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.

Hot Holidays

Well, Christmas morning came, and we were so excited to watch Jessica open presents. Ten years waiting for a Christmas with children! Finally! We were so excited, the night before we broke down and told each other our big gifts, after J was in bed. Despite my vow not to get Dave any more tools, I got him a soldering station. (Now that's love.) He does fix a lot of our broken stuff with borrowed soldering irons.

Dave got me new pans. I tease him that kitchenware is a big hint for me to get back into the kitchen and do some home cooking, since I bought a lot of frozen and prepared food for the last 3 months.

We'd also been wanting to buy the Good Eats DVDs (with crazy chef Alton Brown) and make every recipe. (The next week, we started watching with season 1, episode 1 "Steak Your Claim". It was really educational, since I feel like I know nothing about cuts of meat. We cooked a great ribeye in cast iron.)

The next morning we got up about 7 am and brought Jessica out into the front room. She was a champ at opening presents all morning, starting with the first:

Among the highlights are this toddler foam chair, which I think is adorable and fits her just right;

this homemade dress and matching hat sent by her Grandma Eyring;

and a lot of books and toys with buttons and lights. Her favorite thing is turning pages and opening and shutting things. She loves playing with her new foam letters during her bath, so now her tub looks like there's a wee little suckling pig, swimming in alphabet soup!

Jessica didn't need any help devouring this chocolate-covered raspberry stick:

Dave made wood blocks for Jessica from the discarded floorboards of our church's gym floor after it was water-damaged. Both of our fathers made blocks for us kids, so it was a sweet tradition to see Dave carrying on. He wrapped them in saran wrap, since I didn't get around to sewing a drawstring bag.

And after begging for a year, I finally got archery lessons, which I started today. The weapon of choice of my favorite story heroines is a bow and arrow: I blame Chronicles of Narnia and The Hunger Games. 

After the lesson, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face; it was so fun! I felt safe, and was pretty consistent, even though we were only 20 feet from the target. I told Dave everything, and he was like "Yeah, I got the archery merit badge at scout camp." Uuuuuhhhhhnnnn!!!! Boys get to do all the fun stuff!

Anyways, back to last week: We went to Miami for a 2-day trip. First stop: Monkey Jungle. (It was fun, but we thought Butterfly World and Gatorland were better half-day attractions for the same price.)

Monkey Jungle was unique because, like their ads say: "the people are in cages and the monkeys run free!" Jessica liked them a lot when she they were right in front of her, swinging around, and screaming loudly.

The weather was a perfect 70 degrees, and it was fun to get away and do something different.

Jessica was a pretty good trooper, sitting in the car and stroller so much. Below she's pictured in her smaller car seat, which she's really too tall for. (Her weight gain has slowed down: less than a pound in 6 weeks---great news for us, whose arms are falling off from packing her around.)

When we let her loose in the hotel room that evening, she was on turbocrawl and high speed jabber-scream. And she decided it was time to start pulling herself up to stand. The low side of the bathtub and her pack-n-play were her first. It was the day before New Year's Eve, so she was exactly 10 months old.

Last week on Christmas Eve, she showed us she can clap. And in the last 2 weeks, she's learned to comb her hair, sit Indian-style, hold her breath, identify and say "dots", point her finger, raise her hand, and cover her ears. Her hair is long enough I can put a *little* tiny clip in the top center of her head. When we reach across the table to hold hands during the blessing on the food, she puts her hand on top of ours for a second. She knows how to say "mmmm" for yummy food, and since she can't do the baby sign for 'more' (food), she's trained us to feed her with her own: she either yodels with her lips together, or growls with her "mmmm" if she wants food.

Unfortunately, she also squirms in her stroller (turning around or jumping out--which earned her that forehead scrape) and throws bigger fits. When she is really angry at us, she'll stare straight ahead, hold her arm up, then punch us in the mouth and try to rip our lips off. But now we usually see it coming and stop her. She's going to be great in martial arts.

But really, she's a sweetie. And a waffle thief, caught red-handed, below. Today she decided she can put her hands on the tabletop and stand on her tiptoes. Yesterday she stood at the piano bench and listened to me play. After a while she started whimpering, and I thought, 'I'll just finish playing this line". When I looked down she was stuck halfway down in the splits, one foot under the piano, the other under the rug, and her nose just over the bench and wobbling all over. {I made Dave snarf and choke on his own spit when I told him that story.}

Anyway, back to the narrative. The next day (New Year's Eve Day) we went to the Bill Baggs state park on Key Biscayne to see the lighthouse. This lighthouse is older than the Jupiter one, with a more tenuous history: blown up in the Indian Wars; surrounding area almost sold off for development; plant life stripped off in Hurricane Andrew... The tour of the lighthouse and keeper's home was good and included in the park admission.

The climb was a bit scary because the stairs are only anchored on the center pole, which swayed a lot with the tour group all climbing it. But the view was beautiful.

The keeper's house was quaint.

But Jessica's favorite part was her 10 minutes in the water. IT DIDN'T EVEN PHASE HER THAT THE WATER WAS COLD, or salty, or rushing up to her. She was trying to crawl straight into the sea, and threw a 10-minute fit when we left. Little Miss No-Fear won't have any swimming issues...Come to think of it, we also now call her Miss Wiggles, and Destructo Girl. (If she were raised in an Indian tribe, she would be very easy to name.)

Our favorite part was the family bicycle ride, after which we had a delicious seaside meal (paella & plantains and crab dip).

Dave's brother Danny, who lives in Idaho, texted Dave a picture of himself on a campout, waste-deep in fresh snow. So Dave texted this tropical picture back: surrounded by blue water and fluffly white sand. Tiny contrast in habitats for these brothers. (oops, their caption should read Dec 30 and 31 of 2010.)

We also tried to visit the nearby Barnacle, home of a famous old Florida shipbuilder. It was in beautiful downtown old Miami, which was gearing up for New Years. After waking up Jessica, paying for parking, and paying for admission, and walking a stretch, they were going to charge us again just to get inside the house. The tour guide sounded boring, so we just read the signposts and left. But we did see several beautiful peacock art statues, which I guess represent old Peacock family founders.

 
We detoured to Vizcaya, a very old, elaborate, expensive estate of a farm machinery baron. It's pretty much a shrine to old world culture and mythology and money. We weren't allowed to photograph the insides, which were tapestried, gold-leafed, carved, and embellished to the hilt. It's like the Flagler Museum, only more pagan, with better gardens. Some of our pics include Ponce de Leon,

a lady lion statue,

 and the mazey, awfully romantic gardens and fountains.

The funniest part of our trip happened on the freeway our drive home. Dave, despite his habit of keeping his tank at least a quarter full, and preaching to me about riding around on emtpy, RAN OUT OF GAS. I just laughed and read a book while waiting to get refueled. We got home in time to watch the new Karate Kid, play Yatzhee & drink sparkling grape juice, say happy new year and go to bed. Despite my holiday stress, and the fact that we were sad to be away from our family, it was a great end to the best year of our lives.

It's Christmas Eve...

We have been so busy this December, but I really want to throw up some pictures of our Christmas activities before the big day. 

To make a long story short, I'm very pleased the 3rd Annual Jupiter Nativity Experience was a success, and thrilled the stress is over. The weather was perfect, and we had a great community turnout. I directed the play, and did more sewing than usual: I made Dave's vest, fixed my costume, and made all of Jessica's costume from a pattern. After all those months of study and thought about Christ's birth, I never feel guilty that my Christmas is too commercial. I'll blog more about it another time.

Jessica learned how to say "dee" for Christmas trees, except that she says it when she sees Christmas lights, so I think we programmed her incorrectly. She can take bows off of presents, but although she understands the "open" command for books, she didn't figure out how to unwrap gifts. (Note the bow stuck to her butt, her pants slipping down from crawling, and her warm clothes: it's actually cold down here--into the 30's--several times.)

Two days after the Nativity, Dave and I went to hear the King's Singers--they are incredible vocalists. We didn't have the time or the courage to go shake their hands, so we bought CDs and took a cell phone self-portrait.

I wanted to take advantage of the fact that we weren't traveling out of town, and see as many local Christmas events as possible. (Entertainment is twice as sweet when you're in the audience and not trying to make it happen!)

So I went to hear a local Presbyterian choir, and the Young Singers of the Palm Beaches.  The Young Singers sang only 1 song I'd heard already (yes!), and it was funny and interesting all 2 1/2 hrs. One of my piano students is in the junior choir. I highly recommend them.

We traveled south to Hoffman's Chocolates, which has a strange collection of outdoor Christmas displays, and a store-factory with the most tantalizing sweets. Why can't they make a scented candle that smells like that shop? The real thing is terrible for my waistline.

We also went to the music-light show at the mall we can't afford to shop at.

In this blog, Jessica is modeling 7 outfits all generously donated by friends, including this onsie: "It's my first Christmas: SPOIL ME!" No problem babe.

We also rode the new carousel, complete with Florida animals (dolphin, manatee, flamingo, turtle, and endangered sandhill crane) with it's charitable pitch, ubiquitous in our wealthy county.

And at others' request, and out of personal guilt, I finally set up an appointment and we drug ourselves to a portrait studio for formal pictures. Call me ProcrasiSanta, but we didn't get to it 'til Christmas Eve Day. It took way too long, and we're no supermodels, but they'll do.

Jessica is just learning to stand.

Oh how I love our little angel!  She is the best gift we could ever ask for. Dave and I are so excited to watch her open presents.

We stopped at the extravagant botanical Santa garden at the mall. A visit with the man in the red suit was not high on a to do list that I only half finished this year. Next year we'll try for a picture with Santa.

Jessica is seriously motivated to stand with all those toys on the coffee table (our games trunk.) These are her first figurines and she shows her love by biting their heads. I'll post that video later...

She's asleep right now (probably on her knees/bottoms up as usual), and I should go to bed too. So I'll sign off. Merry Christmas to you all. We love you and wish you a Happy New Year, from the three of us.

Thanksgiving

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving. Dave enjoyed his 4-day weekend, and I got 4 days off working on the Nativity. The day started with Dave running 4 miles in the local "Run for the Pies" in which the first couple hundred people across the finish line won a pie.

Two years ago he ran this race with my sister and her husband, and we thought it was a 5k (3.1 miles). This year he trained for 4 miles and was pleased he improved his time by a whole minute, and got a Publix apple pie.

Jessica and I waited at the playground during the race. She had no fear; she climbed all over and was happy to have kids running all around her.

Dave cooked ALL of Thanksgiving dinner. I had been only buying instant & frozen food, and hadn't made any plans by the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Dave took the initiative: "I'm making a list and going shopping, Liz. What do we need?"

Dave and I love watching Alton Brown's Good Eats. Dave used Brown's recipe to brine our turkey for the second year. 

All I did to help was set the table, take pictures, and beg for vegetables besides everyday broccoli and carrots. Dave got me spagetti squash and artichoke--yum. Besides some extra salty potatoes, everything was perfect. He even did all the dishes. Thanks, hon.

We failed to get a good picture of all of us.

Jessica chowed down and used our tablecloth as a napkin for her hands. Here she bites a stuffing popsicle.

Here's Jessica's opinion of the meal:

After Jessica's morning nap on Black Friday, we went shopping. Jessica lasted about 4 hours--the last hour we had to switch toys, snacks, or distracting games every 5 minutes. But we made it to 4 stores and picked up some deals.

We wanted to buy ALL of the toys from our childhood for her THAT DAY. We had to keep telling ourselves "She's too young for a:
dial-up phone
lite-brite
legos or duplos
tricycles
toy food and kitchens
science kits, especially involving rockets
Playdough
bristle bricks
anything Crayola
giant puzzles
popcorn pusher
toy register with plastic coins
Lincoln logs or tinker toys
etc.etc.etc."

She can't stand, and she doesn't really know how to use her shapes bucket or the wood puzzles she has now. Her first birthday is in 2 months anyhow, so we can get other toys then. We opted for a giant plush lion, balls, a 3-D bookmark, a baby laptop with buttons and lights and music, foam bath letters and a doggie washcloth mitten, and a short push toy with music & buttons.

I also bought her a cute stripey outfit (which says size 24 months but will probably fit her this summer.)  Our little baby is growing like a weed: she turned 9 months this weekend, but is wearing 9 & 12 month clothes already. She has long outgrown her little baby bjorns/slings, so we also got a frame baby backpack off Craigslist. We already tested it and it works great. We also Amazoned a plastic, indestructible Nativity.

Saturday we pulled out the decorations, and Jessica loved the loud plastic sparkly tree beads.

Dave persuaded me we needed a real tree. It's been 5 years with only the fake 3-footer. So Jessica went with us to get the skinniest tree in the lot. (I thought that was a funner milestone than seeing Santa.) She just thought it interesting, but spikey. I've been letting her play with the little tree (shown below), and our Christmas bells. So far she's pretty obedient about not pulling ornaments off, and Smokey has no interest in the trees either...but we'll see.

I also found the cutest Christmas PJs for her with "I've been good" and reindeer all over. But she kept pulling at the forearm sleeves, which were too tight, so we cut them off.

We're terribly excited for Christmas this year (we're staying in Florida), and very grateful for our little Jessica.