Farewell 2010!

We've had quite the year, with Justin's diagnosis as a diabetic, adjusting to three munchkins, potty training, a new job, listing the house, all of the showings for the house, saying good-bye, leaving Kansas, moving in to this house, and the decision to home school.

While I was looking back over the year, I picked out my favorite Kate-ism, Gabby-ism, and Nate-ism for the year. It was so hard to choose for the girls, and I'm sure it will be for Nate as he grows and talks more.

I hope that you have a Happy New Year. I'm sure we'll be in bed by ten around here, but have some late night fun for me!

Over the River...

Busy, busy, busy!

We took a trip up to see my in-laws last week.


The girls got a chance to tube in the snow, which they loved.


Nate got a chance to play on the tube in the living room, which he loved.


A gingerbread house was built,


Books were read,


Nuts were cracked,


And the tree was trimmed and untrimmed (and toppled over, though not by the force of the little guy)!


We also stopped to see Justin's grandmother for a brief visit.

Then we made our way back home just in time to prepare for Christmas.





We spent Christmas day there, then we were off again, this time to celebrate with my parents and sister.


This time there were horsey rides,


A chance to dress up like a princess,


More books to read,


Games to play,


And of course presents to open.

It was nice to visit with everyone, but it's nice to be home again too.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

from our family to yours!


May your dinner be delicious,


your presents


be awe inspiring,


and may you always remember the true reason for the day!

Christmas According to Gabby

God passed out the Bible to Moses. And he just looked at it.

The angels were speaking by him [referring to Jesus]. But the baby wouldn't speak he was asleep. It's time to get awake. He's hugging his sheep. Just playing.

But Mary got a little baby that was crucified. Baby Jesus. He had no clothes on, but he was wrapped up. The angel got it.

Parentisms

As Kate was trying to shake a salt shaker at her sister, "Don't a-salt your sister."

Cat Got Your Tongue?

When we saw the pediatrician for Gabby and Nate's well visits last month, I was asked if I had any concerns about Gabriella's speech. I raised the point that while her vocabulary is excellent, she still has what I think of as toddler diction ('w' instead of 'r', etc.). This led to a referral to a speech therapist.

I knew that this might be an interesting experience, since Gabriella often clams up in front of new people, and this is doubly true if she knows that they are wanting to hear her speak. I went armed with a list of her common speech errors and we met with a nice lady who tried her very best to get Gabby to speak. We moved from the office into a play room, where we looked at wall murals and played with mega blocks. I did manage to get her to tell me the colors of the blocks she wanted in order for the therapist to overhear. After that, she did her best to even suppress a grin. The gal gave her an obviously girl doll and said something about it being a boy and then told her that the boy doll was a girl. Gabby sideways glanced at me, but didn't make a correction. When the woman asked for the boy, Gabby shrugged her shoulders and handed back the girl.

At the end of the session, with not one question of the assessment that the therapist had in hand completed, the therapist offered to either have us come back in or to write up a list of things to try at home, with us calling back in after six months if we don't see any improvement. I opted for the at home practice. She also told me that it's not uncommon for a child at this age to be working on those sounds too, so it's not a major concern at this point.

Tonight I thought I'd get the little gal to talk about the experience, hoping that if we talk about it some that it will help her in similar situations in the future. I asked cheerily, "Didn't you think that lady we talked to today was nice?"

Gabby regarded me cooly and in a totally deadpan manner answered, "I didn't talk to that lady."

Amen.

You Create: picnic bundle

I made this for my in-laws to carry their utensils for a picnic.



I took a place mat and lined it with flannel. I cut the flannel to 1" larger than the mat, turned the edges under and stitched it together. I flipped up the bottom of the mat to make a pocket and stitched that to make pockets to store each of the items (napkins, forks, knives, spoons, and a spare spot for anything else they might need to carry).



Lastly, I stitched a ribbon on to tie the little bundle up.

Hot Chocolate Santa

I took a milk bottle from a fast food restaurant we visited recently in a rush from story time to the grocery store and washed it out. Then I painted it as Santa Claus. Kate and I made hot cocoa mix from scratch and filled it for her story time teacher.

Story time was snowed out this week (we got about a 1/2" of snow, but here that causes a lot of trouble, since there just isn't the call for the equipment to be kept for the little snow we get), so we'll have to try to get it to her another time.

Trim the Tree

We finally put up our tree Saturday night. Justin and I got the tree, lights, and beads up so that the kiddos could help us put up ornaments on Sunday after church.

Gabby loves the beads and told me that, "The tree has a necklace!"

The bottom half of the three is full of fabric ornaments that my mom's mother made. We put some of our more fragile ornaments on the top, but many of them we kept boxed up, knowing that Nate will be rough on our tree this year.

Each of the children got to hand their 'baby's first Christmas' ornament.






Then I asked the girls which their favorite ornament was.


Kate told me one of the fabric angels was her favorite, "Because the angel told everybody."


Gabby chose one of her two baby's first Christmas ornaments (they each have a figurine one and an engraved one). Of course she chose it, it is a baby.

I asked Justin what his favorite one is, but he couldn't choose between three:


The French Fries that Kate and I got him on his first Christmas as a daddy, as I called him Papas Fritas because of a story from a friend of mine, whose father thought his daughter was talking about whenever she said french fries in Spanish,


The snowman I got him the year that he got to build his first snow man as a father,


Or the Cincinnati ornament.

I also love many of our ornaments. I am so thankful that I can to our marriage with several ornaments from my childhood like:


My baby's first Christmas,


A Mary that my sister bought me one year when I played Mary in a Christmas play,


And this one that came from our exchange student in Denmark

Then there are the ones we've gathered like


The one we got our first year of marriage.

More Home Made Christmas

I've been doing some more home made Christmas gifts.

Gabriella asked for baby doll clothes for her favorite doll, Sally, for Christmas. She said in specific that she wanted strawberry pajamas. Since strawberries are out of season, even in the fabric store, I was only able to buy strawberry buttons. I used some fabric scraps and put together this little set for baby Sally, who I had to go hunting for last night to check the fit on her pants. She was even willing to pose for this picture.