Christmas Creations

Here are some of our recent crafts and such:

For family home evening this week, we made some paper decorations for our kitchen. I made a snowy forest. The snowflakes are on the curtain rod, and the pine trees are on the window thingy behind them, so it’s a 3-dimensional display!

Jeff made some star chains before I showed him how to make paper snowflakes. Then he meticulously snipped and clipped until he mastered the art. Jay just played with the scissors and shredded a piece of paper. He loved it.

Another day this week, Jay and I made some sheep ornaments for our tree. This is a craft from my childhood.

Jay kept asking where their mouths were, so I made him one with a toothy grin. I thought I plucked all the hot glue strands off, but I guess I missed most of them after all.

Sheep on the tree. A word about our poor little fake tree: It is getting MANGLED by two certain children. Jay keeps taking all the matching ornaments and hanging them on the same branch. He likes to organize things. Rose likes to pluck things off the tree. She ripped the garland in half this week. So who knows what our little faux-pine will look like by Christmas. I guess it’s a good thing that we’re going a-visiting for the big day.

MMMM cranberry scones with orange cream sauce. Like the Daily Prophet, even the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook is bound to get it right sometimes.

I made this happy Claus couple last year for our mantle. They are tin cans covered in felt and other soft stuff. Santa originally had a cotton-ball beard. In the absence of a mantle this year, I put them under the tree. Jay bearded Santa and stuck the cotton balls into the can under his hat. I was wondering why Santa looked a little less…fluffy and puffy. Christmas decorations take a beating from children. I’m starting to wonder how on earth my Mom preserved her décor.

This little girl takes after her brother. She wears his old pajamas. And his old bibs. AND she likes oatmeal balls!!! It is tricky to feed myself, Jay, and Rose breakfast all at once. Two of us usually end up with cold food. So I tried my old Jay-trick of oatmeal balls on Rose (thick oatmeal scooped in blobs). She loves it even more than Jay did when he was her age. I think it’s gross, but it works!

I had to post a picture of my Hample Pie. It is a dinner pie filled with ham, apples, cinnamon, and cheddar cheese (ham + apple=hample. I did not even invent that name—it was on the recipe). Believe it or not, this is SO GOOD. I’ve already made it twice.

Hample Pie goes wonderfully with neon squash rolls. These babies are  light and bright with a nutty squashy flavor. Yum.

I invented a little box car for Jay. I used those little wheels that come with plastic storage drawers and a sturdy cardboard box. I just poked holes in the bottom of the box, inserted the wheels, rolled a blanket up in it for a seat, and weehaw! Jay was on the move. It’s kind of flimsy, and it doesn’t roll on carpet, but Jay likes to sit on it and use it like a skateboard or a wagon. 

And last but not least, our nativity set. My mom gave us the child-safe one of my childhood this year. Jay loves it. Every day I find a different arrangement.

There. With the exception of the Christmas gifts I’m making, you’re now up to date on all of our latest creations. [As usual, I  have to wait till after Christmas to post pictures of the homemade presents, because it would be kind of a big giveaway]

Tired

In which I complain about the stupid inconveniences in my life.
Today I am Shaina Scrooge. If you like reading positive, uplifting things, STOP READING NOW. Normally I don’t use my blog as an outlet for my frustrations unless I figure out how to put a positive spin on it all. But today I feel like posting a whiny, moany, boo-hoo list:
I’m tired of…

1. living in 600 square feet with 4 people!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. my miniscule kitchen
3. potty training and every yucky thing that goes with it.
4. our foul-mouthed LOUD upstairs neighbors
5. our foul-mouthed LOUD downstairs neighbors
6. listening to our downstairs neighbor SHOUT at her kids to get in bed every night, and hearing those poor sweet little kids cry and cry. It hurts my heart.
7. losing things! We have to tuck things away in strange places here because there is not enough space to put things in normal, logical places. We have a storage closet in the basement, and it’s a pain to be in our apartment wondering if that thing I need is buried in the back bottom box in that closet or if Jay  just took it and hid it behind the couch.
8. wondering if Jeff is going to still have a job next year. The people in charge of Washington are currently battling over next year’s budget, and some major cuts in education funding have been proposed. If they are passed, teachers who are low on the food chain of teaching experience will be the first to go. That drives me crazy—why is it even an option to damage our already fragile education system??? Plus it would be nice if Jeff could keep his full-time job. SIGH.
9. LAUNDRY!!!! and not having my own washer and dryer. I can’t figure out which is worse: paying an arm and a leg to wash clothes in a tiny, low-quality basement quarter machine or lugging my laundry across town to do it at the Whites’ house. I hate it and I want my own washer and dryer in my home.
10. Jay making Rose cry every time she’s happily playing. Mother Bear GROWL—why can’t he just leave her alone?!?
11. Running with that 95lb stroller. It slows me down more than a whole minute per mile! And it’s HEAVY. And it takes a good 35 minutes to bundle and load the kids into it and get all ready to go on a 35 minute run.
12. DOGS. Barking at me, growling at me, chasing me, giving me nightmares, getting hair on me, tripping me, making me fall, giving me heart attacks when I'm running, etc. During 20 minutes of my run on Saturday, I had a total of 17 dogs CHASING me and barking ferociously. It tied for first place on my list of worst runs ever. I was almost in tears--I would've stopped and cried once I made it through that awful dog patch, but there was no other way for me to get home except run there, and crying makes breathing and running difficult. So I stored up my fear and rage, and exploded it on Jeff and Facebook when I got home. 

Ok, I’d better stop. It feels good to RANT every now and then. I just don’t like doing it “in public” because many of my complaints are LAME and so many people in this world would LOVE to have these minor inconveniences instead of their REAL problems. And I really can think of 10 things to be thankful for in the place of each one of the items on this list. But sometimes I’m not in the MOOD to be comforted by those other things.

TODAY, THESE THINGS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY more than usual. So I thought I’d tell you about it.

THE END
(that would be nice)

PS--I promise to post a pile of cute pictures and videos soon (when I recover my sanity) to make up for this awful black plague of a post.

Quiet for Scorpers

A few months ago, I told you all about the challenges of doing my scripture study with 2 small noisy children  in the room. Well, here’s an update on that situation.

I realized that Jay is in that toddler sponge phase where he can learn anything if I teach it to him often/long enough. So I taught him that when I’m reading my scriptures, it’s quiet time. It has worked quite well—now at least 50% of my scripture time is meaningful. Yay!

Yesterday when I pulled out my scriptures, Jay wanted to read his scriptures too. So he went to his room and got his slightly crumpled Book of Mormon and returned to the couch. It was so cute! I thought I was in for a good, thoughtful scripture time. But then I started listening to Jay while he “read.” It was so funny and entertaining that I couldn’t concentrate on my own reading. I finally had to get out my camera and take a video or two.

Jay always says “quiet for scorpers” every time I start reading my scriptures. Yesterday was the first time he’s ever said scriptures instead of scorpers. I kind of miss scorpers, but oh well.

When Jay wants to read a verse during family scripture time, I’ve been helping him say Alma 37:35 “Oh remember my son and learn wisdom in thy youth, yea learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God.” Jay has only ever “read” that scripture 5 or 6 times, but he suddenly started reciting it during his scripture time yesterday! I think he’s going to know all the scripture masteries by the time he’s in kindergarten. 

Meanwhile, little Rose had a nice, undisturbed playtime.

Then Jay started singing.

Eventually we both finished up our scripture reading.

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