Awesome week :)

Last week Matt only had to work on Tuesday ... hooray! Not only did we have a great time as a family, but we got an amazing amount of things accomplished.

Some of our family highlights included going sledding in a neighbor's backyard on their great sledding hill (before the warm temperatures melted all the snow!), having dinner with some other neighbors on New Year's Eve, goofing off around the house on New Year's Day, watching the Packers beat the Bears last night, and going to Olbrich Gardens and a Dave Landau show today (Matt doesn't have to go back to work until tomorrow). Also, Kate appears to have gotten two more molars in the past 48 hours (which is probably why she wasn't smiling in this picture).


Some of our accomplishments included Matt installing new rear wheel bearings and repairing a leaking thermostat housing on the truck (while I had taken the girls out and about a couple of mornings), taking down the Christmas decorations and lights (the lights have been known to stay up on houses here until the snow melts in March some years), doing a bunch of pre-cooking (making mixes, freezer meals, etc.), and running a whole host of errands one morning (this is MUCH easier with two adults).

You have to know Anna to truly appreciate the following pictures. Anna is a pretty reserved kid physically. We joke that she's been a perfectionist her whole life and how she started walking is a great example. When Anna was about a year, we knew she could stand by herself, but she flat out refused to stand unless she was holding on to something for reassurance. So we'd "trick" her into standing alone by putting sticks in her hands and then letting go of the sticks. Then we knew she could walk, but she still wanted the comfort of holding on to something. Until one day when she took about 5 steps, started to sit down, then looked at me, stood up, and kept walking. After that she was a walker. There really wasn't much transition time.


So now into the current story. Anna didn't want to jump off of things until sometime this past fall. Even then, it took a lot of concentration and guts for her to jump off of short objects. If something was taller than about 4 inches, she wanted to hold someone's hand. Until last week. One evening we got out our "jumping mattress" and I was encouraging Anna to jump off of the chair in her room onto the mattress whle holding my hands. Then I thought I'd try having her just hold on to the hand of a stuffed animal while I held the animal's other hand. Then I let go of the animal all together. Within about 2 minutes Anna had forsaken the stuffed animal and was jumping off of the chair onto the mattress all by herself. Since then, she's wanted to jump off of the couch onto the mattress almost every evening :) Fun stuff :)


I know that every kid is different and that there are many kids who need lots of encouragement to NOT jump off of the furniture (Kate will probably be one of those kids), but right now we're so proud of Anna for this accomplishment.

Unfortunately, I now need to embrace the reality that tomorrow my daily blessing of job-sharing with my wonderful husband these past two weeks will be over and Matt will be back at work. I'm sure I'll hear "I want Daddy" many many times (especially from Kate), but the girls and I will be sure to make our own memories and have our own fun.

Colba Christmas

We left after church on Christmas for our Colba Christmas celebration up at my parents' place. We all did surprisingly well considering we'd been celebrating Christmas for several days already and everyone's naps/sleeping was a bit out of wack to start with.

Highlights from this trip include:

Anna giving everyone the candy canes she made


Kate receiving her special animal to keep at Grandma's house (Anna has had Bunny there for awhile now)


Matt getting *another* dart gun (thanks, Adam!)


Going sledding in the back yard and tubing at Bruce Mound


Reading books with anyone who would read


Helping Grandma in the kitchen


Running laps :)

Christmas at home!

For the third year in a row we've been able to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at home. Hip, hip, hooray! We really enjoy building our family traditions and memories. So far the holiday includes a "fancy" dinner of appetizers and desserts before the Christmas Eve service at church. Then on Christmas morning we have our family's birthday muffins and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus before we go open presents. This year we were also able to go to church on Christmas morning.


Highlights this year were a yummy fruit salsa on Christmas Eve, having both girls *almost* make it through the service on Christmas Eve (Anna had to be removed during the second-to-last song), sleeping in until after 7 on Christmas morning (!), and watching Anna be thrilled about giving gifts to Daddy, Mommy, and Shadow.



Poor Anna asked on Christmas Day if "it will be spring tomorrow". Life for her seems to have been leading up so much to Christmas, I think that she'll be a bit disappointed with January :(

Waiting ...

Anna is reminding me how hard it can be to wait for Christmas when you're a kid. I'm not quite sure what she's expecting, either, but she's very aware of the countdown to Christmas, thanks to all of our Advent devotions and calendars.

Our big event last week was the children's Christmas program at church on Wednseday night. On the third Wednesday in Advent our church usually has a "Gift Night", when members can give gifts of song, poetry, stories, etc. to one another. A lot of the kids perform Christmas songs vocally or with instruments. Things were a little different this year since we were also going to have the rescheduled Christmas program. So during a yummy dinner of potluck style appetizers and desserts, we were the audience for anything from a 2 year old singing "Go, Tell it on the Mountain" to a 13 year old playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on his electric guitar. I love our church :)

Then the kids all got dressed up and everyone headed upstairs for the program. Anna did great as the cow, as far as we know. Unfortunately, Matt and I weren't able to see her since we were behind the curtain as puppeteers once again. Some people gave us a few pictures of her, but none ditigally yet. I'll try and post some if and when we get any. Anyway, it was definitely an eventful evening, but I think everyone had a great time.

Every year in Madison there are several special Christmas displays and events and each year our family has added a few more of these to our repertoire of December activities. Last week we went to Olbrich Gardens one afternoon to see their holiday garden scale train display. The girls were in awe; Kate kept running from one side of the room to the other (it wasn't a very big room) saying "Da twain is going!" Anna liked listening to the musical box car and kept asking me "Mom, do you recognize THIS song?" because, of course, she recognized them all.

One evening last week we also took the girls out in the truck to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights. Kate was hilarious. After the first few homes where Matt, Anna, or I would say "ooooh, I like that one", Kate proceeded to repeat "ooooooh, I yike dat one!" over and over again, no matter if she saw Christmas lights or just a street light :) Matt and I were cracking up.

On Friday I took the girls downtown to see the holiday tree in the Capitol rotunda before spending the morning at the children's museum. I think the girls liked the train going around the tree better than the tree itself ;)


I've also been trying to get the girls outside in the afternoons, albeit for only about a half hour or so. We really miss fresh air time! The girls are enjoying it enough, too, that Friday night we went sledding in the front yard after dinner with Matt for awhile.

This week, surpisingly, is going fast, even though most everything we normally attend is on break. A playdate yesterday morning, oil change and grocery shopping this morning, another playdate tomorrow, a visit to my old school on Thursday, and then Christmas Eve. Whew! Merry Christmas!

Snowy days

Although we got hit by the big midwestern snowstorm this past weekend, we *only* got about 8 inches of snow. We were far enough south that we just got some rain and drizzle on Friday night and Saturday before the snow really started to fall overnight on Saturday. Unfortunately, the cold and wind has been so severe that we haven't been able to have any fun outdoors time since this all began on Friday. Yuck. At least there are enough indoor activities going on this time of year to keep us from getting too stir crazy.

One of the more noteworthy ones for Anna and me occured on Friday night; it's also a perfect example of how God is working in our little girl's life to introduce and encourage all sorts of interests. But I must back up a bit to relate the whole story. A few weeks ago, I took Anna and Kate to a story tellers event at a local library. After seeing that Anna was completely engaged for the entire hour-plus performance, I thought she might be ready to see a live performance. However, neither Matt nor I know much about the different children's theater opportunities around here. So last week at story time, I asked the librarian (who happened to be one of the storytellers) if she could recommend any shows for kids. She mentioned something called Playtime Productions and told me she'd pass along some information in a few days. I didn't think much of it until we were running errands in McFarland on Friday morning and saw an advertisement for a Playtime Productions show that very night! A bit more than a coincidence, if you ask me, since this was their only McFarland performance all year.

So on Friday night Anna and I headed out for her first play, The Emperor's New Clothes, which didn't start until 7 p.m. (beginning of bedtime routine normally). The production was done entirely by 3rd-12th graders from the area and was a riot. I had a great time. Besides enjoying the production itself, I was blessed to have my little 3 year old on my lap the entire 90 minute stretch (she isn't big enough to hold down the auditorium chairs yet so we shared a chair). I think Anna really enjoyed herself, even if she didn't quite understand the plot. She certainly knew when to laugh and clap, and was pretty surprised at the end when all the actors/actresses came out into the audience to say hi to their friends :) I think we'll be keeping our eyes and ears open for other productions such as this.

This happened before all of the bad weather on Saturday and Sunday ... We were able to make it in to church on Saturday morning for the final dress rehearsal for the children's program, but the blizzard conditions on Sunday morning caused the program to be postponed until this coming Wednesday. Disappointing, but we made the most of our snow day on Sunday by making some cookies, doing some Christmas crafts, watching the Packers lose (boo!), and jumping around on the "jumping mattress".

Both Kate and Anna are absorbed by the Christmas story these days. Both girls know most of the songs for the children's program by heart. In fact, it's pretty amazing to hear Kate sing "Go, Tell It On The Mountain" and "Away in a Manger", verses and all. Anna can tell you all about Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, etc. Lately, she has been climbing up on a little table in the kitchen and pretending to be the angel "proclaiming" to the shepherds. Guess who gets to be a shepherd ... every time :)

This is our last week of activities before the Christmas break. We may have a long couple of weeks if the weather doesn't get a bit warmer so we can at least go outdoors for more than just getting into and out of the van.

That time of year again

I can't believe how busy our life seems to be, and we don't have kids who really have their own activities yet! In talking with a friend from church recently, I'm realizing that very soon we are going to have to start making conscious decisions about what to do (and what not to do) so that we don't become too busy and forget to enjoy the little things.

That being said, between holiday events and getting together with friends, at one point during the past week, we ate one dinner at our house in five days ... and that meal was left-overs. This week isn't going to be quite as hectic, but we'll still have the Advent meal and service on Wednesday and dinner at a friend's house on Friday. At least it makes meal planning and grocery shopping a little easier :)

One of the highlights from last week included dinner at a friend's house on Thursday. These are friends we've known since we first moved here and now there are four kids between us. Kind of crazy. We also participated in the Christmas in the Village here in McFarland on Saturday by attending the story time at the library, a craft time at a local church, the tree lighting downtown, and $1 burgers at Culvers for dinner ... yum! Another bright spot was our annual holiday party with our first Bible Study group we were a part of here in Madison. It was another surreal experience when we saw the 14 or so kids all camped out on the sofas watching a movie. Only one of them was born when we first arrived in Madison.



Because of some of these activities, we weren't able to get Kate out into our first snow of the season until this afternoon; Anna played outside for a bit with Matt and me while Kate was napping on Saturday. Kate wasn't too sure of the experience, but Anna worked so hard at being the big sister and showing her how to have fun.


Just to get the story straight, the matching coats were not planned. We picked up a winter coat for Anna this summer at a garage sale and then received the exact one as a hand-me-down from my cousin this fall. Total coincidence! But cute, nonetheless :)

The final highlight of the week was a visit by St. Nicholas last night! Backing up a bit ... we've struggled for the past few years with the "Santa question" and finally chose this year to follow the lead of some friends at church. We decided to learn the St. Nicholas legend and celebrate his "visit" before St. Nicholas Day and then reserve Christmas for celebrating Jesus' birthday.


After seeing Anna's excitment leading up to this morning (at 6:25 a.m. she was literally jumping up and down and spinning in circles begging to wake Kate up so we could open the front door and see was St. Nicholas left), I'm glad we've made this decision. Now it feels like the pressure is off a bit for the next few weeks and we can focus more on *giving* gifts and celebrating Jesus at Christmas.


The girls both got snow tubes, some candy, and snowmen ornaments that not only have their name on them, but they light up, too! (That's the blue, glowing item in Anna's hand :)

Anna's First Overnight Adventure

Friday night Anna experienced her first overnight adventure without Mom or Dad! I dropped Anna off with my parents on Friday afternoon and we didn't see her again until Saturday evening. This was quite a big event in our house; Anna had been talking about her "slumber party" with Grandma and Grandpa for weeks.

Overall, our little girl did great. She and my parents went to a farm to pick out their Christmas tree, watched a few Christmas videos, played games, "worked" in the woods, made some turkey cookies, and made some great memories. Anna wanted to call me (who she called an "awesome girl" to Grandma) on Friday night before she went to bed, but otherwise showed no signs of homesickness or orneriness.

Matt and I, on the other hand, didn't quite know what to do with ourselves and Kate. The house was very quiet. We ended up decorating for Christmas and thus had many surprises for Anna when she got home ... the tree, the lights, the decorations, etc. We also were able to do a bit of shopping on Saturday morning with just Kate, who is SO easy to shop with right now.

My parents stayed with us on Saturday night and stuck around on Sunday so my mom could come to our church's "Advent by Candlelight" with me on Sunday evening ... a short, but nice, visit.

Throughout all of this, Kate was battling a fever off and on. The poor kid just wasn't herself, to the extent that she wanted to simply lie down on the floor for much of Monday. By the time I was able to get her into the doctor's on Tuesday afternoon, of course the fever was gone. I guess it was just another one of those random childhood illnesses.

Now we just have to get everyone back into their real napping routines again after the sickness and the holiday weekend.