I'm Dreaming of a White Two Days After Christmas

This post is about...



It may be a few days late and a few inches short, but it is still the closest I have come to a white Christmas. The light flutter of snow began around 7:00 last night. It continued, off and on, until early this morning. The forecast calls for rain, so we are enjoying it while it lasts. Here is what Talia thinks of her first day in the snow.





Our little angel will demonstrate how to make a snow angel.

First, lie down in the snow.



Second, make wings.



Third, make the angel's robe with your feet.



Finally, enjoy your handiwork and go inside to thaw by the fire.



Talia will now demonstrate how to make ice cream.



We decided to capture a family picture in the snow.



A couple friends came to visit.



Jon captured some of the beauty of the morning.







We're off to play!

Here Wii Are

This post is bound to be a hodge podge of photos and thoughts. Our days have been so filled that posting opportunities have elluded us. A sense of normalcy has returned, and with it comes my attempt to capture the activities of this last week. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the bumpy ride through our Christmas.



Probably the most popular material gift of the year was the Wii. Melody gave this exciting gift to Jim. Here are seven of the eight of us pictured as miis (Eric's mii was created after the photo). We played several games together and had a blast. Half the fun is watching the players really get into the game. I will admit that I take my playing very seriously, paying little regard to how ridiculous I look bouncing up and down and vigorously swinging at air. Talia was a little frightened by seeing her mommy and daddy shooting wildly at ducks, clay pigeons, and aliens. She cried for a minute or two. After that, she was as hooked the rest of us (although we tried to keep her from watching the screen too much). Another activity that we enjoyed was making miis for many of our faithful readers. That includes: Nikki, Daniel, Angie (aka Cheek), Mike, Evelyn, Brian, and Jen. Sorry, I didn't take your picture yet.

My parents came to visit. They had lots of play time with their grandbaby.







Beau was supposed to be in the previous picture, but he decided that posing for this picture was boring (at least you can see the top of him). Talia had a lot of fun being cuddled and loved for several days. She didn't even miss her solitary playtime.

Talia also got a great deal of attention from her other set of grandparents. We spent Christmas Eve and much of Christmas day at Jon's parents house.



Uncle Eric even got in on the fun.



Needless to say, Talia was very spoiled by family. The following are pictures of Talia opening presents. Here she is looking at some of them:



What you can't see in the following picture is Talia holding the edge of the paper while the gift is being turned. Yes, she helped open her own gifts.



You can see that opening gifts takes a lot of concentration when you are four months old.



Here is a picture of some of what she received from family near and far.



Talia doesn't even know how blessed she is. Mommy and Daddy are thinking that we will either need to buy or build a toy chest for Talia.

One of the joys of this Christmas was all the time Talia had with her daddy. Here they are playing:



Talia has been learning to "walk." Here she is walking on Daddy.



Daddy is teaching Talia concepts about print. She is learning tracking skills, directionality of print, and that the print contains the message. Okay, okay, Daddy and Talia are just trying to enjoy a good book. The kindergarten teacher in me jumps for joy (and so does the wife and mommy)!



Never underestimate the importance of cuddle time.



Mommy even got in on the fun (and, yes, that is spit-up).



Just for fun, here are a few more pictures of Talia from this last week.

Talia's hat helped Talia nap on her walk (she generally stays awake on her walks these days).



Imagine that her jungle is an engine and you could say with conviction that Talia is developing her fine motor skills.



As I mentioned in our previous post, Talia enjoys pushing herself backwards. Here is further proof.



Finally, a picture of our little family as we enjoy the celebration of our Savior's birth.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I sat down to begin another post on Friday. Before beginning, as is custom, I checked our Other Folks blogs. Nikki wrote a post entitled "Who Moved My Advent?" This post brought Psalm 46:10 to mind. I have been so busy with many activities, including getting ready for Christmas, that I have forgotten to reflect on the reason we celebrate. Last year's appreciation was so much more poignant. We were newly expecting, but frightened about losing the our tiny baby (three weeks of bleeding does not bode well for a first trimester baby). To a very small degree I imagined feeling like Mary; excited, hopeful, and scared. Nothing brings you humbly before the Lord like fear and pain. To God be the glory, this year Talia will be at our side as we celebrate Christmas. With all that I am striving to do this Christmas, I am praying to remember Nehemiah's words "the joy of the Lord is your [my] strength." And our lives are so full of amazing blessings, my joy should be in abundance.

I will attempt to bring you up to date with our recent activities. My next post will be about Talia (complete with more pictures). So here is what we have been doing:

Christmas Preparations

After buying our tree, Jon and I brought in our Christmas boxes. Jon put the lights on the tree (hence the light poll) and I began to decorate. To be honest, much of our decor is shoddy, either hand-me-down or Dollar Tree specials. Each year I get rid of more decorations in an attempt to decorate sparsely and nicely rather than copiously and cheaply. This year our decorations are limited to a wreath, a garland with poinsettias, Christmas linens in the kitchen and bathroom, a green tablecloth, seasonal candles and candle holders, Christmas CDs, and a two stockings (one more on the way, when we brave the holiday shopping).

I am finally home and able to make plates of Christmas goodies for the neighbors. Only one problem, our oven decided to opt out. Jon estimates that repairing the oven will be costly, based upon the price of the parts we would need to order. We have decided to wait until next year to buy a new oven and range. Sarah heard my plight and was kind enough to invite Talia and I over to bake at her house. We were amazed at how long it took to bake and care for two babies. Here is Sarah holding Talia and Anna.



Anna is fascinated by cameras, lucky for me:



We made chocolate cookies and press cookies. It was a deliciously fun day.

Over the next two days I went to Stroller Strides, had company, and made fudge and English toffee (no baking required). After Bible study on Friday, Jon and I attempted to pass out the six plates of goodies to our neighbors. We were able to pass out two. We tried again on Saturday, with similar success. Much to our disappointment, we concluded that two of our neighbors were on vacation and their goodies would be poor quality when they returned. What a shame, we had to eat them ourselves. And we did. They were consumed by Sunday night.

Another Christmas preparation was gifts. Without going into much detail, we worked on creating quite a few gifts. It was a fun project for Jon and I, but it took much longer than expected and we ran into a few snags.

Nevada City

We went to the Nevada City Victorian Christmas with Jon's parents. It is an event that occurs several Wednesday nights in December. The draw is the historic city lit for Christmas, booths with crafts and foods, carolers dressed in turn of the century attire, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and folks dressed up like Eskimos. It is a popular event, two of our neighbors, friends from church, and one of my past student's mom were all in attendance. Here we are in the restaurant:



Here is Talia and Grandma:



Here we are in front of a famous church:



I say famous because it (and much of Nevada City) is the setting of one of our favorite Christmas movies, The Christmas Card.

Illness

Talia is proof that breastfed babies do get sick. She and I got another cold. This time Daddy was spared. Fortunately this cold seemed to be short-lived and of minor severity.

Teaching

I just couldn't stay away from kindergarten. On Wednesday I was a guest teacher at Truckee Elementary. My friend, with whom I taught last year, invited me to teach a Hanukkah lesson at her new school. I really enjoyed being in Judy's classroom. It was fun to have kids fighting over holding my hands again :). While I had a great time and am happy that I was able to hone my rusty teaching skills, I realized how grateful I am to not have to plan and prep lessons every day. This particular classroom posed an additional challenge: It is a bilingual class. Most of the daily instruction is given in Spanish. I asked Judy if I could give my lesson in English since my Spanish is so sloppy that I would be a poor example to the kids. I tried to increase comprehension with visuals, props, participation, and gestures. Antes de ensenar, tuvia la oportunidad a charlar con los ninos en espanol. After the lesson we danced the Hava Nagila. Just a note, it was 17 degrees in Truckee that morning.

EBay

Another new adventure for us has been selling on EBay. We found several items around the house and granny flat to sell. It was a learning process but we seem to have made a nice profit. It has been a fun venture that we look forward to continuing (it is also a great way to get rid of all the stuff cluttering the granny flat).

Oh Tannenbaum

I chose the name of this post to suit our recent discussions. We have been playing Christmas music daily and talking about lyrics. One such song is, "Oh Tannenbaum." Jon and I don't know the words so we decided to invent them using a short list of the German words that we know. So we get lyrics such as "Oh Tannenbaum, oh tannenbaum, volksvagon vienerschnitzel. Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum, volksvagon vienerschnitzel. Eins drie kindergarten Veimar kampf. Miene Gewurztraminer kinder nacht. Oh tannenbaum, oh tannenbaum, volksvagon vienerschitzel." Go ahead, try it out. We mean no disrespect, of course.

Now to a more serious part of our post. On Sunday we went Christmas tree hunting. We have a 300 hundred acre tree farm in our own town. So Jon, Talia, Grandma T., Grandpa T., and I set off on the short drive to Red Feather. It was the perfect day for tree hunting as the weather had finally turned cold. It was also a popular day to go as we saw two families from church and many other families from all over the region. I think this farm is popular because it is one of the closest authentic and large tree farms for those in the Sacramento area. In addition to a variety of trees, Santa, a blazing fire, a small craft faire, spiced cider, and hot cocoa greet visitors. In years past, reindeer have also welcomed us. Here are a few pictures.

Here we are upon arrival.



We rode in a covered wagon to a more remote area to tree hunt.



We found a tree.



Then the three of us cut it down.



When the wagon came back for us, we put our tiny tree next to several very tall trees. On the way back we noticed that the cows had come home. We even caught one eating a decorative pumpkin off the porch.



Talia enjoyed her first sleigh ride.



Talia felt that it was an exhausting adventure, but well worth it since she now has lots of tiny lights to stare at.