Christmas Cuteness

Jay and Rose have a thoughtful, stylish aunt and grandma who always find them the cutest clothes.  We were overdue for a kid photo shoot anyways…it’s been what, a week since the last one?

Rose took a bath this morning, and then woke up from her nap with this crazy bedhead. It would NOT be tamed. So I got creative with my glue gun. I made a tiny little bow to match Rose’s dress. It has a piece of Ziploc baggie on the back to keep it in her hair. It worked even better than I thought it would! And it took me about 5 minutes to make. I think I’ll be making more of those, because Rose rips off all headbands, but she didn’t ever touch her sweet little bow all day today. I was delighted. [side note: I love kissing sleep-warm baby cheeks. They’re even softer than normal baby cheeks]

My little pretty Christmas doll. I love the tiny paintbrush wisp in the bow.

Check out that crazy hair—it was a trick to capture some of it in the Ziploc.

The little ruffle of tulle on the hem of Rose’s dress fascinated both of them. Jay never let go of it the whole time I was taking pictures.

It was hard to get them to look at the camera because Jeff was standing off to the side holding the ugly cord to the wall AC unit up out of sight with the broom handle. It was kind of distracting to los ninos.

The Christmas Cuties

Decorating

Christmas is here again, oh Christmas is here again, this won-drous day of joy and glad-ness! I love that song. We decorated our little place for the season this week. We’ve never lived the same place for 2 Christmases in a row, so it’s always… interesting to see how we adapt our few little decorations to each new space.

Hang on—I have to show you our permanent décor before I show you the Christmasy stuff we added to it. A few weeks ago, I spent a day poking our walls full of holes and hanging our jumbled assortment of pictures all over the place.

I think they go with our jumbled assortment of couches quite well.

Here’s the “symmetrical wall.” I love my big pictures of Jay and Rose. When I’m in a bad mood or stressed out, I just look at our gallery of pictures, and they make me feel so much better.

The hallway has our diplomas and the year-by-year puzzle piece kids picture thingy ma bob. We put one picture per year for each kid on the puzzle. My Mom did one of all 5 of her kids, and I always knew I’d do one with my kids. So there it is.

Ok, now back to the Christmas cheer!

This little red guy was the hands-down FAVORITE tree ornament of my childhood. You squeeze his little cheeks, and his mouth opens to reveal a Hershey’s kiss. (what’s not to love?) This year when Jay discovered it at my parents’ house, he opened the stale kiss inside and fed it to the little guy. Since there was already an eye missing and the yarn would’ve been tough to clean, we ended up just tossing his dirty, furry-lipped self into the trash. One more link to my childhood: severed.

ANYWAYS, Usually we get our Christmas stuff out the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we didn’t get around to it till December 1st. We watched the Browns decorate their tree, AND the Whites do theirs before we did ours. A lot of the decorating steam had already been let off by then, so we did ours nice n fast.

The first thing I hung up was actually the advent calendar that I threw together the night before December 1st. I made little pouches by folding wrapping paper and taping the edge shut. Then I put a few little things in each one and clipped them to a ribbon along that weird plastic thing that’s above our window. It’s very quaint and cottagey-homemade, but I like how it turned out.
[If you’re curious about what’s inside each bag, I put a puzzle piece to a manger scene puzzle, a scripture, and an activity or two for each day. I found the puzzle and scriptures online.]

Jeff went down and dug our Christmas boxes out of our closet in the basement. For the record, we are devoted to real live Christmas trees. When we were in student housing, though, there was a no-live-tree policy in the apartments. So we got this skinny fake tree. Now we only get a real tree when we’re going to stay in our own home for Christmas. So far that’s only happened once.

Colored lights go on first. Can you tell that I’m wearing my famous Christmas tree headband? (I love my shadow when I wear that thing). Jay is giving me a funny look like, “what is that big green thing on her head? I want one.”

Rose had fun mangling this red bow while we finished decorating the tree.

It’s hard to keep a tree decorated with two curious children around.

I tried to get a picture of Rose with my headband on, but she was too quick for me.

Jay finally had his turn with the headgear. This is the best I could do for a kids-under-the-tree picture.

I prefer a star at the top of the tree (the symbolism and all), but I have not been able to find or make a good star for our tree yet. This star is a piece of yellow paper that I taped to the tree’s tip a few years ago. I know, I know, TACKY! But sadly it’s the best I’ve managed so far, and believe me, I’ve tried lots of things. Sadly, too many of the crafty ideas I have don’t actually work when I try to make them. So this year, Jeff lynched an angel up there (she is hanging by string wrapped around her neck) and then I tucked the bent paper star behind her.

The whole tree, all lit up. (that’s another of my star experiments hanging in the middle—I worked so hard on it, and then noticed that it has 6 points instead of 5. For some reason it seemed too Jewish for a CHRISTmas tree. [Yarg, I feel like that was a dangerous statement to make. But there you go. I didn’t mean it in any bad way, and I know that Jesus was born a Jew, but it just didn’t look right up top on our tree.]

The last things to go up were the stockings. They needed a little doctoring before they were ready to be displayed. I sewed them a few years ago and ironed Mom, Dad, and Joseph onto them with fusible fleece. Well, none of us go by those names, so they never really felt like OURS. I peeled off the letters, cut out some new ones, and now we have…

No, Jeff and I don’t go by Ma and Pa, but those letters are HARD to cut out, so I went for short and easy. Plus I enjoy the allusion to The Night Before Christmas although I think it may be Mama, instead of Ma in that poem. Oh well, we will be Ma and Pa for now. Maybe next year our identities will change again…oh, and don’t look too closely at the Pa stocking, or you’ll see the print of the D from Dad, and it may look like PAD.

Ah, homemade Christmas décor in its patchy, rustic glory. There’s nothing quite like it.

Mama-trauma.

aka: potty training.

Will it ever get better/easier/done?

We just got back from the library. While we were at the library, Jay came over to me and said, “Mommy, stink.” Then the smell hit me. We went to the bathroom and I did my best to clean him up without vomiting. It was vile.

Jay can usually make it through a day without any accidents if I take him in and poise him over the potty every other hour. After nearly 3 weeks of that, though, I thought he’d be getting the hang of noticing when he has to go on his own. BUT nay. When I try leaving him alone, 9 times out of 10 he just pees/poos in his underwear and THEN tells me about it. Or he’ll do half in his underwear while telling me about it and then do the rest in the potty after I’ve rushed him in there.

Jay has no problem with going in the potty. He also doesn’t seem to have a problem with going in his underwear. He just changes his underwear if it gets soiled.

He used to get a sticker every time he went successfully on the potty, but now I’ve shifted to a reward only when HE initiates the potty-going. It hasn’t really changed things.

We are SO not going back to diapers (except for night time), since I know I can get Jay through a day without any accidents if I’m a super-vigilant ninja-mama. But I just want him to move UP a level in the potty game. Surely that’s not too much to ask of a smart, capable 2 1/2  year old…right?

What else can I DO to help Mr. Nonchalance figure this out?

I’m out of ideas.

Help!

My little brother, Elder Brown

Yesterday, November 30th, was my brother Kyle’s 19th birthday. He celebrated it by getting on an airplane bound for the Argentina MTC. Happy Birthday, Elder Brown! I can’t believe he is so grown up. My best little buddy… I feel a saunter down memory lane coming on…

 

Love.

We loved Sunny. 

This is how Kyle is frozen in my mind—his 10-11 year old self, the age he was when I left for college.

They came to see an SVU cross country race.

Our Christmas vests.

Christmas Eve: 4 days after Jeff and I got married.

and then Kyle grew…

…and he grew…

…all the way up! Sniff. We went up to Bellevue to see him speak in church on Sunday (Nov 27th). He is so ready to be a missionary. Those Montevideo-ans don’t know how lucky they are to have him. (but they will soon!)

With his strawberry-headed sisters.

Jay wants to go on a mission too!

All the family members that came to support Kyle, except Rose (she was taking a MUCH-needed nap after church). I am SO glad we live close enough to be there for all these events. Since we lived far away back when Brad was on his way out, I missed out on his “leaving home” stage. I won’t make that mistake again!

  How does this happen?

My Mom tried to hold him like a little boy one last time. He was a tad to big.

Mel had more success. This picture cracks me up. How did she do that? Kyle has been bigger than her for her whole life. I guess that’s the secret to her strength.

By now, Kyle is probably at the MTC. Sniff. I’m so proud of him but I can’t leave out a few more SNIFF SNIFF SNIFFs.

sniff.

The bottom line is that I’m going to be a WRECK when my own kids grow up and leave.         

I love you, Kyle!

sniff

If you can’t go TO the turkey trot, bring the turkey trot to YOU.

That’s what we did on Thanksgiving morning at 8am. One of mine and Jeff’s favorite Thanksgiving Day traditions is The Turkey Trot. We have never actually entered an official Turkey Trot road race—we just invent our own. This year, it was announced to our ward, and we actually had almost 20 people there. There’s nothing like a nice, brisk 5k to get you ready for pie and turkey!

 

Our friend Chad was parked along the roadside with a camera. So here we are, chugging along. Jeff finished first (as usual) with a time of 17:56, and I pulled in a close second at 22:15. Ok, it’s all relative—I think this was the closest I’ve ever finished to Jeff.

It was fun having a few more people join us on our run.

While our Thanksgiving rolls were rising, Jay and I did a little Thanksgiving craft: Thankful Turkey Taters! When I was in Seminary, my dear ole teacher Sister Freeman had us make these guys every single year at Thanksgiving time. Jay loved doing it, and he even stuck lots of the toothpick-feathers into his potato all by himself. It was nice to sit and think of all the many things I have to be thankful for. I wrote one thing on each side of each feather. Once I got going, I had to keep cutting out more feathers—there are just so many wonderful blessings in my life. I’ll let you guess which tater is mine and which one is Jay’s. [Yes, peanut butter is between scriptures and family on my turkey.]

Ahhhh, fresh rolls. Ok, I am very good at documenting daily life with pictures. Here comes the BUT…when an actual event comes along, I seem to forget about the camera completely. That’s what happened for the rest of the day on Thanksgiving. Jeff’s brother Sam was here, and we didn’t even take a single picture. Boo hoo. Before we went over for dinner, I did manage to take pictures of my humble contributions to the family dinner: rolls and pumpkin cheesecake (click for that heavenly recipe). Anyways, we had the big dinner with Jeff’s fine family and 4 missionaries and a friend or two.

After we ate the entire pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap-pecan crust that I made earlier in the week, I made another one of those beauties for Thanksgiving dinner. But by the time we brought it over to the Whites’ house, there was only half of it left! We Browns prefer to eat our pie FIRST on Thanksgiving, so that was my excuse for bringing only half a pie. This cheesecake is so so so soooo much better than any ole pumpkin pie, even Costco’s pumpkin pies.

For the rest of the meal, just imagine a long table laden with steaming hot homemade food and 14 people squeezed along its sides. That was Thanksgiving at the Whites’ house.

After dinner, we all trooped on over to our crowded, couch-filled apartment to watch the White family traditional post-turkey movie: A Christmas Story. I am one of the few people in this country who did NOT grow up watching this movie, but it is growing on me, year by year. [Oddly enough, my favorite part this year was the bowling ball gift. If you’ve seen it, you’ll remember that part, and if not… I don’t really want to explain. For some reason, that 30 second scene really tickled my funny bone this year.]

Fast forward to Black Friday morning at 5am: I got in the car and drove to Macy’s in hopes of getting Jeff a new suit on sale. I got him 5 nice new dress shirts and 3 new ties at 75% off!  [The suit did not work out]. When I got home, we packed up and left for Bellevue and the Brown house. And that is where our Thanksgiving ended. It was happy, festive, foody, and family-filled, just how Thanksgiving should be.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night!

____________________________________________________________________
P.S. The weekend at the Brown-casa deserves its own post. Stay tuned.

Block City

In honor of Jay’s half birthday today, I’ll do a post for him. This is Jay’s favorite library book:

 

 

W. 

We check it out every other week. Literally. When we found it in the library last week, he hugged it and said “it’s my faver book.” 

 

OK, this video is super long, but Jay likes to take his time reading. For the record, I only prompted him a few times—most of this is just him “reading” the poem. I love hearing those big words and phrases in his little voice.

Jay also loves Mother Goose rhymes. We have 3 different Mother Goose books in our collection, and he knows most of those rhymes. When he’s playing I often hear him saying parts of his favorite poems to himself. Our little poet.

Jay’s favorite breakfast is pancakes. He can eat an alarming amount of pancakes (his current record is four pancakes, 5 inches each in diameter), and his little tummy just expands to hold them all.

Jay’s favorite lunch is grilled cheese.

Jay’s favorite dinner is homemade mac n cheese.

His favorite writing utensils are markers (messy). One day he was drawing and he said “Issa J, Mommy!” I looked at his paper, and lo and behold, he had written a J. Then he said “Issa B, Mommy!” He had drawn a sideways B, too. I was blown away. What kind of 2.5 year old can write? Ok, ok, he can’t write, but he can make his marker draw 2 letters! It is hard to get a picture of his letters because he likes to color them in after he does them. But the paper on the left has a little J on it. Jay amazes me more and more every day.

Ever since daylight savings time, Jay has not stayed in Nursery at church for more than 10 minutes. 2pm was late enough to be abandoned by his parents, but now that 2 pm feels like 3pm to him, there’s no chance. Yesterday at church, I had sharing time in Primary, and all our other family members that Jay loves were unavailable too. So Jeff singlehandedly handled 2 needy, nap-needing children for 2 hours. He is amazing. 5 weeks till we switch back to 9am church! Can’t wait.

Jay enjoys “helping” in the kitchen. He likes to dump flour and other things into the bowl when I’m cooking and put his hand on the beater when I’m mixing something. When the oven timer beeps, he always races to the drawer and gets out the hot pads for me (even if there’s nothing in the oven). \

Jay can reach the heater dial on the wall. About 30 times a day, he cranks it over past 80 degrees and sits right in front of the heater fan. His legs get all red and he just basks in the heat…until I go turn it back down to 67.

LOVE this little guy.