Leavenworth

The weekend before Christmas, we went for the first time as a family to Leavenworth.  It is a cute little Bavarian village, except that it is in Washington.  All of the shops (even buildings like the post office and gas stations) have adopted the Bavarian theme and they sell German food and souvenirs.  It feels like you have made a wrong turn and ended up in Europe.  The best part is that during Christmastime, they go all out with lights and music and snow activities.

Our girls took a little while to get reacquainted with the snow, but once they did, they were literally diving into it with delight.

Gabby preferred going sledding with Mommy because my feet did not kick snow in her face like when she went with Daddy.  At least until our fourth time down when she really got some snow in her face:

 We spent the evenings on the main walking street, enjoying the lights, window shopping, and picking the best restaurant to eat dinner.

When it was time to warm up, we would play games, watch Christmas movies and cuddle in the toasty condo that we rented for the weekend.

It was a perfect way to prepare for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our family.  We were also blessed to make it safely there.  On our way up the mountain pass, there was a road closure.  A tree had fallen and caused a fatality.  After being stopped for 30 minutes and not knowing what was going on, we almost turned around to add 4 hours to a 2-hour drive.  But they opened the pass back up just in time.  Then the snow hit hard and the pass was closed the rest of the weekend.  We came back the longer way, but we all enjoyed the family time in the car.

Gabby's Ballet Recital

Gabby recently had her first ballet recital.  She performed a dance to Frosty the Snowman in front of a large audience.  She was very excited and did a great job.  Ballet is one of the few things that seem to break her out of her shyness.

What you have to watch is this video.  Even if you don't look at Gabby, look at the girl and boy in the middle around minute 1:00.  You will be laughing out loud - I promise.  I think it has to do with the fact that on the stage, they combined two different classes who "learned" the same dance.  Maybe they just don't recognize each other from class...?  [Please excuse the video quality and occasional clicks - I was experimenting with my camera.]

Gabby's 1st Ballet Recital from Jennefer Boyer on Vimeo.

Un Petit Spectacle

Gabby's preschool class put on a little show (un spectacle) one morning for the parents.  They had memorized four Christmas songs in French and two in English - they have improved a lot since last year's one song that none of the children really sang.  :)  Unfortunately, the little camera I brought ran out of memory 20 seconds into this recording and my phone froze up on me completely.  So this is all I could record.  At least short videos are easier to post!

Christmas Spirit

In December, we began getting into the Christmas spirit.  The girls are the perfect ages now to really get excited about all things Christmas.  Every morning in December, they jumped out of bed just to change the countdown.  (I'll admit, something like that wouldn't get me out of bed before I am ready to be awake anymore.)

The first weekend of December, we went to our city's light festival.  They do a really good job of making it a fun night for the whole family.  We walked along the river trail and stopped to hear carolers and do activities along the way.

While Jason was in Las Vegas, we did some activities at home, like building gingerbread houses.

These sets from Trader Joe's were great, except for one thing.  I am not sure if you can see here what Claire is doing, but she is putting tiny ball sprinkles all over frosting that is too hard for a tiny ball sprinkle to stick to.  Instead, the sprinkles all ricocheted off all over the table and floor.  Over and over.  Those were fun to step on for the following week....

Jason and I also went to several parties, including an ugly Christmas sweater party.  We managed to win the contest for the ugliest sweaters, thanks to Jason's co-worker loaning us two sweaters from her vast collection.  They are pretty flattering on both of us, right?  Must be the built-in shoulder pads.

Christmas Photos

My children refuse to willingly go anywhere near to Santa, so thus far, all of our photos with Santa from years past involve screams and tears or nose-picking defiance.  This year, I decided not to force my children.  Instead, we went to the exterior of Santa's little home and I took photos of the girls there.  This taught me an important lesson: I am not a photographer and I have no idea how to pose my children.  I thought I was being creative by bringing wrapped gifts for the photo, but those lasted for a couple of minutes and then I was out of ideas.  Jason was working that weekend, so I had no help in the way of ideas or distractions for the girls.

After struggling for about 15 minutes, I settled for the photos we had and we celebrated the beginning of the holiday season Seattle-style.

Thanksgiving

This year, we had family come to our home for Thanksgiving.  It was great to have incentive for a big feast and extra hands to make the work light.  As you can see above, the kids rather enjoyed the end result.

Nonni & B took a train all the way around our local mall with the girls.  The girls had the time of their lives on the "real train!"

Mostly, we just enjoyed spending time with each other.

Of course, when we told Aunt Cami that the forecast showed rain for the whole time she was in town and we may be stuck inside together for a while, she responded, "Just shoot me now!" ... then she looked around the room, realizing that we could hear her.  We love you too, Cami.  Haha.

October/November Random

Gabby received her frist flower from a boy and we thought we better document it.  ;)  Landon gave it to her for her birthday.  She thought it was pretty special.

Gabby has been spending a lot of time with her friend, Frida, recently.  They play quite nicely together.

At school, Gabby made a painting with her classmates.  The Monet-style painting sold for $1,000 at the school auction.  I admit, the finished piece of art looked pretty impressive!  (If I could just get her to paint like that at home, it would save me money on wall decor....)

At home, she is artistic, too.  She colors all of the time, mostly princesses.  I discovered this one on a white board.

The girls recently discovered a real camera and took these photos of each other without me knowing.

Claire has had time with her friends too.  These were taken the morning that her friend's mom had a baby.  This generation appears to be drawn toward technology at an early age....

 In November, Daddy celebrated a birthday!

I was in charge of another Primary Presentation for the children in our church in November.  The kids all worked really hard and did a great job!  This was Gabby's first year in the program.  She spoke her line, "I choose the right when I share and help my sister," into the microphone clearly and sang well.  We are proud of her for doing so well in Primary this year.  Maybe next year, she'll even speak a few words during Sharing Time....

Halloween

Gabby enjoyed a halloween party at her school again this year.

Claire never has a hard time joining in with the festivities at Gabby's school.

Every morning that we drop Gabby off, Claire has to take care of her baby in Gabby's classroom.

Halloween night, we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood with some friends.

I think this is the first year that the girls realized their incentive for knocking on doors: the candy!

Hurricane Sandy

Some time has now passed since October 29th, when Hurricane Sandy caused so much devastation on the East Coast and in the Caribbean, but the impact has certainly not ended for those who lost their homes or family members.  The news of this disaster hit me particularly hard not just because we had friends living through the disaster, not just because I work in public health, but because I had studied and written an article about this very issue, pointing out that people were not prepared for a hurricane in New York City.

The article I wrote with Dr. Zarcadoolas was published in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.  (Click here for the full article.)  To gather research, I walked around the streets of Harlem showing individuals a GIS (Geographic Information System) map and interviewing them to see if they could understand the map.  The map was created by NYC's Office of Emergency Management and was supposed to inform people if they lived in a hurricane evacuation zone and if so, where the nearest evacuation center was to their home.  But no one could understand the map.

Memories of my interviews flooded back into my mind when I heard of this superstorm.  The first response I usually received from people during my research was, "We don't get hurricanes in New York City.  Why would we need a map?"  When I asked people what they would do if they heard that a hurricane was coming, I had strange responses like two that said they would hide in their bathtubs.  And then there was the map.  New Yorkers are used to reading maps, but they all involve the subway.  Instead of taking advantage of this familiarity, the subway lines were not standard and there were other markers that looked to some like subway stops throwing them off.  Many of the people couldn't even find their own street on the map, let alone know if they were in a danger zone.

The map seemed manageable to figure out for those with high education who are used to looking at complex maps.  But 46% of East Harlem adults have not graduated high school.  More than half of those with low education could not even find their own home on the map.  In the case of a hurricane warning in Harlem, even with a map in hand, 82% of those with low education would not be able to find the hurricane evacuation center and 48% of those with high education wouldn't be able to find it either.

When the news of the hurricane came to us, I thought of and prayed for these people.  I also came across this video that I found very powerful about the hurricane clean-up being done by groups of Mormon Helping Hands.  Take a look at it if you have a chance.  A big thank you to all of my friends that were part of the effort being documented here and who still continue to do volunteer work there.

A Paris Birthday Party

Macaroon "lollipops".

At the end of October, Gabby celebrated her 4th birthday.  Since she goes to a French school, she decided she wanted a Paris-themed birthday party.  (This also happened to be more fun for mom to plan than the Dora-themed party that she had previously considered.)

Instead of traditional cupcakes this year, I made pretend macaroons by cutting of the tops off two mini cupcakes and putting frosting in between them.  We also enjoyed croissant sandwiches, quiche, crepes and madeleines.

The decor was easy since all I had to do was pull out relics from my time living in Paris.  Gabby had also used pink & gray colors for a previous birthday party, so I was glad that we kept things like her pom-pom decorations.

It was supposed to be a fancy parisian lunch, so when the kids arrived, the girls received a necklace and a ring and the boys received a bow tie.  They also had to use a passport to enter France.  The passports I made had stickers inside and I had intended for them to use them at each activity, but we pretty much forgot about them.  For games, the kids went to the Louvre and colored the Mona Lisa and did some random chicken toss into a boat on the Sienne.

They also played "Pin the Tourist on the Eiffel Tower", a game that I may have invented myself the night before.

I did feel a little bad when Gabby blew out her candles.  They were out for a moment and then relit themselves.  Oops - I bought trick candles on accident!  Who does that to a four-year-old?

Gift time was a little crazy with 18 children at her party.  They all crowded around in excitement.

Gabby had a great time celebrating with all of her friends.

One behind-the-scenes helper that saved me was "Aunt" Jen.  She thought she was coming as a guest to Gabby's party, but she ended up running half of it.  Thanks, Jen!

The kids all went home with a box of goodies and little toys, including some Euro chocolate coins and some other French specialties that I found at World Market.  The box was topped off with a (real) macaroon cookie from a local French bakery that I put on a stick to look like a lollipop.  The ribbon says, "Ooh La La" - a fun find.  Merci to all who joined us!

Since the party was the day of Gabby's actual birthday, we opened family gifts that night.  Her favorites were a Hello Kitty watch and a Dream Light from Claire.