Matchy Matchy

Santa

At our ward breakfast last Saturday, Santa came to see the kids. Elora loved the beard, Jonah loved all the people watching him and taking his picture.


Even though this one is blurry, I had to include it so you could see Elora's initial glee.

Our Christmas Tree

We cut down our own tree again this year. Just our little family went out on Dec. 7th, drove up a canyon, up a steep dirt road, then hiked around a little bit, and while I put the kids back in the car, Brandon sawed the thing down. It is more full than last year's tree, which couldn't support our heavier ornaments. And this year our whole house smelled of pine for about three days, which was wonderful.

Brandon unpacked, unwrapped, and reminiced with each ornament and then handed them to Jonah and I to hang while Elora supervised from her saucer.

My Career

It's 9:15 am, I've changed five diapers today. Have you?
Brandon often says that my job title should be "Professional Butt Wiper." Some days that feels all too true. Fortunately my job description also includes:
reading stories
singing
dancing
playing blocks
wrestling
kissing
hugging
watching kids shows
cooking
playing piggyback
coloring
snuggling
tickling
bathing
dressing
shopping
cleaning (not so fortunate)
library trips
walks
sledding
4-wheeling
boating

Overall, it's a pretty great job.

Didn't Make The Cut

This is the picture that was not included on our Christmas card. A few of you may find even more cuteness of this kind in your mailbox soon.

Coloring

Jonah's favorite activities lately are climbing (which also involves getting into things he shouldn't, eating anything he can get his hands on, and breaking things) and drawing. He calls all writing utensils, "color".
For the past several days he has been favoring pens as he can do tiny detailed swirls with them the easiest. He also loves his magna doodle with a new fervent passion. I have a feeling he's going to be an early, talented artist, much like his cousin Tucker.

Poor Elora

Sunday Elora threw up everything she ate at every feeding. Fortunately it was all milk since we obviously decided to forgo her cereal that evening. In the evening and night after talking to two doctors I limited her feedings to no more than two ounces at a time, which means she was up four times in the night instead of once, but that was okay. She did so well that on her last feeding around 5 am I let her eat more like 4 oz. She threw it all up at 6am. She hasn't thrown up since but was still a little sickly all day yesterday, though she behaved beautifully sitting in the car for over an hour with Jonah (who by some miracle, or a magna doodle, also stayed in the car and happy the whole time) while we went with our realtor house-hunting.
By yesterday evening Elora was feeling much stronger, as she demonstrates here:

Jonah and Elora are alone playing in her room this morning while I am doing the last of my Christmas shopping online. I go in to check on them after, I kid you not, no more than four minutes.
When I find Jonah making mischief (his favorite thing to do this week) this what I do:
I laughed, stifled it, told Jonah "No, no! We do not rub stuff in the baby's hair!", took the jar away, wiped his gooey hands off with a baby wipe, asked where the lid was, received no response, ran to get my phone (camera is still MIA), set the jar back in his lap and snapped this picture.



Then I tried to give Elora an Elvis 'do.


Then I washed her hair, which seemed not to do much so she had to sport a mohawk for the morning.

She is also eating her first "biter biscuit" here. The only solid food she has tried previously has been her daily rice cereal for about the past week but I didn't seem to have much milk this morning and I think she wanted a snack. She loved it! We try oatmeal cereal tonight.

After a bath (due to a pooplosion, which is a term I think I took from my cousin Abbie in a blog I cannot locate) and a second hair washing (with my shampoo this time), her hair is still waxy and looking like this:

Anyone have any tips on removing Vaseline petroleum jelly from hair?!!

BookclubS

I have been a member of what I call Leah's bookclub for probably six months now. Last month we read a hysterical and great book by A.J. Jacob's called The Year of Living Biblically, which I highly recommend to anyone. We usually have small groups and good discussions. There are a few kindred spirits in the group. Several of the women in the group go to my church. I have hung out with one gal from bookclub a couple times socially as well. I love my bookclub. Leah finalized the bookclub's list of books for 2009 already and I am looking forward to our reads. Three of the books were suggestions I made and two more were ones I was wanting to read anyway. The other five (we don't meet in July or Dec.) are books I know nothing about and only one is by a author I've heard of. I am very excited to expand my horizons in the coming year. Leah is hoping to move out-of-state this year and we will all be really sad to see her go, but unlike Kristy's bookclub in Oklahoma, the club will not dissolve without her. We will continue to meet at various houses or our diner to eat dessert and discuss literature.

There is another bookclub in town (there are probably several actually) that I had seen advertised in our town's weekly paper and thru the city's library for probably a year now. I have always meant to go check it out but never had until last night. It meets at the only bookstore in the valley and last night's meeting consisted of 10 women, mostly teachers, and mostly women older than my mom. I was kind of hoping there would be some men in the group, but there do seem to be a couple kindred spirits for me in this group too. The discussion on Griffin's Black Like Me was fantastic (I also highly recommend that book to anybody). I suspect very few, if any, of these women share my religion and only one was close to my age but I love the group. I will not be able to go to this bookclub as often because of the day and time it meets, plus I can't commit to reading two books a month not of my own choosing. But I am very excited to go when I can and make new friends and be intellectually stimulated. Plus, they picked two of my book suggestions (the same two as the other group!) to read in the next six months.

SO, my reading list for the next few months is:
Jan.
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (my suggestion, suggested to me by a friend from my Oklahoma bookclub and is being read by my primary bookclub in Aug.)
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Feb.
Kabul Beauty School - Deborah Rodriguez (my suggestion, suggested to me by one of my very best friends)
March
The Ladies Auxilary - Tova Mirvis

April
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver (my suggestions that both book clubs are reading in the same month! But was suggested to me by Leah in the first place.)
May
The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - MaryAnn Shaffer
June
My Life in France - Julia Child

My MIL2, Linda, meets monthly with a bookclub where the hostess (who picked the book) both leads the discussion and prepares a nice dinner for the group. Although that is a lot of work, I've always liked that idea. But my friend Megan is now part of a dinner club where two women a month cook a phenomenal dinner with incredible presentation for the other women in the group. THAT sounds like an even better idea. My bookclub lets Leah finalize the book choices, and anyone who wants to gets a turn to host the party at their home and make refreshments. Nobody leads the discussions. My new bookclub meets at a bookstore after-hours, they take turns leading the discussion, and others take turns bringing treats.

If I'd Been Really Good This Year

I would have asked Santa for:
a house
a newer car
a housekeeper
motivation for the things I need to do
framed artwork for all the empty walls in our house
monthly massages
a huge remnant carpet rug for the front room for Elora to crawl on
a beautiful complexion
a comfortable queen size bed for the spare room
a free weekly babysitter for date night with Brandon
a black bookshelf for my bedroom

a new wardrobe
a deep bookshelf for the spare bedroom
a dresser for Jonah
a dresser for Brandon & me
new comforter, euro pillows, shams, sheets for our bed

(I think I'd acutally like red & black stuff with a Nepal theme since our four-poster bed is silver-ish, our bedside tables are black and our pictures are Nepali, but this picture is the right feel.)

But as I wasn't that good this year, I'll just hope for some dvds, some kitchen stuff, some clothes, snow boots, earrings, a comforter, a toaster, pjs, and slippers.

Updates

First, Elora is officially crawling! It's so cute. It's really more of a scooch but she is at least heading forward now. She is mobile in other ways too, rolling, etc. She is also up on her knees rocking all the time, trying to get this whole crawling thing down properly. She's probably a bit of a perfectionist;) It won't be long until she's crawling like a big girl. She is also sitting on her own and not having issues with eating solids anymore.




Second, Jonah has taken to saying "kitty" and "puppy" instead of "cat" and "dog", which I find extremely amusing. Also, the past two nights at storytime before bed he will not sit on my lap on the rocking chair and let me read to him. Rather he sits on the floor across the room from me and "reads" his book to me. Before storytime he gets into his pjs, fights over the toothbrush, finally lets me brush his teeth, turns the bathroom fan on, smirks, and then turns it and the bathroom light off (though truthfully most nights it is Brandon who gets him ready for bed). He loves music in church and he loves Vivian and the excitement of all the people at church in general. I think he feels it his duty to entertain the masses when church seems too dull.

Jonah is really into sitting up to the adult table on his booster seat now too. He is a very grown-up boy these days. He also is into climbing! He pushes chairs, toys, everything around to climb up towards mischief these days, mostly just to light switches actually, so we've been safe from any major mishaps so far.

Oh, and we finally figured out what kind of music Elora likes. She likes crooners (Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, etc.). Who knew?! With Jonah it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers that always stopped him from crying in the car. Brandon says it's a sign that Lor will be a hopeless romantic.

Lastly, anyone who has been reading the comments section of my last blog should know that Colee and I have exchanged several private emails on the subjects discussed and her last email to me contained possibly the best compliment I've ever received. It said (and I hope she doesn't mind me sharing), "I can definitely see that you have an open mind, and still chose to stand by your convictions, which I totally respect." Thanks.

Elora Mae

Apparently I've lost my camera (I'm sure it will turn up). Fortunately, I got pictures back from Elora's 6 mos. photo shoot. Unfortunately we couldn't get her to smile that day. Here are some of my favorites. Click to enlarge.

Droll

Thanksgiving Weekend

Well, my four-day weekend was wonderful. I hope yours was too. Unfortunately I only took one picture and it was out of focus. I was just too busy!
Here's the recap:
Wednesday evening when Brandon got home from work he took the kids up to the cabin and put them to bed. I went grocery shopping, then picked my friend Victoria up from the airport then headed up to the cabin. Every bed in the cabin was full that night.

Thursday morning I took care of Elora, chatted with friends and relatives, helped with cooking, chopping, dishes, etc. Jonah mostly played outside with Dada and Papa. The afternoon brought my best Heber friend Angela, her husband Todd, and their daughter Vivian up to the cabin. Kathy, Alex, and Bryson came up as well, along with four of Linda's flight attendant friends. Dinner was around 5pm. We had 23 adults and 4 children in attendance. The food was glorious.


My favorite dishes? The stuffing that Victoria and I made (seriously there is no better stuffing) and Linda's two fancy potato dishes. EVERYTHING was good though.
Andy and Brandon came up in the evening and we had empty beds at the cabin that night.

Friday was a nice, lazy morning. That afternoon I decided that I'd better take Victoria out to see some more of Utah in the daylight. We spend six hours child-free. We shopped on Park City's Main Street and ate dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. R.C. is Victoria's favorite restaurant and I'd never been there. It was delicious! That night the five adults at the cabin watched movies while the kids slept.
Saturday when Elora, Victoria, and I managed to finally leave the house we headed down beautiful Provo Canyon and up past Sundance to Aspen Grove to visit Robin on her last day of her three day visit to Utah. She had been there with ALL of her husband's family for the holiday. It was nice seeing her family, especially chubby two month old Paisley who weighs only two pounds less than Elora!



Victoria, Elora, and I headed to Salt Lake next, where we enjoyed yet another delectable meal. This time our dinner was at Cucina Tuscania. It was an interesting experience. We arrived at around 5:30 and realized when we stepped inside the funky old building that this was a much nicer restaurant than we'd expected. I felt a little awkward wearing my jeans and t-shirt and carrying an infant but was hungry and excited to try a new restaurant that I'd heard such good things about.
This is where it gets weird. The manager (?) asks us what name our reservation is under and I say, "Do we need a reservation?" After consulting with others and his book he tells us it's going to be an hour wait. I say, "Well thanks anyway." and start to walk out the door. He says, "Oh, you're too hungry?" And I say, "yes" as we head out the door. Victoria says she gives them the evil eye and the nastiest look she can because she's sure we're being turned away because of the baby. Then he suddenly says, "It's too cold out for a baby, we'll make room for you." and we are promptly seating thru a door in a room that is not the least bit over-crowded.
The first two or three stops at the table, the server seems to be glowering at us. He never gets friendly but at least stops glaring. We enjoy a table side preparation of a Caesar salad for two, gnocchi with a heavenly mushroom cream sauce, and fantastic spinach and cheese raviolis. Elora is a perfect, quiet angel the whole time.
We head downtown, feed the baby, wrap her up to sleep in her stroller and stroll around temple square for an hour to look at the lights n' stuff. Good times.
Watch a movie and stay up too late talking that night.
Sunday is blissfully lazy for most of the day. In the late afternoon Brandon puts Christmas lights up on the house and Victoria and I get out the few Christmas decorations I have to put up in the house. Victoria makes us possibly the best hamburgers I've ever had for dinner.

Victoria went back to Vegas this morning and I miss her already, we all do.

(Thank you Andy & Victoria for the pictures)