Our Christmas

I can't believe Christmas has come and gone. We had a nice quiet Christmas at home this year. We did most of our traditions on Christmas eve. We dined on shepherds pie, carrots, olive and Parmesan cheese bread, and sparkling cider or "juice pop" as Benjamin calls it. After dinner Adrian went on to the NORAD website with the kids to track were Santa was. :) Then we all sat down and read the Christmas story out of Luke and sang some Christmas carols. It was all low key, comfy and cozy. Of course the kids had to open their new pajamas, and then we also opened up all the presents from our extended family also. I must say we made a haul. Lots of books, toys, clothes, lovely gift cards, and hand-made gifts. (Thank You So Much Everyone!!) It really was a lot of fun this year to see the excitement in Sophie and Ben's eyes. Nina got in on the action too, she loved crumpling and playing with the wrapping paper. The night ended with a jammies picture in front of the Christmas tree.

Then everyone was off to bed without protest -- NOT! The big correction there is not "everyone", just Sophie and Ben. Nina on the other hand protested going to bed with a vengeance on Christmas eve. Nina's bad sleeping habits since the whole croup situation came to a head, sadly, on Christmas eve. She was up the night before probably every 2 hours and was starting to wiggle down in her baby hammock. She had since birth been sleeping in an Amby Baby Hammock - its like a bassinet that hangs from a stand. Its really hard to describe so click here for a picture of one. Anyways since she was wiggling down and putting her feet over the edge, we had to move her into a crib. Also, since she had been up all night for the past 3 weeks we figured what difference would it make if she had a hard time adjusting to the crib, how much worse could it get? Well, I'll tell you, A LOT WORSE. She literally did not sleep on Christmas eve. She screamed the whole night and literally only took cat naps when she was in someone's arms or while I was nursing her. She did not sleep one wink in the crib. The crib was her mortal enemy. Our sweet, mellow girl turned into a very vocal crib boycotter. It was a horrible night, and I feel awful saying that because Christmas eve is suppose to be so peaceful. I sang her "Silent Night" all night. Very appropriate words to that, but I did change them a little bit, "sleep in heavenly peace...please...sleep in heavenly peace". I fell asleep for a couple of hours out of sheer exhaustion while Adrian took over, but by the time morning arrived, both Adrian and I were a frazzled mess.

Christmas morning, started at I think about 6:30am, but I have no idea. It was a bit of a blur. All I know is that Sophie and Ben came in and were so excited so Adrian and I sucked it up and got ourselves, Nina (who was surprisingly chipper), and camera downstairs. Ben spotted the Darth Tater set (Star Wars Mr. Potato Head toys) under the tree first and from then on never put it down. He was so excited about it. Sophie's favorite presents were, Littlest Pet Shop toys and a Lego Star Wars computer game. Nina got "Signing Times" DVDs and an exersaucer, along with a few other small toys. She loved the spectacle of Sophie and Ben opening presents and also the wrapping paper of course. Adrian got a nice "geeky watch". It's digital, solar powered, and gets 3 daily updates on the time from the NIST (some national institute of time - I don't know... you'd have to ask Adrian :)). Its sweet in a very "you can't make that move because trolls can't use the magic staff of Inifus" sort of way. (You'll have to excuse me - my DD slang is a little rusty.) :) I got a Vera Bradly purse and some nice metal measuring cups and spoons along with some See's chocolates...yum. It was a really nice morning, even though I was seeing double and had a massive headache from being up all night. I'm sure Nina had a headache too after all the crying the night before, so as soon as Sophie and Ben settled into playing with their loot, Nina took a nap in the swing, Adrian napped on the couch, and I went back to bed upstairs.

The rest of the day we just took it easy. After I woke up we had our traditional picnic lunch of a Hickory Farms box by the tree. Adrian and I started this tradition our 1st Christmas after someone had given us a Hickory Farms box and it remains one of our favorites to this day. Its a yummy feast of crackers, salami, and different cheeses which goes over well with kids and parents alike. We had leftover shepherds pie for dinner and watched our fill of Christmas movies like "A Christmas Story" and "The Grinch the Stole Christmas" on TV. I must admit that I found myself a little sad when I talked to my parents who had just cleared out the house after the big Christmas get together. Its hard to be far away, I missed the big White Elephant exchange that is always a riot at my parents, and also my brother-in-laws famous 7 layer dip and my sister-in-laws to die for chocolate chip cookies. Seriously, Dore, you need to go in business with those.

So even though it was just our little family, I am so thankful to have been able to share Christmas with my hubby and kids. They are the loves of my life. So all and all Christmas '06 was lovely.
(Look at that sweet innocent little face - "who me... no, I'd never keep my parents up all night!! :) )

P.S. We are still working on the whole crib thing with Nina but thank goodness we are past the boycott. She now goes to sleep, a bit grudgingly, in her crib every night and for naps and we are doing much better on the night waking. Last night was just once, so I think we are on the right track. Here's hoping. I've been using the book "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child", it worked with both Sophie and Ben, so I have hope and faith that soon Nina will be sleeping better. And really being up at night is such a small sacrifice when I know all too soon my rocking and lullabies will be replaced with "goodnight Mom"s from Nina. These baby days just go by too fast.... I can't even believe she is almost 5 months!

Twas the Weeks Before Christmas....

Twas the weeks before Christmas in our house
And we've been scurrying to and fro just like a mouse....

Okay that was a little lame, but we have been busy around here and I thought, in the brief quiet time I have before Ben and Nina wake up from their naps, that I'd recap some of our events and throw in a couple pictures too.

• Last Thursday was the big one for me - Relief Society's Christmas Enrichment Program. I'm the enrichment counselor at church and the Christmas Enrichment meeting is kind of the blow out event for us. I think it turned out fantastic. We had a dinner and a program with readings from sisters as the women of the nativity - such as Joseph's mother and the inn-keepers wife etc. and also we had 2 musical numbers. It was a lovely program and the sisters who performed did an amazing job. I truly think we were inspired when it came to who was chosen for each part, there was such a beautiful spirit during the program. It was a lot of work for Corinne (the enrichment leader) and the enrichment committee, and well me too :), but it was all worth it in the end. I feel so blessed to be able to work with such wonderful women in my calling.
  

• On Saturday Sophie and I went to the Nutcracker with friends (Corinne and her daughter who's just younger than Sophie, and Cami). What fun!! It was just wonderful to have a special mommy-daughter date with Sophie. The performance was a shortened version put on especially for kids. Isn't that a great idea! It was just the right length as not to bore little kids, but get them excited about the beauty of dance. Sophie loved it and really watched quite intently the whole time. I totally want to make this a yearly tradition for us. I have such fond memories of going to the Nutcracker with my mom and sisters. It will be great when Nina is older and the 3 of us girls will all go... Sophie and I decided that Adrian and Ben can play video games together while we're gone. :)

• Also, on Saturday we went to the ward Christmas party. It was a fun night for our whole family. If you can believe it, Ben actually kind of behaved himself, so we could actually as a family enjoy the party!! Ward parties are just a little much for Ben sometimes, especially the Halloween party when everyone is all dressed up. But, no Ben did good. He ate his dinner (we call 2 rolls, chocolate cake and a candy cane good- hey its Christmas!), decorated a sugar cookie with lots of other kids at the table (normally he wouldn't go near an activity with a bunch of kids he didn't know), and calmly watched Sophie sing up on the stage with the primary. Yeah!! We had to pinch ourselves at the end of the night to see if it was just a dream!! We hope that this is a new, not-so-incredibly-introverted, trend for our little guy!

• Sunday was Sophie's first piano recital. It went so well. She got all dressed up in her Christmas dress and I did her hair up for her. She looked so pretty and grown up. I can't believe how grown up my little girl is getting! We took her piano book just in case she didn't feel quite so confident when she got up in front of everyone, but right before she went to the piano she whispered that she could do it. I was so pleased and she really did a great job! She played a part of Good King Wenceslas and The Blue Bells of Scotland (she pronounced it the Blue Bells of "Scotchland" when she announced what she was going to play :) ). I really am so happy with her progress and excitement about piano! Her piano teacher played a piece by Chopin at the end that blew everyone away. Even Nina cooed and awed and Benjamin quieted down and listened. It was so great that her teacher set such a great example for her students by performing herself and demonstrating how far you can go if you work really hard and practice. It was a lovely night and I'm sure it will always be a great memory for us.

• Last night Nina had her first solid food! Well, I guess you call it solid food, but it was incredibly thinned out rice cereal. (I'll have to put pictures on soon of her gooey, rice cerealed, little face.) At first she didn't know what to think, but then she figured it out and loved it. She kept opening her mouth and waving her hands - that's what she does when she's really excited. I think she actually ate 2-3 tablespoons! That's a lot for the first time out. I think she might have eaten more, but I didn't want her first food other than cereal to be prunes!
  

Well, I think that's about caught up to now... The time leading up to Christmas is always packed with events, but these ones were great!! Stay tuned for our ginger bread house building blog....

Another Class Bites the Dust

And another one's gone....and another one's gone......another one bites the dust..... Adrian finished another class... He just took his final last night for real-time systems programming (I think that's it name anyway) and he is now just 4 classes shy of his masters. Wha - hoo! He thinks he did well on the final and thinks he will get at least a high B or even and A and we are happy with that. Isn't it funny how I say "we". It's as if I think of his masters program like a joint effort - well it kind of is!! Of course it's Adrian doing all the work (and there is A LOT of hard work), but hey I'm there for support and also take care of things during class/homework/study time. I am really proud of him for how he tries so hard to balance his work, school, family, and church responsibilities (its a juggling act), and that he still manages to get really good grades!

I must say that this class has been a little easier on us as a family except for its time slot -- it was on Monday night so even though we tried to do FHE on other nights we didn't always succeed, sadly. I'm planning a nice Christmas gingerbread-house-building FHE for next Monday, because Adrian is all done with his class! His previous class was called queueing theory and that might not sound all that ominous, but it was horrible! I really couldn't even tell you what it was all about, something weird about the study of things in lines or ques... It was really math intensive and even though Adrian loves math and a challenge, that was just so hard on us all. His homework would take hours every night, and into the wee hours of the morning the night before the class. Nasty, nasty queueing theory! He was thinking about putting his text book (it was a $120 text book!) from queueing theory on our bookshelf in the family room this weekend, but he says he still needs more time to recover - to much bad mojo around that textbook. Yet he didn't want to get rid of it... I guess when you put that much work into something...

I'm not exactly sure what his next class is, but I think we're all going to enjoy this lull between classes for the next few weeks and relish in the completion of this one!

Croup, Baby Shakespeare, and Hairspray

Yep Nina has croup too.... It's just so hard to watch her cough and cough. We had a rough night last night. Nina was up from 12:30 to about 3am and she was miserable. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep collectively. So needless to say I'm having a pretty bleary-eyed day today. So far she hasn't taken a good nap either (she's in my lap watching the computer screen with fascination right now as I type with one hand : ) ). She is on the nebulizer now just like Ben, so we hope things will get better soon. They take turns, each watching a Baby Einstein video (Baby Shakespeare is Ben's favorite still) during their nebulizer treatments. A couple of times Ben has actually stayed still during the whole thing. I think Baby Einstein videos have a sedative effect, either that or he's finally giving up the fight - I hope its that! Nina is very good about the nebulizer, she really doesn't mind it, thank goodness. We're just hoping for our croup spell to be over soon. Then we can all get some nice sleep... and I can type with 2 hands : ).


I almost forgot - we had a funny, but not so much at the time because I was tired, incident this morning. I heard Sophie and Ben in Sophie's room at about 6am, which is a no-no because we don't play before 7am, we sleep (at least that's what we're trying to convince the kids). Anyway, I went in there and it smelled like something flowery and pungent. I just couldn't place the smell. Then I looked at Ben.... Sophie had hairsprayed his hair in a sort of spike on one side and the rest of his hair was flat against his head. Okay, it was funny, but I wasn't laughing. I actually wasn't really mad either, I was just tired. So I told Sophie that it was a bad choice and pretty much begged them to go back to bed. If I had my faculties I probably would have talked more about not using hairspray by herself, the risk of hairspray in the eyes, etc, etc.... No, I just went back to our room and told Adrian to check on the kids. :) Hey, I was up with Nina a good portion of the night... I justed wanted sleep... I'm actually not even sure what happened, but there was no mention of it when I woke up and Ben's hair is no longer sticky.... Wouldn't it be weird if it was just a dream. I'm going to have to verify this actually happened : ).

Croup and Camping

Croup has reared its ugly head yet again.... Benjamin has the tell-tale barking, croupy-cough. Adrian took him to an urgent care center last night and the poor guy has croup along with an ear infection. Every winter we have 2-3 bouts of croup. I think that Sophie has grown out of it, thankfully, but when she was little the majority of colds/flus would turn into croup. I'm just hoping we can keep Nina from getting it. Its so hard though... Ben is just a little germ factory and there is no getting him to cover his mouth when he coughs. He has been spending a lot of time in a Toddler Dimetap induced stupor, so he pretty much just hangs out on the couch and watches the Grinch that Stole Christmas or Star Wars. So at least I can try to keep Nina out of cough range. Part of his treatment is albuterol with the nebulizer 3 times a day. He tolerated it okay the first time, but now is trying every trick possible to get away from the nebulizer. He says "ALL DONE, DON'T LIKE IT!" while you hold his arms down and hold on to him, trying to keep the nebulizer mouth piece pointed at his mouth. It really is a job for someone with 4 arms, or a job for me and Adrian at the same time. Sometimes a Tootsie Roll bribe helps a little. :)

Thanks to croup Adrian and Ben had their first father-son camping experience. Ben needed to sleep with a humidifier last night, which posed a problem... How do you set up a humidifier in a toddler's room? We just didn't feel comfortable leaving Ben alone with a water filled electrical appliance, so Adrian camped out in his room with a sleeping bag on a camping mattress. Isn't he a good Daddy?! Well I guess when I say "camping experience" it was a little one sided, Adrian being the only one in a sleeping bag, but hey that counts, right?!

Meals for Jan. into Feb.

1. Lasagna and Salad (2 meals)
2. Oven Fried Chicken, Low-Fat Fettuccine Alfredo, and Asparagus
3. Ikea Dinner - meatballs, sauce, baby potatoes, green beans and lingenberries
4. Spaghetti and Broccoli
5. Baby Porcupines, Baked Potatoes, Green Beans
6. Chicken Cordon Bleu, Creamy Rice, Peas
7. Tacos and Fruit Cocktail
8. Breakfast - eggs, bacon, orange rolls, hot cocoa
9. Pork Chops and Amber Rice Casserole, Corn and Zucchini Bread
10. Chicken Tetrazzini and Carrots (2 meals)
11. Oven Chicken Casserole and Carrots
12. Chicken Noodle Soup and Rolls (actually going to make the real stuff not Campbell's this time)
13. Stuffed Green Peppers, Hummus with Pita and Carrots
14. Poppy Seed Chicken, Noodles, and Peas
15. Sloppy Joes, Pasta Salad, and Apple Slices
16. Spicy Thai Peanut Chicken w/ Noodles (thanks for the recipe Corinne!), and Mixed Veggies
17. Pioneer Stew and Rolls
18. Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Salad
19. Chicken a la King, Rice and Zucchini Bread
20. Broccoli Cheese Soup and Rolls

O Holy Night

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O holy night, O night divine!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

I was just getting Nina (all swaddled and sleepy) down for her nap. We rocked in our comfy Lazy Boy while listening to the classical Christmas xm radio channel. I was feeling particularly snuggly and peaceful when O Holy Night came on performed by Celtic Woman. It was so beautiful and really touched me. I just love this carol. I keep getting all misty when I hear it lately, especially the ending. I'm sure I could never sing it, but I am so moved when I hear that last "O Night divine...." There was also something so special about sitting with my own little baby while thinking about the night that our Savior was born. It was a sweet moment for me.