Daddy monster

Anna hasn't really seen Ben in like 10 days. Tonight they have been inseparable since he got home. She doesn't even care if I'm around. And even though Ben has homework to do, he's been dutifully playing the daddy monster all night.

Reading List

Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Reivers - William Faulkner
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses - James Joyce
Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
Rabbit, Run - John Updike
Light in August - William Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Total______$6.00______

compliments city library book sale.

New Schedule

In the same vein as "Wednesday Wendell" I have engineered the following chore schedule for myself.

• Monday Mess (tidy up from the weekend)

• Tuesday Toilet (clean the bathroom)

• Wednesday Wash (laundry)

• Thursday Throw Out (Trash Day)

• Friday Facuum (vacuum)

In addition, I plan to keep the sink clean this year because of a proverb that I made up, "You can tell a lot about a woman by looking at her sink" and my sink has previously been in very poor-to-poor condition.

I don't know why the internet needs to hear about all this, but there it is. Anna always asks to watch the video of her walking when we come on the blog, so it's time to move it down.

Resolved.

Last January I shared with you the resolutions I made for Anna, Lets see how she did.

1. Start Sleeping through the night, even just a few times a week
check.

2. Learn how to walk
czech.


3. Sprout upwards of ten teeth
check.

4. Learn some new words
check (only nice words).


5. Gain some weight
check. Last weighed in at the 3rd percentile.

6. Learn basic shapes and colors
She knows ball, star, moon, green, blue, purple, owange etc...

7. Get taller
She is around 33 inches, up from 28.5 at the first of the year.

8. Grow enough hair for a ponytail (or at least a fountain of hair)
check.
9. Laugh every day
check.

10. Make lots of messes
If you only knew...





Congratulations Anna, for the first time in your life, you managed to accomplish all your resolutions for the year!

Macaroni

Today I opted for a warm mac and cheese lunch because we're essentially snowed in. So I asked the little sponge if she could say "Macaroni," it sounds more like Guacamole, or Whack-a-mole -y, but it's cute.


Apparently she has found a bag of christmas candy. As I type, she walks in with a taffy or hershey kiss, tries to hand it to me, then lifts my hand up by the pinky until I take it from her and unwrap it. Then as she pops in in her mouth she takes off to find the next piece of candy. It's getting pretty silly.

Here are some picks of the great Christmas outfit we put her in for church.

Checking to see if they are real pearls. I think the paint residue that will be left on her teeth and cheeks will be evidence enough.

I see now she has brought in the whole bag of christmas treats that she's been picking from. great.

Recipes That Don't Work - helpful hints

We haven't had an installment of RTDW in a while (because I have been sticking to old favorites, or closely supervised) so here's a helpful hint from my kitchen.

Recipes That Don't Work
If you want to ruin a recipe a simple trick I use is to start late, thus forcing you to rush through the mixing section in order to get to the baking on time.
If the recipe says to mix for 10 minutes, do it for 2.
If you are supposed to knead for 6-8 minutes, 3-4 will do.
With this simple time saving tip, you are sure to ruin any and all recipes you run into.

If you have any tips that you'd like to share that could ruin most recipes - please share with us!

Unhappy baking to you this holiday season!

Happy Chanukah!

Here is the story of Chanukah (Hanukkah, Hanukah) for your edification:

Following the death of Alexander the Great (323 bce), his empire was divided between his generals, and eventually fell between the Ptolemy's of Egypt and Selucids of Babylon. Right between these two new empires lay Judea, thus it was conquered and reconquered several times for about 200 years. After it was conquered by the Selucids around 175 bce, they erected a statue of Zeus in the temple,condemned all Jewish practices including circumcision, holiday celebrations then defiled and looted the temple. In 167 bce the Jewish rebellion began, led by Mattathias "The Hammer" Maccabee and his 5 sons and by 165 bce they had kicked out all the Selucids.
This represents a unique period of time in the history of Judaism, because they were able to institute a theocratic government without any outside intervention or government. It lasted until 65 bce, when they asked a group of upstart Italians to protect them against invasion. Dang Romans came to stay.
As they cleaned out and rededicated the temple a lamp was to be burned all night for 8 nights. However, they could only find enough olive oil for one day, so they started it and found that it miraculously stayed lit for all 8 nights. Thus it is called the Festival of Lights. Chanukah comes from the Hebrew word for rededication.

Tonight we had a great first night of Hanukah. Ben had to sell back his textbooks so we drove up early to Salt Lake, played on campus for awhile then headed down to see the lights (the festival of lights). A miracle happened when we actually found parking at the new library (a lot with only about 100 spots, half a block from the square and free). Then we went to Siegfrieds, a German delicatessen where Ben bought some extra jelly doughnuts (which may or may not be a traditional Chanukah food) then we sang primary songs all the way home to keep Anna from crying and lit our menorah for the first night of Chanukah.

Maybe later I will post about how Chanukah is celebrated.

What Fun We Are Having

At the park with Clarkie

Warming up with Clarkie after the Park

At the park with Thad

Ponytails!

New outfits (I made that!)

(I did not make that one)

Hanging out with Daddy.

Exploring Christmas

Anna was only 10 months old last Christmas, she couldn't walk or talk, open presents or drink Egg Nog. This Christmas she is very aware of what is going on and it is fun to see her examine it all and try to put it in context.
She has figured out the basic concept of "Christmas Tree" - It has lights (!) and shiny balls (!) that are really hard for her to put back as she removes them.
She has found that under the tree are "Presents" - These are boxes in assorted sizes that are disguised. (Hopefully she won't figure out that it is paper because that will lead to some crayola-ed presents)
The "Santa" idea is too hard to explain, though she did watch the Dr. Seuss original "Grinch who stole Christmas" (also too hard to explain).
"Baby Jesus" will have to be explained at some point, although I'm not sure the purpose because she can barely identify pictures of adult Jesus, much less his role in life.

Hopefully if we keep telling her that she can't open presents until "Christmas" she will get excited enough to enjoy it when it comes.
What else should I teach her about Christmas?

Erntedankfest

This is the best Thanksgiving miracle I could possibly share with you.
courtesy Marci mayhem

Tooth brushing

I know I must really be tired when I accidentally use Anna's toothpaste to brush my teeth.




I know I must be really really tired when I accidentally use Anna's toothbrush to brush my teeth.




Good night.

1458 points

Anna won 1458 points today for being the best child ever.
Let me break it down for you:

65 points for barely putting up with leaving for the Primary program rehearsal with a pancake in her hand. (she could have been better, but she wore her jammies so it was cute)

197 points for quietly watching 2 episodes of Little Einsteins in her high chair while I taped the bathroom for painting. (it was not hard to convince her)

320 points for sleeping while Ben and I painted the primer coat in the bathroom.

211 points for watching Ice Age while we finished the 2nd coat.

498 points for playing quietly with her toys in the kitchen without breaking anything, falling off anything or getting into anything while we did touch ups and cleaned up. (and for not trying to help)

66 points for knowing the word "around" and running circles around us when we collapsed on the bed.

101 points for being generally adorable, managing to not get paint on herself and yelling for me by name in several episodes of the day.

Nope

Instead of screaming "Noooo!" in the midst of tantrums, Anna screams "Nooope!"
Just picture it, it will brighten your day.

Just a Heads Up

If Anna starts yelling at you a word that is somewhere between "All done" "Again" and "Outside" what she is trying to say is "Einstein" - meaning "Little Einsteins" (not to be confused with "baby einstein") a disney show that she watches on my computer. But don't think she'll stop at asking. She will pick up your laptop and haul it down the hall to you, maybe dropping it a few times to accentuate her point.

just a heads up.

Halloween Hoohah

Here are our puckins.

Here is our minnie mouse.

We are not halloween people.

Apple technology

Daddy's phone from Apple

Anna's phone from an apple.

(she is literally saying "hewwo? Gamma?")

Gerbies

Ben came home from the grocery store with these today. Red Gerbera Daisies, "gerbies". My wedding bouquet was red gerbies. We tried in vain to keep a plant alive in our earlier apartments though blossoms were few and far between, eventually we put it out of its misery. Hopefully this one will at least make it through the winter so we can feel perpetually in spring.

Recipes That Don't Work - Flour special

This isn't so much about a failed cooking attempt, sorry to mislead. But since it was cooking related, I thought it might fly (and get some of my readership back).

How To Discover Flour in 9 easy steps.
When Anna saw me making pancake mix, I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to introduce her to flour. So on pizza night, I gave her a small pile of flour next to where I was kneading and let her figure it out.

1st - she just clawed around in it (I love her little finger prints/claw marks)
2nd - she threw it up into the air
3rd - she looked at me funny when I couldn't get the camera to take the picture I wanted.
4th - she started drawing in it, and drawing and drawing. (She did it with this kind of intensity) 5th - she wiped away her drawing to see what else she could get flour on.
6th - I asked to see her pretty face.
7th - she showed it to me.
8th - she got up on the table so her pants could play in the flour
9th - daddy came home and made us clean it up

I hope you all learned something very valuable. Anna learned about flour and what pizza dough tastes like (her favorite part was trying to pinch off pieces to eat)
Thank you,
Goodnight.

Monday again

I told Ben last night, "I don't know what we're going to do tomorrow, but I will try to make it blog worthy."

So here we are. We didn't really do anything blogworthy I'm afraid, Anna was napping for most of the day. Literally like 3.5 hours. But then we ate some good ol' mac and cheese and went to the Library and park. Anna was pretty nervous about going to a new park, especially while there were some bigger kids running around, but in reality we were pretty lucky to encounter so few people at one of the busier parks in the city. Now we are chilling, she's getting some good playtime in with some toys (learning about the intricacies of snap beads).

We went to some halloween parties this weekend which necessitated our first babysitting adventures (outside the family, meaning money exchanged hands) it was pretty nerve wracking for me. Anna didn't seem to mind as long as she could watch Ice Age every night of her life.



So this is a video we took today to fill time and...

this is a video from her awkward early toddler days when she had a bad haircut and a very goofy toothed smile.

Field Trip

Today is Monday and it totally snuck up on me. I had no plans, no errands, no chores (probably). So I decided to take Anna on a field trip up to Payson Lakes. I had dreams of finding beautiful golden aspens lining the road, but we were about a month late for that. It was still beautiful, especially a little lower on the mountain, but we went straight for the lakes and walked around a bit then had a picnic dinner with the chipmunks. We saw a lot of deer, a few on our walk, most on the drive down - some were hanging out at the campground looking at us like - "hey we got here first, this is our spot."

there's a deer at the end of the path

So happy to throw rocks

Why my toddler is the cutest

Admittedly, she has some bad habits. Like waking up too early, screaming for fun and throwing food on the ground. But we are working on it. For instance, I got pretty tired of wiping up the floor around her high chair after every meal, so I told her that it was on her now to clean it up and throw the food in the garbage. And she did it. And she continues to do it. Tonight was pretty bad, there was rice involved. I didn't think she would bother with the rice, just get the naan in the garbage and run off, but she patiently went back and forth between the garbage and her high chair, one grain at a time. Ben and I were tickled.

Furthermore, as halftime and bedtime approached simultaneously tonight, I asked her to clean up some of her toys. (a very generic request with little to no actual direction) She walked over to a Lambie that hadn't been moved or played with, nudged it, then went back to sliding down daddy's legs. Thanks Anna!

And that is why my toddler is the cutest.