Obie-wan Jay-nobi, one-liner master

I had to write down all of Jay’s most recent one-liners because he’s been cracking us up lately, and I don’t want to forget these golden statements.

1. Jay, laying in bed at bedtime: Mommy! Give me lots and lots and lots of kisses!
2. Discussing a Sesame Street episode
   Jeff: what does a triangle look like, Jay?
   Jay: It has one, two, three sides. And one, two, three ankles.
3. While Rose was struggling with crayons and paper, whimpering a little.
   Jay: Rose is having issues.
4. Jay: Mommy, do you need some help cleaning up?
   Shaina: Sure, thanks!
   Jay: Rose can help you.
5. Shaina: Jay, please stop shouting.
   Jay: It’s a BOY voice!
6. Jay peeks out of time-out.
   Shaina: Are you ready to be nice to Rose?
   Jay: No. (and he goes back into the time-out room)
7. Jay “reads” his verse for family scripture time by repeating after us, phrase-by-phrase.
   Jeff: Lamanites
   Jay: Lame-fights (that about sums those guys up, I think)
8. Jay’s past tense of make is currently “mated” instead of “made.” Makes for some pretty hilarious situations (“is the white guy mated?”). Darn those irregular verbs.
9. Jay: I can sing the ABC’s in French! Ashe, Beesh Sheesh, Deeh, Eeeh, Esh, Sheee… (He tries to copy Jeff’s French but ends up just adding a lot of shhhh-es onto English words. It’s great, and sounds about right to me.)
10. Jay: I love you, Mommy. (My favorite sentence).

A success, a failure, and some cuties

Last week I finished my second wall shelf!

It has hooks.

I hung it by our basement door that goes into the garage. Eventually we’ll get a nice bench to go under it. Success!

And now on to the failure… I tried to paint one of our old icky cheap-o-laminate fake oak bookcases this week. I spray painted it black. Well, I didn’t know you’re supposed to sand laminate surfaces before painting them, so the paint just rubs off on my fingers. I thought I may eventually feel like taking the trouble to sand it down. But the paint smell was strong so I stuck the shelves out on the back porch to air out one sunny morning…and forgot to bring them back in when it started raining. Hello, garbage truck! You win some and you lose some. With laminate I think it’s always a loss.

And now I must show off a few cuties:

Playing on the Kindle together

Day two and little Miss Laynie has rosy cheeks…

…and the cutest elf ears EVER!

Happy little lips…

…and really really LONG fingers!

While we all adore Laynie, Jay and Rose steal Grama’s iPad. And everyone is happy.

I have a niece!

Layne Kathryn Gibbons was born TODAY, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:19am. She was 7 lbs 1 oz and 21 inches long, with black hair, eyelashes, and even EYEBROWS! I could go on and on (and on), but it’s not really my story to tell, so suffice it to say that I was honored to be THERE in the middle of all the action while Layne was being born and it was such an amazing experience. Layne and I must have something in common already, because we were the only ones in the room crying when she was born. It was so special to see Steph, the most loving aunt ever, have a baby of her own! As if I could watch that without weeping a little. Now I get to be an aunt right back at her. Excited is a WEAK word to describe how I feel about that. I hope I’m allowed to call her Laynie.

Welcome!

Congratulations to this new happy family.

That LIP!

Love. Daddy.

Dr. Weaver, Jasen, and Leslie

Grama

AUNT!!!!!!!!!!!
(how do you hold a newborn again?)
[I guess I should explain my uncharacteristically blue shiny fingernails: the cute 10 and 11 year old girls in our ward had an activity this week where they invited the Primary presidency and did a spa night for us as a thank-you gift. Nail polish is not my favorite, but how could I refuse such sweet girls? I don’t even own any nail polish remover…]

Another Grama!

She has cheeks.

Cousins! Steph looks lovely, of course (even if she won’t believe me when I say it. I understand. I never believed any such comments in the hospital either. I hope it’s ok that I posted these pictures).

Rose wants her baby doll cousin. Rose brought Layne 2 little hairbow headbands. Jay had some rocks in his pocket but when I asked him if he was going to give one to his new cousin, he said no.

Perfection is a peaceful baby with a bow glued to her head.

Cardboard Queen

(that would be me)

This week is weird. It’s after Thanksgiving, but before December all week long. I don’t want to start on Christmas crafts yet because I’m saving them for our daily Christmas advent calendar which starts December 1st. Jay and Rose have been playing with invisible food a lot recently. I like quality toys, and a quality play kitchen and quality play food are not in the Christmas budget this year (I found something way cooler and more affordable).

After Pinterest-ing some seriously clever, cute homemade wood play kitchens, I decided they were all far above my feeble carpentry skills. Instead, I worked with my favorite toy-building medium: CARDBOARD! So much cheaper and more forgiving than wood, and you don’t even need a saw. In the past I’ve made Jay and Rose swords, a violin, cars, and a table all out of cardboard.

All of the fancy wood kitchens I saw online were old nightstands or old accent tables converted into unbelievable toys. So I merged that idea with a not-so-old piece of furniture. We keep the spare bench that goes with our dining table in this funny corner-window nook. A perfect play countertop, even if it is cushioned!

Appliance #1, if a sink is an appliance: the sink. Amazon box, duct tape, and milk jug lids fastened with brads so they turn on and off like a real faucet. Red for hot, blue for cold. If I had silver paint or unlimited duct tape, I would’ve turned the whole sink silver, but for now it requires a bit more imagination.

Appliance #2: the stove. 2 flaps from a cardboard box with spiral burners (Jay calls them the hot and cold burners—I wonder what you’d use a cold burner for). For the switches, I cut an oval of cardboard, puckered it in the middle and taped it to death. Then I made my own brad out of wire and looped it on so the switches turn.

The oven is pretty self-explanatory. Behind the cardboard door is a box turned sideways, which makes the oven.

Jay likes making roast bear. He calls it roast beast, because we’ve been reading The Grinch every day. In the interest of poor roast ShainaBear, I decided that we could use some play food to go with the play kitchen.

The next day, out came the fleece and felt scraps, the hot glue gun, and the sewing machine. Pizza, bananas, carrots, strawberries, cookies, whipped cream, pancakes, and eggs.

“This is my restaurant.”

Jay is wearing his ramshackle Luke Skywalker wrap-on “boots” from Halloween and he’s cutting his play pancake with his cardboard sword. Playing house, boy style. (Rose is wearing an old tank top of mine because she wanted something to dress up in and that’s all I could find)

My favorites are the fleece bananas.

Jay likes the whipped cream best. He puts it on everything, even the pizza.

They can have cookies any time they want now!

PS…Turkey Trot photos

My friend just sent me some pictures of our frozen turkey trot:

the intense one (Jeff)

the fun one (Sam—Jeff’s lil bro)

the dorky ones (Lydia and me)

biker A (Dan—Jeff’s Dad, for you non-Whites)

biker B (Leslie—Jeff’s Mom, for you other non-Whites)

And the Unk (Jasen) with the neph and the niece—they walked a mile or two to stay warm while spectating the run. Steph (wife of Jasen, sister of Jeff) is 9 months pregnant and sneakily ducked out of photos. We can’t wait for that little bundle to come!

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving was satisfying this year. You know—turkey trot, family time, turkey feasting—the usual. I love a quiet family holiday.

We did our annual homegrown Turkey Trot 5K in the cold morning of Thanksgiving Day with a few friends (I think this year our run population was around 15). We had everyone start the run saying “gobble gobble gobble!” Jeff cruised into first place with an 18:43, and I chugged in 3rd at 24:03. Jeff’s brother Sam was in town and he got second place a minute ahead of me, so it was a White SWEEP! I was pleased with my time because I’ve only been running for a month now…and then I woke up the next morning. One word: SORE! The stiffness is finally subsiding 3 days later.

Since we were not hosting The Dinner, I made green bean casserole from scratch for fun this year. Those fresh crunchy fried onions were SO YUM. It was such a comfort to learn how easy it is to make homemade cream of mushroom soup. 100% better than the canned goop. Needless to say, the casserole turned out tasty-roo. It was a lot of work, though!

I also made juicy peach-cranberry pie, creamy pumpkin cheesecake, and an experimental peanut pie (not that great). Oh, and 57 fluffy white rolls. The Whites did the rest, and we convened at their house to eat at 5:30pm (it was late because Steph and Jasen had the Gibbons’ family feast to attend first).

Remember this picture? Well, 2 years later Jay’s opinion of turkey legs has improved:

Jay ate one leg 'o turkey and called it quits. He didn’t know which part was edible and which was cartilage-gristle, so he made some awesome faces. Rose liked her dinner just fine, but she was more interested in playing with Grama’s and Grampa’s toys.

After a nice, pleasant family turkey gobbling, we went home and watched the classic 1987 Claymation Christmas Celebration on YouTube to kick off the Christmas season. It’s one of Jeff’s favorites, and the rest of us like it too.

After the niños were in bed on Thursday night, I made the grave error of venturing forth to the Sunnyside Walmart to see if I could snag a backyard trampoline on sale. HA. Shudder. Fail. Walmart is never ever EVER worth it. I could paint a whole lengthy, dark post about what it was like being squeezed amidst swarms of people,  waiting an hour in line to buy the wrong [not-on-sale item], but I think I’ll opt out of reliving that horror. Suffice it to say that it took me almost all day at home on Friday to recover and regain my motivation for anything.

By Friday night, however, Jay persuaded me to get out our Christmas decorations and we spent a pleasant evening decorating our skinny fake tree and putting up our new garland. Christmas music healed my Black wounds faster than anything.

 

Jay built a “house” by spreading blankets out on the floor, and he and Rose laid in it admiring our Christmas tree. They LOVE that thing so much! It is un-decorated and re-decorated at least 10 times a day.

Happy Thanksgiving and hello, Christmastime!