Family Nights: November and December

Week 1

I restarted planning family nights in November. We studied thankfulness all month, and used the opportunity to teach Jessica how to pray. She could repeat one word at a time after us. We used these handy rings I cut out, which she loved, and we pointed to each one as we practiced thanking God. 

After we made chocolate turkeys.

We also sang "Thanks to Our Father, and "Count Your Many Blessings". After Jessica went to bed, Dave and I worked on cleaning out the office, again.

Week 2
The next week we invited the Zobell family to join us. Carla is bilingual, Brian is from Wyoming, and their  daughter Brianna is Jessica's age, so we have several things in common. We sang "My Heavenly Father Loves Me" and Dave read D&C 59:15-21 for the adults' benefit, while the little girls stuffed a cornucopia with plastic play food.

15 And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with cheerful hearts and countenances, not with much laughter, for this is sin, but with a glad heart and a cheerful countenance—

 16 Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth;

 17 Yea, and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth, whether for food or for raiment, or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for vineyards;

 18 Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;

 19 Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.

 20 And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.

 21 And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.

Next we made "Thankful Trees" by writing things we were thankful for on leaves, and gluing them on a paper. 

Jessica earned the nickname "Bluebeard" from scribbling on her chin.

We closed with edible cornucopias made of sugar cones, dried fruit, nuts, and fruit candy.

Week 3
After Halloween, I had told Jessica trick-or-treating was over: no more Halloween. She looked crestfallen. So I quickly helped her look forward to Thanksgiving. We read books about falling leaves, Pilgrims and Indians; watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown Mayflower Voyagers, and clips of Pocahontas; and I showed her pictures of her cousins who were coming to visit.

So on the third Monday of November we learned about the first Thanksgiving. Dave and I sang "For Health and Strength" in a round. Then we made construction paper hats of a pilgrim (Dave), an Indian (me) and a turkey (Jessica, who else?) .

Jessica shows she learned what a turkey says in this video

(in which, I now realize, her first answer to "What are you?" was "I'n daween (I'm drawing)" not "I'm Dory". My bad.):

Week 4
We found a wonderful tall cheap fir tree at our local grocery store. It fit in the back of my PT.

(Jessica got our old 3-foot, condo-sized fake tree with sparkly plastic ornaments, for her room. We had already decorated when her cousins were at our house for Thanksgiving.)

A 99-cent pine air freshener made our big tree smell delicious. It was our tallest tree yet, 9 feet, after we cut about 2 feet off. It's best feature was when it dried up, the needles almost all stayed on. Merry Christmas!

In December we only had 2 Monday nights available for family time, which we probably just played with Jessica's plastic Nativity set. And the rest of the month Jessica and I during the day watched The Nativity Story movie, The Animated Nativity, Joy to the World, and read lots of Nativity books. Her favorite characters of Christmas were "reindeer!" and "donkey. fas! (fast)". The 3rd Monday we were packing for Utah, and the last Monday we flew home to Virginia.

Next year, the plan is January: Nephi; February: , March: prophets (prep for conference); April: Easter/Resurrection.

Walk Through Our Home

Here's a tour of our house that I took at Christmastime in December 2011.

Sleeping

What is cuter than a sleeping child in bed at night? Nothing!

Except maybe a child napping over an open book, surrounded by toys. (After I put her down in a clean bed, she collects toys to sleep with. I like to think she doesn't want to fall alone into the unconscious abyss without the comfort of her stuffed friends.)

I get these pictures when I sneak in to check on her, add a blanket, retrieve her sippie, or turn toys off.

Sometimes she succumbs mid-play. (If you look close, Elmo's eyes are peeking out from her diaper over her pants.)

How did she balance up here?

And my favorite pose: where she looks like she was in the middle of teaching animal school when she drops.

Now I'll add a Title from my Computer

Test post from phone

First Thanksgiving in Virginia

Dave's sister Melanie and her family moved about the same time we did. Our Florida-to-Virginia move wasn't nearly as much of a climate shocker as theirs: Arizona to Connecticut. Melanie's husband is an optometrist with the Navy, and they drove all the way down to see us for Thanksgiving.

Melanie and Sam are dedicated runners, so Dave signed them all up for the local Thanksgiving 5k along the James River. Sam came in first in his division, (there were several hundred runners) and may have come in first overall if the course had been more clearly marked.

While they ran, I watched the 5 kids, and we played by the riverside history mural.

Stackable cousins! Collect them all! Samuel (left), Nate, and Jane held up Andy and Jessica.

In the picture below, we're outside the children's museum with James River fountain in the background. All the kids took turns climbing down the metal caterpillar and getting "pooped" out; Jessica was the last one, shown here.

Hiking picturesque stairs in the historic section of Lynchburg on our way back to our car:

Later we played and worked on Thanksgiving dinner. I ordered a card table the exact width and height of our kitchen table, and a new long tablecloth. The dinner looked great with all white dishes. (It was a perfect warm day, and if we'd thought of it sooner, we probably could've set up the table outside.)

Melanie and Sam made sweet potato souffle, a fruit salad, whole wheat rolls, and stuffing. Dave brined and cooked the turkey and made the mashed potatoes. And I made creamy beans and peas, Indian succotash (my new favorite), and mashed trio (turnip, rutabaga, and potatoes). 


It's ironic that Samuel, forks held the highest, was the pickiest eater, but Jessica was a close second. There was only one food everyone loved: turkey!

 Happy Thanksgiving!

 After the feast we took naps, did some Wii dancing, and went on walks,

and of course, ate pie. Melanie and Sam brought pumpkin and pecan (my favorite). Dave and I made apple, cherry, and grasshopper (chocolate mint) pie. I experimented with several variations of pumpkin: maple pumpkin with walnut streusel, pumpkin with gingersnap crust, and apple butter-pumpkin with pecan streusel. (Honestly, I think normal pumpkin pie is still best, but it was fun to try, and I had to use up that apple butter.)

The next day we slept in, then did some black Friday shopping. I got discounts on Candy Land, our new Kitchen Aid mixer, outdoor lighted Christmas trees, and this:

Friday we also visited the Thomas Jefferson summer home: Poplar Forest, which is in the heart of Lynchburg. Surprisingly, the home was lived in and owned by private citizens until the 1980's; they only began restoring it, adding museum buildings, replanting historical landscaping, and restoring the furnishings (burned in an earlier fire) in the last 2 decades.

The home is octagonal, and the grounds very symmetrical.

Below our niece and nephews, pretending they are impatiently waiting to use the "necessary": the fanciest outhouse I've ever seen.

Below, Jessica, age 21 months, stands next to her 4-yr old cousin Andy. That's our tall daughter!

At home, we set up Jessica's little Christmas tree with plastic ornaments in her room. (It took forever to get this shot; silly kids!)

Bubbles + shaving cream paint + fizzy bath colors +  cousins = FUN!

And Dave opened up his extensive Lego Technics collection to make this Lego car with his nephews with gear shifts, steering, shocks, and headlights. Pretty impressive.

While Melanie and Sam had to sleep on air mattresses, they at least had their own place in the office. And the cousins slept on couches and air mattresses in the front room. We never could have accommodated them in our old squishy place. They left first thing Sunday morning. Thanks for coming to visit, Jarvis family!

Oct and Nov 2011 Videos

Here are some cute videos of Jessica in October and November of 2011. This one shows why one of her nicknames is "Meat-asaurus".

This one shows her love of chapstick and new words like "minty".

One of the first things we did in Virginia was find the libraries. We started baby storytime, then check out 15-20 books a week, and read at least 3 before naps and 3 more before bed. And there are few things more adorable than a child pretending to read books.

On rainy days moms in Lynchburg head for Liberty University, who has an indoor playground. Afterwards, Jessica, our water baby, just wanted to stay outside in the rain.

We've learned children are experts as using stuff not the way it was intended.

Jessica loves clocks, but she thought this fast-armed "clock" in the produce section was the funniest thing ever.

And play dough has entertained Jessica for hours. At first she just drew in it, but by her 2nd birthday she understood how good it was for sculpting in 3D.

And I got her to sing a little "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", one of her current favorites, for the camera.

We Are Still Alive

Friends, Family, and Fans:

Even though I haven't posted anything here in 2 months, I fully plan to catch up sometime soon. I have to figure out how to download pictures from my new phone to my laptop, and tackle the long topic of our move.

In brief: we moved quickly, love our new home, are unpacking and discovering our new town, growing and learning, making new friends, enjoying fewer commitments, and starting the paperwork for the short sale of our home. We're hosting Dave's sister's family from Connecticut for Thanksgiving, and flying to Utah for Christmas weekend. Jessica is all our joy (her speech and love) and sorrow (I mean her temper and messes), and still the subject of most of our pictures.

Love you, and I'll post before Christmas. Please send me your physical address, as I'm hoping to send Christmas cards this year.

First Trick-or-Treating

After 10 years of childless living in apartments and condos, we missed years of real trick-or-treats. So I  knew we'd found a great family-friendly neighborhood when the people around our new rental home kept warning us: "Look out for Halloween! There are hundreds of kids and the traffic is awful."

PERFECT!

Before we moved from Florida, I figured I'd get Jessica an Elmo costume, since she loved him so much. I found a thick, warm long-sleeved one at the consignment store, and bought it, hoping we'd be moving to a colder climate by October.

I got Jessica the classic pumpkin bucket, and we practiced. We read Halloween books, and watched It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown several times. These are important childhood skills, you know. Very  American. I told her to knock on every door inside our house and rewarded her "Trick or Treat", "Happy Halloween", or "thank you" with candy corns. Because are few parenting tools better than repetition, time & love, combined with sugar.

She didn't get to use her awesome door-knocking skills at the church trunk-or-treat, or Halloween night, since most people sat in their driveways. Here's Jessica with our really nice neighbors with our house in the background.

We tagged along with a few other young families. Dave heeded our neighbors advice to get home before traffic started at 5 pm. We parked our car next to the mailbox at our landlords' request, since they'd lost mailboxes to Halloween and the annual neighborhood garage sale.

It was perfect weather. We saw several other little Elmos, and when we were done, we sat in our driveway and gave away huge bowls of candy. Last year's Halloween traffic jam resulted in cars being towed to clear the roads. This year the police put signs up at the neighborhood entrance that any non-residents would be towed, the crowd was half as big and just right.

 And we knew what to do with all that candy!

Virginia Is For Lovers

We are pleased to announce that Dave has accepted a new job in Lynchburg, Virginia, starting in early October. He'll work for Limitorque of Flowserve, who manufactures industrial valves. The engineers there are looking forward to having him streamline and modernize their testing equipment, and they're hiring 2 junior test engineers to be under Dave. It will be a great new challenge for him.

Flowserve has lots of other locations and opportunities for career growth, and possibly international travel (Dave was drooling over a chance to work in Brazil.) They've offered Dave great benefits, an increased salary he won't have to work overtime for, a much bigger year-end bonus, and a nice moving payout. Another big reason for moving is that Lynchburg has 3 LDS wards in the same area as our 1 ward here in Florida. Yay, more Mormons! (And by more, I mean from .5% up to 1.5% Mormon.)

Dave put his resume on Monster at least a year ago, and got calls from headhunters asking if he wanted jobs like cell phone developer and beeswax quality engineer. Uh, no. About two months ago, 2 headhunters got him 3 phone interviews for test engineer positions, 2 of which turned into trips and offers. (The other offer was in Boston: only an hour from his sister, but very cold winters, smaller company, no new challenges, and a higher cost of living. But here's a nice picture from his trip.)

Lynchburg is in central Virginia, and was named after a Quaker surveyor, not lynching, I was relieved to find out.  The MSA has about 90,000 people, and is an independent city not in a county--a feature leftover from colonial times. It's right next the James River & Appomattox County, where Lee surrendered to the Union Army. It's an hour drive to Roanoke, a 3-hour drive to Washington, D.C. and Dave's Aunt Denene, and 10 hours from Dave's sister Melanie, who just moved to Connecticut.

We're only a short drive from the Blue Ridge, Appalachian, and Allegheny mountains and Shendandoah National Park. Camping here we come! (We haven't camped once as a family here in Florida. Dave hates camping in the sand, and I hate camping in the heat.) Central Virginia, though, is Johnny Appleseed country, has rolling hills kinda like Austin TX, cheaper to live in than West Palm Beach, and filled with hardwood trees, (which Dave is eager to chop down and turn into furniture.)

Lynchburg, VA courthouse, which overlooks the James River and a 100-foot high fountain spray.

The obvious downside, for anyone who knows Dave, is the cold winter: it's only a little warmer than Provo, UT. I love Florida winters, but I really dislike the humid, hot 8-month summer. But I tell Dave to repeat to himself: "Snow means fruit, hardwood trees, canoeing, and a garage." Because we're hoping to rent a real house, with a real yard, at least 3 bedrooms, and a proper shrine for Dave's tools. HOORAY!!!! We'll go house hunting the weekend of Sept 17.

Lynchburg is home to Liberty University and several other colleges.

There's really no way the bank would let us sell our condo here, or refinance, since we are upside down/our house value is tens of thousands of dollars below what we purchased it for. We may try a short sale or a loan modification--we still need to meet with a mortgage broker or lawyer. In the mean time, we're hiring a property management company to find renters and maintain our condo. The rent we get won't bring in enough moolah to cover the mortgage payment, so we'll just have to eat that loss. Bleh. Wish us luck. And I'm taking recommendations for moving companies.

Maybe this all sounds very factual, but we are giddy with the idea of moving! It's been soooooooo hard not to spill the beans, but it's Dave big news to announce, and we wanted to wait until we had officially accepted a job offer. We have had some good times here in Florida, and we hope many of you will keep in touch.  We have a lot to arrange in 3 weeks, but we'll try to keep you posted.

Family Home Evening Deluxe

Around General Conference time in April, Dave and I decided Jessica was ready to join us for little scripture lessons on Monday Family Home Evenings. She loved singing "Do As I'm Doing" and "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree", and listened as we read from the Illustrated Scripture story books. Besides identifying "Jesus!", it seemed she liked being with us, but she didn't seem to remember anything we read.

But one day the thought came to me: "It's not fair to my family to spend lots of energy planning creative activities for other church members, or designing fun teaching strategies months in advance for my piano students, yet throw something last minute together for my kids' spiritual education." So I started planning some fun family time. Starting with this gem from my childhood, which I've been playing at the start of our F.H.E.: "Hey Everybody It's Family Night"

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

We'd better take the phone off the hook

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

I've already got the family night book

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

Don't anybody go away

C'mon Everybody to Family Night

I've been waiting for this all day

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

I washed my face as good as new

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

I have a special part to do

Hey Everybody it's Family Night

There's a treat as yummy as can be

C'mon Everybody to Family Night

If you hurry you can sit by me! 

Week 1
Dave was out of town at "man camp" (rafting with his brothers & Dad in Georgia). Jessica and I read the story from our illustrated children's Bible. Then we watched Disney's Fantasia 2000 "Pomp & Circumstance" clip, with Donald Duck as Noah's assistant. We agreed to watch it twice; with the surround sound blaring, I always tear up at the end when Donald and Daisy find each other--and Kathleen Battle hitting those high notes--sniff--and the rainbow----thank you composer Edward Elgar! It was our favorite video of the whole month. Jessica learned how to say "boat! boat!".

Then we both colored a rainbow picture downloaded from our church's kid website: www.lds.org/friend.

As we colored, we half watched/half listened to a cute video "Build an Ark", which you can also print sheet music. ("I can be like Noah, yes I can be prepared...When the rain starts to fall on me, I'll be ready for that day".)

For a treat, we had ate a pile of marshmallows, because we like them, Dave wasn't around to protest.


Week 2
I checked out "Baby Miracle Noah" from the library (which turned out to be an awful Baby Einstein's wannabe). We tried to teach her to say "Noah" with no success-ah.

During the movie we made foam people. I bought a kit with multicultural kid cutouts with stick-on clothes at Micheal's. (It looked faster than cutting out flannel people, which I still want to do eventually.) Dave and I tried to make them look like Bible characters, and Jessica ripped their limbs off.

Then we assembled chocolate rice crispies with rainbow M&Ms. They don't look as perfect as the picture on someone else's blog, but they were good enough for consumption.

Jessica was only interested in chocolate; we couldn't get her to even try a marshmallow rice crispie.

Week 3
This week's video was the real Baby Einstein Noah. I don't know how good it is, since I had a tennis game I couldn't reschedule, and when I came back, the movie was over, Dave was asleep on the couch, and Jessica was playing in her room. (I watched it later; it's mainly "world animals in videos and puppets, interspersed with a few paintings of Noah's animal ark".)

Then I made a quick paper boat taped around our short bathroom hallway. Dave helped Jessica collect pairs of animals, and she learned how to answer the question "How many ducks/lambs/lions?" "Two!" We got dressed in costumes, and put all the animals on the "boat". Then we held up an umbrella, and squirted water on ourselves with a spray bottle and said "It's raining! It's raining!" Jessica was getting claustrophobic, and kept breaking out of the boat. It took me so long to get this picture, we had to cheat out a smile by asking "Show me happy!" (which is how we get all these big cheesy smiles.)

We cut out Jell-o jiggler animals and called it a night.

After Jessica went to bed, we planned our date for our 11th anniversary.


Week 4
I get so excited for Monday night to come! This week we watched "Noah's Ark", a library DVD narrated by James Earl Jones. There's lots of story embellishment, and 30 minutes was a long time for Jessica to hold still.

We were getting close to bedtime now, so we planned to have the treat cook during our activity. We showed Jessica how to assemble banana boats with chocolate chips and marshmallows. Her response was "Eat?" and stuffed the toppings in her mouth. They were pretty good, even if they were not pretty.

Then we painted pictures of rainbows, which Jessica can now say well enough for me to recognize. Dave and I really enjoyed the nostalgia of a Crayola paint box. 

But Jessica wanted mainly rub her page to pieces with a wet brush. Seeing that, we had an 6-second Parent Board meeting; the minutes reading-- Financial CEO: "How about getting one of those paint-with-water books?" Purchasing Manager: "Done."

But I'm learning how exhausting it is! After Dave gets home from work on Mondays, and we eat dinner immediately, and get family night started with a song and prayer. We corral Jessica on our messy craft & treat, and clean up, we're exhausted. I make plans for the adult lesson and activity, but we usually just plop down on the couch and just listen to a religious message online, and try to stay awake.

This week's lesson was an interview of a non-LDS author who wrote about the Book of Genesis.

Week 5

We had little time for family night, and I was ready for an easy night. Jessica taught our Noah lesson this week. I handed her pictures and told her where to put them and what to say. It sounded something like this: "No." "uh." "Boat!" "Two!" "Ren." "Fud." "Renbow." Well said, babe.

 We sang: 

• "Up and Over and Down" (Janeen Brady, about Rainbows)
• "I Like to Look for Rainbows" (Children's Primary Songbook, #103)
• "I Will Build an Ark" (Marianne P. Clark)

We ate Mother's brand circus cookies, (Dave's favorite---with the pink and white frosting and rainbow sprinkles) and put Jessica to bed. Dave and I played Yahtzee, and listened to Elder Bednar's April 2011 Conference talk: The Spirit of Revelation, during which one of us fell asleep. Inspiring and relaxing.

I'm pleased with our fun Family Nights. I haven't decided about next month's theme--Noah was so easy. I'm debating between topics like God made my body, who are the prophets/apostles (before General Conference), the Creation, or sheep (Jesus is the Good Shepherd, Ammon defends sheep, Nativity shepherds). Got any other ideas?