It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year. I think it is my favorite time. We moved away from the ice and snow that could typically accompany this winter season--but since that is my least favorite part, it's okay with me. :)

Christmas was always my mom's favorite time of year, too. Her house would be decorated to the nines--she had 5 trees of various sizes around the house, plus garland around all the doorways and handrails through the house.  She loved nativity sets, as well. She had a nativity set that she would put out, one piece every day--with baby Jesus arriving on Christmas morning.  Her Christmas dishes were a beautiful highlight, too. Every time we went on a vacation, we would look for a Christmas ornament for our trip, and mom would find a shop that sold dishes to look for a Christmas place setting. I think she has about 20 settings overall, all different, all beautiful.

It was hard for me to get into the holiday spirit in the Christmas after mom passed away. It took me several days to put the tree up, because it would make me sad to think of the tree being up and getting into that celebratory spirit without her.  But as the years have passed, it has slowly gotten easier. This year, the joy returned, as I thought about decorating the tree and sharing the beauty of the season with Avonlea.

It was so fun seeing this time of year through her eyes. She's not old enough to "get" any of it yet, but watching her eyes light up when she saw the tree and the ornaments was so heartwarming.

We spent the week before Christmas in Ohio, celebrating with Nick's family and my family two subsequent weekends. Avonlea did such a great job. She figured out how to unwrap presents, and she especially loved playing with the tissue paper. Most especially I enjoyed "sharing" her with all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas and grandpas.  She won't get to grow up with them close by, so I was so glad we were able to go back to see them while she is still young.  There will come a time when she might think that gifts are the most important thing, but I hope that Avonlea truly values the time that we get to spend with family, and celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Mom had a tradition that she got from my Aunt Barb: she would give us a new Christmas book each year.  I loved getting the books out of the box and sharing them with Avonlea. She's still too young for most of them, but I look forward to sharing them with her in the future:

I started that tradition this year with Avonlea. I got her the book "The Smallest Gift of Christmas", and inside I wrote her first note:

(I also got her a Christmas "touch and feel" book that she could actually "read" this year.)

I also got out a little bit of mom: I used her Christmas dishes for breakfast at the Hume family get-together. The table wasn't as pretty as Mom would have made it, but it was a little bit of her, and I think she would have appreciated that her dishes were still being used.

To prove that I am not Debbie, take a look at the strawberry/banana "candy canes". Saw them in a Taste of Home magazine, but they proved an epic fail in the execution. Oh, well. Makes for a silly story.

I am so glad Avonlea was able to spend time with her great-grandma and her great-Papaw, as well as her Grandpa (PawPaw, as we call him), Grampy and Grammy, and Aunt Ashley.

Short Update on Life

I haven't written in a while. The holidays are here, which means busy, busy, busy. Every year, I seem to tell myself that I'll slow down and enjoy myself more the next year, but the next year comes around, and I seem to be behind the 8-ball again.  It doesn't help that we shorten the season by 10 days by traveling to Ohio and Indiana. My determination to not decorate until Thanksgiving might have to come to an end if we travel again next Christmas. I don't get enough time to enjoy the decorations!

Avonlea is 8 months now, and changing every day. It is amazing the new things she is learning to do. She is currently cutting her first tooth. She is using her index finger to explore every new thing she sees, and she's already at the point where her toys are not as interesting as electrical cords.  She's not really interested in crawling yet--mostly because she likes to be lazy and just lay on her back. Hopefully she'll start to move soon!

What a sweet girl she is turning out to be. She is smiles all the time. We go to the grocery store, or the mall, or Target, and everyone just oohs and aahs over her. I always tell her to say hi and be friendly, and she flashes her cute grin. She is good about going to people, too. Her initial separation anxiety has pretty much gone away, and she will now go to anyone. She always looks back at me as if to ask, "is this okay?" but then enjoys her time visiting with others.

I recently turned down a job offer. It was an amazing opportunity, one I would like to have come back to me again sometime in the future, but I am just not quite ready to leave Avonlea full-time yet. I understand how many families depend on a 2-income household, and believe me, we are a family that could certainly use it. But both Nick and I just didn't feel like it was time yet, so we are willing to make the sacrifices we need to make in order for me to be able to stay home.

I am still enjoying my "Baby Mamas" group that meets once a week. We recently added a new mom to the group, and we also added a new baby, too!  Sweet Dianna had her baby girl, Evie, taking our girl total up to 3--Evie, Ava, and Avonlea.  They are still sorely outnumbered by the boys, though, with Samuel, Levi, Noah, Wyatt, Quinn, Fletcher, Joshua, and two incubating boys keeping the testosterone levels high.  At least our girls will learn to be rough-and-tumble--Avonlea is already used to being poked in the eyes and climbed over. :)

Avonlea had her first major sickness. She had a fever of 102 for a couple of days, though with no other real symptoms. We took her to the doctor because of the impending airline flight, to rule out an ear infection. They had to do a urinalysis. Have you ever thought about how a baby gives a urine sample?  They basically taped a pee bag to her private parts, then I had to wait around until she peed, and then peel off the bag and put it into a pee cup. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever done. Thankfully, the sample came back negative for an infection. She just had a weird virus--the doctor thinks it was probably roseola.

I did a body-after-baby bootcamp, and was doing really well before Thanksgiving. I've kind of "fallen off the wagon" a bit, which is going to be rough, considering I have a half-marathon coming up. With traveling and the baby being sick, I just haven't had the time. I hope to get back into the swing of things when I get back to California.

I have a few other things to post about, so I will have to do so again soon. Right now, I'm headed to bed--I have a lively 8-month old to chase after tomorrow!

Letter to Baby

Dear Avonlea,

So, I totally missed your 6-month letter. You know why that is? Because we have been SO BUSY!  You have changed your naps, so you now sleep about an hour in the morning around 9, and then take a longer, 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon around 1 or 1:30.  This means I'm not able to get as much done during the day, but it also means that we have a lot more time together during the day, too.

Your little personality is really starting to come out. You love to smile and giggle. You play independently really well. You have been starting to manipulate smaller objects. If I give you something that has a zipper or a buckle, you'll sit and play with it for 20 minutes or so. This was actually a huge help when we flew to Philadelphia for Girls' Weekend--you played with your diaper changing station for a long time.

We're still working with you on a few things. You go down for naps really well, but your sleep at night isn't going all that well. You sleep 3-4 hours at a time. Occasionally you'll sleep for 5, but not often. You very consistently get up between 10 and 11pm. We're also working on eating solid foods. You do not like to eat off of a spoon!  You will clamp your lips together and refuse to open them! Thankfully, you will eat out of the food pouches, so we've been doing it that way, which helps.  You like apples, pears, carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, mangoes, peaches, plums, and water. You DO NOT like squash, green beans, or peas. We'll keep working on it. :)

You are finally rolling over consistently. You can jet yourself around on the blanket--one day this week, I found you halfway under the couch!  You roll around like crazy in your crib, too. You often end up perpendicular to how I put you in the crib initially. Sometimes I'll hear you in the monitor with a frustrated cry and go in to your room to find you snuggled up against the solid side of your crib, unable to move.

You love to be outside. I have been taking you out for daily walks in your stroller, and you are content to ride along with me for an hour or more. Sometimes I am able to extend your awake time a little bit that way. Daylight Saving Time really messed up your bedtime routine--you used to go to bed at 7, but now we're pretty set at 6:30. Occasionally I can keep you up a little bit later, but usually you're pretty fussy.

Speaking of fussy, you really don't fuss very often anymore. You're growing and maturing so much. You really only fuss when you're ready for bed. Because you don't fuss often anymore, we really can take you just about anywhere. You're able to sit in high chairs, so we will take a few toys in the diaper bag, and you can sit in a restaurant with us and behave so nicely. You also do really well when you're with Daddy. You love him so much!

You're so chatty. You still sing yourself to sleep--usually in the car. You have the short a and short o sounds down pat. You use the consonants m, b, and d when you're talking. I swear you say maamaamaa when I'm around, and daadaadaa when Daddy is around, but he isn't convinced. Sunni thinks so, too!  You love blowing raspberries now, and when I blow them back at you, you giggle. You also sing along to the music that I play in the house or in the car. It's fun to watch you bounce on your butt to the music. There is one song in particular on Daddy's phone that makes you bounce, and it makes us laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nloSwFDPJAY

You are super ticklish on your thighs and on your ribcage. I love making you giggle and bend over with laughter. Your smile and your laugh makes my heart sing. You giggle a few times, and then make an "aak" noise, and then squeal like a little piglet. It's so funny!  http://instagram.com/p/g9YAqmMqnn/  http://instagram.com/p/g-6YFjsqmE/

You love going to Baby Mamas group on Tuesday. Joshua, Ava, Fletcher and Wyatt have become such good friends. You and Joshua tend to tackle each other often.

Everyone talks about how cute you are, everywhere we go. I've got to work on making sure you say thank you, but stay humble about it. Hopefully people will recognize how smart you are, too! :)

You still don't show any signs of getting any teeth. You chew on everything, but you have since you figured out how to put stuff in your mouth, so I don't consider that a sign.

I love you more than you'll ever know, my chunky monkey, my little nugget.
Mommy :)

Rhythm Child

It's fun being part of a Mom's group. It's nothing formal, like a MOPS group or anything--just a bunch of moms from our church that get together once a week to hang out and pray for each other, and watch our kids grow up together.

One of the activities that we did recently was take our kiddos to see a musical group called Rhythm Child perform at one of our outdoor malls. It takes place once a month--but this month, since they had started decorating for Christmas, it took place indoors. It was a little LOUD and overwhelming, but the kids seemed to have a good time anyway.

We went to Barnes and Noble afterwards to get some coffee and sit and look at books and chat.

Joshua using Avonlea's head as the drum:

A video of the cacophony:

InstaSunday

I haven't posted my Instagram photos for a while. Here's a fun little recap of this week!

Avonlea is rolling around a bunch more. She's making her way around the blanket now:

Cutie Patootie:

Avonlea and Gus filmed roles in Rhett and Link's newest music video this week:

Selfies with my sweet girl:

A picture with Daddy on set with Rhett and Link:

Still going through physical therapy, but seeing some definite improvement:

It's FINALLY getting cold!  My little Yoda bundles up and accompanies me:

Some beautiful sunsets after the rain:

Nick and I got to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire thanks to our neighbor who watched the girl:

Accurate tshirt:

Did The Graffiti Run today with my friend Kerry. Before and After:

We headed to Sonic afterwards for some tots and sweet tea--sadly, it was an overall poor experience. :(

Cedarville Magazine Announcement

Our University publishes an "Alumnotes" section every quarter. I look forward to reading about who has had babies, who gets married, etc.  They pretty much have a standard format for the announcements. Mom and Dad name and graduation year, baby name, birth date, dad job, mom job.  I decided to mix it up a bit with Avonlea's announcement.

Rage Against the Minivan...er, Machine

Want to get everyone on Facebook riled up?

Say you're never going to get a minivan.

Last week, I watched "Parenthood" (are you watching that show? If not, you should. SO good.), and on it, Jasmine was trying to convince Crosby that they needed to get a minivan. Crosby, who I have identified with more often this season than I'd like to admit, was repulsed by the idea, and spent most of the episode vehemently against it.  That is, until the very end of the episode, when he was able to drive an entire band home after a drunken night out, wherein he decided the minivan was a great purchase.

I went onto Facebook and declared Crosby a traitor.

See, in our house, we will NEVER have a minivan. And I am proud to announce that declaration to the public. I will stand on a pedestal, shout it from the rooftops, whatever it takes to show how serious I am about it.

Every time I happen to mention we will never have one, someone says, "oh, just wait" (there's that phrase again).  "Don't go saying things like that until you have 2-3 more kids." or "Ha. We'll see."

What these poor, misguided people don't fully comprehend is who they are talking to.  When I say I will never get one, I really and truly mean I will NEVER. GET. ONE.

I stand by my principles. I do not waver. I do not yield. Especially when my pride is on the line. Let me give you an example.

When we moved into our newly built home in the summer between my 2nd and 3rd grade year, I was so excited to be able to pick out the carpet and wallpaper colors for my room. After going through books upon books of wallpaper samples (does anyone else remember getting to take those home from the store?), my mom basically declared all my choices too juvenile, saying that I would grow out of what I had chosen really quickly. She thought I should go with a more "mature" color palette and pattern for the floor and the walls.  Now, when I was a kid, I was 1000% pure tomboy.  I lived in my knockoff Umbros and my imitation Adidas Sambas. My favorite colors were blue and green. I would rather have been caught dead than wear a dress--which made Sundays pretty much the worst ever in terms of wardrobe when you go to a dresses-on-Sunday kind of church.  So when my mom picked out rose-colored carpet and large variations-of-pink posies wallpaper, I cried and wailed. I'm pretty sure there was gnashing of teeth involved. The wallpaper looked like a hideous Laura Ashley print from the early 90s--or at least something that you would find on a tapestry in some creepy Sister Wives house in Utah. It was pretty much the most awful option that I could have ever been given for a room.  I vowed then and there that I would NEVER forgive my mom for that one.

She said, "Just wait."  She said, "You'll love it one day soon, I promise."  But by George, I had my righteous, holy anger, and there was no way on God's green Earth I was ever going to like that wallpaper and nasty carpet.

It was always funny when friends would come over and ask to see my room, because they were taken aback when they saw all the pink. "*This* is your room?" they would ask, with a sense of wonder. By the time middle school came around, I started taking to covering as much of the walls as possible with various posters (the 1992 US Men's Basketball Team, Steven Curtis Chapman, and a huge soccer poster were 3 that I remember specifically) and as much other stuff as possible. And though I couldn't do anything about the carpet, I rebelled by keeping my floor as covered with crap as possible so that I couldn't see the awful Pepto-Bismol color.

I moved to college still hating that darn wallpaper.  Only when I lived in China after graduation, and my parents decided to convert my old room into a guest room, did the wallpaper come down.  Did you catch that? They only changed the paper after I moved away!  Grr....  Anyways, I hated that wallpaper abomination every single day that it existed in my room, and I never once wavered in my undying detestation of it.

That whole story is a perfect illustration of why I will never get a minivan, and why all those people who tell me that I'll change my mind about it will just have to understand that it will never be so.

So why all the hate?  After all, it's just a car, right?  Yes, it's just a car. But everyone has something like this, right? A stance on an issue that you will not budge from. For some people, they are staunch about their nutrition. For some, it's politics. For some, it's a moral standard, or a conspiracy theory, or scientific truth, or Mac vs. PC. My point is, everyone has something that they have a super-strong opinion about. This is mine. Silly? Probably. But it is what it is.

So without further ado, here is my list. My (non-exhaustive, and in no particular order) list of:

Why I Will Never Get A Minivan

1. I will never have trouble finding which car is mine when picking up my kids at school.
2. My kids will have to learn to consolidate and organize their crap, just like I have to.
3. They rent portable DVD players for the car. I don't need them magically built in for everyday use. Vacations, yes. Zombify those kids for the 18-hour drive to Disney. But other than that, they'll be fine.
4. I survived my whole childhood without a minivan, why can't my kids?
5. I will NOT have a dirty car all the time, with crap spilling out of the doors every time they open. This is my #1 pet peeve of minivans. Have you ever, other than in a showroom, seen a clean minivan??
6. No matter how many swagger wagon videos you make, minivans have never been, nor will they ever be cool to anyone other than other parents.  I have a very short list of requirements for a vehicle. "Cool looking" is one of them.
7. The minivan is just a step down from an RV. An RV is way more cool. So why not just get an RV?
8. In Los Angeles, minivan owners have to park really far away from their destination, because you can't get anyone in or out of the car because the parking spaces are extremely narrow. Our friend Link has to put the nose of the van in the parking space, let his kids out, then pull in the rest of the way, otherwise his kids can't get out of the van.
9. If you have so much extra space in your car that you are able to misplace entire cups filled with milk, which then curdle in the heat and make your entire car smell for months like someone has died in it, then you have too much space.
10. Because I have my principles.