Quotable

Our New Year's Eve Plans made the newspaper!

Working

According to Kenzie, they both have "very important work to do."

Poof!

Our holiday season has been wonderful. But, it's almost anticlimactic, isn't it?? There is so much planning and anticipating... and then:



Poof!...it's all over. Phew.

Christmas was lovely, we celebrated Doug's 37th Birthday today, and we're hosting our New Years Eve extravaganza tomorrow evening. 2007 has been a great year, but we're looking forward to an even fuller year to follow.

On the first day of Christmas...

My mom, Kenzie's Nana, is where all my creative juices come from. She's just amazingly clever and creative. This year she came up with the idea of sending Kenzie goodies to the tune of "The twelve days of Christmas."

Here's how it panned out: Each day we commenced with song (Nana made it clear that the singing of the song was NOT optional. :) and then opened the gift bag which corresponded with each day. We started on the 13th and will be ending on Christmas Eve.

On the first day of Christmas...My Nana sent to me:



A Santa Coloring book..

*****

On the second day of Christmas.. My Nana sent to me....



Two whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

*****

On the third day of Christmas...My Nana sent to me....



Three fingernail polishes..
Two whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

****
On the fourth day of Christmas...My Nana sent to me...



4 snowman stickers..
Three fingernail polishes..
two whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

*****
On the fifth day of Christmas... My Nana sent to me...



5 funky panties
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

*****
On the 6th Day of Christmas, my Nana sent to me..



6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

*****
on the 7th day of Christmas...my Nana sent to me:



7 fun things to do..
6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties..
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

(wow..this day was the motherload of fun little stuffs!! :)

****
On the 8th day of Christmas, my Nana sent to me...



8 honey sticks..
7 fun things to do..
6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties..
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

****
On the 9th Day of Christmas, my Nana sent to me:



9 yummy suckers..
8 honey sticks..
7 fun things to do..
6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties..
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

*****
On the 10th day of Christmas, my Nana sent to me....



10 twisting crayons..
9 yummy suckers..
8 honey sticks..
7 fun things to do..
6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties..
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

*****
On the 11th day of Christmas...my nana sent to me...



11 Chocolate coins
10 twisting crayons..
9 yummy suckers..
8 honey sticks..
7 fun things to do..
6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties..
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

****
On the 12th Day of Christmas...My Nana sent to me:



12 Fruit Leathers
11 Chocolate coins
10 twisting crayons..
9 yummy suckers..
8 honey sticks..
7 fun things to do..
6 bouncy balls..
5 funky panties..
4 snowman stickers..
3 fingernail polishes..
2 whirling toys..
& a Santa Coloring book.

****
Now that we've finished the activity, I can honestly say that it was a blast. Kenzie looked forward to each surprise, of course...and was able to reconcile how far away Christmas was with the passing of the days. Nana even made sure that all foodstuffs were organic products. Well done Nana!!!!

Soon

...yeah.
she's pretty excited.

The end of advent

To close up the advent season, we finished our junkadoodle:


Snowman Junkadoodle: Kenzie painted, Mama assembled

We finally treated ourselves to our pedicures, and oh my green-ness, guess what color Kenzie chose for her toes?? Daddy was going to come too, but at the last minute we left him home to paint in the nursery. Ahhhhhh... it was HEAVEN.



We've got our Reindeer food ready and are looking forward to some family time fun tomorrow evening.

Reindeer food recipe:
1/2 cup of Bird seed
1/4 cup of Cheerio's
several generous pinches of colored glitter

Rumor has it the glitter attracts the reindeer, who like to munch on the yummy mix (which is safe for birds to eat). Just sprinkle in the yard on Christmas Eve.

Nesting

Doug's taken the next week off from work for the holidays. On his agenda - was to get moving on the nursery. He and his little helper started painting it today in a gender-neutral yellow. He drew large shapes on the walls to keep Kenzie and her paint under control.

*** the carpet will be replaced with hardwoods, which is why we're unconcerned about Kenzie painting in there. :)

Advent: December 16-22

Another weekly rundown of our household advent activities:

** we made some gifts for teachers and a few extra special friends in her preschool class. These are the bits & bobs for making snowman finger-puppets. The ribbon attached to the bag is a homemade corker ribboned hair tie. (for the girlfriends of course).



As part of the teacher's gifts, she made the yummy pretzel-rolo-precan treats (in costume yet again..)that we also made last year... The recipe is on the bottom of the archive found here .



We had our annual picnic in front of the Christmas tree. Kenzie took setting the scene very seriously. Last year, we ate on the floor in true picnic style. This year, due to eating spaghetti...and her Mama's big belly... we ate our picnic on an ottoman table. :)




*****
We learned, again, how to say Merry Christmas in sign language.

*****
We went for a drive to see the neighborhood Christmas lights.

*****
We picked out a coat, glove & hat set to be donated to a child in need, through the Blue Valley School District.

****
We had a fancy hot-chocolate @ Starbucks.

****
We'd planned a reindeer junkadoodle, however, drew the next activity which read: make a snowman out of snow or paper. We're gonna junkadoodle one instead. :)

60 degrees

It's lovely and 60 degrees-ish outside, but we've got snow predicted for tomorrow. So, we've spent the bulk of our day outside walking and playing at the park.



It was perfect weather for a "Mama! SAVE ME from the alligators" under the slipper-slide game!

The Shortest Little Preschool Concert..

Here are some not so terribly great photos of Kenzie's class singing Christmas Carols today...for all of about five minutes. She's on the back row, fourth child from the left. Her class consists of the 12 kids in the back row. Her bestest little girlfriend, Ellie, is sitting three children down on the right (her left). They are sitting in order of their assigned seats as they fall on the classroom "circle."



They did three songs, one in sign language. Terribly cute stuff.
So cute, that it was almost heart wrenching to watch. I felt myself feeling emotional and as I was just about to chalk it up to "hormones," Kenzie's Nana announced she was just about ready to cry too.

The Best Part was seeing the pride on my little gal's face. She enjoyed herself very much.

FUN

Here, I've just received my orders... "Mama, Lay Down." A Kenzie-girl is perched up by my head counting how many times the pony nearly gets bucked off. She thinks it's great fun to test the baby's kicks with various sized ponies, dinosaurs, etc.

Can't say I mind the relaxful moments....

daredevil(s)

Our second snow landed today, giving my daredevils some slippery time fun.

Advent: December 9-15

Another week in advent activities:

**We invited family over to go on a sleigh ride in our neighborhood put on by our home owners association. We had a blast last year - but it got canceled this year due to slick streets. So, after learning of the cancellation - we came home and enjoyed hot apple cider and fried snowflakes. They were delicious and terribly cool looking - but the best photos I took were of my nephew enjoying them (whom I do not post here).

The yummy recipe:
8 flour tortillas
Butter OR oil
Powdered sugar or cinanamon sugar.

Fold Tortillas into quarters. Cut as you would a paper snowflake. Or, use Christmas cookie cutters to create shapes. If using butter, spread it evenly on each side of tortilla. If using oil, prewarm it before dropping tortillas in. Fry tortillas in a frying pan until lightly browned. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar.

**We took some family photos of us in the ornament, which didn't turn out quite as I'd wished as far as Christmas card images go:





**We've also painted Kenzie to look like a reindeer, only to have misplaced the antlers to complete the ensemble. An itchy nose required we un-paint the face before we found them!



**We also had a snow day from school which postponed our pedicure. (note the ice all over the trees?) So, we made our family scrooge-like and into elves instead.

**We had one of Kenzie's favorites, hot chocolates with candy cane stirs.
**We've done our share of Christmas crafts. Up next though, I do believe we'll tackle a reindeer junk-a-doodle!

Christmas Cards

Today, our world is encased in ice, preschool was canceled, kenzie found some unwrapped Christmas gifts, & we've also spent a great deal of time making this little image (minus the pixelated last name) for our Christmas cards.



THEN - We discovered it doesn't print properly, so we'll be sending this one out instead.



Bah! Humbug!
Merry Holidays to everyone who reads this blog though!

Advent: December 1-8, 2007

I've decided to do a weekly rundown of our advent festivities since our pictures are not fabulous (but still nice memories) and it may make the task of documenting our Advent more manageable!

This week we've:
** Watched a Christmas movie while eating way too much popcorn (on two nights). We watched Rudolph and Charlie Brown, and both are amongst Kenzie's most favored and requested shows now.



** Kinda sat on Santa's lap. This is the closest she's ever been to the Jolly 'ole man. That's her Nana holding her, and her nephew/aunt was on the other side of Santa but we've preserved their privacy...



**Written letters to Santa. Very quickly. She had that baby written, decorated, enveloped...licked and stamped before I could even grab the camera. Rumor has it that she wants "a new white tiger." Hmmn... don't know how Santa's gonna manage that one. Don't tigers eat Reindeer? :)

** Began practicing our annual family photo as captured in the reflection of a Christmas ornament. We've also spent a ridiculous amount of time driving around to random stores in hopes of finding the best-most-reflective-photographic-ornament-on-the-planet. And failed on most of our trips. But, we've found one that will at least be usable.



** Used Christmas Cookie Cutters on Breakfast toast (while dressed in costume, of course)





** I've also done a ridiculous amount of "peeking" at the next activity and rearranging them for better days when Kenzie sleeps. I've moved our pedicure outing TWICE now! :) And, I'm actually excited about that one!

We also inserted a trip ice skating to Crown Center instead of taking our family photo. We're going to make that one up on another day, since it was gloomy and rather dark on the day we drew it. Kenzie had a blast ice skating - although she was done after one looooong lap.....

First Snow

...and what she didn't eat....
she enjoyed very much!!

Does this look deceptively delicious???

Kenzie is a pretty good eater compared to some kids I've met. But, it can still seem like a chore to get her to ingest raw veggies. She has some preferred favorites that are always winners - but the rest on the menu go untouched without a war.

I've had grand notions of trying Jessica Seinfeld's new book to solve this problem. We spent this day making purees out of the veggies Kenzie dislikes most, but which I thought I could get away with inserting into her favorite foods (like spinach into pesto sauce!). Kenzie helped like a good little girl, although I didn't inform her what the point of turning all the veggies into a fine mush was all about...



She gagged TWICE at the smell of squash alone. But, she did it with a smile on her face while pushing blender buttons.
Yep....we're off to a good start!