Delayed Thanks

Looking back on my photo reel for the past few weeks brings a smile to my face.  We have been rocking it hard here in the Tri-Cities.  We got our first snow a few weeks ago and the girls were ecstatic.  We built a little snowman and perched him atop our mailbox before the rest of it started to melt.  After that, we were off to see all things Santa; at the mall and a Christmas event Aunt Liz's business was putting on.  We don't really get into the magic behind Santa with our girls, instead we are trying to instill in them a sense of who the real Saint Nicholas was and the spirit of giving that is inherent in all things 'Santa'.  We have kind of slacked off in past years because the concept was kind of heavy for a two-year old, but Audrey can totally understand the reasons we need to give to those who are less fortunate and that is why we will be celebrating Saint Nicholas Day this year.

So, when we were on our way to the mall to see the big guy in red, Audrey asked: "Are we going to go see a guy dressed like Santa?".  It kind of makes me happy that she can understand that he's not a magical gift-giving genie, but symbolizes someone who once was 'Santa'.

Any time spent at the mall is good in Audrey's book, so we went and gawked at the jolly guy with fantastic facial hair, ate some pretzels, grabbed a goodie bag from the Kidget's booth and then headed over to Liz's event to see yet another guy dressed like Santa.  This one was handing out candy canes and the girls actually warmed up to taking a picture (in his vicinity) after being around him for half an hour.  It was a really fun, laid-back Christmasy weekend.

...which we needed.

Because we ended up hosting a group of thirty people for Thanksgiving.

And it was awesome. But I'll get to that later.

In the interim, we mourned the loss of our favorite local tea-shop bakery.  The girls and I have made a habit on Tuesdays of hitting up the library for story time and adjourning to the Tea Shop for tea and scones afterward.  It has been a really sweet tradition that will always stick with me.  But, being the daughter of small business owners, I can totally understand the strain that a poor economy puts on local businesses.  People don't stop to drink tea when they're worrying about paying their bills.  It's a shame, but I have nothing but good memories attached to the Chamomile Garden Tea Bar and I'm thankful that the mother and daughter who run the business are choosing to cut their losses and focus on the tea shop.

Usually there is nothing like a well-timed pie day to pick up one's spirits, instead, this year made me understand the Christmas Vacation-inspired take on the holidays.  Everyone has individual feelings on what aspects of the holidays just absolutely define the celebration.  For Karen, it's sneaking samples of the turkey before anyone else gets a bite.  Our cousin Ashley claims that there can be no celebration unless there is Martinelli's sparkling cider present.  I am of the opinion that a celebration without pie is no celebration at all.  So, understandably, Pie Day is a huge deal for me.  And now that I'm a mother with traditions to carry on, I want my children to understand how beautiful it is to take an entire day to have no other goal than to make pie.

Pie Day started out great this year.  I got out of bed in a near-euphoric state in anticipation of the joy to come.  Only I forgot that you cannot focus on just making pie when you are also responsible for the health and well being of two children under the age of four.  In the end, we made four pies and my goal had been to make at least seven.  By bath time, I was just starting to come around to the idea that four pies would be enough.  And then I tasted the extra pumpkin filling from the pies Audrey made with my assistance...and tasted no sugar.  None.

I was so caught up in the magic that I forgot to include a key ingredient for making pie edible and was, at that point, down to twelve hours spent making a grand total of two edible pies.

To say: 'I lost it' would be putting it mildly.

But then I remembered that this was not the first pie day I had gone on a Clark W. Griswold inspired rampage over pie day or even just the holidays themselves.  It's all a part of growing up and trying to be a part of creating that magic for your loved ones.  Luckily, it was also an opportunity for me to humble myself in my personal delusions of what makes a holiday special. 

In the end, I bought several unappetizing pies from Fred Meyer and called it a day.  And you know what?  It was still a fantastic celebration.  We woke up early and hit up the Tri-Cities Turkey Trot.  We walked a mile with the girls, chased dogs and played in the leaves then headed home to start our feast preparations.  We had family and friends gather in great numbers to celebrate and give thanks and all that is what mattered more than turkey or sparkling cider or pie.  We are blessed and so very thankful.   

    

Beautifully Busy

When I drop off the radar on my blog, it's usually because I'm too busy enjoying life to update anyone else with the details.  This past week was no exception...although if you asked John, I'm sure he'd have a different story.  

John has been working on a Masters certification in Applied Intelligence Analysis for the better part of a year and this last class has been an absolute killer.  Pretty much every week has been punctuated by a paper due at the end.  Blech.  And anyone who has ever tried to be remotely productive with two crazy children in the house will know that it is near impossible, so the girls and I have been spending a lot of time out of the house trying to give John some uninterrupted time to get papers and projects done.  John's final project in his last class was due Sunday evening and it was an epic series of outings for the girls and paper writing sessions for John.  

Terryn and Bailey are buds...even when she tries to escape him.

The girls and I were out and about so much without John that I think people started thinking I was trying to cover up his suspicious murder with the old "writing a paper" excuse.  It goes without saying that there has been much rejoicing for the return of The Papa.  

Luckily, the girls and I got to have a lot of fun while we accommodated Papa's paper writing. There are seven family/friend birthdays in a week and a half and the first celebration was this Saturday for Miss Hailey Turner.  Bailey was the life of the Party (as is expected) and Audrey spent most of her time in the toy room playing make believe with Hailey's dolls, ignoring everything but birthday cake. 

While we did spend a lot of time out on our own, we also coaxed John out for a few outings.  Natalie and her beautiful brood came over from Seattle to do a family photo shoot for us.  We were lucky enough to get to hang with the boys while Nat and Steve went to a client meeting Friday night and then played with the whole gang in the park the next morning and shot some photos (God-willingly) for our Christmas cards.   

Natalie and our novice photographer

 The next morning was the most glorious daylight's savings time I've experienced since becoming a parent--Falling back this year did not entail waking up at 5am, but meant an extra hour before church, in which I convinced our little family to sneak out of the house to enjoy an Ihop breakfast. 

More syrup, please!

 Life has been a little blurry since then: we've been celebrating the end of John's program by spending as much time together as humanly possible, playing with playdough, reading books, going on walks and generally basking in each other's presence.  Life is busy, but beautiful.  

Audrey with the sunflower she planted as a seed at the county fair

Happy Halloween!

Coach B! and Fancy Nancy are about to take the neighborhood by storm.

Life has been on the far side of busy lately. So, we were kind of just trying to keep our heads above water when, suddenly, it was time to get dressed up for Halloween and go about begging for candy.  I have mixed feelings about Halloween...as well as having mixed feelings about people who have mixed feelings about Halloween.  Understandably, it's an odd place to be.  I have nothing against the spirit of the holiday--I don't think it's satanic--holidays are what you make them, not what select microcosms in society practice. 

For me, Halloween is an excuse to dress up in a silly costume and parade about town.  I like it.  But, knocking on strangers doors, begging for candy while giving nothing in return?  I've got issues with that.  Especially since my children could easily be described as: cute, adorable, beautiful...I may be biased, but I do not want my children thinking that people are going to roll out the red carpet and search their house for gifts any time they ring the door bell.  (In case you're wondering where this is coming from, just watch The Bubble episode of 30 Rock.)

Luckily, this predicament comes with an easy solution.  I drew on Audrey's propensity to pick, arrange and gift flowers and announced that we would be exchanging flowers for candy this year.  It might sound lame, but I'll take whatever I can get when it comes to teaching these girls that being cute is not an actual accepted form of payment in the real world.  Also, I secretly love living vicariously through my daughter giving flowers to people. 

 

We had plans on a much grander scale, but our schedule dictated that we stick close to home.  And it was fortunate we did.  Remember how I was just talking about trying to find new ways to imbed ourselves in our community?  What better way than to use your costume-clad offspring as an excuse to canvas the neighborhood, ringing doorbells and making introductions?  We got to talk to a lot of our neighbors, who we usually just wave to while in our cars or front yards.  Having the topic of adorable children to break the ice really helps.  We've got it easy...I'm just sayin'.

Another boon to sticking to our neighborhood is that since we're on a dead end with houses on only one side of the street, this neighborhood doesn't get a lot of trick-or-treaters.  Our neighbors were all ridiculously excited to see the girls out and about and encouraged them to take as much candy as they wanted since there probably wouldn't be any other goblins ringing their doorbell that night. (ok, so I do actually like the candy aspect of Halloween, I just don't like feeling guilty about it) The long and short of it is: the girls made a killing.

 

We brought our booty back home and while the girls were distributing it to family members, Calvin, the pterodactyl, brought his parents by for a visit.  The girls shared a sucker with him and he proceeded to run circles around our kitchen island, drooling cherry flavored slobber all over his white undershirt until (I kid you not) it was entirely soaked through and faintly pink-colored.  Fortunately, this was an excuse for me to get him into one of the girls Bomb Squad shirts.  I love this kid more than words or awesome saliva-soaked shirts can express. 

Overall, we were kind of slapped in the face by the actual holiday coming upon us quickly.  At the beginning of our evening I felt like we were just trying to force a mandatory cultural experience on our children, but we ended up putting our own spin on it and made it a great, spiritually fulfilling holiday.  Take that, naysayers!   I'm going to go steal candy from my children now...you know, so they don't eat it.  It's better this way.  Trust me.