Dyeries

all 4 love

2012-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

Here are my four today:

Typical Claire, sucking her thumb and twirling her hair.

Jane goofing around with her pipe-cleaner glasses.

Proof Max is not feeling well-- he never willingly lays down in his crib

Hannah trying to catch rain.

My next goal is to get them all together...

2012-01-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

We gave Dan's brother, Jeromy, and his family a Dessert of the Month Club "membership" for Christmas. The desserts come from our very own prestigious kitchen, and we deliver one to their house every month.

Our first dessert for the year was Chocolate Orange Cookies. I saw them on Ettore's menu and thought I'd take a swing at it. They are two chocolate sugar cookies filled with orange ganache and dipped in chocolate. I knew I had to have them for myself as well. If you love rich chocolate and orange, as I do, you will most likely love these.

I am pleased to report that our recipients were very happy with the dessert of the month.

Eleven more to go. My wheels are turning...

Orange Ganache
Chocolate Sugar Cookies (She calls them brownie roll-out cookies. I changed it a little but I mostly used this recipe.)

The rest of 2011

2012-01-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

I've tried to write a post to finish up the end of the year, but it's hard without pictures. Turns out, I didn't take many.

Let me just give a quick rundown of events leading up to Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Our Christmas activities for our last week were small since we were getting ready for a long car trip up to Washington. We left Friday morning and rolled into Lake Stevens around 10 pm. We made pretty good time and the kids were great the whole way up. They learned good travel sense early in life, after all.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve, Christmas day and the day after with Dan and my family. Then Dan had to fly back home to work for the week. Me and the kids stayed and tried to play but we kind of laid low at my parents house most of the time. Claire was sick (someone always seems to be) and we just took it easy. We still had fun though.
My dad drove us all the way back to sunny Cali on New Year's Eve. We walked in the door just in time to ring in 2012 with Dan. The end.

So, my pictures are too random to compile into anything that makes sense, so I am just going to share a picture or two of my mom and dad on our last day there.

Here is my mom, with her own hair this time...

Cute, eh?

And now, on to 2012...

Bike demonstration by a pro

2012-01-14T21:25:00.000-08:00

Max at nine months

2012-01-08T16:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok. The break is over!
Kids finally go back to school tomorrow, and we are easing into the New Year.
I have much to say concerning our end-of-year happenings since I last posted, but right now, I want to talk a little bit about Max because he is officially nine months old this weekend.

I am pretty crazy about my Max. I love to grab and squeeze and kiss him until he squeals and squirms. His happiness is contagious. Hannah and Jane are constantly laughing around him. He is so fun and now he is getting funny. He is lovey-dovey and so, so cute. He is such a gift to us.

A few days after Christmas, Max started walking, and he hasn't looked back since. We decided that yesterday was the day that he realized he preferred walking to crawling. He's almost always walking now, unless he falls, which is often, but he always gets back up.

Here is a little video of Max walking and playing.

Activities past and future

2011-12-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

Here is a recap from last week's activities, with a few minor changes...

Monday we watched the short Christmas videos from here.

Tuesday we were going to make salt dough ornaments but the day was chock full of crazy so we had to skip it.

Wednesday we had fun playing games.

Our snowman never did get his nose on right.
The marshmallow toss turned into an indoor snowball fight. No one was safe!
The girls had so much fun playing pass the candy cane (where you say something nice about someone and pass the candy cane to that person, going around until everyone has had a turn, in case you didn't know). They wanted to play it again that night and the night after.

Thursday we made wrapping paper with potato stamps instead of making gift bags, because there are some gifts that just need paper.

Claire "accidentally" stamped her rear end (???).

Friday we made graham cracker, not gingerbread, houses.

We also made an army of these mice to give to people.

I hadn't made these in about 25 years when I use to "help" my mom make them (and now you know I am at least 25). I should have made white eyes. These look a little demonic. Cute, little, demonic mice. Who wouldn't love these?

Saturday we decided to make our activity be a visit to Santa.

Claire gets the spotlight here. Her picture turned out the best.
(photo by Brian Mealey)

Today, Sunday, we made some little friends out of marshmallows-- marshmen.

Made from marshmallows (with a skewer or pop stick to hold them together), melted chocolate, mini M&Ms, Twizzler pull-n-peel licorice, orange Tic Tacs and Pocky sticks. Yummy fun.

For our last week:

Day 19- make gift for cousins
Day 20- service
Day 21- go downtown???
Day 22- final present wrapping
Day 23- Christmas games and movies in the car
Christmas Eve- nativity (in Seattle, if all goes well :)

Tomorrow, I'll list the Christmas books we read last week.

Upcoming events: Days 11-17

2011-12-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

Day 11- Tonight, we bundled up and walked around our very own neighborhood to look at lights.
The first house we came to, two doors down from us, got "ooos" and "ahhs" just for having changing lights.
I love it when kids are so easy to please.
We went around a long block and came home for hot chocolate.

Day 12- watch one or all of these

Day 13- game night: pin the carrot nose on Frosty, marshmallow toss and pass the candy cane.

Day 14- make salt dough ornaments

Day 15- gingerbread houses

Day 16- make gift bags

Day 17- Christmas shopping

That's our rough draft anyway.

Recap of the week's activities

2011-12-11T20:49:00.000-08:00

We had a great week. By that I mean the kids enjoyed every day of our Christmas activities.

Day 6- Our craft was cheap, easy and the kids liked it. Cake.
We just used the kits with the paper plate faces for a snowman, reindeer and Santa. Definitely works of art to behold.

Day 7- My SIL, Carrie, came over for a little while and we made these.

Too many of those got eaten by the wrong people (us), that's for sure!

In the evening, we had the girls dance recital.

One of the best parts about the recital was how excited they were to be in it. I could not get them to stop bouncing and running and jumping and squealing.
Happy girls.

They are in the same dance class so they had the same routine, same costume, etc.

They practiced their tap routine a little...

We just have video of their performance. I'm pretty sure it's one of those things only parents and grandparents can appreciate so we probably won't post it here, but I might...

Day 8- Someone doorbell ditched us Monday night (thank you!!!). The girls thought it was so fun that someone would do that, so they wanted to do the same thing for our secret service night. I don't think the person/people we did this for reads this blog so we're safe in our secret (I hope).

Jane, Hannah and even Claire were so funny as they jumped into our getaway van. They were laughing from the adrenaline rush, and the whole way home they were convinced the people were chasing us. I'd speed up a little and they'd laugh more. Totally worth it.

Day 9- We watched Grinch

Day 10- Ward Christmas Party.

I was very impressed with what they did for the party last night. The night was a Journey to Bethlehem. We took tours in small groups and witnessed the story of Christ's birth as told one at a time, room by room by a scholar, angels, three wise men (Dan was one), shepherds, Kind Herod, and an innkeeper. The final stop was the stable where we stood to "honor and worship" the baby Jesus. It was really special. The kids loved it, and they got to take a little figurine from each room to create their own little nativity with. Then we ate on the floor and had chicken salad in pita and couscous.

All of these were taken on my phone and it was very dark in some of the rooms...

*****
Some of the books we read last week were:

Christmas Oranges (retold) by Linda Bethers
'Twas the Night Before Christmas by I can't remember who and the book has gone missing.
Bob and 6 More Christmas Stories by Sandra Boynton
There Was No Snow on Christmas Eve by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell (my favorite)

I love Christmas!

Day 5- Candy cane chaos

2011-12-05T20:05:00.000-08:00

You can't tell from this picture that the girls got a little crazy tonight. They always get that way when we have company over, but they definitely had fun sharing our little tradition with our friends. The FHE lesson was short and sweet. I don't know if any of it stuck, but oh well.

Tonight's book:
Finding Christmas by Helen Ward

This week's activities

2011-12-03T23:08:00.001-08:00

This is what we have planned for the coming week...

Day 4 Christmas Devotional (tonight!)
Day 5 Candy cane cookies/FHE
Day 6 Christmas craft
Day 7 Christmas dance recital
Day 8 Secret service
Day 9 Watch Christmas movie
Day 10 Ward Christmas party

Should be fun!

Days 2 & 3

2011-12-03T21:36:00.000-08:00

Day 2- Make snowflakes

Yesterday, we made snowflakes to decorate the front windows with. We've tried various materials in the past. This year, we used Viva paper towels, which are more like cloth, and standard paper. It's one of our simpler activities, but it's so gratifying to the kids as they open up and reveal their creation.

Day 3- Write thank-you cards to teachers

Instead of letters to Santa this year, we are writing thank-you cards to the girls' Primary and school teachers. I thought they wouldn't get into it, but they were excited about the idea.

Jane's card said:

Merry Christmas. You can do it. Love, Jane

I'll have to ask her what that means.

Tonight's book:

A Merry Little Christmas: Celebrate from A to Z by Mary Engelbreit

Books and scripture, in addition to our DBC (Days Before Christmas) activities

2011-12-03T09:35:00.000-08:00

I thought I would share a couple of other things we do daily in December prior to Christmas.

Every year, we wrap up all of our Christmas books in gift bags. Each night the kids pick one book to open and read that night. They are books the kids know, but they still love to open them. Anything wrapped up like a present is awesome, you know.
We haven't quite built up our Christmas book library to 25, but we add a new one every year. Right now, we have 17. When we are done with those, we will just re-read what we've opened. The kids LOVE this tradition!
We will share the name of the book we read each night.

We are going to be reading these scriptures for our advent.

3 Ne. 12:6
3 Ne. 12:16
Matt 6:3-4
3 Ne. 12:9
3 Ne. 17:21–24
3 Ne. 18:6–7
3 Ne. 18:21
3 Ne. 23:1
3 Ne. 27:7
3 Ne. 27:29
D&C 89:10–11, 18–20
Matt. 22:34–40
3 Ne. 25:5–6
Mark 10:13–14
D&C 1:37
D&C 19:38–39
John 13:34–35
Luke 17:11–19
D&C 33:11–12
D&C 21:1, 4–5
D&C 25:12
D&C 35:26
D&C 108:7
D&C 76:22–24

Then, on Christmas Eve, we will read the scriptures of the Nativity while we reenact the story.

Happy reading!

Days Before Christmas -Day 1, decorate tree

2011-12-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

It's time!

We started our Days Before Christmas activities yesterday with the decorating of our tree.

Did you know that Dan and I have not had our own tree for 8 years!?!
We have been around trees at Christmas time only because we've always been away from our own home for Christmas. Also, we never had a tree in New York because the first year I looked at trees I was shocked at how expensive they were* and I never thought it was worth it for the little time we spent there before traveling.

SO! This year, I was so excited to have an actual Christmas tree!

I love our tree.

It is real and smells good. It is kid friendly. It is big. It was only ten bucks.

Now we need a topper.

* I'm sure there are reasonably priced trees in NY but we were limited to what we could find and carry on our own two feet that first year. After that, it was a matter of the little space and time to enjoy it. We did have a substitute though.

Thanksgiving Vacation- Dan's birthday

2011-12-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

We spent the night at Dan's cousin's wife's sister's house in Bakersfield Friday night. Amazing home, and that's all I will say about that.

We headed over to Micah's and Cheryl's house (the said cousins) and hung out most the day eating and talking. I was so happy to see Dan pick up a guitar and play.

He jammed. The kids played. I relaxed.

Later we went to Moo Creamery for a little birthday dessert for Dan. That is where I had my first milkshake with bacon in it. That's right. Bacon. In a milkshake.
It was good, in case you were wondering.

I looked but there was no "36".

Dan said his birthday was a good one. As (almost) always, it was on Thanksgiving break and he was with family doing lots of fun stuff. Except for maybe driving for seven hours to get home, but we'll try not to think about that part.

Happy Birthday, Dan! You are my hero.

Thanksgiving Vacation- Crystal Cove at Newport Beach

2011-12-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

Friday was glorious.

We all went to the beach. The weather was so nice-- no wind, warm, sunny. I think it's a first for me to spend part of Thanksgiving break at a beach.

The kids had a blast...

So fun.

That night, Carrie took me on a date to Mastro's, a high end steak house. It was an experience. The food was delicious and we got treated so well. That may or may not have had something to do with her connections, but we decided we probably got treated better by our male waiters as two women without their husbands than with. Is that wrong of me to say?
Thanks to Carrie (and to her connections).

Later that night, our little/big family left for Bakersfield...

Thanksgiving Vacation- Thanksgiving

2011-11-29T21:19:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving Day basically went like this:

• rest
• do nothing
• relax
• eat authentic Mexican for lunch
• do nothing
• take some pictures
• rest
• take kids to McDonald's for dinner
• decide where to eat for the adults (a challenge when non of us live in the area and when not much is open)...
• bring home a feast from Mimi's Cafe
• eat
• eat pie (funny story about forgetting sugar, but it all turned out ok)
• talk
• go to bed

Perfect, especially since I was tired and sick. I didn't miss having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at all, but we won't do this every year.

Thanksgiving Vacation- Disneyland

2011-11-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

I was sick and very tired when we started our family vacation last week. Nevertheless, we drove down to southern California with much awaited anticipation, pushing my need for physical redemption aside.

We arrived at Disneyland Wednesday as early as we could handle on the short night's rest we got after the long drive. The adrenaline kicked in as we arrived, and for hours, it kept us moving from ride to ride, back and forth across the park. At one point in the afternoon, I suddenly decided I had had enough and was ready to leave, but then I remembered I was at the happiest place on earth and decided to enjoy anything and everything with the kids while I could.

The kids really did have a wonderful time-- everything I had hoped for. It was so fun to go there with them. I was a little bummed that Hannah was wanting to spend so much time going on rides with her cousins instead of me. I practically had to beg her to sit next to me on Space Mountain. It was like having an embarrassed teenaged daughter.

On Space Mountain, I was so scared of Hannah falling out (she's still so little for such a big ride!) so I held on to her leg the whole time. No wonder she didn't want to ride with me.

BTW, I was having just as much fun as everyone else in that picture. Something must have been wrong with the camera lens...

So Hannah was a rock star. She went on every big ride that she could, sometimes three times. She was fearless and tireless. I was impressed.

Jane was ruined for the big rides after she went on Splash Mountain. From then on it was happy-go-slow-and-easy rides (so Hannah took off with the big kids).

Jane's favorite part of Disneyland was the castle, princesses and the holiday fireworks show.
Here are a few little fairies in Pixie Hollow.

So happy!

Disneyland during the holidays is very pretty at night. Main street was ablaze with lights and it "snowed" by Small World. The parade, what we saw of it, was so festive and the fireworks were the perfect way to end the day. After the show, Claire looked up at me and held up her finger and said, "Just one more time, Momma."

We were ready to go to bed for a night's rest before Thanksgiving...

$109.69

2011-11-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

I was surprised at this amount.

Saving change pays off!

How much?

2011-11-16T23:24:00.000-08:00

Time to turn these coins into bills!

Anyone want to guess how much is here???

Hint: We only started collecting quarters when it was half full (after we moved and didn't need them for laundry anymore).

Jane's new 'do

2011-11-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned at Halloween, Jane had been growing her hair out for over a year just so she could be a mermaid. Once her wish had been fulfilled, we all decided it was time to cut her hair.

Here is Jane's long uncut hair before:

and after:

Yeah, we've seen that look on her before, and we like it! She does too (no more gnarly snarlies).

The family, all together!

2011-11-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

After more than two years, we finally got some family pictures taken by my friend Morgan.

We will be saving some for later, but here is a good assortment...

I so totally love my family.

(I so totally need a hair cut)

~•~

Halloween repeats

2011-10-31T22:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Guess who was excited for Halloween this year?

This year was effortless, as far as costumes were concerned. We had two repeats and one we've all known about since last year.

Jane: Last year, before her witch costume had even hit the floor, Jane declared that she wanted to be a mermaid for the next Halloween. She even said she wanted to grow her hair out. She never backed down from her decision. We all know how much she looooves mermaids (or how much she wants to be one), but I was surprised that she never, not once, changed her mind. When I had to trim her hair earlier in the year, she reminded me how she needed it long for her big day, which was months away. She held out strong and true. I'm so glad it finally happened for her!

Hannah: When I asked Hannah what she wanted to be, she said she wanted to be what she was last year- a snow princess. She never had the opportunity to go trick-or-treating (because we chose not to go out on Sunday) so she wanted to show her costume off this year. At first, I said, you don't want to be the same thing you were last year, do you? But then I thought, why ever not. Hannah is done. Easy.

A little calmer now...

Claire: Hannah wore the same dress as a princess when she was 2 1/2. It is usually hanging and hidden from the usual treasure chest o' dress-ups so when I introduced it to Claire as her costume she beamed. The tiara sealed the deal. Done.

Claire saying, can I pleeeease have some more candy?
(Don't know why I only shot from above tonight...)

Max: Next year, for sure. I felt only a little bad about not giving him a real costume. I looked for a good baby frog (prince) to go with Claire's costume but I couldn't find one, and for some reason, I had a hard time spending money on something I wasn't crazy about. I guess I didn't feel too creative to come up with anything from home either. Oh well. He's still cute.

And finally, my favorite...

Anyone need any candy?

Out of our mouths

2011-10-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote down any quotes from the kids. They make us laugh multiple times daily, but here are a few from the last couple of days.
(Keep in mind, it's often how they say things.)

Jane:

I was volunteering in Jane's class one day this week. There was a substitute for the PM class but she was helping with the morning class. Jane's teacher introduced her as Mrs. Bradbury(berry). Jane, who was standing close to me, whisper-yelled to me, "Mom! Will you ask her if she is from Strawberry Land!?!" I whispered, OK. But she saw that I wasn't actually asking so again, "MOM, ask her!" Then I asked her and soon after relayed the sad news to Jane that she was in fact NOT from Strawberry Land. She looked bummed.

In the car today, Jane asked me to open her (rear minivan vent) window. I obliged.
I watched from my RVM as she waited for a red SUV (blonde in the driver's seat with her window rolled down) to catch up to us. As soon as she was at Jane's window, Jane suddenly yelled out, "I'm looking for someone to give me their attention!!!"
By the time my brain realized what my ears had actually heard, the girl was ahead of us and I don't know if she gave Jane attention or not. I was thinking though that I had better give her some of that attention before she asks another stranger for it.

Not most recent but worth the mention, Jane lost her toe nail a couple months ago shortly after the weather stripping of a door ripped her nail up. She asked if the Toe Nail Fairy would be coming that night to collect the nail and leave some money. I guess it seems logical that if there's a fairy for teeth then there must be a fairy for other things we lose on our body, like toe nails, right? Jane drew a picture of her fairy at school the next day.

Hannah on her ride to school:

In a most exasperated and fed up tone, "I am so tired of only seeing my grandmas and grandpas on the computer! I want to see them in real life!"
Hannah doesn't throw tantrums but I'm pretty sure she actually put her foot down.

While the missionaries were over for dinner,
"Mom, this food is so. freakin'. good!"
She doesn't usually say "freakin' " so I laughed, but then asked her not to say it again (especially in front of those elders ;).

Claire:

The other day, she told me she loved my guts.

Pretty much every time Claire opens her mouth we laugh because she is speaking in complete two-year-old sentences. Need I say more?

Max:

What's coming out of his mouth are teeth, sharp ones.

On a side note, he is officially a crawler and he will crawl up to me while kneeling/sitting and climb up to standing position. Wha??? Not cool, little dude.

And here is the most recent picture of all of them.

Birthday

2011-10-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

Because I try to get at least one photo of me a year...

Hannah took some photos of me today. She even directed me on how to pose. She did a pretty good job, although there were a few awkward ones. She's awesome though.

Today was a good day. Sometimes that just means not needing to be responsible for so much of the stuff I'm usually responsible for. I didn't clean, do laundry, make meals, run errands etc. Today, not doing that stuff left me with a lot of time to enjoy myself and the people around me that I love. That made me happy today. Also I got a lot of yummy treats!

Dan's cake for me this year:

Thank you for everyone's birthday wishes.

Celebrating Fall

2011-10-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

I've been getting itches for Fall outings. Things have been quite busy since school started so we haven't been able to do anything, until Friday.

We stayed close to home, traveled only ten minutes away. I must say, I don't think I've ever been to a pun'kin farm in highly humidified 85˚ weather. It felt a little unseasonal, but we are in California now so we best get used to it.
The kids had fun though...

What's next?

~•~