jennanddave.com

Christmas was great. We stayed in Virginia a day longer than we had planned to because why bother leaving when you're having so much fun? Yesterday, about a half an hour after we left to come home, I said "Who's excited about going home?" Crickets chirping. So I said "Who wishes we could stay here longer?" I raised my hand, Henry piped up from the back "I wish we could stay!", then Dave said "Me too." Later on in the trip, Henry said "Grammy and Grandpa live in Massachusetts, and Grandma and Grandpa live in Virginia, right?" "Right." *long pause* "Why do we *still* live in Pennsylvania?" He said "Pennsylvania" with a healthy dose of utter distaste. Dave and I laughed heartily. So we're back home, and darned happy to be here, as you can tell. I think Holly is the only one who heaved a sigh of relief over being back in her own bed. Babies. What do they know?

Posted by Jenn at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A couple of weeks ago, apropos of some unknown outside influence, Henry decided dancing was pretty cool. So often when there's music playing, he busts a move.

Nothing induces a person to "boogie down" quite like a Christmas carol.

Posted by Jenn at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I finally took pictures of the Twilight mittens I started working on a couple of weeks ago:

I'm totally in love with this pattern for a few different reasons. The first is, it's been a long time since I've worked a pattern that gives row by row instructions. You know how much you've done, and you know how much further you have left to go. The second is, I'm using Mauch Chunky in Eggplant, which works up really fast. I'd say 90% of the mitten was worked up over the course of a couple of hours in the car on the way to my grandma's house. (On a semi-unrelated note, I think I would probably actually eat eggplant if we called it Aubergine, because "eggplant"...blech.) There was a third reason, but Henry just interrupted me approximately fifteen times while I was typing out this paragraph, so now I can't remember what it was.

As you can see in the picture above, I've started working on the second mitten. A lot of progress was made last night while watching the movie Elf. "Knitting Twilight mittens is my favorite!" Okay, not technically a line in the movie, but it totally should have been...

The other night I picked up dpn's so I can knit the thumbs. Very exciting!

Posted by Jenn at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Henry just straddled two of our dining room chairs. He had one foot on each, and one hand on each, then he looked down at me and said "Mommy! Look at me! I look like an angel!" I had to laugh because he's been a half-sick, bundle of energy today that has been driving me nuts. So naturally I told him he was no angel. Lest you think that a cruel and heartless thing to say, you should know he doesn't believe a word that comes out of my mouth anymore, anyway. His response was "Yes I am!"

Posted by Jenn at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

me: I have the absolute worst hand-writing.
Dave (reflexively): No you don--uuuh, wait. Yeah, you do. I'm not going to sugar-coat it.

It must be pretty bad if he's not even attempting to convince me otherwise.

Posted by Jenn at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A couple of days ago Chocolat turned four months old. This morning she had her checkup plus a couple of vaccinations. She spent most of the late morning and early afternoon sleeping all of the excitement off. She's a healthy girl, good weight/height/head circumference. Also, the doctor wrote in her medical record that Chocolat's the most beautiful little baby she's ever seen, so it's totally official. (Not really.) (But that doesn't mean it's not true.)

The other day Henry and I pulled out his old baby toys. He showed Holly how to play with them. It was very sweet. There was a rattle in there that Henry was always intrigued by, but only when we played with it for him. I realized looking back on Henry's baby days that he was like that with a lot of things. Holly, on the other hand, grabbed hold of it and inspected the heck out of it, turning the different parts, shaking it, while chatting away the whole time. I also remember that when Henry showed interest in what we were eating, he kept a respectful distance away from whatever it was he was interested in, whereas yesterday I raised a glass of water up to my mouth and Holly dove for it, arms flailing, hands grasping. It was almost a big mess. I think we're going to be contending with a very adventurous personality.

Posted by Jenn at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On Saturday we trekked up a steep hill, chopped down a tree, and drove it back to our house where Dave put the lights on for a change because I was annoyed with him. Know how to take it out on your man when you're feeling grumpy? Make him put the lights on the tree. It's a thankless job, and everyone else is a critic.

This year we thought we'd go to a parking lot filled with cut trees as far as the eye could see, but it turns out Henry remembered what we did last year and wanted a repeat, so we obliged. Our house has been feeling a bit cluttered this year, so I was stumping for a Fraser Fir, something tall and narrow, as opposed to our usual penchant for trees that are living-room-sized. I pointed a few out, and Dave nixed them. Then Henry declared his love for a Blue Spruce, which is what we got last year and which we vowed never to buy again because their needles are so painful. Apparently there's a statute of limitations on how far Bambi eyes will get a kid on Christmas Tree Picking Day. Also, the longer you wander around aimlessly in the cold and snow, the more your kid starts to say things like "I don't think we'll EVER find a tree," and the less he cares what it looks like. (He gets his sense of the dramatic from me.) So we settled on a Douglas Fir. Tall, sorta full, but not too full, and it smells great!

We stopped by a grocery store on the way home to pick up our traditional tree-trimming dinner of cocktail wieners in BBQ sauce, cheese and crackers, and sparkling grape juice. I also got a platter of chocolate-dipped Spritz cookies. Later that evening, after the kids were in bed, Dave and I settled on the couch for our annual viewing of "White Christmas". The brie was flowing. At one point Dave turned to me and asked "What does it mean that we're stuffing ourselves with cheese instead of those cookies over there?" I told him "It means we're going to get fat one way or the other." He said there wasn't much else he could say to that.

All in all, it was a pretty nice day.

Posted by Jenn at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There were two holiday activities that we got up to last year that I particularly enjoyed. One of them was the local "Polar Express" Holiday train that dispatched from a local town and traveled through junk yards and swampy low-lands to get to the North Pole where Santa, a bedraggled Frosty, and Rudolph boarded to give out little toys. It was pretty awesome. It was also apparently canceled this year, otherwise we'd be doing it again.

The other activity was a kid-oriented, gingerbread house decorating party a friend of mine hosted. We had a great time messing around with frosting and candy. Henry remembered it, too, because as soon as he spotted the gingerbread house kits in the grocery store, he was all "OOH! OOH! Can we do that again, Mom?" (Btw, it's weird that someone on this planet calls me "mom".) So I picked one up yesterday and today we spent our afternoon frosting and decorating and generally having a good time. I made some more frosting that we could easily color just to spice it up a bit. The end result:

Don't you wish you could move into it?

Posted by Jenn at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today was Dave's department's holiday party. It was also a snow day, so Henry didn't go to school. Normally I'd be at my wits end trying to figure out what to do with an energetic four year old, but Dave stayed home as well to get some work done, so Henry and I were able to put on our snow pants and head outside without having to worry about Holly. We cleared the snow off of the boxwoods out front, built three snowmen, then came back inside to make some rice crispy treats to bring to the party. Dave also made deviled eggs using a recipe my Uncle sent us last Spring when I was pregnant and having an "I MUST HAVE DEVILED EGGS!" moment (a moment that lasted for weeks). After unsuccessfully trying to convince Dave that maybe we should just stay home and eat all of the deviled eggs and rice crispy treats ourselves because sometimes doesn't he think sharing is a wee bit overrated, we piled into the car and headed to the University.

It was a lot of fun. It usually is. Everyone is very nice. Holly was passed around and got lots of love and attention, and Henry ate lots of cookies. The most extraordinary part was when a friend of ours who has a nine or ten year old daughter turned to Henry at one point and said "We're going to our house to go sledding. Do you want to come with us? Your mom won't be there, it'll be just us. Do you want to go?" Henry thought about it, then very quietly said "Yes, I think so." And she repeated that I wouldn't be there and was he sure, and he said yes again. So she asked me if that was all right, and I was all "YES! YESYESYESYESYES!" Because I love my kid but sometimes he's timid and I thought he was a long ways away from doing this sort of thing. So I got him all bundled up in his coat and sent him on his way. I sat back with Holly, watched the three of them briefly chat with and walk past a suddenly very confused looking Dave, and totally relished the moment. My baby is growing up. I love that he doesn't need us to always be there anymore. I remember how exciting it was to go out and do things all on my own like that. And now I know how nerve-wracking it can be to wonder if he's being polite and making a good impression and in general being a good boy.

About an hour after I got home, I got a call from Dave, and he was all "Are they sledding at the University? Where is he??? Is he at their house?" He sounded a bit freaked out. I had to laugh because of the two of us, I assumed I was going to be that parent in our relationship, but I'm not! It's totally Dave! Hah!

Posted by Jenn at 09:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This year I'm taking the Holidays off. I'm still reeling from last year when we took Henry to what seemed like 40 Christmas-oriented things on top of all of the decorating, cookie-making, card writing, and tree-picking-outing. I think what made it seem so nuts at the time was the fact that I was struggling a bit with morning sickness. Nothing like middle-grade nausea to color one's world view.

Keeping last year's hectic-ness (hecticnocity?) in mind, this year I'm going easy on us. I'll make cookies if I'm in the mood. We'll pick out a tree when it feels right. The decorations are going up slowly. I couldn't even hack the thought of trying to keep up with a chocolate advent calendar, and only bought them for Dave and Henry. This morning Dave and I talked about sending out Christmas cards. I basically told him if he wants them to go out, it's on him, that I'll help, but I just don't want to think about it. It seems sort of selfish when I write it all out, but frankly, I know I'm really just giving myself the gift of just relaxing and enjoying the season.

Posted by Jenn at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We just got back home from the best weekend ever. I'm not exaggerating. On Friday we headed out to Western Massachusetts to spend the next couple of days with my Grandmother. On Saturday morning, my parents arrived just in time for a major fry up for breakfast. Henry spent the morning banging away on the piano and eating bacon, eventually convincing me and my dad it was time to go down to my Grandma's stream to throw rocks. Throwing rocks is a lot of fun, especially when you have things to aim for, like logs and leaves and dads. We headed back to the house for a quick warm-up, then the three of us headed back out, this time for a local waterfall. Henry loved it. He wanted to stay there "forever and ever". While we were eating a late lunch, it started snowing and didn't stop until sometime Sunday morning. By about 5 o'clock, there was enough snow for sledding and snowman building, so that's what we did. I thought for sure Henry would be timid about the sledding, like he was last year, but he hopped right on and headed downhill. It was great.

Sunday afternoon we got in the car and headed back home. We hit Scranton around 6PM and spied, from the highway, a Christmas light display at Nay Aug Park. We got off at the next exit and drove around until we found it. It was a huge display of lights that you tour in your car. It was so worth the detour. Henry was oohing and aahing non-stop.

On Thursday, Henry came down with a cold and over the weekend Holly came down with it as well. She's a trooper. Today seems to be kind of the worst of it. She has a low-grade fever and is content to sleep away the day. Hopefully she'll feel better soon.

I got a lot of knitting done on my Bella mittens. I'll take pictures soon.

Posted by Jenn at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Remember way, way back, a loooooong time ago, right after I had seen the movie Twilight, I mentioned how much I loved the mittens Bella wore and that I was going to try and knit them myself? Apparently half of the people who saw the movie also went nuts over them, and those who can knit made some for themselves, and those who couldn't were begging knitters to make a pair for them. I went to my local yarn shop, picked out some beautiful yarn, then got morning sickness and inertia took over. For the next three months. Last night I decided to go ahead and get that project going. I googled "bella's mittens twilight" and wouldn't you know it, the internet exploded all over my computer. Tons of hits, the gist of which could be summarized as follows: "OMG BELLA'S MITTENS! WANT WANT WANT!" etc, etc. Fortunately one of the hits was for an actual pattern, and it's free! So I downloaded it and am raring to go. As soon as I learn the Magic Loop technique. Third tutorial on that is the charm, I can tell.

Posted by Jenn at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The felt jackelope from this shop was featured on the etsy homepage today. I clicked through to see what other things the owner makes and the feltidermy cracked me up. Particularly the Loch Ness Monster. Very cute and clever.

Henry and I have been working on his writing skills the last few days. Believe it or not, he actually has writing skills. His teacher expressed concern that he wasn't holding crayons or pencils correctly and was very reluctant to heed her attempts to show him the proper way. So yesterday I sat down with him and told him he was going to learn how to write his name. He said "Okay." He grabbed a crayon, held it in his fist, when I asked him if he was holding it right he looked, said "No", corrected how he was doing it, drew an H, then an E, then asked me to remind him what an N, R, and Y looks like, then he drew those. It blew my mind. I had no idea. It was even pretty legible. So. There you have it. Today we worked on the word "big". Tomorrow we'll write "fish". On Thursday we'll put them all together: Henry Big Fish. Did I mention he graduated from "Henry Little Fish" to "Big Fish" about a month after he turned four? My fish is growing up.

Posted by Jenn at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)