Paper Dolls

The planets must be aligned or something, because I was just reading about paper dolls in Bridge to Terabithia with my class today, and then tonight, after ages on the shelf, the paper dolls made an appearance. The funniest part was that Trevi's man and Clara's cheerleader argued, got in each others' way, and bossed one another around, but the kids stayed in character the whole time. Oh ya, I guess that wasn't such a stretch....

Locks of Love

Since Clara only needed a couple of inches chopped, she couldn't exactly donate them. But, when I told her that she could give away the $14.00 we'd save if she let me play hairdresser, she was all smiles. Number cruncher that she is, it occurred to her immediately that $14.00 was exactly enough to buy school shoes for girls in rural Africa. Be still my heart.

Special Delivery

We're fancy shmancy in this place, let me tell you. We don't just hand out chocolate goodies in plain tupperware containers. No siree. We put foamy stickers all over the containers first!
The crazy thing about these stickers is that we've had them for what seems like forever. I bought a tub of them when Clara was a toddler, so that she could decorate all of the Christmas cards we were sending out that year. It was a really, really, novice move on my part, to actually believe that a two-year-old would want to have anything to do with more than, say, the first three out of 50 cards. And she's a crafty kid. But she wasn't all that interested in the repetition and tedium of the whole endeavor. As a result, the foamy stickers have found their way into many a project for many a year. And thanks to tonight's sprucing-up of the tupperware, our supply has, at very long last, FINALLY, been exhausted. You had a good run, foamy stickers. Thanks for the memories.

Clara and Trevor were very excited to go out into the frosty night to deliver the goods to some of our neighbors. "Making Other People Happy" was one of Clara's suggestions for turning December into a month of giving, and it has been my experience that things coated in chocolate usually do the trick.
Two out of the five neighbors weren't home, and there was some mild to moderate bickering about who would deliver to whom, but overall, an evening of Making Other People Happy made us pretty happy.

Puppy Chow

Grandma introduced me to Puppy Chow. I think I must have been in my teens when she started making it and giving us all little bags of it for Christmas. The bags were tied with a piece of curled ribbon and labeled with a tiny rectangular tag. Grandma had that lovely old cursive that's probably identical to that of a thousand other grandmas out there. Sometimes I pull out the letters I have stashed away in a box, ones that she sent me when I was at camp, or university, or overseas, and her handwriting makes me smile. Her words make me smile.

I think Grandma must have been smiling down on the lot of us tonight as we coated buckets of cereal (and ourselves) with chocolate and peanut butter.
I know that Grandma appreciates the fact that another traditional Christmas gift of hers - her hand knit cotton washcloths - still wipe down the counters and scrub out the bowls after every delicious mess. All I need now is some Labello, and some white grape juice with ginger ale. :)

Our Rainbow Connection

Two years ago, when we were house hunting and made the bold decision to venture into the sub-suburbs for a peek at some properties, we we were welcomed by a gigantic rainbow as we drove through town. We laughed and said that it must be some kind of sign...that nature was telling us we had found something special.

As it turns out, rainbows are bizarrely common around here. We get the rain/sun combo thing going on at least once a week during the winter, so rainbows get to come out and play all the time. That doesn't make them any less cool, though. This one decorated our morning today:
And nature was right...we did find something special, although we would have found it no matter where we'd ended up.

Holiday Cheer Comes and Goes

Aside from the good coffee and the fact that it was Saturday, today did not start well. Clara was being so excruciatingly bratty that, in an unprecedented turn of events, she was returned home a day early from a weekend sleepover at Grammy and Grampy's. I began to ask around if anyone had ever heard of a child actually receiving coal for Christmas. And, while none of my friends had seen or done such a thing, one friend said that her sister-in-law had asked Santa to return three days after Christmas to take back all of the gifts he had brought on the 25th. And so he did.

I was feeling rather cheerless for the rest of the day. But the truth is, dwelling is not useful.

Chad had the festive idea of going to see a famously lit-up house in the area. For years, a man has been awing kids from one to ninety-two with his light show.
This is just a regular house with a regular yard, but every square inch of every surface is covered with lights. I think the sign said there were 301,000 of them.

We peeked into a room full of trains. Always a high point for our Train Man.

As an added bonus, S. Claus was there. Now I can be a slacker mom, avoid the mall, and still get a Santa shot!
I was tempted to ask him about the coal thing but I didn't.

On the way home, we saw this place:
How can you not get your cheer back when some humble homeowners are going to this kind of trouble to jingle your bells?

Guys in the Yard

My very first ebay purchase was also my first blatant attempt at reliving my childhood vicariously through my own children. It was my beloved yellow Fisher Price house, full of people and furniture. Within a week or so I'd also bid on (and won!) the Fisher Price garage that my brother used to have, and the Sesame Street clubhouse that we never had, but always coveted when playing with the kids around the corner.
Clara took to these wonderful old toys quickly, and called the sphere-headed, armless people her "guys". The guys have been very popular with everyone in the house in the six years since they joined our family.

This afternoon, Trevi took the guys (and much of their furniture) out for a hike in the wilderness (aka our jungle-like front yard). The guys dug holes, rappelled down into them, and climbed out, again and again.
I particularly love listening to the dialog between characters in these adventures. I overheard today as one of the guys requested a long slide to "get down the mountain quickly and easily".
Trevi ran to fetch a yardstick, which worked perfectly. The guy told Trevor, "This is the fastest and most wooden slide I've ever seen! Thank you for your help, Giant!"
PS: We lost "The Count" from the Sesame Street guys a while back. I have a sneaking suspicion that he may be buried somewhere in the front yard.

Foes of Christmas Past

Oh, sure, they look all friendly in this Christmas card photo from 2005:

But the moment captured here is more indicative of reality:
The only thing that has changed since then is the sophistication with which they torture one another.

Lisa's Ladder

Trevi has been wanting to build a ladder for Lisa (the stuffed cat) for weeks now. He usually mentions it just as I'm dragging myself in the door from work, still lugging my bags and needing to pee..."Hey Mummy, do you want to get some wood and some nails and a saw and other tools and help me build a ladder for Lisa?" So I've been blowing him off a bit, convincing him to sit with me and do a puzzle or read a book. He likes that stuff, too.
Luckily for me, Chad is a big fan of getting out tools and wood. Today, he helped Trevi build Lisa's ladder.

Glue was used responsibly. No waterfalls.

He did all of the hammering himself!

I don't know why, exactly, Lisa needs a ladder, but now she has one.

The Shrinking Poncho

There's nothing like a one-size-fits-all garment to freak you out about how big your kids are getting. This poncho was a gift from Nana for Christmas 2005, just before Clara's 5th Birthday.

And here she is now, a hair away from turning eight:
Excuse me while I go and freak out.

My Favorite Salad

When we first moved to California, Chad and I used to eat out quite a bit. In retrospect, I suppose we should have started college funds or something. Oh well.
The first place we tried was a little cafe that immediately became our favorite haunt. Fresh, yummy food. I worked my way around the menu a bit, but always came back to this incredible salad with balsamic vinaigrette. It looks unassuming enough, but it's unbelievably good.
I rarely get to have my beloved salad anymore, since we've moved, but Chad was in our old neighborhood today and he picked one up for me. And, on the subject of generous husbands, Chad also won that cool bowl for me in a silent auction for Grassroot Soccer a few years ago.

Here's what the kids were up to while I was busy eating my humongous salad:
The marble run was an ebay score when Clara was a toddler, and it is one of those rare and beautiful toys that can keep both kids simultaneously entertained for long, peaceful stretches of weekend. I should mention, however, that Trevor eventually started rolling marbles on the ground, which was followed by flicking, at which point Clara started grabbing and hiding the flicked marbles, which didn't fly with Trevi, who tried to wrestle the marbles free from his sister's grasp. My last few bites of salad got soggy, since I had to intervene when flicking turned to flinging, and wrestling turned to tackling. The soggy salad was still delicious, though.

Parading

Clara's Brownie Troop paraded through town this evening, dressed as a bunch of ponytailed Rudolphs. Their "float" (i.e. pickup truck) was also red-nosed.
Hopefully, I won't shatter any illusions of my awesomeness as a mother by admitting that this was the first Santa Claus parade either of the kids has ever attended. No particular reason, really...we just haven't been all that motivated to go in previous years. I guess I'm kind of glad that Clara's participation in the event forced us to get out there. It was a cute, small-towny type of thing, with lots of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, motorcycles decorated with lights, shivering dancers, and a mayor or two. Trevi particularly liked the mini garbage and recycling trucks. I didn't take a picture, so you'll just have to picture a pair of garbage and recycling trucks, and then shrink them down in your mind.
Next year we'll be old pros, fully prepared, with a blanket for the curb and a thermos of hot chocolate.

Huggles

I've now been blogging long enough that I'm possibly starting to repeat myself. Take huggles, for instance. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned Trevi's hug/snuggle combos, and how awesome they are, and how a huggle is just irresistible, even at 6:30 in the morning. If I haven't mentioned them previously, shame on me. Huggles rock.

Lights

I love sparkle.
Don't worry...they're LED lights. Gotta save up those carbon credits for the fireplace.

Playing Cards in the Warm Glow of Environmental Pollutants

Clara has been fiendishly good at "Concentration" since she was a tiny thing, and Trevi seems to have the same gift. Neither Chad nor I can beat either of them.
The guilt of sending particulates into the atmosphere puts a bit of a damper on fireside enjoyment, but we hope that the earth will forgive us for very occasional indulgences.

PS: I don't mean to be glib. We really do dedicate ourselves every day to treading lightly. And at least we use Java Logs, which have an environmental leg-up on wood.

Dear Santa,

Clara's letters to Santa are always a bit scary. No matter how many times we read about the Whos down in Whoville, giftless and singing, she still wants stuff. Tons of stuff.
Last year's letter greedily listed a dozen or so overpriced items, but at least it was padded by some niceties about Santa's cookie preferences and inquiries as to the health of the reindeer.

This year, after starting with a very cordial, "Merry Christmas", Clara showed her true almost-8-year-oldness and went to town with a list the size of Texas (inversely proportionate to the size of Santa's budget). There was barely room for a signature by the time she was done requesting. I insisted that she continue writing on the back and try to make her letter a bit more balanced, which she did, but I'm definitely feeling the need to help both Clara and Trevi find the joy in giving as well as getting. So that's my assignment for December.