Christmas

The holidays are always such a peculiar mix of emotional extremes: heightened anticipation (and its corollary letdown when reality doesn't match with rosy imaginings), fevered preparation, exhaustion, the joy of being with family and friends--and the frustrations of the same, emotional highs and lows all around.

The holidays this year have been particularly mixed in part because our kids have been sick most of the week, which has added extra exhaustion on top of all of our preparations (I think that last night I was up 6 times between 11 pm and 6 am--with both kids. Granted, four of those times were between 11 and 12, but still . . .), and has led--for me at least, for a more than usually tumultuous emotional terrain, in both good and bad ways.

I was particularly excited for the holidays this year because Evelyn finally got to wear this beautiful Christmas dress that I talked my mom into buying two years ago at Costco. (But wait, you say, Evelyn isn't two yet. That's right, folks. I fell in love with this dress while I was pregnant with Evelyn, even before we knew her gender. And for two generally pessimistic women, this purchase represents an unwonted optimism . . . warranted, as it turns out, in this case). I think it was well worth the wait.

We started off the week with a bang (which, in retrospect, may not have been so smart of us, since the kids' illnesses seemed to get worse after that): we went down SG Monday morning to run some errands, came home just after lunch to await my parents' arrival. They came down for a brief visit, to hand deliver Andrew's birthday presents and spend some time with our family before the holidays. Unfortunately, they weren't able to stay long, as bad weather forecasts drove them home the next morning. We're looking forward to going up there later this week for a longer visit. But Evelyn does enjoy her grandpas--and grandmas. (Actually, I think she likes anyone who will sit down and read her a book. Or books, as the case usually is, since she usually follows up one reading by going to the bookshelves and picking out another book and presenting that to whoever was obliging enough to read to her.)

After that, we spent a couple of days trying to keep to ourselves as much as possible (to prevent the spread of germs). I'm not sure how successful we were.

Wednesday afternoon, I took Andrew with me (he being mostly recovered, aside from a persistent cough) to take some rolls to a few of our elderly neighbors (all widows). I think one positive aspect of being in our ward is the abundant service opportunities--I really wanted Andrew to appreciate that Christmas is about more than just getting presents; it's about serving others, too. I hope that the message translated. I know that the women we visited were all pleased to see him. The visits also gave me a greater appreciation for the oft-told story about President Monson: that as a young bishop (he was made a bishop at 22!), he would visit every widow in his ward at Christmas time, all 80 some odd of them (I've read reports ranging from 84-87). I can't imagine the time investment of those visits, at a time when most of us are preoccupied with our own families.

Thursday afternoon, we finally braved visiting the family. We enjoyed an international buffet for dinner: gyoza (Dan), stuffed cabbage (me), crepes (Aaron), seven-layer dip (Sarah), queso (sp?, Matt), and multitudinous dips. Following dinner, the kids reenacted the nativity while Poppy read the account in Luke. And like all nativity reenactments, the actors weren't always cooperative. I thought the funniest part was how possessive our little Joseph was of his Mary. He kept putting his hand on her shoulder, until Katie finally told him to stop touching her! But I think he enjoyed the importance of his role. Evelyn made a pretty cute angel, even though she was never where she was supposed to be, and took an undue interest in the baby doll representing Jesus.




Celebrating the holidays with some Martinellis.




Christmas morning. We inspected the Christmas stockings at our own home, for the first time in our married life, but we were unable to take pictures because we'd left the camera at Bubby and Poppy's. Not that there would have been much to see, in any case . . . Dan had us in our coats and hustled out the door to his parents' house as soon as he could ascertain that people were up to receive us. I think he was just a little anxious, or something. But the kids did seem to enjoy it--even if we had to take a break from unwrapping presents because the kids were losing interest. (Evelyn and I came home during that break so she could take a nap, poor thing). Andrew's favorite present by far is the box of dinosaurs from his Bubby--we continue to find them randomly throughout the house. For some strange reason, he likes to play with the brachiosaur in Evelyn's doll house . . .



We hope that all of our readers had a truly pleasant Christmas, and look forward to a happy and hopeful New Year.

All aboard the dinosaur train!

Last night's debacle notwithstanding, Andrew's birthday party went off pretty well. (And for those of you wondering--no, his birthday is not today--it's not until the 24th, but we like to give the poor kid a little distance between birthday presents and Christmas presents). As has so far proven to be my wont, I tend to plan fairly elaborately for Andrew's parties. I'm not quite sure why this is--I enjoy it (well, let's be honest: I enjoy planning it. The last minute preparations and execution can be a little stressful), but that hardly seems sufficient reason for putting so much effort into something that only lasts an hour or two. I think some of it may be me compensating--when I was younger, my mom always used to tell me what a creative mother I'd be (based on the crazy and creative games I used to coerce my siblings into playing). But most days, I don't feel particularly creative. Or fun, for that matter. So birthday parties may be my one chance to redeem my reputation. But enough about me.

Andrew's current obsession (as anyone within speaking distance of him knows) is dinosaurs. And PBS kids' new series, Dinosaur Train, is his newest favorite show. So it seemed an obvious choice to do a Dinosaur Train theme. In preparation for the big event, we even made our own dinosaur train out of boxes and posterboard. (Good thing I still had all that paint handy from painting Andrew's room this summer!)

Once the guests arrived, we took them into the kitchen where each child got to create their own dinosaur headgear. Xander (below) said that he wanted an alien dinosaur. The others were a little more traditional: triceratops and T-rexes, mostly.




After the hats were finished, the kids got to take a ride on the dinosaur train, and then learn a little bit about one of the stranger dinosaur discoveries: a therizinosaur. In the tradition of the TV show, which concludes each episode with a real palentologist--Dr. Scott, curator of the Natural History Museum at the U of U--talking about the dinosaurs that showed up in that episode--we asked Dan's dad (we'll call him "Dr. Bob") to come talk to the kids about the therizinosaur. This curious creature is (according to several books and websites I've seen) widely acknowledged to be possibly the strangest dinosaur that lived. It belongs to the therapod class, counting among its distant cousins many aggressive predators (T-rexes, raptors, etc.), but the therizinosaur evolved from a predator into a herbivore. The most recently discovered species of therizinosaur was discovered in Utah (the only one found outside of Asia), and Poppy (er, "Dr Bob") just happened to be present at the dig where it was discovered. The kids were pretty fascinated by that--Xander asked, with awe in his voice, "Are you a scientist?"

Above: listening to "Dr. Bob." Below, Dr. Bob telling the kids about the therizinosaur.

After the history lesson, the kids went on a brief "dinosaur hunt" downstairs, looking for the stuffed dinosaurs that were hidden, and some dinosaur "fossils." The fossils were duly brought upstairs and excavated (plastic models of dinosaur bones cleverly put in plaster--bought fairly inexpensively at Big Lots, of all places). Of course, the excavation took longer than we expected, and some of our fossil hunters lost interest before the first bone had even been found. We had to put them away for a rainy day, but not until after the faithful diggers had found a few bones. It was pretty fun to see how excited they got when their careful scraping and brushing revealed a "bone." I think the exercise also helped them appreciate the painstaking work of real paleontologists.

Since Laurie and Matt arrived in town late last night, we included them in the festivities. Leo and Evelyn had a good time playing with each other (read: alternately ignoring each other and then fighting over the same toy) while the big kids were otherwise occupied. Leo is just learning to walk, and is in the Frankenstein stage that Andrew was in three Christmases ago, when he terrorized all the grandchildren on my side of the family (both because of his tendency to walk with his arms out in front of him, like the Frankenstein monster, and because when he went down, he took down whatever kid was closest to him). He's pretty cute.

Finally, we opened presents, had some snacks (pigs in a blanket, fruit kebabs, oranges, and crackers and a cheese ball) and then brought out the piece-de-resistance (if taken literally, quite the piece of resistance, given that it took three tries to get the darn thing to come out of the pan the way it was supposed to): the dinosaur cake. While the cake took the better part of the morning to frost, I think it was worth it, since all the kids were thrilled to get a part of a T-rex. Dan took the kids to the grocery store to get me a frosting tip (Andrew having chewed the previous one out of shape at his last birthday, and me having forgotten to get a new one in the interim) while I mixed the frosting. Since this can be quite a process to mix 6 cups of powdered sugar, not to mention tinting it, I was still working on it when they came home, which led Andrew to remark: "Mommy, you didn't get anything done while we were gone!" Stinker.


And that pretty much concluded our dinosaur adventure. After that, the kids played while the adults talked. Although there were really only four kids Andrew's age at the party, in addition to himself, our actual guest list was more than double that, once you included parents who'd accompanied kids, grandparents, cousins, and siblings of invitees. Still, it never got too chaotic, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. My definition of a successful party.

What else have we been up to this week? Well, assiduous readers of our blog will have already seen my earlier post about Evelyn's potential potty training. And we have been trying to get her to the bathroom--she's not quite to where she identifies that she needs to go, but if we ask her, she will sometimes say yes, and she has managed to use her potty at least a few times every day this week (except for today when we were all a little preoccupied).


We've also been indulging in some dress-ups. Andrew has too, but for some reason I mostly have pictures of Evelyn.



On Tuesday, we made cupcakes for Andrew's preschool class. Afterwards, of course, we fed Evelyn and Andrew some of the leftovers. I'm not really sure how Andrew managed to get frosting in his hair, but he looks good in green, doesn't he?

Evelyn has been boning up on her animal sounds. Here's a little video of her responding to a book with baby animals.

(Un)happy birthdays

I have officially decided: I don't like making cakes. Specifically, I am tired of trying to make a dinosaur cake for Andrew's birthday tomorrow. After doing some research to find a good cake recipe on Food Network, Andrew and I excitedly mixed the cake before I sent him off to bed. I baked the cake in our specially ordered dinosaur cake pan (it boiled over the edge of the cake pan onto the floor of the oven) and set it on the rack to cool off.

While the cake cooled, I scraped out the oven, and then set myself to the task of turning the cake out of the pan. This, of course, is where the trouble began. Rather than coming out in one seamless whole (though I had greased and floured the pan beforehand), the cake seemed determined to come out in chunks. Delicious chunks, true, but nothing resembling a dinosaur.

Daunted, but undeterred, I consulted with Dan and we decided that we'd grease and flour the pan more aggressively, add a little extra flour to the mix to compensate for the high altitude, and cook the cake a little longer. I learned from the first round mistakes, too: I didn't fill the pan as full, and I put a pizza pan underneath the cake pan. The second time, the cake boiled over again (though not as badly), but again refused to come out of the pan. That is, most of the cake came out, but the top layer (incidentally the layer that gives shape to the whole cake) remained stubbornly in the pan.

By this point, it was nine p.m.; I was tired, my voice was going (the tail end of a cold), and I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry. I didn't, of course. I'm a grown up now, and grown ups don't (at least, they don't often admit to it) as a rule act like four-year-olds. Instead, I vented my frustration by sweeping up the crumbs, throwing the entire second cake away (we saved the pieces from the first one) and scrubbing the pan it died in.

Luckily for me, I have a wonderful husband who quietly took control: he went to the store and got a boxed cake mix (two of them, actually, in case the first one fails), which he is currently mixing. With any luck, Andrew won't ever know about all the cake mishaps, and his birthday tomorrow will go much more smoothly than the nightly preparations have gone tonight.

Of course, I still have to frost the darned thing.

You go, girl!

Evelyn managed to surprise us this morning. I saw her walking funny across the kitchen so I picked her up and asked her if she needed to go potty. Somewhat to my surprise, she nodded solemnly. So, I went downstairs and found Andrew's old training potty, wiped it off, set it on the bathroom floor upstairs, and set Evelyn down on it. I didn't really expect anything to happen, but she seemed happy to sit there, so I let her. And then, of course, she actually peed in the potty! (The only problem with this scenario was that she then refused to get *off* the potty and cried when I finally dragged her off).

I would be tempted to think this was just a fluke, except she did it again, about an hour later, and her diaper was still dry . . .

I'm not sure I'm ready for this!

Update: As of bedtime, Evelyn has sat on her potty 7 times, and actually went potty 5 times, and her diaper stayed dry from nap time until bedtime. It looks like my baby may actually be getting ready for potty-training. I just wasn't ready for this to happen so early (although apparently some children are ready at 18 months, and girls and second children tend to be ready faster than first-borns and boys).

Seven Years

I've been thinking a little bit recently about seven-year cycles: the (in)famous seven-year itch, the seven years Jacob served for both Rachel and Leah . . . Mostly, though, I've been thinking about the significant changes that have come to my life in the last seven years:

In seven years, I married, finished two graduate degrees (including a dissertation!), gave birth to two children, moved cross-country, supported my husband through his first real job search, bought a house, moved again, and, for the first time in our married life, settled into our own home. Not bad, for seven years. I'll have to remind myself of that the next time I feel like I haven't been accomplishing much.

This week has been a nice one--a little more leisurely than the last several, mostly thanks to the winding down of the semester. This week was finals week, which meant no scheduled classes to teach. Of course, the final for my class was scheduled for the very last slot of the finals week: late Friday afternoon. On the positive side, this gave me all week to finish grading their final papers, with the result that I was able to submit their grades yesterday. Dan, of course, was way ahead of me, and submitted his grades on Thursday. In any case, we are officially on break now, although Dan will continue to go into his office during the week.



We had our first significant snowfall this week (along with the rest of the state--and, it seems--much of the U.S.). The kids have enjoyed it--we have a mild hill in the back of our yard that they had fun sledding down the day of the snowfall. Then, of course, a cold spell settled in and it was too cold to play outside. Somewhat idiotically, I decided to walk Andrew to preschool Tuesday morning. While this is our usual habit, this usually works because I push Evelyn in the stroller and the sidewalks are clear. After pushing Evelyn's stroller through several snow-drifts (have you ever tried pushing a stroller through snow? Most of them are definitely *not* designed for it--the only way I could make it work was to tip the stroller back and just use the rear wheels, which don't rotate), I decided that the effort wasn't worth it and we picked Andrew up from preschool in the car.


In other big news for the week, we finally bit the bullet and purchased Andrew a new bed. He's been sleeping in a toddler bed for nearly two years, but as Andrew weighs 45 lbs and the bed's limit is 50 (and we still haven't managed to break him of trying to jump on the bed), we (well, let's be honest--I) have been a little worried about the safety of the bed. Not to mention, he's starting to get a little long for the bed. After considering various options, we decided to get a bunk bed and just set up the bottom part of the bed, figuring that in a few years we'll be able to use both beds when Evelyn has outgrown the toddler bed, and it made more sense to us to get both beds now, since a bunk bed would be cheaper in the long run than two individual beds.

After a couple of weeks of stewing about which bed to get (and where to get it at--options in Cedar are somewhat limited, but we finally decided we'd rather buy locally and know what we are getting than try to order online) --and driving Dan crazy in the process--we finally made a decision. This decision was somewhat tried when a competing model was put on sale at the last minute, and when we found out that our original choice didn't come with all the features the sales lady had told us (admittedly, she was new). Still, we finally (and by we, of course, I mean "I," since Dan had long since made his decision and was just waiting for me to come on board with him) made a decision and got the bed. It's a twin bed over a full bed, and we set up the full bed for Andrew to sleep in (the bed was delivered the same day we purchased it!). He was, not surprisingly, ecstatic, although you can't tell that from the photo below. But it is nice to be able to lay down next to him in bed or sit on the edge of the bed to read him a story and not worry about the bed breaking . . .


The saleslady at the furniture store gave Evelyn a stuffed bear while we were there trying to make our final decision (I wisely decided to go while Andrew was at preschool--Evelyn alone was much easier to deal with), and she was instantly smitten. I hadn't realized until I saw her with the bear quite how much she likes stuffed animals. Anyway, I think she's pretty cute (you'll have to click on the photo below to get the full effect of her funny little twisted smile).

Dutch Christmas

Today, celebrated across much of Europe, is St. Nicholas Day (Szent Miklos, if you're in Hungary). Yesterday, on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, little Dutch children set out their wooden shoes to be filled with pfeffernusse (at least, according to my Dutch in-laws, although why the Dutch want to eat a German cookie, I'll never know) and other goodies.

Not so incidentally, yesterday was also Dutch Christmas for the Rogers' family descendents. Trisha's mom, Adriana (from whom Evelyn takes her middle name--along with, I discovered yesterday, at least two of her second cousins), immigrated from Holland as a young girl, and celebrating Dutch Christmas in her honor has become something of a family tradition for her children, grand children, and now for her great-grandchildren. (See here for David Sedaris's funny--if somewhat reprehensible--take on the Dutch Christmas tradition.)

We started the festivities by lining up on Main Street for the Storybook Cavalcade, a yearly parade held in December. As parades go, we were pleasantly surprised by this one. Instead of noisy cars tossing bags of candy, this parade featured almost no candy, and almost no loud cars. Instead, a series of storybook characters paraded down Main Street--everything from the Disney princesses, to Tarzan, to Looney Toons, to Star Wars and Where the Wild Things are. Needless to say, the kids all loved identifying the characters as they walked down the street. I think Andrew (and his other 3-4 year old cousins) got most excited about shaking the characters hands or giving them high fives when they ventured to the edge of the road.

After the parade, we gathered for some hot chocolate in a cooler in the back of Jodi's truck. We still had an hour or so to while away before Dutch Christmas officially began, so we went to an outdoor Tuba festival downtown. Andrew got bored fairly quickly, so he went with Bubby and Poppy to fetch the ham for dinner; Evelyn got cold, so we ventured inside a nearby building to look at the Christmas trees on display. We even went upstairs to see Santa, but the line was so long (and Evelyn pretty oblivious to the whole Santa thing anyway) that we skipped that and went back to look at Christmas trees.

Dutch Christmas was the usual rowdy mix of grandkids running around the room (Jodi had made reservations for their ward's cultural hall), adults talking and prepping food. The food was delicious--ham and potatoes, jello salad (of course!), salad and rolls. After dinner, we had a series of activities for adults and kids alike. Dan and I were in charge of a wiggly activity for the little kids, and were a little caught off guard when *all* the kids decided to play. We had planned on musical chairs, but we quickly realized we'd need a different set of chairs for the big and little kids. We also hadn't reckoned on how aggressive/competitive some of the big kids would be, or how upset the little kids would be when they got out (almost all of them cried). We did bring some prizes for all the kids; in the future, we think we'll hand out prizes to the little kids when they get out--this would lead to lots fewer tears, and maybe a shorter game!

After the activities, we had a song from some of the boys and a story from Uncle Jim, followed by the much anticipated white elephant gift exchange. I have to say that I think we came out best in the exchange, with a handmade wreath from Uncle Jim that looks lovely and smells even nicer. As soon as I can get something to hang it with, it will be decorating our door.

All the excitement meant that our kids missed their afternoon naps and were up past their bedtime, but we think the sacrifice was worth it.

(Sorry about the lack of pictures: we didn't realize until too late that we hadn't packed the camera).

In other news: Friday was the last day of classes for the semester. After this week (finals week), we will be home free until January! Hooray! (We're not excited or anything).

Mama says there'll be days like this . . .

Seriously, is there something in the water? Or maybe (as the Chemistry Dept. secretary suggested when I went looking for Dan this afternoon) it's the full moon?

Anyway, after posting the previous fiasco of the Christmas tree, I remembered all the little random flaky incidents from today which no longer seem quite so random . . .

Yesterday, when I turned on the water to start preparing lunch, the kitchen faucet exploded. (Not literally. The faucet head fell off for some reason and the water spewed unconstrained until I had the sense to turn off the faucet). Luckily, Mike (who's been remodeling the downstairs shower for the past three months) showed up a few minutes later and was able to fix it fairly quickly.

Today, I was late picking Andrew up from preschool because Evelyn was still napping and so I was desperately trying to finish my powerpoint for today's class.

Because I was running late, I forgot to email the copy of the powerpoint to myself (which I always do), and therefore showed up at class without my presentation and had to wing the lecture.

I was almost positive that I'd made photocopies of assignment sheet for my students' final exam, but I didn't remember to double-check until just before leaving for campus. And discovered, to my horror, that I hadn't actually made those copies. Since I've already run through my allotted photocopies for the semester, I couldn't use the department copier. I printed out the original, and asked Trisha about a copy center on campus. She told me there was one in the library. (Ironically, after teaching composition for almost a full semester, this was my first time in the campus library, although I've used the website several times). I thanked her, rushed up to campus and made my copies, only to realize (too many realizations in the last 24 hours, none of them reflecting well on my sense or intelligence!) that I'd left the house without my wallet.

The nice lady at the desk let me write out an IOU and take my copies; after class, I tried to find Dan to borrow money, but he wasn't in his office, so I went home (ditching my office hours--but, given the number of students who mobbed me after class with questions, I didn't think anyone was likely to show up; if they had questions, they'd already asked them), relieved Trisha, and took the kids back to the library to settle my debts.

Nothing horrific, I know, but two such addle-brained incidents back to back has nearly un(wo)manned me. (I know what you're thinking--but no, I am NOT pregnant. Just acting like it.)

Rookie mistakes

So, last night we set up our Christmas tree, after a fair amount of badgering from Andrew, who has wanted to decorate the tree ever since he and I started making decorations a few weeks ago (in my defense, I was getting desperate for art projects that wouldn't just add clutter to the house, and I didn't think very clearly about the consequences).

My mother kindly gave us one of her cast-off Christmas trees, a lovely 7.5 foot fake tree with a surprisingly narrow circumference. And having helped (i.e., watched) my parents put up the tree for years, I thought: How hard can this be?

Harder than it should be, apparently. We didn't manage to get the entire tree put together before bedtime, so we sent the kids off with the promise that we'd finish putting it together so Andrew could decorate in the morning. We managed to finish putting the tree together and then went about our respective tasks.

In the morning, I persuaded Dan to get the extension cord and actually plug the tree in, so Andrew could admire the lights. That's when we got our first inkling that something was not quite right. It took us ten minutes of searching to find the end of the first set of lights so we could plug it in, only to realize that the bottom row of lights only had one outlet end--and that end was plugged into the row of lights above it. Yes, friends--two PhDs between us and we didn't have the sense to make sure that we could actually plug the lights in to begin with.

That was our first rookie mistake.

I realized the second after bypassing the first row of lights and plugging in the next set of lights. This time, most of the tree lit up, with the exception (of course) of the bottom row, and the row just below the top of the trees. This is when I remembered that my dad always used to plug the lights in before putting them on the tree, to make sure they all worked. (I really wish I'd remembered this, say, ten hours earlier when we put the darn thing together).

At this juncture, Dan deserted me. He maintains that he had to go to work (which was true), but I'm guessing he was also happy to postpone the whole issue of the lights. I, however, am nothing if not stubborn and single-minded (usually at inconvenient times). So, I sat down to untangle (literally) our new set of problems. Evelyn was luckily playing quietly by herself while I worked; Andrew, on the other hand, thought he needed to start decorating the tree and had to be forcibly dissuaded from doing so until all the lights were working.

I started by taking the bottom row of lights off the tree, intending to replace it with a spare set. It wasn't until after I had done so (and taking lights off the bottom row of a fully assembled tree is no small feat, since I couldn't always see what I was doing) that I realized that the replacement lights wouldn't fix the problem; they'd just duplicate the same one. Sigh. So I restrung the original set of lights. I finally figured out that I could plug the first set into the end a few tiers above and plug all the lights into the extension cord, but it took an embarrassingly long time to figure this out--and to replace the strand at the top of the tree. I have to admit, I wasn't thinking very nice or charitable thoughts about Christmas trees or lights by the time that I was done.

However, we triumphed at last, and without having to take apart the tree (which was my initial, despairing fear). And it looks pretty good, if the balance of ornaments are all on the bottom half of the tree, courtesy of my 40 inch tree decorator. (Although I cheated a little there, too, moving ornaments when he wasn't looking). Evelyn has, so far, been more interested in taking bells and candy canes off the tree than decorating, so we'll see how the tree fares as the month goes on.