Turn and Face the Strange Ch-Ch-Changes

There have been some big changes lately around the old homestead. I'm out of that period in life where I get to make life altering announcements, so our "big" changes may not be big to people with exciting lives, but they are big to us.

The first thing is Chris' job. In two weeks, he will be leaving the Military Department behind and going back to work for the Department of Transportation in the Traffic program. (I just read that as someone from the outside and it seems so boring, but to us it is HUGE exciting news). Let me rephrase that: Chris got a job in a program he's wanted to work in forever with people whom he respects and whose company he enjoys immensely. It also came with a promotion. And the most minuscule raise you could actually imagine. As a matter of fact we plan on spending a quarter of the first month's bounty on a celebratory pizza tomorrow night. But money doesn't buy happiness. What buys happiness is getting to spend 8 hours of your day in a place you enjoy doing a job you love. And Chris has landed that. I am super happy for him. 

The second big change is that Jane started at a new preschool. When I first went back to work this school had a wait list as long as the Hobbit trilogy. But miraculously, we gave them a Hail Mary phone call a week ago and they had an opening. 

I am in love with this school. She has been going for a week and already we are seeing a different Jane. She is happier and more confident and she is learning concepts I didn't know it was possible for a five year old to learn. We were worried the transition would be rough, but she has slipped seamlessly into her new environment. She's made new friends and gotten into a new routine. She even discovered an old friend there whom she immediately re-bonded with. Her teachers are amazing. They are well educated and patient and kind. Her head teacher has been at the school for over a decade. 

The children are treated with such respect and they behave incredibly well with very little discipline. During class time, they are quiet and engaged. Class time and class space are organized down to the smallest detail. It is unbelievable. But we now have a problem. Jane's sticker chart. She gets a sticker for every day of good behavior. 9 stickers = 1 leap pad app. She has been getting a sticker every day. We had to cough up an app this week and I expect we'll have to do the same next week. It's a good thing Chris got a raise that made us affluent enough to afford 4 apps a month. Make that 3 after the celebratory pizza. 

There's one more big change to the household: 

this box. 

I don't know what it does or its significance, but Chris seems to love it. And he is important to me, so this box is important to me as well. I do know that it just got slightly more complicated to turn on the TV. 

In other news, winter refuses to die. The kids don't mind. They would mind even less if they weren't always fighting over this tiny orange snow shovel. I think it was intended for emergency vehicular use. I have a cell phone and such things as tow trucks exist so it has proved unnecessary to me but invaluable to the kids. 

 Still, I am sick of this endless winter. The quicker it goes, the happier I will be. But still, I have very little to complain about right now. Very little. So little that it can be summarized by one of my favorite words in my profession: negligible. 

It's going to be cold, it's going to be dark and it's going to last you for the rest of your lives.

I haven't yet posted this year and there are some very good reasons for that, but I don't want the memories of early 2014 to go unrecorded, so here we are.

January went by in a huge blur of work, work and more work. Thanks to a great deal of procrastination (not my own), I ended up working a lot of overtime. I know there are people who work a lot more, but when you are a mother of small children, rushing through the door at bedtime doesn't cut it. And once the kids were in bed, Chris was left with a tired, fried and stressed out wife. It hasn't been pretty. I would say the paycheck helped if a third of my OT pay didn't go to taxes. But it does. So OT is pretty much suckville.

Last week was my first week post-OT and it was also Chris' first week-long work trip out of town since we had kids, thus extending our time in suckville. But on the bright side, the temperatures were sub-zero all week, so at least we had that going for us.

Needless to say, I am ready to put the last several weeks behind me and maybe get a bit of rest and have some time that isn't spoken for.

Here are a few shots from the highlights reel. Thanks to Chris for taking some of the pictures I wasn't around for.

We've had a lot of snow this winter. Or maybe it's more correct to say that the snow we've gotten has stuck around longer than usual. Because it's been cold and miserable. 

But luckily the kids enjoy it.

They do get cold from time to time and that's when they come in and do stuff like build roller coasters for their dolls. 

Since we felt like Jane had reached some relatively calm waters, we decided to work on the blanket habit. I made half a dozen mini-blankets that she could keep in her pocket. They worked brilliantly at home. Then, the next day at daycare, I discovered that she wasn't sailing as smoothly as I had thought so we abandoned project "mini-blanket" to work on other things. The blanket may go in the backpack to kindergarten. It wouldn't be the worst thing that ever happened.

Emily made her Valentine's box yesterday. The effort of wrapping this box required two adults and one hour to wrap. Chris ended up rescuing me half an hour in and pretty much restarting entirely. He is a fabulous husband. Then Emily spent 5 minutes covering it with stickers. 

A Valentine's box to be proud of. Although it could use another couple unicorns. That's just my humble opinion.

Yesterday we spent our first day as a family in a long time watching the Lego Movie. It was fantastic. Now I just have to get the kids to stop running around the house like maniacs singing "Everything is Awesome". Only a couple short months until they can start running around outside like maniacs. Then it just becomes good healthy exercise. It can't come soon enough. 

So This is Christmas

Christmas... the most magical time of the year. Also the most exhausting. It is impossible to simplify Christmas to a level where it does not suck all available energy. I'm sure it doesn't help that I had the bright idea to get married four days before Christmas and then the even brighter idea years later to have a baby two weeks before Christmas. Anyway, I'm trying to count my blessings and this year my blessing is that I was able to ask my boss to delay any overtime 'til January. He agreed and that made for a much, much merrier Christmas than we had last year. 

This year we got to see all the grandparents. My folks spent a few days before Christmas in town. 

And Chris' dad stopped by on the eve of Christmas eve. I am sad that the only picture I could find of him was his legs. He did a great job making sure that the girls had beautiful doll clothing and accessories. I'm sure Carol was proud that he is showing her two precious granddaughters so much love. She was much remembered this Christmas. 

Look at the cute UW doll dress! Emily loved it. 

Then, on Christmas eve, I got to come home at 3:00. Yay! It left me time to bake Jesus' birthday cake. Now, I know this sounds like a weird tradition, but let me explain. Lots of people bake cookies for Santa, but I think that's just silly because he's, well, not real. We use Jesus' birthday cake to remember what we're celebrating. We have it for dessert on Christmas eve. The girls are entirely in charge of decorating it. Do we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus? No. That would be weird. Do we leave a slice out for him to come and eat in the night? Yikes, no. Do we even believe that December 25th is Jesus' real birthday? No. It's in the spring. But, the cake is a lovely tradition that helps us remember what we are celebrating. 

The girls always do a lovely job. This year their medium was crushed candy canes.

Then we opened the Christmas eve gifts, which are always PJs and yet always a surprise to my two cherubs.

Then Daddy read from Luke 2.

Then off to see the bright lights.

There are some crazy Christmas houses around town, but this year we drove a few miles out of town to see this insane one. It makes me exhausted to even think about the amount of work that goes into something like this. The homeowners were dressed as elves, handing out candy to spectators. Extraordinarily magical.

Then we came home and put the kids to bed with threats that there would be no presents if they didn't go to sleep. And then we put the presents under the tree. As a kid, we put presents around the tree as they were wrapped. My kids have zero capability for leaving stuff alone, so we haul the loot out on Christmas eve. It's kind of nice because all the magic just happens overnight.

This is our special ornament for this year. Betcha can't guess where it came from. 

Then, Christmas morning came with all its glory. The kids slept in til 7:45, which was lovely. Although Emily reports she woke briefly at 5:00. I am grateful to have not. 

Some of the faves:

Slippers. Yeah. Weird. But much appreciated. 

These boots from grandma, which she sought high and low. 

Robes. Again an interesting choice for Christmas MVP. 

We paused before stocking opening to have a healthy breakfast. 

The girls had spent so long opening that the cinnamon rolls were barely warm by the time they showed any interest. 

And then stockings were opened. Every year they are mad that I put underwear in the stockings. I don't think I would put it in there if it didn't make them mad. 

We finished off the day with a screening of Elf, during which Emily ignored the movie in favor of her ipod, which she got again this year because last year's ipod fell out of the car at a truck stop. This ipod is larger and engraved with her name and phone number. Less appealing to truckers and meth addicts that frequent I-80 truck stops. I hope. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. Let the countdown to spring now officially begin!

Lucky Number 13

Thirteen years ago today, Chris and I got married. It's been a wonderful and difficult thirteen years. I usually like to reflect a bit on our anniversaries and this year I have been thinking about Chris a lot: how much I appreciate him and how much he has grown and changed over the years.

He is a great husband and father. He has been an equal partner in household duties since I went back to work. He loves me and he loves the kids. He shares my sense of humor (without that, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have made it 13 years). He is smart and he works hard. But I think what I love most about Chris' personality is that he keeps trying. I have never seen him throw up his hands and give up: not in college, not professionally, not on being a better dad and husband and, most importantly, not on himself.

I have known Chris since he was 19. I loved him then and I love the man that he has grown into. I am so blessed to be able to be his wife.

I'll sign off with a few selfies from this past summer's adventure in paradise. It's been a great year, Chris. Here's to a million more that are even better! I love you!

Take Five

Last week I woke up one day and realized that she's no longer a baby, she's no longer a toddler and she's hardly even a preschooler anymore. Jane is 5. As difficult as that is to believe, it is the truth. 

We had a small family celebration on her real birthday which included presents:

One of her faves is this beanbag. Her butt has seldom left it since last Tuesday. Notice how it's personalized? we thought that would prevent thievery. It kind of worked.

She also really loved the leap pad. She played with it nonstop for two days but now I think we need to feed it more apps. Well played leapfrog, well played. 

When I asked Jane what kind of cake she wanted, she didn't say the name of a character (hurrah! I HATE decorating cakes) but instead requested pink cake with chocolate frosting and red sprinkles. I can do that. No problem.

For Jane's "party" she requested a trip to Build-A-Bear with her cousins. (Notice how accommodating this kid is? No crazy character cakes and no inviting her entire preschool class to play pin the tail on the donkey in my living room. No wonder I love her so much.) So yesterday, we headed south and her cousins headed north. We met in the middle and made some serious bear magic.

Jane selected a pink bear which she then dressed as a princess:

                                      

Lucy created a ballerina pug:

Simon's golden retriever sings the Star Wars theme.

And Emily came home with Rudolph's girlfriend (who required 4 high heeled shoes instead of 2 because she has 4 feet and bears apparently have 2?)

Here are the girls' creations:

It was a delightful, low-key party, which is exactly the kind of party I dig. And everyone came away with a well dressed stuffed animal in a delightful cardboard gingerbread house. Bonus.

We followed up with a lunch of Jane's choosing at Nordy's BBQ (the subject of McDonalds or Chuck-E-Cheese never even came up). I really like this kid. She can plan my Saturday anytime. 

Happy Birthday Jane!

The Family that Feasts Together

Thanksgiving... it happens but once a year. And it just so happened to happen last Thursday.

My folks came to town and hosted at their house here. My brother's family and my sister's family also came. It was great to see them.

We ate a lot of food.

We spent some fun cousin time. 

Jane has always loved to hang out with Uncle Ryan.

We had a fire and roasted s'mores. 

It didn't take long before the cold got the better of us.

The kids' favorite activity was shooting Grandpa's air rifle. Several soda cans met their end this past weekend.

Jane wasn't allowed to shoot, so instead she hugged

And ran to inspect the target once the range was clear. 

Everyone had fun. Now... on to December wherein we celebrate the birth of Christ, Jane, and our marriage. That's a lot of celebrating. Stay tuned to see if we survive.