’till next november

G’s mom gave us these cute little Pilgrim salt and pepper shakers a couple of years ago.  She and Mel have a matching set that they bring out every November 1st.  Their brief month-long visit is fun for the girls and me.   This year the Pilgrims often shared the table with my Winterberry snowmen shakers.  It was kind of weird, but the Pilgrims and the snowmen seemed to get along quite well side-by-side.  Today is the last day for the Pilgrims to shine.  See you next November 1st.

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bye-bye baby

We’re getting closer and closer to the end of the “baby days”.  We are officially a crib-free home.

This crib has lovingly protected our three little ladies as well as another 4 0r 5 kiddos before ours.  We are happily passing it along to yet another family who are soon to welcome their first little one.

Pendo loves her new toddler bed even though the first thing she did was pee on it.  Maybe she was just marking her territory–that or she was really excited or really nervous about it–or she’s just two and still learning when to run to the potty.  Doesn’t really matter why it happened.  I just think it’s funny.  She’s done an AMAZING job staying in her bed at nap time and bed time.  We were quite worried that she’d hop all around the room and get into all kinds of stuff since she’s no longer contained, but that hasn’t happened at all so far.  Now, if we could  just be done with diapers for good, we’d really have a party!  Part of me will really miss the baby days, but I really love the preschool days so there is lots of fun not far ahead.

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it’s a thanksgiving miracle

We had a nice Thanksgiving at G’s sister’s house. We went a couple of days early, and the girls had a lot of fun exploring the books and toys that Aunt Mel keeps for them at her house.

On Thanksgiving morning, the girls watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade off and on while we cooked the feast.  They were particularly interested in the Sesame Street float.

After the delightful lunch, we all took naps.  Not really.  This one was posed.

On Friday morning, we saw our first snow flurries of the year.  Kait and Rose were reeeeeeeally excited about it.

So, what was the Thanksgiving miracle?  Remember my recent post about how we mailed our Christmas check to the wrong address and we thought someone had cashed it and put it in their own pocket?  Well, I’m thrilled to report that we were wrong!!!  On Thanksgiving morning, we talked to some of the extended family and found out that those very nice people who received our check ended up hand-delivering that letter to our cousins (a month after we mailed it to them, but, hey, it’s there now).  And now our check for Lemonade International is sitting safely in their  home, ready to be combined with the other family contributions and sent off to help a teacher in Guatemala!!   Yeah!!  Sooo glad we were wrong about this one!

 

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thankful

Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll!

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mail malady

Anyone know what the title of this post means?  I had to look up “malady” to be absolutely sure of it’s definition, and I’m using it here because–for some weird reason–I adore illiteration in a blog post title.  Anyway . . .malady, in this instance, means complaint.  Malady also sounds much more elegant than complaint.  OK.  Enough of this ridiculous over-explanation.

‘Tis the season, I guess.

A couple of weeks ago, our mailbox was bombarded with unwanted political pamphlets, and now we are overrun with credit card applications.  Just in time for the holiday shopping.  Again, my recycling box overflows.  This time with hand-shredded card applications.  We really need to replace our shredder!!

Another reason I have a complaint with the mail isn’t really the fault of the mail system.  I guess it’s my fault since I didn’t double-check that we had the correct address. Allow me to over-explain again.

G’s extended side of the family used to exchange names around Christmas time, and we’d guess at what some other family member would like (an extra pair of gloves, a holiday music CD, some jewelry that WE liked but they probably didn’t, etc.), and one year someone suggested that instead of doing the annual gift exchange of stuff that no one really needed anyway, we would all pool our money together and donate it to a cause that we were excited about.  For a couple of years we helped feed street children through an organization in Kenya, and this year we are pooling our money to support a teacher with http://www.lemonadeinternational.org/.

 

Some of our family spent an amazing week in Guatemala and learned more about this organization, so we wanted to give a teacher a bonus this year as our group gift.  I thought I’d be extra proactive, and I mailed our contribution the day after I received the email about it.  A few weeks later we found out that our check was never received.   As we tried to get to the bottom of the issue, G saw that the check had been cashed!  I didn’t realize that our cousin had moved, and I mailed the check to their former address.  It appears that whoever lives in that house decided that they needed an extra chunk of money this Christmas, so they must have cashed it for themselves!  My issue now lies with the bank (or where ever they went to cash it) because the check was clearly intended for our cousin, with THEIR name neatly penned on the check!!  I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it, but I have learned my lesson about taking the time to double-check that I have the correct address before sending money to someone.  I’m just sorry that my mistake ended up taking a chunk of money out the pocket of a teacher who sacrifices every day to teach in a slum school.  I am tempted to write a letter to whoever lives at that house and let them know what they’ve done, what that money was intended for.  Not sure I’ll get around to it anytime soon because it  probably doesn’t matter to them anyway, but it would make me feel a little better about it.

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tough week for zippy

We’ve been hoppin’ around here this week.  BUT before I bore you to tears tell you about that, I want to just say that THE CLOCK IS WORKING!!!!  We’ve had more sleep in the past couple of weeks than I ever dreamed possible.  Most nights the girls sleep (or at least stay quiet) until the clock turns green around 6am, then we snuggle in our bed for a little longer.  Hip, hip, hooray!  I actually have more energy now, and I’m VERY thankful we finally ordered that clock.

So . . .Zippy is what I named our minivan.  She does have lots of pep, but mostly I named her Zippy to remind me of my sweet friend who lives in Kenya.  Her name is Zipporah, but we called her Zippy.   Anyway, about 2 weeks ago the CD player went wacky.  This is VERY bad news for us.  You see, my two little girls, ADORE, yes ADORE, listening to music from the moment the van doors open until we climb out at our destination.  Often if we arrive home before the end of a song, there will be tears and begging for us to stay in the car and listen to the music more.  Well, the CD player broke, and even more importantly to G and me, so did the DVD player.  It’s the holiday season, right?  That means HOURS and HOURS and HOURS on the road during the next couple of months.  We NEED that DVD player to work.  Well, G checked out our options, found a used one, and ordered it.

While this whole thing was going on, a piece of the sliding door broke off.  For no reason.  The door refused to close. It was a very cold day, and I’m very thankful that G was with me when it happened.  He spent about 10 minutes in the cold figuring out how to get it closed.  After that it seemed to be working fine.  Until last Sunday.  We got out of the van at church, and the door pretty much fell off!!!!  Wow.  It seems like that broken part was pretty important after all.  Thank goodness G’s dad was with me when that happened so I didn’t have to try to keep the girls safe in the parking lot while trying my best to figure out what to do.  Since Sunday, we’ve not opened that door.

So yesterday G and I drove (with all three kids stuffed in his Accord) to the dealership to get the CD player and the door fixed.  Turns out they had to order a part for the door, but at least the CD player and DVD player is back in working order.  The door should be fixed early next week.

So, that should be it, right?  No.  Ironically, Zippy also had a run-in with our carport pole.  She now has a nice new curve in her front bumper.  We’ll deal with that after Thanksgiving.  I’m just glad she has good bones.  She’s sturdy, quick, responsible, and hard-working, just like my friend who I named her after.  🙂

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a new snack

Pomegranates are in season here, and they were only $1 each last week at Meijer.

I picked one up to introduce a new snack to the girls.

It took a lot longer to get those gorgeous little seeds out of the skin than I expected, and the girls were quite excited to try them.

The result:  Pendo and Kait liked it.  Rose didn’t.

Also, the juice stained some of our clothes.  Oh well.  It was fun to try something new.

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eyes

One recent morning, we were having a dance party in the kitchen, spinning and moving to some Hillsong kids.  I grabbed the camera and got some action shots.  I like how these two are all blurry with movement, except for their eyes.  A random mistake, but I like it.

 

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yumski

On Friday G made a BIG OL’ pot of chili.  I found the recipe on foodnetwork.com, and we thought we’d give it a try.

Oh. My. Glory.

So good, but a bit too spicy for the girls.  We also topped it with cheese, sour cream and fresh, home made guacamole.

Yum!  We popped the left overs in the freezer for another night in the near future.  Now I finally have a chili recipe I like.

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i can see it . . .

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Our new little clock IS making a difference!!!

Last night all three of our girls slept all night long, without crying even. one. single. time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A couple of people have asked me how the clock works, so here’s a brief summary.  You can set the clock to be a nightlight for certain hours of the day, and it can also be set to turn green for certain hours of the day.  G set our clock to be a yellow nightlight while the kids are supposed to be sleeping, and it turns green when it’s OK for them to wake up.  We’ve taught our girls that “yellow means put your head back on the pillow”  and “green means get up and go!”  Every night the girls have been getting a little better with using it, and last night was the first night in a VERY, VERY long time that we’ve slept all night long!

I’m still not completely convinced that it’s going to continue to work, but I sure hope so!  Hooray for more sleep for all of us!!

The girls (all three of them) have also been playing so nicely together for the past few days!  We still have sharing issues along with other sibling stuff, but they have been acting more like friends lately .  Maybe because we’re all getting more sleep?  Probably not, but I just hope it continues, too.

 

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