Happy New Year!

The girls and I made some fun noisemakers for the occasion. We cut semicircles of tagboard, filled them with lentils and placed feathers in between the edges and stapled them together. Then we covered the whole thing with pieces of tissue paper.

The entire time we made them Jia kept saying, "These are so posh!" and Willa kept throwing bunches of feathers around the room. Clean up was more than I imagined!

The girls love their noisemakers. They dance with them, play peek-a-boo and pretend they are butterflies.

We are preparing for fondue tonight. We also made some resolutions. Jia resolved to keep her room clean. Willa resolved to stop surfing on the back of her rocking chair while touching the ceiling and then flinging herself into her crib (or maybe that is my resolution for her?)

Happy New Year!

Christmas Presents

What do the presents you receive say about you, really?

Joe is the best present shopper around. He gets me exactly what I want even before I realize it. He pays attention to my complaints and purchases accordingly. My complaints have been as follows this year:

When I'm reading on the couch in the evening I cover up with a blanket but my arms still get chilly so I also put on a fleece jacket. (I know, I'm a freeze-baby.)

When we purchase fresh herbs at the farmer's market they last about a day before going limp.

I like to know the weather days in advance and I don't like to watch the news, so I search the internet about our weather a lot.

For Christmas, Joe got me a 5-day digital weather forecaster. It is very detailed, changes color with the temp, and submits up-to-the-minute data about our city's weather via satellite.

He also got me an herb keeper for the fridge.

And a Slanket. It's in a nice chocolate brown so it will blend decently with our decor if left out. And when I wear it, I look like a monk.

So are these gifts an indication that I'm an AARP wannabe and perhaps secretly desire to be cloistered? I'm not sure, but whatever they say about me, at least I'm cozy.

A Merry Christmas Was Had By All

We had a very fun Christmas. Jia asked a LOT of questions about Santa this year. She also wrote him a letter on her own asking for the Disney Princess Barbie collection. She wondered if he received the letter. On Christmas morning she found out that he did!


Santa brought Willa a Baby Stella. She loves that she has a pacifier!

Having fun with the umbrellas Santa left in their stockings.

We made indoor snowmen, something that is becoming a Christmas tradition.

Ready to head to their grandparents' house.


We brought along a snowman cake. We baked the cake in bowls. A fun project with a tasty result!


The girls loved their incredibly elaborate pop-up books.




Santa came to their grandparents' house as well, and superhero outfits were in their stockings. Grandpa decided to model it.


Jia too.
A final Christmas-time activity - devouring our gingerbread houses. Willa got really into it.


Hope you had a merry Christmas too!

Let it Snow!

And snow! And snow! For four days straight!

Yes, we are having a white Christmas, and then some. We love it! We are thankful that we don't have to travel very far, and feel for people who do.

We spent the morning playing outside. There was tree climbing.


There was lots of snow eating.


Even Willa's baby ate snow.

We spent the afternoon making gingerbread houses with friends and family.



We spent the evening opening our traditional Christmas Eve presents of new jammies and gifts for the family to use together.

And last but but not least, the all-important cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer!



Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

We love sledding!

We have had perfect sledding weather lately. There is plenty of snow and the weather has been in the upper 20's.



We usually sled at the big hill a block away. It's a terrific place because there's a nice slope for long rides, a steep hill for fast rides and a low hill that is perfect for kids to do by themselves.

I took both girls there yesterday and the three of us did lots of long and fast rides together. I had to laugh because a woman came up to me and said "You're so brave!" She was having her son sled alone, just a few feet, on a very small hill. When she did go with him once she screamed a lot, so maybe she's scared of sledding? I don't know, but we had such FUN!

Joe and I took the girls again this morning. We did lots of runs and then went to a small hill where we had both girls practice going alone. They both even pulled their sleds back up the hill - that was nice!

One time Joe went down a fast run on his knees and then deliberately flew off his sled and rolled down the rest of the hill. What an example! Our daredevil Willa desperately wanted to do it too!


Here Jia is strapped into her own personal sled. You go down the hill on it like an upside down turtle. She loved it!

And here is Willa refusing to wear her mittens. She preferred to just tuck her arms into her sleeves. Stinker!

From Pristine Princess to Her Messiness

Joe and Jia had a special father/daughter outing this weekend. He took her to see Disney Princesses on Ice. She went as Sleeping Beauty. They had a great time! Here she is pretty and pristine.

Then today we decorated cookies with our family. Jia quickly evolved to the mess you see at the end.


Right down to her toes!

A Few Holiday Pics

For a lighter topic, our holiday photo session wasn't a complete disaster this year! Yay! Here are the results:


And we had a blast making a gingerbread house:



You can tell by Willa's mouth that she did a lot more eating than decorating...but that's what I expected!

Feeling different

I've been hesitating about sharing this, but someone else might be facing something similar so here goes.

When Jia was younger, if asked about the color of her eyes, she would say they were brown. But sometimes, she would quietly add, "But they'll turn blue someday."

Joe and I have blue eyes.

Whenever I heard this, I gently reminded her that her eyes would always stay a beautiful brown, just like Willa's, and Aunt Susie's and those of our numerous friends. We talked about our differences and our similarities and how they can be special and interesting. We've read many books about it. We talked about how families who don't look alike in every aspect are families just the same, and talked about the many families we know who don't look matched in every way. She can see this just by looking at her own extended family. Jia has so many people in her life who look like her. People who have brown eyes just like her. But Joe and I don't.

She secretly remained hopeful.

Until the other day. She was reading a book and I asked her about it. Jia pointed to a character and said, "She is sad because she looks different from her parents." Then she looked up at me and said, "My eyes will be different from yours and Baba's forever." And she cried.

A few weeks later, I was putting her to bed and she wanted to talk about where people were born. This has been a topic that has interested her lately. She asks friends where they were born, asks us where family members were born, and it has come up at school. She has been fixated on who was born here, in our city. Many of the people she knows were born here, including Joe and I. We talked about the various other places people were born, but she kept wanting to focus on us. I said, "I know you're sad that you weren't born in the same place as me and Baba." She burst into loud sobs. She is just beginning to realize that all of these facts, these differences, won't ever change.

Willa, Social Butterfly

It's a funny thing when a new experience makes you see your child in a whole different light. We attended a party recently. In a house packed full of people, Jia, Willa and their cousin Han were the only children in attendance. Willa knew just a handful of people there. It was a special party for special friends and we arrived after Willa's bedtime. We have typically avoided these situations because I assumed they'd be no fun for the kids (or the adults). Boy was I wrong!

Willa charmed every person there. She completely worked the place. She greeted everyone with a hug or a handshake (that she initiated!), and would ask, "What's your name? I'm Willa!" She brought strangers food and they instantly became her friends. At one point, I saw Willa being carried around on a friend's arm at the buffet, where she was directing him on which foods she wanted on her plate. She said her "pleases" and "thank yous" and made conversation. After all the mingling and hors d'oeuvres, she gave lots of hugs good-bye and we got in the car. Then, like many a festive partygoer, she promptly threw up.

Our future socialite. Or politician. Whatever she'll be, she'll always have lots of people surrounding her!

Santa, friend or foe?

Santa causes some fear and trepidation in our house. Not a lot, but some. My parents took the girls to see Santa last weekend. He does a little Santa show at a local store. The girls got cookies and then sat to watch.

He invited kids up to sing with him. Jia was concerned that he would eat her cookie. She apparently decided that it wasn't likely and went up to join them.

Notice that Jia is at the far end of the stage.

She then sidestepped, very very slowly, toward Santa. He noticed her and patted her on the head.

She returned to my parents and said, "I think Santa hit me!" She was joking, but then Willa later told me that, "Santa wasn't nice to me either! He scratched me! Time-out for Santa!" Can you imagine?

There was then some uncertainty about whether they wanted to sit on Santa's lap. They eventually decided yes, it would be okay. They went last. And they both came home very excited!


The nice thing about this Santa is that he didn't ask kids to list what they wanted for Christmas, he asked them to list the nice things they wanted to do for others. Jia took this to heart. In fact, she came home from school today and had wrapped a present to give to Santa because he gives so many to other people that she thought he deserved something for himself. What a nice Santa (as long as he doesn't go around hitting people)!

More and more isms!

I was sitting at my desk and Willa leaned against the wall near it, looked at me and said, "Sooooo, ice cream tonight, kay? For dessert!"

Willa was playing in our bed and then looked at us and stated, "My tooted in your bed!" and then laughed and laughed!

I've been sick and apparently my loud coughing has been annoying Jia at night because at dinner she said, "Stop and listen please, I have something important to say. If tonight, you don't cough Mama, I will give you a treat!"

Jia has been into princesses lately, and she came up to me and said, "Mama, I brushed my hair sweetly."

Joe was watching football and Willa said: "Football not nice to me. People hit somebody to get the ball. Not nice!"

Willa was singing and sang: "Please don't take my sunshine away...or my nukie..."

Jia was asked to answer the question: "What ten things do you want to accomplish before you turn 20?"

Her reply: "Learn to drive a car, fly an airplane, drive a boat, fly a helicopter, go way far in Antartica, have a birthday cake for Willa's birthday, cut with a sharp scissors, go to Taiwan and China, go to where Santa lives, and swim in the ocean with fish and crabs that don't pinch!"

Jia likes to do art projects during her quiet time. She also has been writing little notes. She came up after her quiet time was over recently and handed me a bag. She had created an "art project to go" and had stuffed a bag with art materials and stapled a note to it. She told me the note said, "You can take the bag." I looked and she had written, "YOO KEN TAK THE BAG." I thought that was so cute!

Howdy Pilgrims!

Hope you had a great turkey day!