Remember Thanksgiving? Yeah, we went sledding.

Did you spot a potential casualty?  And a broken sled?  Boy, did we have fun!

New Year's Resolution: Help!

I'm not really one for making New Year's Resolutions ("The unaimed arrow never misses").  However, this has been a goal of mine since September and it's not really working out.  So if I label it a "New Year's Resolution" and enlist some help, maybe I'll be better at it.  So here it is:

Cleaning the house.

Let me clarify.  I don't mean clutter.  The kids produce a lot of that very quickly (Sabrina is famous for emptying entire drawers and baskets in record time) and I would be doing nothing else if I decided to stay on top of the clutter.  I don't want to stress myself out like that.  I mean chores.  Vacuuming.  Bathrooms.  Mopping.  I currently do them... but I do them all in one day... usually when I know people are coming over.  I would like to fit those things into daily life so that I get a routine down.  But nothing has worked so far.  One of the problems is that I can't clean either bathtub or vacuum while the kids are sleeping.  It wakes them up.  And I'm great with laundry.  And pretty good with the kitchen.  So it's just bathrooms.  Vacuuming.  Mopping.

What works for you?

Christmas Day

Santa came to our house and got us all just what we wanted. Sabrina got some binkies, Celia got some nail polish, Tom got a bike multi-tool, and I got Just Dance 3 for the Wii.

He also got Celia and Sabrina a play kitchen to go with the kitchen toys they've been playing with for years.

Sabrina woke up, found a bib in the hall downstairs and made us put it on her.  She spent the rest of the morning wearing her big bibby.  When she came upstairs, she found the Chex mix and carried that around for awhile.  Celia woke up right at 8:30 and said: "I better sit on the potty so I can go upstairs and see what Santa brought me."  But it still took her a full 30 minutes to get upstairs.  She insisted on completing the full routine of putting the clothes on, playing around, etc etc.  She finally came upstairs at 9.

When she got upstairs, we told her to look around the room for her big present from Santa.  It took her awhile, but this was her face when she saw it.  She was hesitant.  

But then she went right up and read the tag.

And the girls got to work making breakfast.

Celia also got lots of beautiful things to wear. 

Sabrina got some good books to read.

After talking Celia into putting on an appropriate dress for Church (compromising on the necklace and earrings), the girls went back to playing with the kitchen.  The only pictures in the Christmas outfits we got.

Celia did some posing for the camera in her earrings when she saw the camera.  And Sabrina figured out the sink can come out.  

After Church, cousins Taylor and Travis came over for dinner.  We warmed up on Aebleskiver and pepper jelly.

They brought a 20 pound ham for just us. We also had sweet potatoes with an orange glaze, smoked salmon scalloped potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole, and finished up with Banoffee Pie (and sent some of the apple home with T&T since we didn't get around to eating it).  

Taylor and Travis gave the girls a cookie baking set.  Celia put on her new apron and hat from Nana and Papa and got right to work baking us all cookies.  

We got to sample her wares... and then we all had to play memory with the cookies, matching the ones with the same frostings.  

Overall, we had a great day.  We're grateful for Christ.  Even Sabrina's new firemen were spotted visiting the new baby.  Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

For being so behind on blogging, it's shocking to actually be blogging about something that happened today... but here goes...

We just got back from a (brief) ice skating venture on the lake.  The "Parks and Beautification" Department was there hot-mopping the ice so we could all play.  Celia got to try out her skates for the very first time with the help of Beth and cousin Taylor.  She did pretty well, but fell down once and never stopped crying again.  Which got Sabrina crying.  And now we're home and they're asleep.  We're off to have soup at Taylor's post-nap and hopefully in better spirits!

Yesterday

Celia got sick yesterday.  Let me tell you, she is a dream child.  Especially when sick.  She just stays on the couch, watches movies, always throws up in the pot we give her, and asks to take a nap when she's tired.  So Celia spent most of the day in bed.  And when she came upstairs to watch brief intervals of Christmas movies between naps, Sabrina was so excited to see her, she refused to leave her side on the couch.  She spent most of the time cuddling Celia and it took a great deal of effort to get her to at least sit by her feet.  When we took Celia's temperature, Sabrina wanted to take a turn.  The above picture is Sabrina taking her temperature and it also shows how far we could get Sabrina to stay from Celia.  She wouldn't leave her side.

Here's hopin' Celia's on the mend for Christmas and that the rest of us don't get sick.

Sabrina Walks!

Thought I should update about my baby... who isn't a baby anymore.  Sabrina took her first unassisted steps on Thursday, November 10.  When Celia took her first steps, we could officially say that she walked because she just stood up and marched around and was done crawling.  Sabrina has eased herself into it.  Thanksgiving Day was the first time she actually kept trying to walk.  And this week marks when I can officially say she walks.  She no longer crawls if she drops down.  She actually gets back up and walks some more.  

In other shenanigans... the first picture is from Thanksgiving weekend putting up Christmas decorations.  This is the classic Sabrina talking face.  I love it.  She also learned at the beginning of December how to climb up the slide and go down it all by herself.  And carry things up to go down with her.  This has saved me a great deal of angst as she used to spend a lot of time screaming by the slide until I helped her go down a million times.  And yesterday, she learned she fit in the cabinet.  She loved that.  And she decided to wear all the cords like necklaces and give me a "what, mom?  I shouldn't play with cords?  Who, me?" face.  Another one of her classic faces. The last picture is from just a few minutes ago.  She went and got this plate thing out of her toys and indicated that I needed to get out the black beans.  Then she put them in this plate and carried them around eating them.  As I type this, she is sitting in the cabinet pictured, with the plate of black beans, and wearing the cords as necklaces.  Driving the point home, Sabrina.  You're crazy.

Snowy Days

In Alaska, we have what is called the Chinook Winds.  So after having about 3.5 feet of snow on the ground, in came the Chinook Winds.  They blew like crazy, reached over 110mph in some parts of town, and raised the temperature to near 50 degrees.  We broke record highs.  The Chinooks don't usually come this early (nor do we usually have 3.5 feet of snow by December 1), so it's been a strange winter.  Anyway, the winds melted a ton of the snow, then the temperatures dropped and everything froze over.  It makes the entire city an ice skating rink.  Then Monday morning we woke up to over a foot of fresh snow.  I was so giddy.  I didn't think I would ever say "I love living in the snow!"  but I do!  And school was canceled (didn't really affect us, but still exciting).  Now we didn't get outside on Monday to build a snowman when the temps were sitting right around 32.  We waited until yesterday when the temps had dropped back down to 15 and the snow was back to being way too powdery to hold together.  So I had to improvise with a pile made from the snow plow.  So he looks kinda silly.  But it's really hard making a snowman with this powder.  Meet Hockadoh.  Our snowman.  And then Sabrina took a ride in the sled to the mailbox.  Ah, life in Alaska.  Have I mentioned how great this place is?

Two Classic Holiday Moments

There are two classic holiday moments I want to remember with the girls.

First, on Thanksgiving morning, we were watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  When the Rockettes came on, Celia got up and started mimicking their moves.  She was very serious about it.  Sabrina, who was sitting next to her, threw herself backwards on the floor laughing.

Second, last night we were watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with David Archuletta.  When David started singing, I told Celia his name was David.  She said: "I think David is a beautiful singing guy.  He has a bow and is beautiful."  Sabrina, who was sitting on my lap, started gouging out her eyes with her fingers.

Celia: Tea and Spiders

Celia is always goofy.  Some things we just take for granted around here now, I suppose.  Because she's always silly.  But here are a few favorites from this week:

- Celia always makes us tea and/or soup.  They are always flavored.  I've had watermelon soup, apple/squash tea, strawberry muscle (?) chocolate tea, and "Spinach-kopita" (what she calls the Greek food Spanikopita) Toast tea.  Mmmmm.

- Celia was just singing eensy weensy spider and it ended like this: "And the great big hairy spider went up the water spout again."  As Tom said: Yikes!

A Typical Tuesday

As I was going about my day yesterday with the ladies, I thought about how typical the day was and how hilarious it all is.  So I decided I'd want to remember this time and what we do every day.

6:30-7ish - I get up with Tom and work before the ladies wake up.
7:30-8:30ish - Sabrina wakes up and I go get her.  Celia wakes up and reads books in her bed.
8:30 - Celia's clock says 7.  She stops reading her book, yells "Mommy, I waited 'til seven!"  At this point, Sabrina stops whatever she is doing upstairs with me, grunts excitedly and crawls over to me as fast as she can and we go into Celia's room.  Celia hides under her blankies so I have to say "Where's Celia?" (if I don't do this, from under her blankies she will say: "Mommy, You say: 'Where's Celia?  I can't find her anywhere.'")  Sabrina lifts up the blankies to find her and then pretends to sleep on her pillow.  I go upstairs and make oatmeal.  Celia will read books to Sabrina and play with her until Sabrina gets bored and crawls up the stairs.  At this point, Celia sits on the potty, puts on some clothes (a dancing skirt with either fleece pants or leggings underneath), and comes upstairs.  She climbs over the gate and stands there squinting her eyes with her hand out until I compliment her clothes.
9:00 - We all eat oatmeal.  I feed Sabrina while eating my own.  Sabrina eats just as much as Celia.
9:20 - Sabrina and I are done eating oatmeal.  I get in the shower and Sabrina crawls over to the bathroom screaming that I got in the shower.  But then she finds the keyboard, turns it on, and sings into the microphone for awhile.  Every minute while in the shower, I yell: "Celia, eat another bite."
9:40 - After showering and getting ready, I come to check on Celia, who still has a half a bowl of oatmeal left.  (She's the slowest eater in the universe.  She is only fast with mac & cheese.)
10:05 - I help Celia shove the rest of her oatmeal down her throat so she can go put on her socks and boots.
10:15 - I load the girls in the car.
10:30 - I drop Celia off at her preschool rotation (we moms rotate a twice a week preschool thing).  I have to get Sabrina out of the car every time or she freaks out.
10:35 - I get Sabrina back in the car and we go home.  I put Sabrina to sleep (she still sleeps swaddled with her arms swaddled to her sides.  But she requires a binky in each hand in the swaddle and one in her mouth).
11:00 - I get some work done.
12:15 - I wake up Sabrina, who immediately grabs all the binkies in her crib and stands up.  We go pick up Celia.
12:45 - We eat lunch.  Celia always requests: "um, toast.  With jam underneath and peanut butter and honey on top."  We forgo the honey.  But sometimes we mix it up and have quesadillas "in a half-circle moon shape"  or Annie's Mac and Cheese ("Balo calls it 'Mac and cheese' and I call it 'Macaroni and Cheese' and that's okay").  Sabrina and I eat whatever Celia eats.  And of course finish in a quarter of the time.  Celia also gets to watch a movie at this point.  Under non-Christmas circumstances, the movie usually means one of the Toy Stories, Tangled, Cars, Phineas and Ferb, Kung Fu Panda, or Wall-E.  During Christmas, it is always Polar Express or Phineas and Ferb Christmas.
2:15 - The movie ends, Celia finishes her lunch and immediately asks for a snack.  We play, eat, read stories, etc.  Sabrina continues her full-time task of making messes, climbing on everything, and breaking things if she can.
3:30 - The girls head downstairs to get ready for nap time.
4:15 - Sabrina gets up (some days she sleeps and some days she just hangs out in bed.)
4:30-6 - Celia gets up.  We tried going napless for her, but she was a total terror by 6PM, crashed at 7, and woke up at 6AM... so we do naps daily for her.
5:00-6:00 - Tom gets home (5 if he drives the car, 6 if he rides the bus or his bike).  We make dinner and eat it.
7:00 - Celia helps us clean up the living room.  We all try to clean faster than Sabrina can destroy.  This is difficult even with all three of us.  Then we play duck-duck goose until 7:30.
7:30 - Celia and I go downstairs to get her ready for bed.  Tom feeds Sabrina a giant bowl of oatmeal or applesauce and then they join us downstairs.  Celia sits on the potty, gets her jammies on, I read her a story, we brush her teeth, she rinses her toothbrush, we read scriptures.  When Sabrina and Tom come down, we have family prayer and Sabrina gives Celia "flying hugs" three times and then Sabrina waves at Celia.  Tom gets Sabrina into her jammies, Sabrina gives me a hug, then Tom swaddles her with all her binkies.
8:10 - Tom and I come back upstairs and clean up the kitchen and Tom gets ready for his workday the next day.

(Last night Tom had to help with tithing settlement, so it wasn't entirely typical, but this is how it usually goes...)