The Christmas Episode

 I'm not really wrapping up Christmas yet... because it's not quite over.  We celebrate all the way to Epiphany.  However, I may not have the energy to post by then as I've got a wedding tomorrow and lots of editing to follow. 

We started Christmas Eve out with brunch at our dear friends (have I mentioned how awesome it is to live a block away from friends?  I love it!) and watching the Broncos game (the boys are trying to pretend it didn't happen).  Mommy made the mistake of not bringing many toys for our little one... which meant a whole lot of cranky by the end.

We gave Anni her little present while our potato soup bubbled in the crock pot.  Her first reaction was a very cranky stare-off (trust me, the video is not pretty), but once Daddy showed off that the cars could roll and crash, it was all gravy.

We continued the tradition of Daddy reading The Night Before Christmas.  This started as a tradition when I was growing up.  As far back as I can remember, we would gather all the candles we owned into the living room and light them.  Then, by the glow of those candles, my daddy would read us The Night Before Christmas. 

Christmas morning, Anni awoke (with a clatter) at six o'clock.  Yeah, it was a little early.  We had some great plans to reveal her big gift (a kitchen), but when we did it, she was pretty cranky.  This seems to be a theme in our gift-giving process.  However, Daniel and I demoed (is that how you spell that?  no way...)  it and she got into it pretty quickly.  The early wake-up call turned out to be a blessing so Miss Anni (um... and her parents) could play with her sweet new kitchen.

By the way, we love this kitchen (wooden and non-toxic paint); however, if you do buy it, be forewarned that it took my husband (with a little help from me) three hours to put together.
 

This face makes it worth it.

The Christmas Day ensemble.  Nonna finished it off by bringing red sparkly shoes when she met us for Mass. 

Miss Anni spent a lot of our visit taking the ornament she gave Nonna and Papa off the tree, pulling the hanging loop off, and delivering it to an adult to fix.  (She even learned the word fix, she did it so much.)

We were all thoroughly spoiled.

And just when we thought we were all done, Papa came down the stairs with a "stay at Nonna's" present.  Miss Anni's very own castle, where she played peek-a-boo to her heart's content.  (And, while I'm really not into the whole princess thing, it's really the overly plastic and cheap Disney princess stuff that bothers me, so we had a whole lot of fun.)  

Anni loves the piano, which works out well, because Daddy loves it too.  She likes to run to it from the other room, bang out a few notes and turn around with a big, "YAY!", encouraging us to clap for her brilliance.  When Daddy plays she likes to sit right next to him.

Outfit courtesy of Nonna... I absolutely love it.  And, there she is pulling her ornament apart again.

"The Lip" has made itself known recently.  We blame teething, but kind of love it.

Anni discovered that she loves Raffi this weekend.  Nonna dug out Daddy and Uncle David's old tapes  and we all clapped and danced until we were thoroughly exhausted.



Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Merry Christmas from the Volks

Snow Day

We got 7 inches of snow in the night and it's still falling.  Which means... snow day!  Because my hubby works in the mountains, he waited to hear if anyone else had tried to make it up and heard back it was probably best to work remotely.  So, while he is working while he's home, we gained all the time he normally takes to get ready and drive to work to play.  Our apartment was a happy place this morning.

 I love that our girl loves reading.  When I was little, I would get lost in books.  I spent two or three of my pre-teen years locked (figuratively speaking, there wasn't a lock on my door) in my room, until my mom or sister took away the book to make me do chores or be involved in something the family was doing.  I think I was one of the only students in my high school lit class who read every single scrap of paper we were given to read - books, poems, plays... everything.  I loved it.  I still do, but I don't have the luxury of locking myself away to devour my favorite books.  When I do get a new book in my hands, I tend to stay up all night just to finish it.  I used to write poetry... and I liked it.  I sometimes think I was good at it, but I haven't written since I was pregnant, and while I sometimes miss it, I don't think I can force it... someday I'll want to do it again, and maybe I will.

In the meantime; though, I get to write our story... and that's good enough for now.

Husband = awesome

Sometimes, when Anni wakes up early, my husband will get out of bed, feed her breakfast, read her books, and be a generally amazing daddy while... I sleep.  That's right, sometimes I'm downright lazy and my husband is downright awesome and I just override the mama guilt and sleep.

He's awesome for a million and one other reasons, even though he doesn't have to be.

I love him :).  (smiley face emoticon and all)

Happy Monday!

Giveaway

Hey, folks!  Just a little heads up that I'm hosting a little giveaway through my business at Zana's Ninis.  You could win a sweet Organic Blooms ornament.

Sometimes, there is sadness.

I like to talk a lot about the happy things in life; because, who wouldn't rather talk about those than the sad things? 

Recently, there has been a lot of happiness.  My little facebook newsfeed has been filled with births, engagements, and all of the precious things in life.

There has been a lot of sadness, too.  Phone calls and quick messages whisper the news, as if everyone is afraid that if they say it too loud, it will become too real.  More mamas and daddies than should ever have to say good-bye to their babies.  One mama, delivering their sweet little boy soon after they named him and found out he was dying and then gone. 

I don't really have words.  I wish my words could wrap up the all the hurt and pain and slip it away from them.  I am safe in my warm little apartment with my sweet little family, but they have had their hearts ripped away, and I wish I could stop it.

I wish I could stop it all.

Stream of Consciousness

 

I'm a little on the scattered side of things today.  Prepare for an entry along the same lines. 

Anni's big Christmas present came in a big box.  The perfect place to color to her little heart's content.  It's the first time I've really seen her going to town with the crayons... I kind of love it.

One day we just decided to decorate.  Our tree is a little bit on the Charlie brown side of things.  Why, you ask?  Because the first year we put it away, we somehow lost a leg and each year after we've tried to compensate for it with heavy books to balance the tree out.  This year, we had to graduate to bricks... except those bricks broke off another leg.  Now our tree is leaning against the wall, waiting for a new stand.

But some pretty bokeh fixes that, right?

On Sunday we drove four hours through the mountains to Mesa State University to watch a friend play percussion in their Christmas concert.

The view made the drive totally worth it.

And this little girl?  Was a total trooper.  We remembered the baby this time, and she cuddled and "shushed" her to sleep.

She very briefly stayed in her seat to watch the show... but a good portion of the time we sat outside the doors and she clapped as the performers ran out to get ready for the next part of the show.  However, she did fall asleep near the end, so both Daniel and I got to watch Erika work her magic as she ran from instrument to instrument.

 

You can see her in the very back middle peeking over the rest of the band.  It was a lot of fun!

After a rather large dinner, we made the four hour drive back home, admiring the same mountains in the moonlight.  It was beautiful.

end scene.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

The St. Nicholas Day tradition we now do with Nugget is one that both Daniel and I had when we were little.  We both always had oranges in our stockings, though I don't think I knew the symbolism until I was in college or later.  The symbols we put in Anni's stocking (as well as a few other fun things) are a candy cane to represent St. Nicholas' bishop staff and oranges and chocolate gold coins to represent the gold he left for the three sisters for their dowry.  Anni's favorite thus far?  Her foot book and the gold coins (definitely an easy chocolate for her to eat).  We also had some treats in our stockings, but it's not as fun to watch us open them :).

*I just realized I called the bishop's staff a mitre in the video (which is actually his "hat")... oops!  Just pretend I was still sleepy eyed from having just woken up.

Rosettes - we made them!

Today my sweet friend Sarah came over to visit.  We decorated the tree a little and made these super cute rosette bracelets/sashes "following" this tutorial.  I had seen these around on headbands and sashes, but didn't know they were so simple to make!  Really, we just glanced at the tutorial and then started off, making both of these within an hour.  I think we did great for our first attempt!  We made a cute bracelet for Sarah (see above) and a sash for Anni (below).  Anni's obviously isn't really meant to go with that outfit, but I wanted to show off how cute it will be (looks like I need to trim the backing a little).  The biggest piece of advice I would have if you try to make your own is to keep in mind that the rosettes will have big gaps in between if you don't almost overlap them.  Welp, that's about all I've got.  Miss Anni has been sick all week and we've missed all of our normal outings and will be missing an ugly sweater party tomorrow, so it was really nice to have a friend keep us company.  Here's to a weekend of recovery (and gingerbread... because we need to pretend we're partying even if we can't go to one)!

Babies Don't Keep

Babies Don't Keep

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Published in 1958 in Ladies Home Journal under the title “Song for a Fifth Child”

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Thanksgiving: Crafty and family filled... nothing better.

I know I'm a few days late on our Thanksgiving update, but I've been away from my computer... and what's a fun blog post without pictures of equally fun and adorable kiddos?

We started our journey on Tuesday night, driving a few hours with a very tired baby refusing to sleep and finally stopping at a hotel three miles after she fell asleep.  Wednesday, we finished off the drive and arrived at the home I had grown up with.  I'm going to tell you now - I was lucky growing up. I grew up in a family that was loud, a little bit quirky (okay, a lot bit) with a whole lot of love. 

And on that day that home offered a very long nap for our sweet little and then an epic dance party with her cousin Charlie.

 I mean epic.

Then I spent the night churning out a little project, more on that later.


Thanksgiving day was about the pigtails and turkey dress....

Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade with her milk and cheerios.

then breakfast at my sister's with pecan rolls, yogurt parfaits, quiche and sweet littles...

And... our annual family picture...

Not that the babies were thrilled about their picture, but all of the adults standing around yelling "YAAAY!" as loud as they could did confuse them long enough to snap one.

From there I finished my project.  Everyone in the family sent me an email telling me why they were thankful for each other member of the family.  I then compiled the lists and printed them for each member, glued them to pretty paper and marked their places at the table with them.  (There is another table to the right of this one).

    (If you've never seen someone strategically plan seating placement for 19 people, 7 of whom are little ones... you've never seen genius in action.  One of my brothers and my oldest sister magically did this).  I think everyone really enjoyed having that little piece of familial love to take home.


It was most fun reading it to the little ones.  I got to watch my niece's face light up as I explained that these were the reasons everyone was thankful for her.

Oh, and I made turkey cookies, stemmed from a small addiction to pinterest.   They were adorable, if I do say so myself and the kids loved them.

 There was also just a little twinkle of Christmas as well.  Because we won't see my side of the family for Christmas, we gave them their gifts now.  I love giving gifts, so here's hoping they loved them, because it was so much fun to see them open them :).

Then I took a little trip with my daddy to cheer on our Cornhuskers.  I hadn't gotten to go to a game with him in two years, so it was awesome being back.

It was a little nostalgic as well.  The lumberyard we always meet my uncles before and after games (where my Uncle has been manager for years and years) is moving and this building is getting torn down for the new arena.   It's funny, I've been going to games for 15 years, and this walk is so very familiar to me.  We always sat at the same table, in the same chairs and ate popcorn while we waited for the parking to clear and the trains to pass.  After the game, I would listen to my dad and his brothers talk about the game, and by listen, I mean half listen.  The truth is, I love my team and I love going to games, but I'm not all that overly passionate about football in general. 

After a late-night arrival home, we spent the next day hanging out with my sister and taking some really fun shots for her etsy shop. Twinkly Christmas lights make everything a little more magical. 

Anni also made sure to leave her hand prints all over the glass doors.  

Have I mentioned my husband is an amazing daddy?  Well, he's a great Uncle, too.  This scene makes me all the more excited that he's the one raising our baby with me. 

And then, we ended our trip the same way we started.  Dance Party.

Epic.