It's more of a powdered snow world than a marshmallow one here...

We have had two dust-ings of snow in the last 2 days. Elisabeth has been begging for a snow day for over a week now. It's totally not going to happen. She has half a day of school today, anyway, and then it's Christmas break.

I'm standing at my little computer writing this blog and staring at my kitchen which is desperately calling out to me to clean it. My kitchen is so needy. We have the roof to put on our gingerbread house and I still have one more batch of fudge to make and a couple more batches of cookies to bake for gifts. I'm almost done with my Christmas check list. I am actually on time with things this year and I'm both surprised and proud of me. My Christmas cards are mailed, presents are packed and on their way to Illinois, and Santa's totally ready to set up on Christmas Eve after the girls are sound asleep.

Elisabeth has reminded me of a few things we still need to do. We need to decorate our gingerbread house, we need to go to the zoo, there's a couple of Christmas movies we still need to watch, etc. etc. She knows our holiday traditions and completing them make her feel like Christmas is really here. Part of her need for the same holiday routine is that we aren't with family again this year. She had 6.5 years of lots of immediate and extended family at her fingertips during Christmas time and she misses some of the things we did in Illinois. I do too. I miss seeing my grandparents, aunts and cousins. I miss Evan's family's Christmas celebration that's always a couple days after Christmas. I miss attending Matt and Kyle's Christmas Eve Eve extravaganza. I miss making our annual Chicago trip to see the window displays at Macy's and going to Kristkindlmarkt.

We've started some of our own traditions, though. Elisabeth loved going to the Winter Wonderland at the zoo. She's mentioned going again and I think it's a fabulous idea. But, you know how I feel about zoos.

We also are celebrating an early Christmas dinner with Rachel and Kim and their families for our weekly Thursday dinner. One of Evan's co-workers is having a Christmas Eve brunch that we'll be going to as well. I'm positive that celebrating holidays with others who aren't near their families either will be something we will be participating in for as long as we're in the Air Force. It's kind of like having a uniformed extended family. :)

There are traditions that we are continuing even though we're so far away from everyone. Making the hand ornaments is one of them:
And continuing with gingerbread house making is another.
We still get brand new jammies every Christmas Eve.
And make sure Santa and the reindeer are hooked up when they visit us.
Of course, we see Mr. Clause and let him know what we'd like him to bring us this year.

There are things we miss.

We miss seeing our families on Christmas day and are sad we have to wait for their hugs and smooches until we see them in the fall next year.
And there's Chicago. Ugh...we are definitely missing being so close to Chicago this time of year (and the people who live in Chicago as well).
Bonnett Family Christmas is one of the things I super miss. We haven't been in two years and I'm always sad when they are all together without us. I still remember the first Christmas I attended with Evan's family. It was at his house and his Uncle Tom so sweetly offered me one of his home made Rum Balls...they could make you tipsy after eating 2 of them.

Of course, there are those whom we will miss forever but always think of this time of year. Grandpa Bonnett surrounded by all 9 of his kids, 30-plus grandkids, and almost 30 great-grandkids is one of my favorite memories.

So, we keep up all the traditions we can and pick up some new ones along the way. I, personally, am anxious to see what ones the girls make part of their own family holidays someday. I'm wondering if they'll make gingerbread houses and what cookies they'll "have" to have each year. I can't wait to see what holiday traditions we do today with them as kiddos will be important to them as grown-ups.

Virtual Coffee

It's Tuesday, my friends. And while I do know it is very cold and snowy white where a lot of you are (*cough*Illinois*cough*), here the high is 64 and it's already 50 degrees. So, I do have some nice hot coffee brewing away for you all but we also have some iced tea in the fridge too. :)

If we were really having coffee today...I'd tell you that Hanukkah ended last week. Julia still asks for it because she really misses lighting the candles.

Elisabeth asked if we can celebrate it every year and Evan and I both said yes. She was very excited and said next year we could check out even more books to read. I guess we've started a "Hanukkah children's book reading before lighting the menorrah" tradition.

If you were at my house having coffee with me today...you'd be leaving with a small tin of cookies. We've been baking up a storm here and I love to share them. You could have one now if you want. Julia can tell you what one to eat since she's sampled and helped bake them all.

Julia's been my big helper this year. She's excited to put on her apron and dump in ingredients. She's very adamant about me needing her help. Elisabeth's helped a bit here and there, but mainly has only been "helping" by licking the spatula. I think I'll be seeing her help more when school's out for winter break on Friday. It's a half day and then they have almost 3 weeks off.
Have you seen Santa yet this year? We have. Thankfully, the BX on base had a spot set up for Mr. Clause and there was no line the night we went to visit him. Last year we waited over an hour to see him at the mall. I shall be checking the BX from now on. Julia was so excited this year. She went straight to him and told him exactly what she wanted--a big red ball.
Elisabeth had a letter she'd written for him that gave him lots of options. She's all about making Christmas easy on Santa. One year, when she was around 4, she told him to just surprise her because she knows how busy he is. I love that girl.
We'd sit and sip coffee and talk about the upcoming holidays. You'd tell me your plans (are you going anywhere? what are you making for dinner? are people coming to your house?) and I'd tell you that I'm making a traditional Italian Christmas dinner this year. Last year we had a traditional English dinner. Next year, Elisabeth wants a traditional Mexican Christmas dinner since we'll be in Texas and so close to Mexico.
Ooh! Then I'd remember to tell you that Kyle, Matt and the boys are coming to visit us again this year for the week in-between Christmas and New Year's!!! The girls are so excited. They want to take Ethan to a billion different places. I'm excited because I have plans on squishing Owen's cheeks and smooshing his fat baby belly with kisses and huffing his baby scent while I cuddle him. He's 6 months old now and is a total butterball. We're also going to go out to dinner with Kyle and Matt solo. No kiddos. I can NOT wait!
I'd ask what your plans for today are. I'm going to be be baking gingerbread like it's my job. We're going to build our big house tonight and start decorating it tomorrow. Last year we made a grocer store like what Evan's family used to own in the 1930s. This year, we're making a bird house. I will definitely be posting about it when it's completed.
Thanks for stopping by today. I know it's a busy time of year, but I love brief moments of sitting and slowing down to just be with friends. And I totally love our virtual coffee Tuesdays.

Adjusting.

Evan went back to work today. After two weeks of being home, adjusting to the medicine for his blood therapy and slowly healing, he went back to the real world today. I've called him at least 3 times and emailed him more to check on him. He says he's doing fine.

Julia misses him like crazy. She asked for him 3 times in thirty minutes after waking up. She wanted to go visit him at his office. I told her that some day this week, we'll stop by to say hi to Daddy.
I'm feeling overwhelmed lately. I don't think it's necessarily holiday related--I'm almost done with the gift buying and wrapping and I've still got some baking to do, but I typically find that more of a therapy session for me. I don't know what's overwhelming me...
Part of it is doctor visits and how we seem to have been visiting some sort of medical personal quite a bit this past month. I hate asking people to watch Julia while I go to an appointment and I feel like I've had to do it a lot lately. I really wish doctors' offices had a small nursery that you could drop the kid off at--like the gym! Just sign them in, let them play, pick them up after the appointment's over. It'd make my life a lot easier.
I am also out of my routine. I haven't been to the Y in weeks and I need to go back...
So, to help with the overwhelmingness, I've started to de-clutter out home. I'm thinking of the move that we'll be making in the summer and trying to start organizing for it. I realize that it's 6 months away, but people, that is not a very long time. I need to go through things in our closets and under beds and in the basement to see what we're holding on to that we just don't need.
Maybe that's part of the issue. I've been thinking more about leaving and I'm sad. I love our life here and I have started saying things like, "We need to do this before we leave" and "Ooh, I need to finish reading the books I've borrowed to give back to my friends before we move". Yes, I'm still excited about exploring a new city and making a home there, but that doesn't out weigh the sadness of leaving Colorado.
I'm also running out almost every night and trying to capture this brilliant view with my little point-and-shoot camera.
Elisabeth likes to yell at me as I'm running out the door, "Better hurry up, Mom! The sky will never be like that again!"
Totally throwing my own words back at me. She's so smart.

10 on 10: December

Take 10 pictures for 10 hours on the 10th day of the month.

(Today is extra special because Owen is 6 months old today. I get to see him this month!!)

My 10 on 10:

A different perspective.

Last week, Ebeth had a sleepover at her friend Mabel's house. Evan and I took this opportunity to go out to dinner with our youngest.

Evan'd been home for a week and felt he could walk from the car to the restaurant without crutches (which was a huge deal last weekend!). He'd been a prisoner to our recliner and he wanted to breathe fresh air and see things outside of the walls of our home.

Julia, who's been more than thrilled to have Evan home 24/7 (seriously, she'd love him to be the stay at home parent), was also feeling a bit of the cabin fever as well.

We have the nicest little Chinese restaurant by our house. It has honest-to-god the best fried rice I've ever eaten. It's not big and there are never a lot of people in the restaurant when we go. So, basically, it's a very quiet dinner atmosphere.

While we debated what to order, Julia began singing. Loudly. She started with "Jingle Bells" and soon started only belting out her "ABCDs". She wasn't being obnoxious on purpose, but if the other patrons had wanted a quiet dinner, Julia definitely ruined those plans.

We encouraged her to use her inside voice. We really did! But, there's only so much you can do to control a 2 year old's exclamations in a quiet restaurant. So, when she started happily yelling:

"I need meat!!"

"I so thirsty!!!"

"People on the bus go up and down!!"

"I love my apple juice!!!!"

"Daddy, I need to lick your tongue!!"

We did what all parents do--we texted people what she was saying and took pictures of her with our phones.

I chalked it up as a loss. She wasn't crying or whining or screaming out in rage or anger. She was smiling and chipper and happy to be out of the house. I inwardly apologized to the other customers and ate my unbelievably delicious sesame chicken.

Imagine my surprise when an elderly man who'd been sitting in the booth across the room from us with his wife and older grandchildren, tapped me on the shoulder. "You sure did a good job teaching her her ABCs. She did a great job singing them." I managed to stammer a thank you as he smiled at Julia, patted her on the head and walked out. Evan and I exchanged smiles; at least we hadn't ruined those people's dinner.

We finished eating and I went to go and pay while Evan gather Julia's pink baby and coat. As I signed the merchant receipt, one of the employees came out of the kitchen and asked if I was the mom of the little girl who'd been singing so loudly. I said yes, I was the mother of the loud child. The employee then said, "She sang her ABCs so well. She's beautiful. Thank you for bringing her."

And that's when I realized that the behaviors I had worried were too loud, too intrusive, too much for the small restaurant were actually noticed in a positive way from Julia's audience.

It's something I had not thought of and it took two other people's perspectives of Julia's behavior for me to realize that a loud, happy, singing two year old is not an obnoxious two year old--she's a loved two year old by others besides myself.

Virtual Coffee

Hello! It's Tuesday and I have coffee waiting for you. I know it's kind of late, but I had a dentist appointment this morning.

Yes, I am one of those people who hates going to the dentist. I hate everything about it. I hate the tiny metal piercing tool they use to scrape the crap out of your teeth. I hate the flossing. I hate the rotating toothbrush from hell that uses coarse, mint flavored sand to "polish" your teeth. I hate the freezing cold water they use to rinse your mouth out.

And don't get me started on fluoride. The bubble gum flavor forever makes me think of vomit and I dislike gum because of it.

But, here's the deal--I always have the nicest dentists. Polite, friendly, competent. The hygienists are always friendly, always listen when I tell them about my fears and sensitive teeth and always respect my wishes. So, it's not the people. It's never the people. It's the objects touching and abusing my teeth.

I hated the orthodontist too.

But, one of the reasons that I hate going to the dentist is that I have had issues with my #28 tooth since I was 10 years old. It grew in partially dead and they had to do a root canal. Then when I was 17, then needed to put a permanent crown on and did another root canal. When I was 27 and 7 months pregnant with Julia, they had to surgically go through my gums to do ANOTHER root canal because I'd been getting serious infections in that tooth for months.

Well, guess what? Yep. It's infected. Again. I have to have surgery. Again. Same tooth. Again.

Plus, this time, I have 2 cavities that need filled. I have never, ever had cavities before. Sigh.

I'm so sorry. I just realized that I have spent our entire coffee time moaning and groaning about my teeth. So, how are you? How's the weather where you are? Cause it's in the 40s here and super sunny. We may venture to the park later today.

Well, I need to go and finish up some cleaning and baking and wrapping. I'm so glad you stopped by for coffee. If you're looking for more coffee chit-chat, please head over to lovely Amy at Lucky Number 13. There's always a great conversation going on over there!

I stopped baking for 3 seconds to come say hi to you all.

One of the reasons I love Christmas time is that I can bake to my heart's content and no one objects or whines or cries about how much time I'm spending in the kitchen and how they are being neglected. This might have to do with the fact that I shut them up by giving them cookies to eat. I make batches and batches of cookies and put them in my Christmas tins until all the cookies we could possibly ask to have made are made and I then make gift tins and pass them out to people.

I love baking cookies.

A few weeks ago, Pioneer Woman talked about these cookie cutters:

and I knew I needed them. I needed to make gingerbread men like these to make me giggle. So, I bought them and I used them last night.

I also purchased an advent calendar this year. Well, I try to purchase them every year, but they're always the ones you open and then throw away. Some years I can't find them and then Ebeth is sad. This year, I was searching for them at King Soopers and I could not find them! I asked an employee to help me and he said they were sold out. I told him I hate when that happens and started to leave the store. He then said to me, "Why don't you just buy a wooden one and fill it in yourself every year and you won't have to worry about finding them every year."

I apologized to the King Soopers employee for being a complete moron and bought this lovely advent calendar:
Yes, I keep my wine behind the advent calendar. That's normal.

Right?

Hanukkah is still going strong in our house. Julia asks for Hanukkah early in the morning and we have to remind her that we have to wait for it to get dark out before we have Hanukkah lights. She likes watching us light the candles and loves listening to all of the books I borrowed from the library to read before we light the candles.
I will tell you what, some of those kids books have been the best thing about us celebrating it for the first time this year. One of the books has the prayers that you say, the song you sing, the rules for how to play dreidel, and recipes for latkes and applesauce. Yes, the characters are mice, but it's been my favorite book and Julia always asks, "Mama, you got your mouse book?" before we start our Hanukkah celebrating.
Last Thursday, we had Thursday dinner with Rachel and Kim and their families and all the kids participated in the book reading and the candle lighting and the gift receiving. They didn't know much about Hanukkah and Ebeth felt very proud to be able to share how much we'd learned.
When we were reading the story about how the Greeks put statues of their gods and goddesses in the Jews' temple, I pointed out that the statues would have been of Zeus and Apollo and Athena because those were the gods that the Greeks worshiped at the time. One of Rachel's kids has been reading a lot about Ancient Greek mythology and he found that very interesting. I do too. You learn about mythology in school, but you never really learn what other people at the same time period believed in as well. You never hear that the story behind why Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah took place when Greeks were ruling and believed in their gods and goddesses.
I'm sorry. My dorkiness just took over that last paragraph. I will try to keep my love of history to a minimum.

Instead, I will tell you how hard it is to get Ebeth to take a normal picture so she looks like a normal person with a normal smile.
Sigh. Eight year olds are such weirdos.