O Tannenbaum

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On Wednesday night we decorated our Christmas tree.  I’m finally posting about it today, because after we got the last ornament on, I realized my camera battery was out of juice and I didn’t feel I should write a post about decorating the tree without having a picture of the final product.  At last, I have said picture, so let the fun begin!

How to Decorate a Christmas Tree with a 19 Month Old

Step 1: Bring the Ornaments Out of Storage

I love our Snapware ornament box.  It keeps the ornaments securely in one place, but the trays separate for ease of packing/unpacking.  Alethea liked it because she got a sneak peak of what was coming, before we even opened the box.  She kept saying “Ball, ball!” and pointing at the round glass ornaments.

Step 2: Pick Out an Unbreakable Ornament for 19 Month Old to Put on Tree

At this point, things were going well.  Alethea was happy to try her hand at getting the toy soldier to stay on the tree.

Step 3: Console 19 Month Old After She Realizes She is Not Supposed to Take the Ornament Back Off

In this case, the picture says it all…

Step 4: Distract 19 Month Old with a Different Ornament to Put on the Tree

This step worked especially well when the ornament had a picture of Alethea on it.

Step 5: Repeat Steps 2-4 Until 19 Month Old Loses Interest and Requires a Caramel Corn Break with Daddy

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of this, but it was really cute!

Step 6: Put 19 Month Old to Bed and Finish Decorating the Tree

Step 7: Stand Back, Admire the Finished Product and Then Flop Exhaustedly onto the Couch

Done!

2010 Holiday Decor

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I love decorating my house, but I especially love changing around the decor for Christmas.  When we bought our current house two years ago, we had very little in the way of decorations since we never bothered to do much beyond putting up a small tree in the various rentals we occupied previously.  But now I have a dining room and a huge mantle in the living room, plus space for a big tree and in my head I see visions of garlands flowing and Christmas cheer peaking out from every corner.

Too bad Christmas decorations are so expensive…

So this is my plan: every year, add just a bit more and eventually we’ll have a nice array of beautiful things for the holidays.

Now I’m not done with my decorating for Christmas 2010, but I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at what I’ve been up to.

Here is the dining room centerpiece (I just have to get some taper candles to put in my candle stick holders):

As you can see, my knock off Pottery Barn paper music stars mixed in nicely with the Christmas ball ornaments from last year:

After I ran out of steam getting the tree up and completing the dining room centerpiece, last year’s mantle ending up being a bit bare.  This year, I thought we’d spruce things up a bit… literally… those are the bottom branches trimmed from our blue spruce Christmas tree you see behind the nativity:

So with the mantle done and the dining room centerpiece nearly done, I think I’ll tackle just one more new thing this year and that is the console table behind the couch in the living room.  Here’s how far I’ve gotten:

It’s like a design blank slate and all of these ideas are floating around in my head… which way to go?  So hard to choose just one idea.

Taking Baby Steps

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We’ve got 19 days until Christmas, 20 something days until the baby comes and I’m not ready for either one.  We did get Alethea’s curtains hung in her big girl room on Saturday.  And then on Sunday we went on a Christmas tree hunt.  No, the tree isn’t decorated yet and neither Alethea’s room or the nursery is totally ready, but we’re taking baby steps.

Speaking of baby steps… when we were packing up for the tree hunt we remembered that Alethea hates to walk in the snow, so we made sure to bring the sled.  Turns out though that she didn’t like that either, even with Mommy holding her hand:

And then Mommy let go:

Peter ended up carrying her until we found the perfect tree.  Thankfully it didn’t take long to locate it:

I held Alethea while Peter cut down the tree.  When it tipped over Alethea’s only comment was “Uh oh!”  But then I asked her if we should take the tree home, she said, “Yeah.”

So while Peter dragged the tree to the car, I carried Alethea.  But I couldn’t make it the whole way.  Something about being 9 months pregnant.  She had to walk.  At first she protested, but then it was okay so long as I was holding her hand:

However, by the time we got the tree loaded and ready to go, she had let go of my hand and was tooling around all by herself.

It’s a good thing.  She’d have a long 18 years growing up in Minnesota if she was forever unwilling to walk through snow.

Getting Ready for… Bunny?

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Now that we are T-minus one month until Baby B’s due date, we figured it was about time to get things set up in the nursery.  We borrowed a swing and a bassinet from some friends and got them put in place.

However when we told Alethea they were for the baby, we think maybe she misunderstood.

Baby… Bunny… I guess you can see how she’d get confused.

Confession Time

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I come from a long line of keepers.  I tell myself that it’s not my fault.  It’s how I was raised.

See, the rules of ‘stuff’ in my childhood home were: if it’s useful – you keep it, if it could be useful – you keep it, if it would be useful if you could figure out how to fix it – you keep it, if it isn’t fixable but you might be able to use it for spare parts – you keep it.  Also, if it is valuable – you keep it, if it might be valuable someday – you keep it, if it was a gift (even if you don’t like or use it) – you keep it, if it is a book – you keep it.  And of course, when in doubt – you better keep it.

I say this not to judge, but as a matter of fact, I decided a long time ago that all this keeping wasn’t for me.  I just don’t like being surrounded by stuff.  I find it a bit overwhelming.  However, despite this inward resolution, every now and then I have a hard time escaping my genetic heritage.

Take music for example.  I’m a piano teacher.  I need music books to teach.  People know this and not infrequently I receive bags/boxes/stacks of music that is no longer wanted for various reasons.  For many years I just kept it all in an attempt to build up my teaching library.  However, this past summer when I was organizing my piano studio and realized that I had too much music to fit in my large 4 drawer file cabinet, I decided it was time to do some sorting.  My rules were, to get into the keep pile the music must either be written by a well-known composer, or it must be visually appealing.  (I don’t mind making students play from a battered copy of Chopin’s Nocturnes, but no eight year old is going to want to play some no-name composer’s piece when it’s shrouded in a cover straight out of the 1940s.)

Using this sorting method I was able to get rid of a large box of music and fit the remaining books back into the file cabinet with room to spare:

I was feeling good about everything, everything except that one book that was in the give away pile.  It was a book of character pieces (musical vignettes) by a composer that I’d never heard of, with no visual appeal that any child would perceive:

And even though I hated myself for thinking it, I heard a voice in my head say, “That book is kinda cool and antiquey looking.  If someday you ever wanted to do a craft project using old music, that is exactly what you would need.  What’s the harm in keeping just one little book?”  So, after a brief internal debate, I grabbed the book and (feeling like I’d made a deal with the devil) I shoved it into the back of the bottom drawer and quickly closed it before I could change my mind again.

After that, I forgot about the book… that is until Pottery Barn entered the picture (because every good story involves Pottery Barn, right?)

Take a look at what they came up with for Christmas 2010:

Paper Music Star Vase Filler, $12 (and already sold out online).

Turns out a guiltily kept music book plus handy online instructions (thanks for sending me the link, Mom!) equals Pottery Barn-esque holiday decor, for FREE!  Gotta love it (and the stars turned out great):

Now, I suppose I will hear a big ‘I told you so!’ from all of my dear family and that’s fine, I can admit it, every now and then, it’s good to be a keeper!

Nineteen Month Update

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Yesterday was Alethea’s nineteen month birthday.  Happy Birthday, Baby!

After several months of feeling like things weren’t changing very quickly, I’ve noticed a lot of developments in Alethea over the past few weeks.  The biggest change is in her vocabulary; she’s had an absolute explosion of new words lately.  The cutest one is that if you tell her, ‘I love you!’ she’ll say “I Oooo!”  It’s so sweet!  She also just started saying her name, not entirely clearly, but definitely her name.  I’m so glad, because I was beginning to wonder if she really knew what her name was!

In addition to adding words to her vocabulary, she also added a few tunes to her song repertoire.  Now in addition to being able to sing (tune only) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in it’s entirety, she’ll also sing (with the words) ‘E, I, E, I, O’ from Old MacDonald, as well as parts of The Elmo Theme song and Jingle Bells.  What is most impressive to me is that she sings the tunes well enough that people (besides me) can recognize them.  I’m so thrilled that she seems to have such an ear for music!

We are making some advances in naming colors, counting and recognizing shapes.  She definitely knows what a star is and can sometimes get circle and triangle right too, she’ll say ‘two, three’ if you start with ‘one’ and she seems to have a better handle on which color is which, although she often answers ‘blue’ without even looking at the object if you ask her ‘what color is this?’

I’ve also noticed that her play time is changing.  She now seems most interested in pretend playing (as opposed to stacking/sorting/manipulating objects).  The other day she was playing with my cell phone and held it up to her bunny’s ear.  I asked her who the bunny was talking to and she said ‘Gramma’.  She also likes to make her stuffed puppy Dee do the things she is doing, like eating crackers or reading books.

Besides playing with toys and looking at books, her favorite activity seems to be ‘helping’ around the house.  She wants to be up on a chair next to me any time I am doing the dishes or preparing food.  Giving her a paper towel and asking her to ‘clean up’ is a great way to get some whine-free prep time when I’m making her lunch.  She’ll happily wipe the floors, cupboard fronts and chairs for minutes on end.  She also continues to enjoy sweeping the floors and has discovered the joy of throwing things in the garbage.  Mostly she even throws away appropriate things, although I have had to rescue Dee or another toy a handful of times.

It’s kind of amazing to me that she’s made so much developmental progress this month considering that she’s been sick with one thing after another all month long.  The antibiotics seem to be doing their job though, because she’s been much happier and runny nose free for most of the past week.  Finally!

I know it’s cheesy to say, but even though it’s been a bit of a rough month on the health front, watching Alethea grow up sure makes it all worth it.

Thanks for reading!

The Best Carrot Recipe Ever

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Tonight I made our family favorite meal: crispy onion chicken with mashed potatoes, rolls and Carrots Marsala.  Yum!  Alethea wouldn’t touch the chicken or mashed potatoes, but she filled up on two rolls and three helpings of the carrots.

So just in time for Thanksgiving, here is the best carrot recipe ever, which is easy, tasty and even my ‘picky about veggies kid’ will devour.

Carrots Marsala (serves 6-8)
1 lb baby carrots
1/4 cup Marsala wine
1/4 cup water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
fresh ground black pepper, to taste

In a medium sauce pan, combine all ingredients.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until carrots are tender.

Begining to Hate Weekends

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Most people know the acronym TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday).  I think I’ll start a new one ONIS (Oh No, It’s Saturday).  Two Saturdays ago Alethea came down with a horrible cold, then last Saturday night, it was the flu.  That’s why yesterday evening when Alethea was so hysterical I had to pick her up early from Cousin’s Night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, I knew we were headed for trouble.  After an urgent care visit this morning and a trip to Target Pharmacy, we are home again with some antibiotics to treat Alethea’s ear infection.

Maybe at least this Saturday trend means that since Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, we’ll get to enjoy a few days of fun before Alethea develops some new illness to keep us on our toes.  Let’s hope so.

As you can tell, I’m feeling a little whiny here.  November hasn’t been a good month around our house.

Some things to look forward to in December:

1) Christmas Tree Hunting, maybe it might even be a little warmer than last year?

2) Neighborhood Secret Santa, I stocked up on cute clearance items last year, so I am prepared!

3) Spending Time with Family (this is Alethea and her cousins at Christmas last year):

4) Advent Services at Church, this is probably my favorite time of year to attend church.  I just love the music and the messages and focusing on the spiritual side of the holidays.  It keeps me grounded during the craziness!

5) Celebrating Christmas with Alethea, even if Santa hats don’t quite fit her cute Bobble Head:

6) Meeting Baby Bob, yeah, I know her due date isn’t until January, but I keep telling her to shoot for December 27th or 28th.  That’s enough time to recover from Christmas, but still before Peter has to go back to work at the beginning of January (his busiest time of the year at work).

Here’s to a fun, festive and healthy month of December!

Have a Very Budget Christmas

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The other day I was reading an article that listed people’s best money saving tips for the holidays and I was intrigued by one woman who said she saved money by entering every blog giveaway she could find and winning the vast majority of her Christmas gifts.  I think for that to work, you’d have to enter a lot of giveaways, or you’d have to be really lucky!  I don’t think I’m persistent or fortunate enough for that to work!

However, when Lauren over at withtwocats.com recently posted a giveaway for a $50 gift certificate to TinyPrints, I thought I might have to see if I could at least win myself some free Christmas cards.  Click here for all the details on this cool giveaway!

I think I might be heartbroken if I don’t win, because I already went to TinyPrints and found a card I love:

Wish me luck!

The Chicken or The Egg

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Alethea hasn’t really been sleeping well lately.  All night long I hear her periodically whining/fussing/talking in her room.  This probably explains why she been pretty cranky during the day as well.  She’s also had a persistent cold for the past two weeks.  So my question is, does not sleeping well mean she can’t get over her cold, or is her cold keeping her from sleeping well at night?

Or I guess it could be both…

Some other possibilities to consider:

1) Daylight savings change making her cranky

2) Not getting outside as much because it’s cold and she’s sick

3) Vitamin deficiency (especially Vitamin D, due to lack of sunlight)

4) Her room being too cold at night

5) Growth spurt

6) Teething (is it too soon for her 2 year old molars to be bugging her?)

With so many possibilities to consider, I’m not even sure where to start, but I think I may do some research into toddler sleeping because I feel so bad for her at night and I really miss my happy fun girl during the day. If anyone has any tips/thoughts/suggestions, please let me know.  I’d really love to get this mystery solved.