Christmas Eve 2011

We were lucky enough to host Christmas Eve again this year- I love having everyone over that night, and NOT needing to take my kids anywhere!  (And, by correlation, not needing to convince them to leave anywhere to come home.  Hallelujah.)

(Oh, and I have to tell you that once Wonder Daddy opened up the NORAD web page, Ernie was kind of obsessed with checking it during the day.  Naptime?  Got to check the page first.  Dinner time?  Snack time?  Potty time?  DITTO.  And OMIGOSH, I'MSOEXCITED, SANTA IS IN BUENOS AIRES!)

I made a simple dinner this year- Ivar's, a local fish and chips institution, makes a killer clam chowder...lucky for us, it's sold in a frozen concentrate at our local stores!  One crock pot of clam chowder, an armful of bread bowls from my aunt, and a huge tossed salad from my sister made our meal.  We also had the red Jell-O that my kids request from my aunt at every family celebration, a DIY italian soda bar, a whizz-bang cheese platter from my dad (have you ever had Wensleydale studded with dried apricots?  DO IT.)  and an amazing bouche de noel from my sister.  My candied cranberries made an appearance, and were joined by candied ginger.  There was something for everyone to eat, it was easy, and we spent hours just gabbing and noshing and gabbing.  Grandma read books to the kids, the girls disappeared downstairs to play kitchen, and it was just perfect.

After the extended family had gone home, we caravaned with Aunt LoLo's family around the neighborhood to look at our favorite Christmas displays one last time.  My parents stayed behind, in the blessedly quiet house, to tidy up the kitchen and just...be...quiet.  :)

Christmas Eve always brings certain things to our house, once the guests have gone home.

The Christmas jammies (sent by Nana this year- thank you!!)





(His first EVER present.  Awwww, bless his little heart, look how hard he's trying!)

The new Christmas story book, with its gold wrapping.


This year's addition was Redheaded Robbie, by Bill Lutrell.  Please PLEASE go look up this book- I get a little misty eyed each time I read it.  It's the story of a little 2nd-grade boy, Robbie, who can't seem to speak properly whenever he gets nervous or excited.  All the kids in his class are anxious to see whose name will be drawn from the hat, to write a Christmas story to read in the school assembly...and of course, Robbie's name is drawn, much to everyone's dismay (and Robbie's most of all.)  He goes to all his friends to ask for help with his story, and it's just the sweetest thing I've read in a long time.  It teaches kids how to help others and how to stick up for your friends.  It teaches what Christmas is about.

Of course, Santa can't be forgotten this night- Grandma helped the girls leave him and his reindeer a little treat.


I think Ernie was worried he'd be confused, she wrote up these labels a few days before hand.  (I know it says meringues....she wrote it when we still HAD meringue cookies :)  It was the only word she asked for help with.  She left a darling note for him, too- I found it when I was tidying the table before our guests came.

Christmas Eve
December 24th
2011

DEAR SANTA,

ME AND MIMI HAVE BEEN GOOD.  MOM AND DAD HAVE BEEN GOOD TO.    (WE HAVE BEEN A LITTLE BAD.)

LOVE,
ERNIE

PS- SAY YES OR OK HERE.  ----->

On the back she drew my husband and my stockings, to make sure Santa knew whose was whose, since they're not labeled like the kids' are.  Oh my goodness, I love that girl so much.  Santa wasn't sure what the question actually was, but he wrote "yes" and she was thrilled!

We all read Luke 2 together, took the necessary "jammies in front of the tree" photo shoot, and scooted the kids off to bed.  Then all we had to do was wait an hour or two for the girls to fall asleep (!!!!), welcome Santa to our living room, and turn out the lights to wait for morning!

Ocean Shores

If you want to find long sandy beaches, big waves, and moody grey skies...go to the coast.  The Washington Coast is simply gorgeous this time of year, and free of the tourist crowds that come later when the weather warms up.

We took an impromptu family vacation recently (like, we booked it on Wednesday and left on Thursday...and booked the hotel room for an extra night once we got there!)  We've never taken a family vacation like this, without anyone else or visiting anybody, and it was wonderful!  We stayed at the gorgeous Shilo Inn, with ocean views, big beds, and a pool.  The kids were in heaven!

Jumping over puddles.  Didn't make it.




I had to laugh, because we arrived at 3, got settled in, and left the room at 4 to walk on the beach and fly kites.  Ernie, Coren, and I spent the next hour walking to the beach, and sprinting back to the bathroom/changing table/nursing chair.  It was crazy!  Ernie was so tired at the end, she said she never wanted to walk back to the beach, because it was too far- I pointed out that it's not NEARLY as far if you don't make the journey back and forth four times!  Lucky for her, she was only sick for an hour every afternoon.  Not bad, considering the quality of food we were able to find!  (Take note, SELF: No McDonald's.  Ever. Even if those dang plastic Zoobles toys kept the girls occupied for the entirety of the 6 hours in the car round trip, and all free time at the hotel.)

Took advantage of a trip back to the room to do his diaper business.  Twice.  Wow.





We had a great time walking and driving on the beach, bowling, seeing the interpretive center, finding treats at the sweet shop, swimming in the pool, and driving around seeing all the crazy houses with lighthouse turrets and purple paint.  Gotta love coastal houses, and the drastic measures they'll take to stand out in the fog and grey cloud cover.  

Let Me Introduce You To...

He's so calm, I can hardly call him "Bam Bam" any more!  We'll go with Baby Boy for now.  I can't believe he let his Nana and I strip him down to his skivvies right after a nap and stick him in a basket for a photo shoot...and he was hungry, too!  Definitely a calm baby.

Our little man arrived quickly and quietly over the weekend- a quick, natural labor for our nearly ten-pound boy.  Umm....that was a surprise.  A BIG surprise!  How many kids arrive and go straight to size one diapers?

We're home now, Nana is here for the week, and we're all counting our blessings!

Happy New Year!

Aunt LoLo and I have been scheming to have a pint-sized New Year's party to ring in the year of the rabbit with the kids- the party day finally arrived!  We celebrated a day early, and had so much fun.  Uncle LoLo's parents are in town, and Ma Ma (accent on the second syllable, and make it slightly higher than the first) helped us celebrate in style!

Aunt LoLo was doing some serious hot gluing when we arrived, to make cherry blossom branches.



We helped the kids make their OWN cherry blossom branches too!



We had our very own Lucky Dragon come to visit- Ernie wanted to know if he was a "parade?"  Umm...sure.  I guess.


Ma Ma fed him choi (spinach, today.)  You feed the dragons lettuce leaves, and they sometimes spit it back out with a lai si (lucky money red envelope)!


He gave everyone kisses.  Even me.  Pucker up!



Ma Ma made yummy noodles for lunch, and we shared a platter of lucky treats: candied lotus seed, winter melon, and lotus rounds; dumpling shaped cookies filled with peanut paste; rice cake dipped in egg and pan fried; and "lai si" candy that came in red wrappers.  OH, and all the kids got their own lucky money "lai si," but only they could "ching ching" by shaking their clasped fists at Ma Ma and saying "gung hay faht choi!"  Mimi is such a parrot right now, she got it right away...which is why Ma Ma always calls Mimi "gwai" and "good girl."  We've gotten a kick out of seeing how many cantonese words Ma Ma has gotten Mimi to say this past week!

Thank you so much for celebrating Chinese New Years with us, Aunt LoLo!  Gung hay faht choi!

Why We Love Handmade

Do I have to say more? Cousin Ming Wai has been dying for her very own Ernie-made "pillow doll" (remember that secret project she was making?)

I ended up zipping around the edges with my machine after E hand stiched the seams, because I didn't realize that every time I changed the thread for her, (duh) I never went back and knotted the end of the old thread. So her lovely, lovely stitching is still there...it's just co-existing with my machine stitching.

We had a lovely birthday party for Ming Wai at the park with all her little friends, and wouldn't you know it: every birthday gift was hand made! I loved it. Loved it, LOVED it. Aunt LoLo nearly said "no presents" just because she didn't want everyone to feel obligated to go spend $20 in the toy aisle. Is that a local thing? It seems like a set-in-stone budget for little kids' birthday presents.

Flowered hair clips, bath bombs, a lovely little pillow case dress/tunic were all made by her friends and their mothers....I know that not everyone WANTS to make stuff, and certainly not everyone has the time, but I must say that it was nice (from a selfish perspective) to not be the only hand made/nearly-free-except-for-time-and-love gift to be found in those brightly colored bags!

Happy birthday, Ming Wai!

We've Been Making Memories

*edited: photo links are fixed, thanks guys!*


We've been over the mountains for the past week. The Cascade mountain range act like a giant filter to squeeze out all the water that blows in from the Puget Sound and the Pacific ocean, so while the West part of the state has rain forests and mild weather year-round the Eastern part is sunny and dry in the summer, with cold winters. (i.e., the Eastern part has actual seasons.)

My parents rented out three big 'ol houses near a big 'ol lake, and filled them full of family and friends. Yes- on the last evening, everyone got together for dinner and that was hamburgers for 25! Lucky for LoLo and I (the resident cooks) our brothers volunteered to head up the cooking crew for the last night. Before counting heads :)

We've been coming here for years, it's such a fun tradition. It's getting so big, I don't know what will happen in the future, but MAN has it been fun to get everyone together. This little "resort" community has so much to do- boats, ski-doos, mini golf, a beach, tennis, pools, lots of hills and roads to bike around on, basketball, volleyball, a little farmers market across the road, and on and on. This is our first time in a few years with ALL the siblings here, and that's been a real treat too.

The kids have been inseparable- Aunt LoLo went way over the top and made new dresses for all the girls so they could match. Here's Ming-Wai and Ernie in their red and white dresses (do you agree with me that they're pretty hard to tell apart from the back? The joys of having cousins with genetically identical mothers :)

Ernie and Mimi playing at the beach. We were out there every morning by 9:30, before the crowds. For some reason, the crowds thought that 72 or 75 was too cold to go to the beach. Excuse me? 75 degrees is about as good as our summer afternoons get at home. It's FINE beach weather :)

Mimi playing mini golf. She was pretty good at this- whack the ball off the tee as hard as she could, toddle over to grab her ball, then toddle over to the hole. She'd carefully place the ball a few inches from the hole and smack it in. Yay!!

This was Ming Wai and Ernie's favorite perch at night- after dinner they'd split a popsicle and sit at the very corner of the lawn. We had a great lot, right at an intersection with a stop sign. Ernie figured it was her duty to stick her hand out and yell "STOP!!!!!" at all the cars whose drivers, obviously, couldn't read as well as she could.

It's been such a fun time, but it's time to be home! Just a week left until Ernie and I start Kindergarten together, so there will be plenty to keep us busy this last week of summer.

Beautiful Life: Over the River (and mountains, and the state of California)

Welcome to our friends from Melissa's Beautiful Life linky fest- glad you could stop by! Won't you say hello?
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(Wonder Daddy and Uncle Fireball cleaning the bike)

It's 6:30 in the morning, and everyone is still asleep. BUT, since Mimi woke up at 5:15, and just went back to sleep (and we share a room), I'm out here while she's in there. That's OK, though. When you're visiting family, sometimes it's nice to have a quiet morning.

(Wonder Daddy heading out on a long bike ride)

We're here at my in-laws, on a trip that is soon to draw to a close. Their house backs up to a large grassland, and I'm watching cows, rabbits, and dun-colored birds eat their breakfast. We've never visited here in the Spring, and we've discovered that high desert is beautiful in May. The tumbleweeds are green and growing, and there are tiny wildflowers dotting the vacant lots. This is kind of a boom town, created a few decades ago in the middle of the desert.

(Getting ready to ride with Grandpa)

With this economic down turn, after a huge housing boom, there are too many "master planned communities" at quarter-occupancy. But, it's a nice town with lots of good schools. Cold, sunny, winters; mild, windy, springs; just-hot-enough summers (complete with monsoons a few afternoons a week), and I haven't been here in the Fall yet!

(A very hesitant and careful thumbs-up from Ernie)

Wonder Daddy's family used to live just a few miles from us. Holidays were always busy- mornings at home, afternoons and evenings spent shuttling between my grandparents and family, and his grandparents and family. It was kind of crazy, but always worth it. Two summers ago, Grandpa J was transferred/moved his family to where the Spirit prompted him. All but a few of his former co-workers have or will lose their jobs in our area, as that particular location is shutting down. So far, we've been able to come down to visit once or twice a year, with his family coming up once or twice a year.

(Mimi contemplating the slide)

It's been a beautiful, fantastic week with Wonder Daddy's family, and I'm grateful we've had the chance to visit!


(Making cookies with Nana)

Beautiful Life: Time with Family

Time for Melissa's linky-fest again! This is my contribution to her weekly "Beautiful Life" link carnival.

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Family is what has been beautiful this week.

I started visiting my mom's folks every week for lunch when I left work , at the beginning of my (permanent) maternity leave. When Aunt LoLo left work for her permanent maternity leave she joined me and Ernie, and BBJ shortly thereafter. Next came Mimi, who came just a few weeks before we had to say our final good-byes to Grandma. I feel so blessed that two of my children had the chance to know their fantastic, thrifty, optimistic, kind, great-grandmother.

Now that LoLo has taken her family across the country, Mimi, Ernie, (and my toddler-wranglin' Mom) go and visit Grandpa every week.


We've also spent quite a lot of time with my little sister, Aunt Bert, this week while my parents are celebrating their anniversary in sunny Hawai'i (*sigh*). There are 10 years separating us, and I moved out when she was 11. She is such an amazing young women, and so talented (do you know many high schoolers that whip up charcoal portaits of your children in their spare time, or turn in history papers in french just because it seemed funny at the time? Good thing her teacher speaks french...)

Bert and Ernie drawing still lifes

A portait, courtesy of Ernie. Love the eyelashes... and the spelling!

I am grateful to live close to family, and that we can visit those who aren't so close...loves to everybody! We miss you all... see you soon!

Merry Christmas, Everyone

Recently Heard

Ernie's first drawing- this is me. Or Emma. Or Daddy. Or Ernie. But probably Emma, my brother's girlfriend and one of Ernie's favorite people (Emma dances with her, and teaches her to draw, and lets Ernie wear her pretty necklaces)

Following in the footsteps of my friend over at Little Adventures, here are some of the things we've been hearing.
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Walking out of church, Ernie tries to open the heavy glass and metal door. She finally turns and tries to *puuush* it open with her backside. Above her head, Daddy reaches past and helps her, which results in a tumble to the floor. Crying ensues.

Mommy "Are you hurt?"

Ernie "Yesssss!"

Mommy "What hurts?"

Ernie *clutching her battered posterior* "Mine BUNNY!"

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Walking in to her bathroom during her weekly bath, I smell soap, and see a foamy white child, from shoulders to water-line.

"I clean, Mommy!"

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Coming in to check on her as she washes her hands after a potty stop, I find a sink full of soapy water, an empty baby bath bottle (which was new), and 2 rubber duckies floating in the sink, smooching under her command. Oh yeah, and she's buck naked.

"See Mommy? A kiss!"

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At lunchtime, before her nap, we promised her something that she LOVES. I heard her waking up, and went in to greet her. She opened her eyes and said...

Ernie: "A do-nut."

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And finally, today's installments. We leave tomorrow for Nana and Grandpa's house- we'll ride in Mom-Mom's car, in an airplane, on a people-mover...any ONE of these things would send her into a tizzy, and we're doing all three! Right now, she's been trying to go to sleep for 2 hours.

Mommy "Head on pillow and go to sleep!"
Ernie "That's a bad idea."

later

Daddy "Go to sleep!"
Ernie "Why not sun up?"

later

Daddy goes in for one final tuck-in, after she has managed to pull the curtain tension rod out of her windowsill, checking to see if the sun is up one too many times. It will stay down for the rest of the night, so she doesn't have to get out of bed to check for daylight!

The Days Fly Past

The days fly by in a blur, but here are some moments.

Mimi loves to sleep in my arms, and we've spent our nights together in an arm chair. Today she napped in her car seat- no choking or kicking, and no waking up after five minutes. Hooray, I might get to use my lovely bed again!


Wonder Daddy's aunt and uncle spent the night with us and left early in the morning for his first-ever marathon. Here they are trying to get a happy picture of Mimi, at 9:30 pm, for Nana. Unfortunately, FAIL.


Made my first loaf of french bread, and it won't be my last! Thanks for the superb recipe, Nana! (Click through for recipe.)

We've spent a few evenings with my parents- it's bliss to sit around and watch the girls entertain my family. (Thanks for letting us spend more than 16 hours with you over the weekend to watch conference!)
And thank you Mom Mom for still being willing to play Cooties with Ernie...for the hundredth time.
And thanks Mom Mom for combing your Grandma visits with ours while I learn to wrangle two daughters.
Ernie loves her time on Grandma's bed, watching cartoons and eating all of Grandpa's pretzels and cashews.
I love this picture of Grandma and Mimi!