All I Want For Christmas...

I wrote a while back about the unusual feeling of homesickness I had been having. I knew, more than anything, that the Lord is faithful-that he had something worked out for us.

Even though all signs pointed towards us not being able to visit family for the holidays, I ended up feeling a deep peace about how things would pan out. I had dreams that people I hadn't seen in ages were sending us home for Christmas and in all of those dreams I felt a deep, resounding feeling that the Lord was providing. That he had something unexpected in the works. 

And he did. 

It was amazing-the Christmas Elves (what the rest of my immediate family named themselves) pooled their resources and bought us tickets to come home for Christmas. John dug deep and found he would be able to take more time off than he had expected. It all came together. The girls and I flew in on the 17th and John will be joining us on the 23rd.  I honestly couldn't ask for more. We've only been here for three days, but spending time with my family has been wonderful. I never realized until I got out in the real world, how lucky I am to have a family I look forward to spending the holidays with.

Most people I know associate some level of dread with the high stress situations family gatherings tend to entail. Most people even have an Eddie in their family. But not me.  Our family prioritizes family-time spent together. Preferably accompanied by cake or cookies and tea. Our main priorities are what our next meal will be or which baked goods to make in between. Our schedule revolves around which home we will gather at or who we will meet up with to share time with.  We nap, read, talk, play games, arrange flowers, play with clay, watch movies and generally try to avoid Walmart. It is a blessed life and I feel blessed to be a part of it. Even more, I feel such great joy that my children are now a part of these traditions. That some day they will understand our family loves and enjoys each other every day of the year, not just to tolerate each other on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I could care less about what's under the tree this Christmas. All I want for Christmas is my family. And if you're one of my five readers viewing this, that means you too.

Sisters

Looking back on my life, a lot of things seem very clear.  They say that hindsight is 20/20 and it may be a cliche, but it's true. 

I'm not crazy...he actually likes me too.

John and I met and started working together almost eight years ago.  A year after that I was starting to freak out a little bit because I had realized not only that I wanted him to be my best friend, but I also wanted to have his babies.  Lots of them.  Dating, at that point, wasn't even a remote possibility, so you can imagine how strange it was to want to have your cowoker's children.  Luckily, he realized how awesome I was and eventually those babies actually came to be.  We might have only been married for five months when I got pregnant, but in my mind, I had already waited two and  a half years.  I thought I had shown a great deal of restraint.

This kid made (and still makes) the best faces.  EVER.

Anyway, over the years we had mapped out what we thought our family would look like and decided that not only did we want babies....but we wanted lots of them.  At least a baseball team.  And luckily, God brought us Audrey.  And she was incredibly awesome; so fantastic that we decided we had been dead-on with the decision to have kids.  Let's keep going, Thelma!  More babies!!

It was almost frightening.  Have you ever heard of the term baby rabies?  It's like having baby fever...but on crack.  And I had it.  I was actually a little worried that I would never get over the compulsive need to procreate and would eventually end up with my own reality tv show.  Stop laughing.  This really happened.

Sister love.

Anyway, 18 months later, Bailey made her appearance and she, too, was awesome.  It could not be denied.   And all I wanted at that point was for my girls to grow up together and have each other.  Eventually, the complete feeling of our little foursome made me realize that we didn't need to have a baseball team to be happy.  Ever since that miraculous change of heart, all I've wanted is to foster a good relationship between my girls. Growing up with my sister and knowing both sides of being her mortal enemy and now best friend...I just want my girls to be best buds.  The hair pulling and screaming and fighting over wardrobe items is inevitable, but mostly, I want them to love each other.  Unconditionally.  Just like I love them.

When Bailey was a baby, we used to talk about: "Someday, these girls will be old enough to play together".  "Someday, they'll have each other's backs".  And you know what?  That day is now.

It has taken seven years to come from the shocking realization that all I wanted out of life was for John to be the father of my children to finding that place where we feel absolutely complete. 

Audrey and Bailey have started playing together.  They've played around each other and shared toys and said 'please' and 'thank you'....but now they are playmates.  They wrestle around on the ground tickling each other and laughing.  They encourage each other in the milestones they reach.  They play chase and ring-around-the-rosie.  Audrey reads to Bailey and they occasionally hold hands while wandering around the house. 

How could that not make me complete? 

Well, they took it to another level this week. 

Bailey has been potty training for several months and we were almost to the point that I was feeling comfortable having her in undies and knowing she knew what she was doing. 

...they always wait until you're comfortable to throw a wrench in the works.

Enter:  The most akward parenting experience I've ever had (and I'm including Audrey's notorious turd on the floor incident) 

Bailey peed on our friends couch.  And not like: "Whoops I had an accident", but like: "Hey, did someone spill a pitcher of water over here?".  What do you do? 

Well, first you apologize a lot. 

A LOT.

Then you go change your kid out of her pee-soaked clothes and, while your at it, you put both of your kiddos in their jammies because it's already an hour after their bed time and you still have to figure out what to do about the pee.

So, while I'm in the bathroom getting the girls changed, Audrey comes to me and says: "Mama, I peed on the couch because I had to go potty."

And at first I thought she actually thought she had an accident and didn't realize it.  So, I explained in depth that her pants were dry...yadda, yadda, yadda.  It was Bailey.  Not her.

But she kept insisting.  She never faltered.  She was taking the blame for her kid sister because she could see how flustered her parents were over the situation.  She wanted to make sure Bailey wasn't punished and was willing to stand in her stead. 

That just blew me away; I wanted my girls to be buddies.  But they're more than that.  They're sisters.  They've got each other's backs.  And that, my friends, points straight to God.  No one else could have fostered that relationship.  I only pray he keeps it going till I'm long gone.  

 And by the way, after your kid pees all over someone's furniture, I recommend getting it professionally cleaned.  Just put that one in the memory bank if you're ever in the same, mortifying situation. 

St. Nicholas Day (eve) Shenanegans

Making believe with her Christmas Village minions

In the spirit of keepin' it jolly this year, we've been observing many holiday traditions.  We started off by decorating the tree...and then things seemed to trickle to the rest of the house.  Audrey and Bailey have been absolutely fascinated by the Christmas village Marlene puts up every year.  The plush Snowmen, penguins, and animated musical Christmas toys have been making the rounds. John attempted to pull a Clark W. Griswold in decorating the exterior of the house, but was soon poo-pooed by his overbearing wife.  (I'm happy to report that we now have a very tasteful display of twinkle lights to greet us any time we come home after dark.)  We've gone out to look at Christmas lights, decorated a gingerbread house with the fantastic Hilliard kids...you name it.  If it's jolly, we're all over it. 

We use 'decorating' and 'eating' interchangeably around here...

And today, we've done something that I hope will go down in the annals as our newest holiday tradition.

John and I have talked about celebrating St. Nicholas Day since before we had kids, but we haven't really felt like either of the girls were able to understand the meaning behind it until this year.  So, naturally, I decided to pull out all the stops and make a big deal out of it.  I mean, this is stockings we're talking about.  I have so many happy memories of waking up Christmas morning and being handed the same familiar, over-sized red stocking full of fruit, nuts, chocolate and always a wrapped gift or two.  You might be able to say that opening my stocking was as comforting as knowing there would be pie for breakfast the day after Christmas.  It's that good.

So, understandably, I am unwilling to let St. Nicholas Day be an uneventful day in which the girls happen to get some presents stuffed in a sock.  Oh, no.  And I'm also stubborn enough to want them to understand that this is also a part of the Christmas story; that St. Nicholas was a generous man because it was an extension of his love for Christ.

So...we I went a little crazy.

My little elves packing our St. Nick gifts

I'm ashamed to say that I don't personally know anyone I would consider needy--no one who would welcome a gift of food or clothing because they genuinely are in need of it.  That's something I need to work on.  But, since this is a new thing and we are just beginning, I decided we would gift our neighbors with a little something.

...for all seventeen of them.

The girls and I loaded up gift bags with the things I remember fondly pulling out of my stocking as a child:  apples, oranges, pears, grapefruits, mixed nuts in the shell, and of course: chocolate.  We also included a note telling them Happy St. Nicholas Day with an explanation that this offering was symbolic of our love for them as we love Christ.

Enjoying a treat after all that hard work

...And that's not all.

After a St. Nicholas Day feast, we packed the car full of the gift bags and headed out into the night to covertly deliver our packages.  Even though I had been working on this concept with Audrey for days, she was still confused.  Why are we putting on snow boots with our pajamas?  Why is Dad following us in the car while we go on a walk?  Bailey, in particular, was not happy that the gifts she had lovingly packed were seemingly abandoned to strangers' doorsteps in the night.  But, we had fun.  It was a new beginning to a really fun tradition. And I hope we will be able to keep it up in the years to follow.

Cheers!

When we finished delivering our packages, we came home for some celebratory chocolate milk (since my girls won't drink hot cocoa...yet.) and had a very thorough discussion about how they thought our neighbors would feel when they realized in the morning that someone had left them a gift.  It was around that point that I could see the light bulbs going off...at least for Audrey.  Bailey was really just jazzed to be drinking chocolate milk at 8pm and kept making toasts.

Anyway,  If you think that was where I left it, you clearly don't know me.  It's not even St. Nicholas Day yet!  All of that was just a set up for the girls to understand why they would wake up in the morning to giant stockings full of presents and a rockin' breakfast.  I can't wait for them to wake up, to see their faces light up when they see their stockings stuffed to the brim and to live a little vicariously through their joy.  Ain't parenting grand?

 Happy St. Nicholas Day (eve) to all!  And to all a good night!

     

Gettin' Jolly

Thanksgiving could not come and go fast enough for me this year.  I am usually all about taking time to respect the Turkey and even (generally) conform to John's views that Christmas music and eggnog consumption should be limited to the month of December.  But this year...what can I say?  I've been feeling extra festive and have overtly flaunted my Christmas Cheer in front of my disapproving husband.  I love being able to share the meaning of the holidays with the girls...especially now that Audrey can understand more complex concepts than: Hey, look!  Lights! or Wohoo!! Presents! 

Instead we've been discussing what it means to be needy or less fortunate, why the birth of Jesus was so overwhelmingly awesome, and most importantly, why we should be generous, kind and make an effort to give to others as an extension of our joy.  Maybe by the time the girls are mothers it will have hit home. 

While I wish I were staunch enough to stick simply to those concepts, I am a sucker for the comfort of tradition.  So, we've been observing many of the traditions that remind John and me of the holiday seasons we spent growing up.  The day after Thanksgiving, we pulled the ole artificial tree out of it's box and set it up in the living room.  Shortly thereafter, we realized that almost all of the old lights were kaput.  Now, hopefully purchasing new lights every few years will become a thing of the past since we replaced ours with LED's...which Jeff informed me will last until the girls are my age.  I'm holding him to that.

Even after purchasing lights, we further put off decorating the tree to observe small business Saturday and I am so glad we did.  Supporting local businesses appeals to almost every aspect of my personality, so we really enjoyed bumming around downtown Richland, finding some presents for family at our local Kitchen supply store (Ariel's) and splurging on some amazing cheese and wine at Cheese Louise.  We ate lunch at Fat Olive's and stopped by Kelley's bakery on the way home to get a cake for Oliver's early first birthday celebration.   

After the littles were all up from their naps, we strapped the D-Man into his high chair, sang to him and sat around gawking as he studiously ate his birthday cake.  Since we will miss out on Ollie's actual birthday shindig, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to shower him with cake and presents for the first time. 

Just as dusk hit, we finally started decorating the Christmas tree; the Audrey girl took to this with a very serious attitude.  John brought out a chair for her to stand on and she set out to make ours the best-looking tree on the block.  The ever-rambunctious Bailey even did a pretty decent job of getting ornaments in their proper place.  On the whole, it was a really nice day to embrace the coming of Christmas.  The kiddos had some great play time (potentially inspired by their cake-induced sugar highs) in the Christmas Tree box.  Seriously.  How are we going to top that dang box with Christmas gifts this year?

 Since then, we've been listening to Christmas music (Bailey is not happy about this development as it cuts into her audio book time) decorating with poinsettias, eating candy canes, drinking eggnog, making gingerbread, and are gearing up for our big St. Nicholas Day event this year.  (Yes, I'm going to leave you hanging on that one)  Most of all, I'm thankful that Thanksgiving is over so I don't have to feel guilty about the compulsion to go all Jolly on everyone.  

 

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.