Holiday Rundown

This was the first year Bill and I have been away from family for Christmas, and also the first year we had kids old enough to appreciate the whole experience. Last year Spencer liked opening presents, but he didn't get much else about it. This year he was way more into it, and it was so fun. It's been a really long time since I've enjoyed the Christmas season with kids around, and it made it so magical, just like when I was a kid.

Christmas PJs from the grandparents!

This is the smile I got when I asked him to smile for the picture. Cheeseball!

As is only right, this is the best photo I got of them together. Hand in  mouth, Spencer looking somewhere else. Awesome.

Since we were on our own, we sat down one night a few days before Christmas to decide what we wanted to do. We both have family traditions we like that we wanted to pull in. We wanted to try some new things too. We'd been doing an advent calendar of mine that I've done since I was a kid. It's a poem attached to a length of cloth with ties on it that have a piece of candy tied in each one, culminating at a bell for Christmas Eve. The poem is probably ten lines long. I've always been impressed with Spencer's memory. It's uncanny how fast he learns things. After just a few days he already had pieces of the poem memorized, and by the end he could essentially say the whole thing by himself with just a word prompting here and there. It was amazing. He loved it. He always wanted to know when we could do December the 1st, which is what the poem is called. It was fun. Genevieve knew it as the giver of Andes mints, and that was good enough for her. :)

We decided to try an idea online we found for Christmas Eve, called a Jerusalem dinner. Basically the concept was to have a simple meal that might have been like one in Jerusalem, and read the Christmas story from Luke to get in the spirit. Our interpretation of it was we purchased a bunch of fancy cheeses, sausage, hummus, grapes, crackers, made some simple fish (salmon with olive oil, salt, and pepper), and some sparkling juice with apple juice for the kiddos. We laid it all out on some ethnic looking blankets we have in our living room, plus a bunch of pillows, and lounged there while we ate. We did it mid afternoon when the kids are in their best mood and it was wildly successful, way better than I expected! The kids loved it. They loved the novelty. They ate a bit of food here and there while they ran around and I'm pretty sure to them it was heaven. Lol. Bill read Luke 2 and we had a grand old time. Later that evening we drove out to find some Christmas lights to look at. We live in a pretty rural area with no real neighborhoods to go to, but we discovered that the downtown section of a nearby city was beautifully decorated, and we had a lovely time checking it out. The kids like to take car rides, so it was perfect all around. After that we headed home and put them to bed.

Checking out the deliciousness.

Genevieve knows how to live it up.

Spencer is rightfully amazed by how awesome our meal is. :)

Then Bill and I got to help Santa for the first time ever. It was awesome, just like when I was growing up. Christmas morning dawned bright and early. The kids slept til 7AM, which was nice. They headed out to find awesomeness from Santa in the living room. The dollar store was a magical place of puzzles and dinosaurs and animal figures and balls and bubbles this year and Santa must have done all his shopping there. :) He brought personal boxes of cereal, peanuts, M&Ms, oranges, fruit snacks, granola bars, and gummy bears as well. The kids loved it. They ate more food Christmas morning than I've ever seen either one of them consume. Grandma and Grandpa sent a pair of personal recliners for the kids that are pretty much the coolest things they've ever had. They had plenty of fun gifts to open too. There were lots of books, a few games, some new clothes, you know, the typical Christmas haul. Bill and I got some great gifts too, which is always lovely.

I like this cereal...and this chair. :)

Guys, look at all the good food here!

See? Genevieve loves her daddy.

More cheesy grins for the camera.

Genevieve needed a little coaxing to discover all the awesomeness in her stocking.

Another attempt at a together photo. At least they're both looking at the same thing. :)

We spent most of the rest of Christmas just relaxing. We made the traditional Ashman family Christmas breakfast of crepes with butter and sugar, plus some bacon to round it out. The kids were so gut stuffed I don't think they even ate a bite. lol! We paid for that later in the day when they were crankier than anything, but heck, they had a great Christmas morning! We got to talk or webcam with a bunch of our family and it was just a lovely day. I really enjoyed not traveling anywhere. The older our kids get, the nicer it is just to be in the familiar surroundings of our own home with them on these holidays. Don't get me wrong, I love to have family around, but I'd just as soon invite them to our house these days. I've discovered I like entertaining. Any family want to come spend Christmas in South Carolina next year? I can promise lovely weather, a choice of at least three airports to fly into, great food, and three adorable kids to snuggle with. It might be a tad squishy in our apartment, but hey, the more the merrier.

They love their chairs. It makes me happy.

Discovering the wonders of the Hoberman sphere.

Genevieve loves it too.

There's something so tempting about putting it on your head. Bill is seemingly tempted by this too, though I didn't catch it on camera. :)

Movie time!

My kids love each other. They always sit as close together as possible. It makes me smile. And my new duvet cover makes me smile too. :)

Since Christmas we've had a fantastic week, with a few minor glitches. Bill has worked a bit throughout the break, but nothing too time consuming. He decided to read Lord of the Rings this break and I picked up a bunch of books from the library from my favorite authors. We've been voraciously devouring them and the kids have been surprisingly willing to let us read while they play. I call that a piece of heaven. :)
Spencer had an allergic reaction to something he ate on Christmas, and broke out with hives. Genevieve got an ear infection. I spent the day after Christmas from 10:30 to 5PM either at the doctor's office for one of them or shuttling back and forth. No sooner had I gotten home from taking Genevieve that Spencer had broken out in the hives, so back I went with him instead of her. Good thing I like my pediatrician and her office. They were slammed that day, which is why it took so long. I also unfortunately probably four days ago came down with a killer sinus cold. It's morphed each day, but the one constant is I've had some form of horrible headache the entire time. It's been awful, but Bill has been wonderful taking care of all the general running of things and I couldn't be more blessed to have him around to help when I feel so terrible. This is the first morning I woke up without a headache to speak of. I have a crazy cough, but yesterday every time I coughed it sent waves of pain through my head, so I'm not complaining about having the headache gone.

The best part about this break, though? We still have a whole week of it to go! Here's to getting over our sicknesses, Bill not getting sick, and hopefully getting out of our house a bit to enjoy the lovely weather and freedom to do a few things all together.

Christmas Program Sunday

We had our Christmas program at church today. It included four choir numbers. Bill and I both like to sing, so we both participate in choir, thanks to some lovely people in our ward that run a nursery every single week during choir practice. Bless them!

It's always a little tricky we actually get up to sing though as both of us are going up there so who's going to watch our two kids?  It's no big deal with Genevieve. She's just chill and will play with whoever happens to be holding her, especially if they're giving her food. :) Spence, on the other hand, is going through a hard core I-only-want-to-be-with-mom-and-no-one-else-if-she-is-around phase. He likes dad just fine, but if given the option, he will nearly always choose to sit or be with me. It's a little awkward on the rare occasion that I leave somewhere without him and he cries even though he's staying with dad, but hey, he's his own person and he's allowed to be bothered about things. He'll get past it eventually and we'll all be fine. He's totally okay being with other people if I'm not there. He just really, really likes me. It's touching. Lol.

So yeah, back to church today. Another trait about Spencer that is so very nice is that he's super reasonable. He has opinions and he will share them if asked. He decided a while back that he would rather come up and sing with us than sit and play with whoever we happen to be sitting by, generally my awesome friend Trisha who is so nice to take care of my kids. So today was no exception. I asked him if he wanted to stay and play with her awesome toys, totally trying to sweeten the deal, and he wasn't even slightly tempted. He wanted to come up with us and sing and he wanted to sit on my lap. He wanted me to hold him, not stand  by me. So that's what we did. He's getting over a raging cold/ear infection, which is mostly gone, but he's still tired from it, and he literally just sat quietly in my lap for the entire time from the sacrament ending to the meeting being over. It was amazing. I brought some toys up for him and he didn't even touch them. We had a great program. The choir numbers all went fantastically well, the speakers were lovely, Spencer was chill, Genevieve had a great time with my friend and her daughter, and it was just nice. Afterward we actually brought the kids home since Spencer could really use rest more than two hours in nursery. He absolutely loves nursery and I asked him if he wanted to go there or go home and he said go home, which is totally not what I thought he'd say, so obviously he's still not feeling 100%. It was an all around good day, particularly considering the circumstances.

And in honor of Christmas, the kids wore Christmasy outfits. This is how taking pictures of it went:

Hi Mom. I like my dress.

Hey Spencer, go stand by Genevieve and show your cute Sunday outfit. No, not in front of her!

So I moved over to see both of them.

So he squished her against the wall and thought he was so funny.

Then she cried and shoved him away. Yup, that about sums them up. He tries to squish her, she gets feisty, and really, they totally adore each other.

Christmas Tree Hunting

We went and cut down our Christmas tree yesterday. It's not that easy to actually go out to a national forest and cut one down, so we went to a farm, and it was so fun. I had no idea how different the native Christmas trees would be here. I should have taken a picture of the farm we went to, but only one of the varieties was even a pine. There was a cedar as well as a couple juniper varieties, and not a single tree that looks like a classic tree with lots of different sectioned branches. They would shave them so they looked like a perfect cone Christmas tree shape. Very weird, but we embraced it and went with the closest thing to what seems like a Christmas tree, the white pine.

The kids LOVED the trip. I caught myself marveling that they're big enough to wander around the farm on their own. Genevieve got tired eventually, but Spencer trekked around the farm the entire time, even carrying the measuring pole most of the time. He was so excited to, in his words, "chop down a truffula tree with one chop!" There were tiny, tiny trees that he would "chop" down with the  measuring pole. We got a video, but it's not uploading, so pictures will have to suffice. It was hilarious and both he and Genevieve loved it.

Watch out, Genevieve!

Lumberjack in the making.

I still marvel at the fact that I have a redhead. This is the perfect weather to show it off, plus how feathery her hair is. The crown of her hair is always just floating around like a little halo.

She wanted to help carry the pole. It took a little convincing for Spencer to realize she wasn't stealing it. 

Look at those crazy looking trees! Oh, and the cute baby.

He was in heaven. I guess we should get out more.

Chop down a truffula tree with one chop! 

They were fascinated. This tree cut like butter too.

"Dad, what are you doing? Whatever it is, I want to be right next to you while you're doing it." 

I could've called this. She was thoroughly displeased.

Much better. Spencer told Santa he wanted to open a present for Christmas. Good boy. Your wish is our command. :)

The final product. I love how all the branches point up. They're strong too, so we actually were able to hang all but our most heavy ornaments. The kids love it. Spencer is determined that it is his truffula tree. We're trying to convince him it's a Christmas tree, but so far no luck.

And this is what Genevieve has spent a good portion of the afternoon doing, sitting on top of our box of DVDs, pretending to eat out of her already finished yogurt container. Simple pleasures. She has a surprisingly long attention span.

Bat Eyebrows, Good Helpers, and Good Food

What, you don't wear bat stickers as eyebrows and mustache? 

You can't see her eyebrows, so we thought we'd make them a little more pronounced.

Best helper ever. She's not in the picture, but Genevieve pulls the stuff out of the dishwasher, gives it to Bill, who gives it to Spencer to put away.

He loves it.

See? Told you. He's seriously in heaven putting things away. It tickles his order need.

Look of pure joy.

Now time for the glasses. Not only is he helping, but he's precariously standing on the sink, which the little crazy kid in him adores.

I'll have a little french fry with my ketchup.

First time trying ketchup was a rousing success. She literally used the french fries as a spoon and only bit into them every third or so bite. lol

A vacation day in pictures

Watching the Lorax first thing in the morning. Bill discovered the secret to getting Genevieve to stay. Just put a pillow on top of her and she'll chill for a good 20 minutes watching the movie. :)

Jumping on the newly assembled bed.

A little bit of wrestling thrown in the mix. 

I love these stockings so much. I have another one finished besides other than the name that is a tin solider, so I guess that means this next baby needs to be a boy. :) 

We don't have that many Christmas decorations yet, but I have a few I brought home from Russia and I love this matrioshka nativity.

I like to collect one of these santas each year if I can swing it. They're not cheap outside of Russia, so I've actually only bought one since we got married. The two on the left I bought while I was there. But I plan to keep that collection growing over the years.

The kids love that bell tree. I showed them how to shake it to get it to ring and they both think that's the best thing they can do. It's so loud and hilarious.

Advent calendar just waiting for the Andes mints to fill up all those ribbons.

Someday I'll get the willow tree nativity set that I just love, but this is a cute little one we got a couple years ago that does just fine.

That started out on a table and swiftly went higher when the kids nearly tore it apart on first touch.

The whole front room.

Bathtime! Finally a good smile from Spencer. Nothing from Genevieve.

Crazy eyes.

Oh, smile from Genevieve!

OMG, is it possible? Yes! Both kids are smiling in the same photo! That may be the first photo I have ever gotten of both of them smiling. lol

I never thought we'd finish, but the bed is done!

This project has dragged on longer than any other building project I've done. That might be because it's also the biggest one I've ever done, but then there was morning sickness and two kids under foot and let's just say it took a really long time to finish all the details. Today was the day though and we did it! I ended up doing most of the work on the bed, and I built the headboard, but Bill took over doing the finish on the headboard and it turned out beautiful.  It's a little darker than the frame because I didn't mix the stain well enough when I first did my staining, but it all looks great put together.

We made lots of modifications on this thing. When I originally built the base I discovered after it was completely done that it was a few inches too long, which was horrifying, but turned out to be no big deal. Bill did a good bit of reassuring me that it would be fine, and indeed it was. I just modified the base of the headboard so it sat on top of the frame instead of connecting to the front, which worked out fine. It is a bit away from the wall, but nothing that is a problem.

I wanted to make sure I could have a bedside table, so instead of having two big drawers on the sides, I did a little cabinet and then two drawers. That should leave enough space if I build some in the future. We used to have some, but they're in the living room now.

 And here it is all put together and made up. We got new bedding for Christmas, but it won't come for a few days and we'll probably wrap it up to open on Christmas. We went with almost the opposite of the black cover we have. It's white with black flowery things and little green accents. It's going to look great.

So my building itch has been completely filled for the moment. This was a crazy project to do without a garage or workshop, but hey, we did it and it was awesome and it is going to last for years and years. Woot!

Enough about me, let's talk about my kids

I kind of hate when I have one of those weeks where I can't even come up with anything noteworthy to talk about here. Nothing was bad about it. There just wasn't anything of note. Probably a big part of that is that I have an awesome combination of off and on, more often on, headache that combines with a touch of nausea that I wouldn't even be bothered with on its own, but together it packs a pretty mean punch. I'm only seven weeks along, so I foresee it lasting until, oh I don't know, New Year's? Yup, that sounds about right, which is a tad depressing during the times of day when I don't feel so hot. Currently I feel fine so it's not so such a big deal, but let's just say I don't feel my normal chipper self for now.

But hey, I still have two cute kids that do lots of fun things, so let's talk about them instead! Genevieve is getting more and more mischievous the older she gets. She is such a chip off of her dad's block. :) It's hilarious and at the same time makes me want to pull my hair out. She will get this look in her eyes that we all recognize now and then be off to cause trouble or pester someone or get into somewhere she ought not to be. Like this morning she started crying and I came in to find her sitting on top of my four-drawer dresser in my bedroom pulling out all the jewelry she could get to in my jewelry box. It was scattered all around her on the floor, but she was stuck without a way to get back down. That's due to our new bed giving her access to that particular dresser, but her not being quite capable of getting back off. It was pretty much the last place we've been able to hide non-baby-friendly items.

If left to it she will pour gallons of water onto the bathroom floor while she's in the bathtub and then laugh and laugh and laugh.

She likes to steal Spencer's things just to get a rise out of him, but then she'll usually give them right back. She'll chuck her food at him too just to get him to laugh, then they both start laughing and she keeps throwing food and they have a grand old time, but my dining room is trashed. :)

She loves all her dolls and switches among which one she wants to play with. Today she was pretending to feed her doll bites of food before she ate them herself.

She loves to play in the toilet. The toilet paper is officially off limits to both her and Spencer because unplugging toilets is just not something I care to do on a regular basis. Hahaha!

She has very definite ideas of what books she wants to read and she always wants to be sitting on top of us while we read them to her. I say it like that because if we're laying on the floor she will bring a book to us and then promptly sit on our head. But she prefers laps if they're available. Haha!

She loves her stuffed dog more than life itself, as I've mentioned many times, and she now will give us hugs with it, consisting of smashing it in our face for a few seconds and than grunting like you do when you squeeze someone hard in a real hug. Again, it's utterly hilarious and Spencer absolutely loves it. He's even started grunting sometimes when he gives hugs.

Speaking of Spencer, he has turned into such an awesome helper lately. He's getting more and more imaginative in his play, and the other day he brought all his blocks plus cloth letters into the kitchen and dumped them in my kitchenaid mixer because he was making bread and cookies at the same time. He went through the list of all the things he needed to make them, and tossed the "food" in. "Gluten! Dry milk! White coconut oil! Oatmeal! Flour!" He's got such an amazing memory. I never get over how fast he can learn new words and ideas and retain them.

He is finally hitting the I-want-to-do-it-myself stage. I always wondered when he would get there. His development has been completely different than all the classic steps that people talk about. It's actually been really nice once I realized it wasn't a problem, but that he was just going to do things in a different order than I might otherwise expect. This particular stage is lovely because he's completely capable of doing just about everything he wants to do on his own now, as opposed to Genevieve, who is already partly in the same stage, who just isn't physically capable of a lot of the things she wants to do. So I'm going with the trend and letting him do what he wants for the most part. Heck, if he'll pull a chair over to the counter and get down his own food to eat, who am I to complain, particularly since eating has been such a struggle? He pulled out some pudding from the fridge today and got some graham crackers and made his own snack of dipping them in and chowing down. I thought it was awesome. Because seriously, I get so tired of making food over and over and over and over and over again day in and day out for the kids and then cleaning up after them all the time. I'm teaching them to help, but it's still mostly my show for now. I never realized how taxing that one little task would be when you do it five or six times a day what with snacks and meals. It's no wonder so many people have trouble getting decent dinners on the table. The food from the rest of the day wore them out!

Spencer is super big on order and he always has been, but now it's working to our benefit as he wants to help put the dishes away or make sure things are in their place. Genevieve is a chip off Bill's block, but Spencer is far and away so much like me in many, many ways. The older he gets the more he looks like me too, which is gratifying since he didn't start out that way and Genevieve doesn't resemble me in the slightest. I swear I added to her gene pool, but so far no one would know it. Who knows, maybe this next child will actually look like me when he or she is born, but our first two looked nearly identical and just like Bill at birth, so I'm not crossing my fingers. :)

Okay, well that's about all I can think of to document about my kids at the moment, so the end.