its beginning to look a lot like christmas

The first snow of the season started falling Saturday morning. We bundled up the kids in coats, hats and gloves and drove a little north of town to a tree farm. Rows and rows of perfect Christmas trees stood before us. It was beautiful.

We walked among the trees searching for OUR tree, that symbol of Christmas that would stand in our home for the next month. The snow kept coming down. Jack ate snowflakes off of his mittens.

Ana picked out the tree she wanted to bring home. After looking over the selection, we deemed it worthy.






We cut it down and carried it to the shop. Warm hot chocolate, candy canes and a wood burning stove greeted us inside the little Vermont store. The walls were lined with Vermont maple syrup, handmade Christmas ornaments and goodies.

After our tree was shaken, bundled and secured to the top of our car, we drove carefully home in the driving snow.

Sunday afternoon we decked the halls, and I used the bottom boughs to make a Christmas wreath.

Its Christmas in our home!

caption game

What caption would you give to this picture? Think of your answer and then click on the comments to see what Ana had to say about it.

jack is a boy

Every once in a while he has these moments that remind me he truly is a little boy - I don't mean the times he runs around naked looking for different underwear.

This was totally unprovoked and unprecedented.

Today I crushed up a pine needle from our pine tree with my fingers. I had Ana smell my fingers and she said "It smells like Christmas tree!!!"

Then Jack wanted to smell my fingers too. He said, "Your fingers smell like poop!"

giving thanks

For the beauty of the earth

For the beauty of the skies

For the Love which from our birth

over and around us lies



Lord of All, the Thee we raise this, our hymn of grateful praise.

daddy's little girl

Have you read Fancy Nancy?

Ana loves it. Lately she's been wanting to dress fancy.


She wanted to eat at a fancy restaurant, too, so we decided to do our own.

We dressed up and had a fancy dinner. (Well, we ate spaghetti, which Ana requested, even though its not really that fancy if you ask me.) Even Dave dressed up.

Come to think of it, Ana can get Dave to do lots of stuff I never can get him to do.

Like wear a halloween costume.

And dance.


Its amazing what the love of a little girl can do to a man. She's got it pretty good to have such a daddy.

fools errand

I've been in a crafty sort of mood. Specifically, I want to make a skirt for myself. Also I'm doing a card exchange with the sistas so today's mission was to head out to some craft stores.

With kids in tow I headed to a craft store for some cutesy paper. Besides the fact that Ana had to go potty, (I swear it doesn't matter if she goes before, she always has to go while we're out...) the craft store was a productive errand. So we headed to a fabric store a friend told me about.

The fabric store is located near a downtown market called Church Street Marketplace. My first mistake was not looking up the directions. I heard it was on Church Street so I walked up and down church street looking for it. It took about 45 minutes of walking in the cold with the kids (and a couple phone calls) to find it. By the time I found it, my enthusiasm for the errand had waned.

My second mistake was expecting to find a store like The Gathering Place. Though I did see some cute (although expensive) fabrics today, I found myself missing the little gem on Rupert's Town Square.

My third mistake was not making Jack go potty somewhere in all the chaos of finding the place. When we finally got back to the car, he was wet. I have no idea where the accident occurred.

My fourth mistake was letting him fall asleep in the car. When I tried moving him to his bed, he woke up screaming.

So in the midst of frustration, I decided to take the kids to Wendy's for lunch. Because I believe that frosty's and jr bacon cheeseburgers have super powers. It worked, too, because I got to see Jack dance to the music while scarfing down chicken nuggets. And there is nothing cuter than that!

mission accomplished!

*Its been 3 days on our new system. Ana used all her tokens on day #1. Maybe I should have had more stuff on hand for her to do, but whatever.

Yesterday she didn't watch one minute of TV. She also didn't complain whine or ask me a million time to watch it either. Mission accomplished!

This morning she helped me clean the bathroom. Mission accomplished! Then I got to work out while she watched her 1 show (because she immediately cashed in her reward). And then she turned it off, and hasn't been whining or complaining about the lack of TV at all.

Maybe I'll have to slowly wean her down to fewer marbles a week. I think the key is that she is in charge. Its not an arbitrary decision made by someone else, but its in HER power. And she knows if she wants it, she has to work for it. I may adjust the rules slightly because I really like them to watch a show for me to use the bike trainer, so we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

*Jack is potty trained. Meaning he goes by himself most of the time. (He usually wants me in there anyway, and he runs around without underwear when he's done unless I help him put them back on). We are a diaper free family! He loves his reward:

tv tokens

Today I'm trying a new thing.

See, Ana is addicted to TV. All day long she asks to watch shows, play on the computer, and watch more shows. I have been very strict with making sure she watches less than 2 hours a day - but that seems like so much still AND she still asks to watch all day.

So to try and curb her appetite, I have started what I call TV Tokens. (Because everything has to be alliterate to be effective, right?)

Every Monday morning I'm giving her 10 marbles. Each marble is worth 30 minutes of TV/computer time. If she wants to watch a show, she pays me a marble (or 3, if its a movie). If she spends them all in 1 day, fine. But then she doesn't get any more for the rest of the week.

Since this allows for less than half of our current TV time, I will give her opportunities to "earn" more if she runs out early in the week. But they will be big things that hopefully will actually distract her and keep her away from the TV for a while longer. Either way, I'll be happy with the results.

I'm not saying this will work, but we're trying it. I will say that its Monday morning and so far she's cashed in 3, and then wanted to earn one back so she cleaned up her entire room by herself without me asking. Heck, that's worth a marble.

update: she has officially spent all her tokens for the week in one day.

on living 3000 miles away

(the fam, minus my brother who was on a mission, circa 1993)

I love our families. All of my sisters and sisters-in-law are so dear to me. I love spending time with them and going to family parties. We are usually the last to leave any family function because we love spending time with lots of people.

In my younger years my dad was in the Air Force. My parents (and most of my older siblings) spent the majority of the time living far away from family. We moved to Idaho when I was 9.

Throughout the years, I remember my parents talking about dear friends they had (and still have) all across the country, and world - from Hawaii to Virginia, Texas to Germany. My parents have very fond memories with them. They were the ones that babysat when my mom was in labor. They were the ones who called to just say "hi." When my mom had 3 small children, she used to "swap" kids with a friend every other week so they could have a few hours to clean house, run errands, or work on a project. They were (and are) as dear as family to my parents.

Now we are far away from family. We don't get to go home very much to visit. In fact, we really don't know when we will go home. So far, this has been a wonderful adventure. We already have dear friends that we can steal milk from and who will watch the kids for doctors appointments or dates. I know that they will be our friends forever.

I am so thankful that my parents taught me that time spent far away from family can be wonderful and rewarding. That eternal friendships develop, husband and wife grow together, and there are opportunities to grow found no where else. Though I miss our families, I don't feel homesick. This is my home and I am just happy!

cat and dog

Most days at some point Jack and Ana play "Cat and Dog." Jack is always a kitty and Ana is always a puppy and I get to go the store and buy them and bring them home.

It always makes me laugh. Mostly because my children are as different as cats and dogs.

Ana is social, a little loud, and wants to be in the middle of all the people. She loves to be right on top of me and she follows me around the house. She's always full-speed ahead. Very puppy-like. She even likes licking things...

Jack loves to be held and cuddled... on his terms. Mostly he likes to do his own thing and be left alone and he'll be quiet and happy. But if something bugs him, he'll let you know. He's always going at his own pace. Very cat-like. Just today he walked up to me and started rubbing his head up against my legs.

And right now Ana is chasing Jack around the room.

They are different. But not better or worse. I love them both and they make me very happy.