ringing in the new year..asleep

I can't remember the last time we stayed up until midnight on New Year's Eve. It's not that we don't ever stay up late. I can think of a few nights over this break we've been up until 1 or later. It just seems that whatever is happening on New Year's Eve wears us out. Right now, I'm considering going to bed. Josh is already asleep next to me on the couch. Jonah, who would absolutely love the celebrations and count downs if he'd ever experienced them, has been asleep for almost 2 hours.

I can tell you one reason we haven't always stayed up. On New Year's Eve three years ago, we were busy.

Someday, I imagine we'll be having New Year's Eve birthday parties with a bunch of hooligans staying up all night. There will be games and music and fireworks. This year, we enjoyed having dinner and cake with some family and tucking the kids in bed. I will miss their little selves when they get bigger. Either way, every New Year's Eve from here on out will be more about this little girl than anything else. Happy birthday, kid!

Here she is about to (in her words), "eat my birthday!"

Dear Dad,

Six months ago this morning, I heard your voice for the last time.

my Christmas memories

Nothing reminds me of Christmas as a child quite like Luke 2 (I read it this morning) and The Carpenter's Christmas Portrait (Pandora is playing it for me right now). I miss you, Dad. I love you, Mom.

Oranges, a Christmas story

One year, my mom decided to fill our home with the lovely scent of citrus and cloves. This was accomplished by poking whole cloves through the skin of oranges in lovely designs. (A quick google search to find a picture and I now know that there is a name for this modern version of a fairly old custom: pomander.)

Now that I'm older and wiser and a homemaker myself, I can see the appeal. As a child, I was appalled. The very idea of these pomanders disgusted me. A perfectly good orange, wasted! Why would anyone EVER do such a thing? We couldn't even eat the orange anymore. Mom, how could you?! (Have I mentioned my love for oranges?)

I'm thinking I might make pomanders one year, after apologizing profusely to my mother, of course. Not this year. This year, I'm still short two stockings. There will be no extra Christmas crafting. I hope it goes without saying that when I do actually get around to it, I will use ornamental oranges. I would still never consider using an edible orange as decoration. The horror!

Dear Dad,

The oranges are good this year. The kids are demolishing bag after bag of those little clementines. To me, they have nothing on navels. But Jonah is so proud that he can peel them by himself. Josh laughs every time I open an orange with my teeth. I laugh too, but with pride. I am my father's daughter after all.  Do you want to come over and have an orange with me? I would love it if you would. 

the Christmas tree, Miriam edition

I just said to Josh the other day, "I think this is the perfect year for the kids to sleep under the tree on Christmas Eve! I think they would settle down and sleep. Last year, I definitely couldn't have trusted Caroline not to run around all night." This is a golden year for Christmas at our house. Jonah is starting to get in to Christmas movies and traditions, Caroline will probably remember this Christmas next year (whereas this year, she still isn't quite sure what the fuss is about), and Miriam can't do too much damage yet. Maybe next year we will have to put the tree up high or in a pack n play or not decorate the bottom third. This year, though, Miriam just loves crawling around underneath the lights. She's just the right age to be fascinated, but not old enough to pull it down on herself. It's magical.

Merry Christmas week!

the sticker residue vs. me

Once upon a time, we were moving out of an apartment. Josh took Jonah (the only child we had at the time...I can't even imagine.) for the day and left me to clean the apartment. It was fabulous. I actually rather enjoy cleaning. It's the picking up and dealing with children while trying to clean that I don't love. Anyway, some sticker residue from a birthday poster remained on our sliding glass door. I had next to nothing to clean it with: no razor blades, no knives, no Goo Be Gone. I did have a laptop and an internet connection, though. It was after eliminating all of the suggestions that required materials I did not have that I tried one rather bizarre hack: peanut butter. I did have a jar of peanut butter and a plastic spoon in the kitchen still.

Imagine my delight (and surprise) when the peanut butter pulled the goo right off. I was very impressed with my resourcefulness.

Now here I am, over four years later. I've been battling with the sticker residue on a new high chair since Friday. Finally, after exhausting all other options (other than going to the store to buy anything, of course. Let's not get carried away.), I pulled out the peanut butter. Would you look at that! It works on plastic, too. Thank you, peanut butter. Since the kids have recently decided to stop eating you, at least you have another use around here.

So has she started solids yet?

In answer to the common question now that Miriam is six months old, I usually say, "sort of." How can a child sort of start solids? I present photographic evidence:

the tale of two Christmas cards

No, strike that. I really don't care to tell the tale. I'm so tired of looking at Christmas card options! I finally found something that I think will work without breaking the bank. What I wanted to do, though, was print this one I designed myself:

For a variety of reasons (sizing, shipping costs, and indecision), it didn't work out that way. We will be sending out a completely different card that I like for completely different reasons. But as I'm cleaning off my desktop, I can't bear to delete this one without anyone seeing it. I worked really hard on it! So here you go, faithful blog readers, the Christmas card that never was. Josh said, "it's awfully...summery isn't it?" Blame that on the fact that it's 75 degrees outside, perhaps. Merry (summery) Christmas card season, folks. If you don't like the new card as well as this one, please don't tell me. I've lost enough sleep over the selection process as it is.

Josh would be proud

Jonah: Mommy? Why does Magic School Bus say food chain but the Wild Kratts say food web?

Miriam's hair, a love story

Miriam was born with awesome hair. The best part about it was that it would stick straight up after a bath. It would lay down a little more each day after being washed, which was a great visual indicator for when she might need another bath (bath-every-night parents we are not).

Well, as baby hair often does, it fell out. It's lightened up some. We watched and waited as it grew back in to see what it would do. 

Well...it's back! Here she is tonight in all her post-bath glory: