Seeing as I also like to talk about what I cook on this blog, seems I can’t let it go without mentioning our Thanksgiving food. We started the day off with a high calorie bang as I made some cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. I had made them the previous week and frozen them. I think they came out well that morning, and promptly ate too many of them. I did manage to give at least one pan away to our neighbors Christina, Zach, Ethan and Chanh, but that was all I could bear to separate from. We had another two pans for Christmas but they didn’t come out as well, don’t know if I gave them enough time to rise that time.

We spent the morning cooking a few more things and then Pipita made us arepas for lunch. She let Josie help which was very gracious of her considering Josie just tries to eat the raw dough (ick).

Then we went home and got Josie and the rest of us a nap before coming back to eat the feast!

We had green beans with almonds, rolls, sweet potato casserole, carrot souffle, stuffing (meat and not), salad, turkey and veggie and turkey gravy. Plus I had made spinach dip for snacking on before dinner, not that we needed it. Yes that cranberry sauce is directly out of the can, I think it’s hilarious that it is can-shaped and insist that we leave it that way on the plate, sue me. I tried making my own one year and it was just terrible and there was TONS of it, so I haven’t bothered again. The new recipes this year were the sweet potato casserole and spinach dip. The spinach dip was pretty basic ho-hum recipe, cheese, artichokes, cream spinach and more cheese. The sweet potato we left the rather gratuitous cup of sugar in the potatoes out, leaving only the one on top plus the marshmallows and it was fantastic. This will be a definite addition to our table moving forward.

We ended the night with pumpkin and pecan pie with whipped cream, but didn’t make much progress on either, see above list of food for the entire day to explain why. With me nursing the girls I generally find I can’t ever eat enough to get stuffed, that was not true on this day with the whole day of rich options! There was wine and pina-coladas (?) for those who wanted to imbibe and it was a mighty feast indeed.

Just to back pedal a bit, this Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to be visited by Jordi’s mom, dad, sister and paternal grandmother since well we uh just had a baby and weren’t up for making the trip to Florida just yet. We did a big thanksgiving dinner and had fun Fall outdoor playtime (froze the southerners in the process).

Josie made special Thanksgiving place setting decorations. We saved a bunch of paper towel and toilet paper rolls and she painted each one. Then we glued ‘feathers’ onto them to make it look like native american headdresses. I don’t think Josie caught what they were supposed to be, but she enjoyed the process. Jordi enjoyed collecting the paper recyclables as it always seems like we should be able to do something crafty with them.

Happy (very) belated Thanksgiving!

We did an early Christmas at our house because we don’t have room to fit all the gifts and such on the road trip to my aunt’s house. Here’s Josie that morning when she came out.

I know I still haven’t gotten to Thanksgiving or other events, but I’m going to put up a few days of pretty Christmas photos for you all to enjoy because I want to, it’s quick, and they’re of my beautiful girls.

Busy life these days, thanksgiving needs to be updated and such, but right now Celia’s got a cold, last week Josie had a cold and of course the holiday season of parties and shopping is upon us. Josie has decided to try out some new behaviors like ignoring me or shouting ‘no’ and running away as well as refusing to participate in gym class or basically do anything other than stay at home and play with her toys. We’re working on it, a few tactics may be helping which definitely includes cutting back trips out of the house to the bare minimum.

Celia has been waking up more and is generally happy except when wet, hungry or tired. She’ll play on her activity mat for an amazingly long time happily and as of about two weeks ago can bat at her toys and occasionally grab them (although that’s a reflex still we’re pretty sure). She loves her naked time and I took some pictures which I won’t post here, but if you come over I’ll show you the funny pictures of her adorable newborn body with the huge belly, tiny bowed legs and wrinkled bum. She also is showing the same desire for standing that Josie did at an early age. She’s getting strong fast! Can’t wait until she can sit up and play with toys a little, she looks like she’ll be great at entertaining herself a little bit. She definitely likes to watch Josie too!

Someone flipped some switches with Josie here at age 2.5. She’s started the ‘why’ phase, with lots of them, thankfully not usually more than two or three in a row though yet which makes them mostly answerable. She’s also decided that ignoring mommy is a fun game to try out. I’m not so pleased with that one, but it is developmentally appropriate. We’re trying to let the natural consequences stand, such as when she chose not to show up for lunch today, she just didn’t eat and we went on with our routine and she went down for nap. I expect she’ll be hungry later, but she won’t starve in a few hours so it’ll be ok.

She wishes Celia would be awake more often, and doesn’t seem to understand that I can pay more attention to her if Celia is sleeping. That is the time she picks to play quietly by herself. She likes art projects but sometimes seems to be unsure of what to do lately, I’ve probably been structuring them too much for her lately to make some fun decorations, but she likes those too.

She’s very interested in understanding time, days and schedules. Today we worked on making a calendar for her so she can see the days of the week and the different activities we have planned for each one. Hopefully this will also help with the bedtime and naptime routines.

She’s taking her big kid gymnastics class now and she loves it. It’s the only time she’s under the authority of non-family adults at this point and she does well. Although I’ll often see her telling the teacher many random things about her life during class (“I got a shot from my doctor last week”, “I have a new baby!”…) The class is all older kids (3-5) and at this point she mostly watches them to see what to do rather than seeming to follow the teachers directions directly. She is definitely in awe of some of the bigger girls and follows them around to be near them. Thankfully they’ve taken a liking to Josie too.

At this point I’d say Josie is day-time toilet trained, we still have an accident a week or so randomly but mostly because she’s in ‘ignoring mommy’ mood and wants to prove she can ‘hold it’ when she just can’t anymore. We’re doing diapers still for naps and bed time. I can’t wait to ditch those too, but they’re clearly needed still, and I’m already washing diapers, so two extra a day is no biggie.

Basically we spend the day socializing with her friends (and mine) in the morning and then free play in the afternoon after nap. We do lots of reading, but just getting through the basics of the day takes a long time because she is very slow to transition and switch activities. She is very easily distracted and keeps changing her mind as to what she wants. Just trying to focus on reconnecting with her now as she has big big emotions when things go ‘wrong’ in her eyes and is also pushing the limits to see what she can do to us. When she’s happy she continues to be a joy to be around, very silly, funny and affectionate. She’s also very kind to Celia and wants to hold her and help with her too.

She also doesn’t walk much. It’s all running. Even across the room, she runs. Kinda funny!

• Size/weight: 3T and 4T, 30 lbs and 38 inches tall
• Favorite food: breastmilk, cheese, pasta – fairly wide variety, willing to try most things
• Favorite toy: baby dolls, doctors kit, baby toys
• Favorite books: Elephant and Piggie books, Clifford books, Dr Suess, and what do people do all day
• Favorite activity: Acting out scenarios with her dolls
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:30; 1:30pm ~1.25hr naps; gets up ~7am
• New skill: ignoring mommy, zipping her own jackets
• Teeth: 16. 8 on the top and 8 on bottom
• Vocalizations: Voracious story teller