing.

Here's his mini-project in action:



Who ever uses those encyclopedias, anyways? Okay, okay, so we were short on wall space...




One of the sections. Don't mind the pink push-pin. We're cheap, and he'll use what we already have. :-)

 This has been working great, so far, and it's a lot easier for him to stay motivated when he's got a list of opportunities in front of him. Even dead-end applications (our euphamism for rejections) are good, because they mean he's moving through the numbers. And, as we are often reminded, this sort of job hunting is basically a numbers game.


My own little success earns bonus points with me, because it's an idea that originated on Pinterest (you can see my board, here). For my fellow pinners, you understand that the joy of using an idea from Pinterest is not a pure one that comes from pleasant and creative idea-sharing with a worldwide community of friends. Oh, no. The joy comes from being able to validate hours of time wasted on that site to my husband. ("See!! See!! I used another Pinterest idea! Now you can't say anything when you see me on there!!")

So here is the fancy version:

original image source

Isn't that beautiful? Isn't it sleek, and functional, and eveything else just plain nice? Unfortunately, I know that if I'm going to get something done, I can't wait for cute, pretty, or nice if I have hope of getting it out of the "that's a nice idea" stage into reality.

Here's my 30 second sharpie version:

Laugh if you like, but this has been the most pleasant and motivating way for me to get the house clean. I've got everything in there in small, bite-size chunks, so that by the time I've gotten through them all, our place is spotless. If I only have a few minutes, that's fine. I pop through one or two slips of paper, and I know I've gotten something concrete and productive done.

An added bonus? Cambrie LOVES these cups. She loves to pick the paper out and have us read it, and then she rushes to help us do what it says. Yesterday we pulled "Vacuum the bathroom rugs." She couldn't wait to help me pull the rugs into the hallway, get out the vacuum cleaner and vacuum, pull the rugs back, then pick a new paper. Perhaps it helps that I snuck tasks like this into the cups:

She's got somewhere around a three in twenty-five chance of pulling out something fun, and that's enough to keep her better motivated that anything else we've tried. Let's put a little point up there on mommy's side of the board, shall we?

So my plan is this: if Patrick and I keep making little adjustments like this over the next twenty-five years of our lives, then by the time our kids are out of the house, we'll be perfect specimens of happy, productive, organized human beings. Right? Right? Well, that's what I tell myself. After all, I've never yet thought perfect was too high a goal to shoot for, as long as I've got the right time frame.    ;-)

Details

Since I know that there are a few favorite questions out there that go along with a pregnancy announcement, here is a post to answer some of those. If you don't really care about baby-ish details, if you get bored by chit chat, or if you happen to be male, feel free to skip this post.

Q: When are you due?
A: Early June. Since Cambrie was a stinkin' two weeks late, I'm going to stick with the vague due date, at least in public. That way there's no special day that will depress me as it comes and goes. For those doing the math, right now I'm 15 weeks and some change.

Q: How have you been feeling?
A: I have been very lucky with both pregnancies so far. Though I was sicker this time around than with Cambrie, that's not saying much. Now that I've rolled on into the second trimester, I'm feeling just peachy. A little tired and that's it. (Please don't hate me, friends who are veritable saints for what they endure to bring children into the world! You are all my heroes!)

Q: Are you having a boy or girl?
A: Don't you wish you knew! ...Just kidding, I wish I did, too. Nope. Don't know that yet. Check back in mid-January.

Q: Are you going to find out boy vs. girl?
A: I can't stand the thought of waiting longer than I have to to find out the gender. It's so awkward calling the baby "the baby," and I can't bring myself to think "it." Since you all know I won't be using the ambiguous and incorrect pronoun "they" (totally reminds me of switching papers to grade in middle school-- "Well, they said 34, do they get a point for that?"), I think it's best we get this little gender issue clarified as soon as possible. :-)

Q: Do you want a boy or a girl?
A: I'll answer this sometimes touchy question because I'm not feeling very politically correct today. I would love a boy this time around--it'd be fun to have at least one of each. That, and I think Cambrie would be adorable with a little baby brother. Now for those who are huffing and puffing because they think I'm horrible for hoping for one gender over another, RELAX. We would of course be delighted with either boy or girl, as long as the child is mostly human.

Q: Do you have names picked out?
A: Not really--just throwin' around some ideas.

Q: Ooh! Ooh! What are your ideas?
A: Eh, I think we'll keep those under wraps until we settle on something permanent. Thank you for your curiosity, though!

Well, I think that about covers the most common conversation topics. Thanks again for everyone's love and congratulations. Hope this Christmas season continues to be slightly more joyful than stressful for all of you!

Cambrie Has Something to Say:

Telling Stories

My life has been filled with stories, lately. Stories about families and holidays, stories with friends in them, stories we tell Cambrie, and, most definitely, stories to tell you. The problem is that, whereas sometimes the stories set up camp in my mind, words and descriptions floating around and demanding to be written down, many many other times they just slip quietly in and out of my life. During those quieter, less demanding times, it takes a little more discipline for me to sit down and commit a story to words.

But discipline myself I shall. And today’s story will be about nothing less than stories themselves. Let me illustrate…

“What do you want your story to be about, today?”

“Cambrie an’ baby Evelyn! And Nana’s house!”

“Okay. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Cambrie. One summer she went to go visit her Nana in Utah, and at her house was little baby Evelyn…”

It started over Thanksgiving. While Patrick was trying to get Cambrie to sleep in my dad's house and a new bed one night, he decided to try telling her some stories instead of reading her a book. Since that moment, book reading immediately before naps and bedtime has all but disappeared. Cambrie will ask us to “read her a story” constantly—in the car, sitting at the table, while I’m folding laundry, and of course in bed.

I don't have pictures of us telling stories, but plenty of Cambrie, us, and books.

Since Patrick and I have slight limits on spur-of-the-moment storytelling, we usually ask Cambrie for some sort of guide… “What do you want this story to be about?”

Here’s a sampling of what we're given to work with:

“Cambrie climb a-apple tree!”

“Goggy…doggies. A-story ‘bout doggies!” (Oh yes, it is heart wrenching that she’s already correcting her little baby words into grown-up words!”)

“Cambrie an’ Pincess!”

“Bob.” (??? This is usually followed by, “What? You mean ‘ball’?” “Nope.” “Umm, ba.. ba..bowl? Like the soup you had for lunch?” “No. Bob.” Patrick’s method is then to tell something like the Three Billy Goats Gruff and say one of the goats is Bob. *shrug* It works.)

“Cambrie an’ mommy a go to store, an’ daddy a go to store, too, an’ a go to libee! [library]”

“Uncuh Andy an’ Aunt Leeanne an’ a-Yumi a-baby Melody a-Dampa Cottle a Kisten at a-Dampa Cottle’s house!!”

“Farm. An’ cows.”

“A big kitty an’ small kitty an’ mommy kitty an’ daddy kitty.”

“Honey. An’ Bob.” (That one became Bob the Bumblebee.)

And my all-time favorite: [Leaning over toward me, poking her finger at my forehead] “That!!” “…my, forehead?” “Uh-huh.” Oh boy.

Little Critter books are high literature. Our stories have a lot to live up to.

There are actually many advantages to the storytelling. After a while, books like “Go, Dog, Go” and “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” begin to wear on mommy and daddy. Telling stories does require brainpower, but a kind of very silly, very low-pressure brain power that probably needs a little more exercise anyways. The variety is great, and the stories are apparently something both mommy and daddy can tell satisfactorily.

It’s also nice to tell stories about “a little girl named Cambrie” doing all the things we want her to do, like sharing, and saying “Okay Mommy” or “Okay Daddy” when she’s asked to do something, and trying new and difficult things over and over again, and being brave when things are sad or scary.

But the best part is the listener. I’ve never been able to keep Cambrie's attention as closely as when I’m telling a story. It baffles me, too, because there are no pictures, no rhymes, and hardly any plot to speak of. And still, we’ll both be lying in her bed, and there she’ll be, snuggled on her pillow, blanket pressed against her cheek, big eyes staring steadily at me and taking every word in. She hardly ever interrupts, and at the end of every story, her face will brighten up and she’ll say, “Read other story, mommy!” And so I’ll tell another, about playing with monkeys in the trees, or soaring through the clouds on flying horses, or a little dog family on a picnic in the woods, or a princess finding a giant tree with a staircase to the sky.

This is our little girl, and it won’t be much longer that she’ll be drinking in every word we say without question or disdain. I hope she remembers the stories, though, and how we loved to tell them. And I hope I never stop trying to share my words and stories with her.

Another Year Older

Talk about backtracking. I entered my twenty-fifth year of age (remember, that means I turned twenty-four) a month ago, and yet here it is, cropping up on my little blog. It's not even that important of an age (though it does feel nice and round, doesn't it? A whole slew of numbers fit into it. Nerdy facts like that appeal to me.), but I feel the need to brag. Why? Because I happen to be married to possibly the most fantastic "other half" available on this planet, and that bears documenting.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the dinner that Patrick make for me. He made Brazilian chicken stroganoff, the most delicious Brazilian Cheese Puffs (Pao de Queijo), and a chocolate cake recipe that he got from Brazil. It was AMAZING.

For my present, he gave me with one more piece of furniture for our home. He started with a $10 goodwill table.

The color is distorted, but I tried to make it easier to read the names. Thank you JP, Donna, Roy, and Jason from 1994 for letting us use your table!

The table is now a much more palatable color, and I'm very eager to decorate a living room with it included.

Because this is a bragging post, I might as well show you some of the other things my husband has created--and yes, I'll confirm in advance that he does rock.

Creation in progress...

Adorable!

Dinner in progress (no recipe)...

Deliciousness! (and loads of vitamin C--always a plus)

Both the clean child and the hair-do are his doing. But they aren't complete yet...

I don't think this one even needs a caption.

So yes, though there are a lot of people that helped to make my birthday wonderful, I think my number one present (and thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving day) is that I get to spend night and day hanging out with one of the most fantastic people I know...for the rest of our lives and beyond. How sweet it is. :-)

Peoples and Truck-made Treats

Sometimes I feel dwarfed by the magnitude of Cambrie's imagination. I never thought it would come full-force so early on; I kinda figured that as a three-to-five-year-old it would really blossom. But oh, no. Her still-early-two-year-old-self imagines like crazy.

(It could be normal, but I've been a slacker mom and haven't kept up with reading what is normal at what age or not. I kinda like it that way--when she gets things, I'm excited, and if she takes a little longer, I'm totally not stressed about it.)

(As a disclaimer, all the pics in this post are from our phone, so
 they're even lower quality than normal. Enjoy anyways!)

A typical Cambrie meal ends with a veritable puppet show. This girl has been known to turn a green bean into Cambrie, warn a Daddy fork not to fall over, and have a Mommy sippy cup hold said green been Cambrie and put her in a bath of vegetable soup. All this is narrated, of course.

As you might imagine, a show of this character usually leads to real Mommy or Daddy removing green beans, forks, sippy cups, and bowls of soup from Cambrie's tray. But she will not be thwarted. Inevitably, she brings out her "peoples" (her fingers, each of which is a little person), who then chatter, slip, and slide, having a grand ol' time all over her little tray.

By the time dinner is over and we clean her up in the sink, I'll hear, "Mommy! My peoples are getting wet! A-raining on my peoples! 'Ahh! a-wet!' [that was some of the "peoples" yelling out] Mommy, a-peoples need dry off. [commence drying with the towel] All dry, peoples!"

Another impromptu stage for Cambrie's creativity is Grandpa's truck bed. She likes to get up and play in it, but it was hilarious when, with no prompting from us, she started making cookies. (Okay, the first thing she said she was making was baking powder, so I suggested cookies as an alternative. Can you tell we cook together a lot?)

The back corner where she is standing is the oven. The front left corner is the counter where she mixes. The rest of the truck includes a living room and a bed, so I think her house layout need a little work. Still, when she lays down on her "bed," she does declare it "comfy", so she must be doing something right.

Here she is opening the oven door to remove the cookies. She has also been known to bake raisins and candy.

Here she is showing the goods to the camera. Yummy, yummy!

I love to watch her play. I love that I can follow her mind a little better now that she can talk. She can create whole worlds, just for herself! I think I used to have a pretty active imagination as well, but it's certainly been dulled down a lot by the partypoopers of age and experience. It's as though, if I stand close enough to Cambrie, if I watch her hard enough, I'll be able to benefit a little from those pure shots of creative, pressure-free fun.

"Daddy! A-do a picture a-mommy a-Cambrie ina GRASS!!"

I certainly hope I'll be able to give that raging imagination sufficient outlet as she gets older.