Moments of the Months

Since it has been a little while since I have posted a moment of the month, this post will have several memorable moments.

When I cleaned out my phone pictures, I was reminded of two funny sleep photos from the past:

This one was from the summer, when Claire was having trouble letting go of her caca.  She would spend so long sitting on the toilet that one time she fell asleep against my knees.

This one was also from the summer, while we were in Mexico.  Jason and I were quietly reading in bed while the girls slept next to us.  All of a sudden, we heard a whole lot of movement from their bed and looked over to find this:  Gabby had flipped all the way up-side-down and pulled the other side of the covers over her.  She had no recollection of doing so the next morning.

While we are on the topics of beds, I had the following conversation with my barely-two-year-old:

Mom: Claire, go hop into bed while I finish putting these things away in the bathroom.  I'll be right there.

Claire: [Obediently leaves the room.]

Mom: [Arrives in Claire's room to find her jumping up and down next to her bed.]  What are you doing?

Claire:  [Frustrated.]  I can't do it, Mom!  I can't do it!

Mom:  You can't do what?  It's time to get into bed.

Claire:  [Still hopping.]  I need your help, Mom.

Mom:  [Pause.  Puzzled look on face.]  Oh, wait - are you trying to "hop" into bed?  

Claire:  Yes, but I can't do it!

That's right, my daughter was trying hard to follow my instructions that she "hop" into bed.  She was satisfied when I helped her that day, but insisted on "hopping" into bed for at least a week after that.

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Gabby came home one day talking non-stop about a boy in her class named Jason.  She wouldn't stop telling me about how funny he was.  She especially liked that he said something along the lines of "Mouska, mouska, Micky Mouse" over and over.  Luckily, she has no idea that boys like girls and girls like boys yet, so I figured it would be nothing more than a friendship.

After two days of talking about Jason's greatness, Gabby told us her big news at the dinner table: Jason was mean to her.  The dialogue went something like this:

Mom: What did he do?

Gabby:  He kept saying, 'Mouska, mouska, Micky Mouse'!

Dad:  But I thought you liked him saying that.

Gabby:  Yesterday, but not today.  I was so sad.  Sarah made me feel better and told Jason not to be mean anymore.

Jason (the husband) and I looked at each other in disbelief.  Wasn't this teenage behavior?  Does this not give you the boy-girl relationship in a nutshell?  Boy likes girl.  Makes her laugh.  Girl likes boy.  Boy repeats what girl likes.  Girl doesn't like boy anymore.  Friend takes girls side and tells boy to leave.  Jason explained that this type of issue is exactly why it took him so long to get married.  Girls are so hard to figure out.  Just when you think you know what they like, they change.  I told Jason that boys were the difficult ones.  They keep trying the same old tricks and get annoying.  ;)

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We have recently had to have a few talks with our four-year-old about not lying (vegetables were disappearing off the table and reappearing close to Claire's chair, at which point Claire was accused of throwing food).  After one deep conversation with her dad one night (in which he had no idea if she was listening), I went in to tuck Gabby into bed.  "Mom, I have something to tell you," she admitted.  "One time, when I was two, I was standing on a chair in the playroom and I got down when I heard you coming.  But when you asked me if I was standing on the chair, I said . . . no.  But really, I was standing on the chair.  And Claire was on the chair and she got in trouble."

Wow.  The only time that I could think of having to enforce a no-standing-on-the-little-chairs rule was when Claire was learning how to walk and went into climbing mode instead.  That was at least a year-and-a-half ago.  Had this been on her conscience since then?  If that is the worst she had to admit, I think Daddy must have done a pretty good job teaching her not to lie.

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For the children's program in our church (Primary) the theme of 2012 was "Choose the Right".  We have been working on this concept the whole year.  In November, our bishop (the leader of our congregation/"ward") came in and talked to the kids about choosing the right.  Apparently, he made a little bit more of an impact on her.  That night, and for weeks following, Gabby would suddenly announce something like, "Claire wants me to climb up on the top bunk, but the bishop said, "Choose the right,"so I am getting my pajamas on like I am supposed to."  Maybe we need to have him speak to the kids more often....

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The girls recently put on the following one-minute performance for me:

"I'm Just a Little Girl" from Jennefer Boyer on Vimeo.

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Maybe I shouldn't be ending on this note, but this is the type of humor I live with every day.  The girls one day were very excited to have the treat of a hot dog.  Claire is still learning English and said, "Mom, I want my hot dog on a bum!"  This drew laughter from her sister, who now knows what a "bum" is, but Claire did not understand the humor in the situation.  Claire continued while waiting for her hot dog to warm up, "I want my bum warm, Mom."  More laughter from Gabby.  And finally, as I gave them their food at the table, Claire finished with, "I have a little bum, Gabby."  After that, we realized we better teach Claire how to say "b-u-n" so that she doesn't get made fun of in Middle School.

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2013 bring many more moments to remember!

Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we spent the morning with Great Grandma Allred and Great Aunt Sandra's family.  Great Grandma Allred is literally crazy, so we never know what to expect, but she does pretty well with the girls and the girls get along with her by teasing her back.  (Below, Great Grandma is tapping Claire on the head with a pencil.)  Great Grandma does not remember much, so we always have to try to remind her of who we are.  This time, she spent quite a while hitting on Jason.  She said, "Boy, you sure are handsome!" to him more times than I could count.  :)

The second half of Christmas Eve, we spent at our friend's home.  We had a double celebration there: Aksel's 2nd birthday and Finnish Christmas Eve.  (They are from Finland, where the biggest celebrations are on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day.)  They treated us to an amazing feast.  Below, the kids are eating about five desserts at the same time and loving every minute of it.

Here is my good friend, Elina, the talented cook for the evening.  And a glimpse at how happy the world would be if I were tall.

On Christmas Eve, the girls slept in until about 7:15am.  Merry Christmas to us!  They then came downstairs hand-in-hand to discover the scene below.  Santa had brought them a dollhouse and a train set!  [A side note: ever since we have combined the girls into the same bedroom (on a bunk bed), they get up together and always hold hands to come find us.  Very sweet.]

The girls enjoyed opening their gifts that morning.  According to Gabby, her favorite gift is the set of dolls from "Brave" that Claire gave her.  Claire says her favorite gift is the Dream Light that Gabby picked out for her.  I guess Santa didn't need to invest in the big doll house after all....  (Luckily, they are spending a lot of time with that dollhouse too.)

For Christmas dinner, we had some old friends from NYC over, who recently moved to our area.  It was good to have some motivation to cook a real meal.  We also kept our tradition of acting out the section in Luke about Christ's birth.  Below, Gabby is Mary and Claire is Joseph.  Gabby kept wanting to act it out over and over, playing different parts and was sad when she was told it was time for bed.

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!