thanks and giving

we are wrapping up a very long and very relaxing thanksgiving weekend here. it has been so nice to have so much wide-open time as a family. sometimes it may have seemed a bit boring, but having all this time to just do whatever has made me actually feel so accomplished. the house is clean, through no significant effort, the kids are having fun and we have been eating very well and enjoying fires in the fireplace. it is so good.

in the weeks that led up to thanksgiving we tried out a new family activity. i wanted to help bee to realize the meaning of thanksgiving and create a sort of family bonding. i printed out these thanksgiving trees and leaves. it is such a beautiful design and worked perfectly. 

each day, at dinner, we each had 2 leaves. one leaf was to write something we are thankful for and one for something that we gave. it was sometimes interesting to see what bee would say and most often very touching. sometimes we were thankful for a greater thing, like a healthy family. other times it was relatively small, like me being able to have some time to myself in a day. it was always fun to try to "help" henny come up with his. he was most often thankful for books and gave us great laughs. 

the most wonderful thing about this activity is that is has given me hope and inspiration to make a daily thanks part of our routine. i have to brainstorm more with D about it, but i think i'm ready to start something. maybe we will keep a family journal of our gratitude and gifts. i don't have it fleshed out yet, but i am ready and motivated. we have so much to be thankful for and i hope we can continue to acknowledge it all year.

book worm

up until a week ago henny has never had an interest in books. and when i say he didn't have an interest, i mean that he would slap any book away and/or scream until i gave up. this frustrated and depressed me to no end. when bee was a baby we read to her all the time. throughout the day and at night, i'd even recite favorite books to her in the car or during diaper changes. but henny just wouldn't have anything to do with it. 

until a week ago. 

suddenly and all at once, he began taking books of the shelf and bringing them to us. if we are sitting on the couch, he will hand us the book and then stomp his feet until we pick him up. once he is settled in his spot and the book is open, he plugs his fingers in, and fully relaxes. 
i am so excited because in the past week we have read books about a hundred times. henny now has favorite books and looks around for them when the mood strikes him. what is most exciting though is the way that henny's vocabulary has exploded along with this new love of books. the importance of the timing is not lost on me. suddenly, as he is taking in all of these great books, he is finding words and sounds that he never had before. he is telling us what different animals say and what he wants to eat. i realize how books can help us teach our kids more than anything else. how else could you expose your kid to the moon, a macaroni penguin, a farmer and easter eggs all in one day?
the very best part of this new literary love is watching bee read to henny. she knows many of the board books by heart and she can read them as well as us. the two of them snuggled up reading warms my heart to no end. and bee is so proud, it is so good for a girl who is really struggling to find her importance in our family so much of the time.

another great thing is i know just what we should ask santa to put in henny's stocking in a few weeks!

pure sweetness

it's my birthday tomorrow and there has been much whispering going on here regarding it. D and bee have been sharing secrets all week. it is very cute. bee seems to have gotten the concept of secrets. not like when it was D's birthday in april and she flat out said, "D, we got you some crocs!". this was after a LONG conversation about secrets.

but the other night at dinner we were all talking and suddenly bee said, "ok mommy, calm down. be quiet. listen, on your birthday, i will do everything. if there is something to clean, we will clean it. if there are dirty dishes, i'll wash them. you don't have to do anything!"

i guess that i can look forward to a day of relaxation tomorrow. i am so lucky. really.

apple (with no apples!) muffins and our endless snack consumption

lately it has been feeling less and less like we have a kid and a baby and more like we have 2 kids. this has a lot to do with the fact that henny climbs up on the dining room table if given the chance and grabs his shoes and coat when he feels like going outside. it also has a lot to do with the amount of food that our former baby consumes. like bee, he wants to eat constantly. we have been going through so much snack food lately. it is almost sickening too see the food come in, be devoured and then see the trash pile up. i have been thinking about how sad this kind of waste is (so articulately put here) and what to do about it. i would like to start making my own granola bars and crackers but tonight i put in an effort to stretch our snack supply by baking some muffins.

i used this recipe from this most amazing blog that i just found. there is so much there that it makes my head spin! it turned out that when i went to make the muffins that the bag of apples was empty, so i broke out some of the summer supply, strawberries and peaches! the muffins turned out great and i'm sort of psyched to start a trend of less wasteful snack food. i making my own fake meat now, so i guess that anything is possible!

highlights of a week full of deep breaths.

life has been busy, as usual. thrown in like a giant wrench has been some outrageous behavior from bee. she has been having these daily tantrums that are like nothing we have ever seen. there is screaming and crying, there is sometimes scratching and pinching and there is endless bargaining that can almost not be deciphered through all the screaming. i guess this is what a four year old tantrum looks like. it's not pretty.

i am pretty much at my wits end. monday's public tantrum in a parking lot pretty much pushed me over the edge. this new behavior has had me on eggshells and colored my world in a very ugly way for a few weeks now.

that said, today was better. there was only one almost-tantrum. she managed to calm down and "use words" and it really felt like a gift. i'm hoping that we are on the other side of this.

but it's not all bad. there has been much joy.

for starters, i made bee a winter hat:

it's a simple knit hat with a 1" ribbed band on the bottom. i knit the flower to fancy it up. the flower turned out big because of the needles or yarn or whatever, but i love it. bee is like carrie bradshaw when she walks into preschool!

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in the "cute baby department" we have henny, painted up by bee:
she discovered her love for painting henny on halloween and he loves being the canvas. he just sits there, so still, as she paints away.

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my latest cooking triumph was vegetarian golumpki. i can't even deal with writing out the recipe, but here's the basics... i followed the usual recipe but filled them with TVP (brought back with vegetable broth), smashed veggie meatballs and brown rice. they were the bomb.

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finally is a picture that i uploaded and just can't believe. i just can't believe that this is my baby. the baby who i didn't put in pink until she was probably 2, who i tried so hard to help maintain her gender neutrality and just enjoy everything as a child, not necessarily a girl child. there she is, with the gown, crown, necklace and wrist tutu, just sipping her tea.

goo!!

last week bee and i made a big batch of goo, to be divided among her classmates as a halloween surprise. this is a MUST DO activity if you have a kid, especially a kid who loves recipes and messes, like mine.

i used a recipe on this site. it's called "amy's flubber recipe". i have made the "gak" recipe too, which is just as good. this stuff comes together like magic and is so fun to play around with. it's not really messy once it comes together, mostly like silly putty. seriously, MUST DO.

yes we did!

i am finally sitting here, taking in all that has happened in the past 24 hours. i am so proud of the results and so proud of our country. i know my experience with this election is similar to many many americans. i have never really felt passionately about a candidate. i have always voted and been angered by people who don't, but i was never too thrilled at the choices on my ballot.

this year, barack obama has ignited this fire in me and so many people in our country. i know he is going to do his best for us. it won't be easy for him and he may not be able to make much of a dent in this mess that has grown in the past 8 years. but i know he will try. he will care.

when barack obama is on tv, i will proudly tell my kids, "the president is talking to us, let's watch." imagine that. 

there is something so powerful about all of these energized, positive and motivated people throughout our country. that can only be a good thing. this energy, harnessed, will carry us far.

bee was also very excited about voting day. they even voted at her school. here are the results:

i guess some people must not be talking politics at every meal in their house. but, at least the outcome was good!

at night D and i were so lucky to get to go out to celebrate with the many people in our community who came out. we live in the most liberal, blue area and the vibes were amazing. the bars were all packed. many restaurants were filled to capacity. we watched as all the polls closed and the results were announced. 

the final call came so quick, it was almost surreal. 

we reluctantly left the bar, headed for home soon after the call. we even passed up the free round that some guy announced from atop his bar stool. we listened to mccain's speech on the way home and got all snuggled up in bed just in time to watch our next president take the stage. i fell asleep easily and slept soundly with the spirit of hope and change in the air.

halloween

last week halloween sucked all of my time. that and the fact that i joined facebook recently. so addictive, that facebook is. 

i hardly know where to begin in recording our halloween. it was long and seems somewhat tedious to run through it all. but then again, this journal is supposed to be a way for me to remember all these little things, boring as it may seem.

other than my behind the scenes sewing and crafting, our halloween celebrations started last wednesday, with carving pumpkins. i hardly want to mention it here because i regret that i didn't ever get a picture of them all lit. i don't know what happened, i just spaced out. 

it was a really fun family time. bee liked poking around at the pumpkins, "carving" them. next year she might be ready for real carving. henny played with all of the "guts" and helped us get the scraps into the bowl.

bee dressed as a tooth fairy. she has been planning this costume for months. bee has never lost a tooth, but she is interested in the idea. for her costume she wore a first communion gown that i found a long time ago at a tag sale, her wings, a tooth necklace that D made with fimo, a wire crown with a big fimo tooth on it and she carried a wand with a big tooth on the end. it was very cute and she felt proud, which made it all worth it. i should also note that fairies are a big hit with the preschool set. at bee's school ALL of the girls were fairies, except one who was a princess.

henny was a skunk. there was no significance to this costume and i really had no clue what henny would be until earlier in the week. i just went to the fabric store, hoping for inspiration. i found this great white "skunk fur" and decided to pair it with a black one piece suit that we already had, and an old baby hat that has ears. the hat was from last winter, and was way small, but i just cinched it on and it worked. i sewed the skunk stripe on the hat and down the back of the suit. i put a circle of fur on the chest, which was convenient to cover the little picture that was already on the suit. to top it all off, bee painted henny's nose.

the kids were really cute and we all enjoyed trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. bee ran from house to house with her neighbor buddy and henny even enjoyed knocking on the doors and smiling for the neighbors. the parents enjoyed the beers that we had in our pockets!

after halloween we instituted a new family rule. you are allowed to keep the number of pieces of candy that you are years old. the rest we baked into a batch of cookies. the best cookies i have ever had! it was fun because bee could try nibbles of each kind, so she didn't feel like she was missing out.

i guess now it's time to start crafting for christmas! i am going back and forth on whether or not i can handle taking the handmade pledge.