Digital Scrapbooking

I am not a scrapbooker. Mostly because I can't stand the thought of having to get out so much STUFF to be able to do it, and then having to put it all away again when I was done. I don't have an "area" for it to belong, so I've never gotten into the scrapbooking thing. HOWEVER, I have wanted a way to creatively display and store my pictures and memories. So for Christmas, Brent got me some digital scrapbooking software, namely Polaroid's My Memories Suite. I haven't done much yet, but so far I love it. I can sit at the computer and put things together, yet I can stand up and walk away and it's all put away. I don't have to have scraps of stuff hanging around, yet I can end up with something I'm proud of. I've not spent much time on it, but I feel like I've accomplished things with the time I have spent. Here is just one of my pages...

Before and After

This is seriously one of my very favorite things about Christmas morning. Usually I'm all about "GET IT CLEANED UP NOW!" But Christmas is different. I think that once people start cleaning up, it means it's over...

A girl and her father on a winter's day

The advertising is right!

For years now, I have used Max Factor's Lipfinity Lipstick. It's the kind that is a liquidy paint-type stuff that you put on, then use a glossy topcoat to seal it and make it shine. I usually use just a regular lip gloss throughout the day and feel great about my appearance. Who knows if I really look presentable, but it's all about how I feel, right? Anyway, on their website they claim that "the color can last for up to 12 hours — without touch-ups." Well, this morning as we were leaving for church, Miriam found my left-out makeup and decided to highlight her eyes for the special Sunday-before-Christmas service. She chose the Lipfinity, obviously wanting to go for something a little more vavoomish than just regular eyeshadow. After wiping, rubbing, washing, and otherwise attempting removal, the stuff had diminished but was obviously still there. I attacked it with a baby wipe during choir practice. When that rendered still nothing, I decided to embrace it. I thought that she looked like a little white rabbit with pink eyes, although most people asked who had won the fight. Either way, I'm sure it added quite a bit to the sight of her wailing pitifully at the gate of nursery before she remembered that she likes her class and fully participated. The picture above is her posing cheesily by the tree after church. The Santa hat, by the way, has become a favorite accessory and is on her head about 90% of the time. Lower you'll see a close up of the eye color. Even after her bath tonight, she still had her eye-highlights. If you're looking for long-lasting lipcolor, look no more. This stuff really works!

Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A, You're Adorable

My daughter is absolutely brilliant and there's just no getting around it! In a past post, I mentioned that we had talked about the letter "M" and that she recognized all letters as such. Well, my friends, those times are in the past. Miriam definately knows what letters are and can distinguish a whole bunch of them. One of her favorite songs is the ABC song. In fact, when she chooses which song to sing to Baby Eli, 90% of the time, that's the one he gets. Once she was running with her dad and she stopped at a big sign that is low to the ground and she started singing the ABC song. She totally recognizes that letters are a big part of this world and they are everywhere. She has had "O" down for a long time, and once when we were in Boise, I pointed to a Boise sign and asked her to find the "O." She pointed right to it. I didn't know she knew "B," but she then pointed to the "B" and said "B!" She knows "B!" At this point, she gets B, H, I, M, O, S, and X almost always. She usually gets A, D, E, F, P, and Z. It makes me proud as a parent that she sometimes points these letters out in public. The other day we were at the checkout of a grocery store. The word "Bakery" was written in huge letters on the wall. She pointed to it and clearly said "B." "Yep," I said, "that's the letter B!" The checker was absolutely amazed. Her choosing which letters to learn is affected by other things. She has recently developed an obsession for the Wiggles. This has been enthusiastically fostered by her dad. She can name all of the colors of the Wiggles (red, blue, yellow, and purple), can name two of them with color (purple is Jeff and yellow is Sam [sorry to all of you early Wiggle watchers who knew the Wiggles when Greg was yellow]), and can identify which color of Wiggle is whose favorite (Dad likes blue, Miriam likes yellow, Zeke likes red, and luckily I haven't had to choose a favorite). Anyway, one day she was playing with her alphabet letter magnets at the fridge and she started freaking out about the Wiggles. It seemed odd to me, but it turns out that she had found this letter "g," which is in the same font that is used in the Wiggles name and she hooked the two together. For a long time, she would pick this letter up, and use it to instigate a request to watch the Wiggles. She would hold it lovingly as she danced and sang along with them. Now, she always identifies "g"s that are in this font as "Wiggles!" I'm trying to make it be "Wiggles g," but it's a slow process. Needless to say, she looks for and finds letters all around the house. For Christmas, my sister-in-law Jenn made us these adorable letter blocks that spell out "FAMILY." We have them up in the bedroom and Miriam loves looking at them because there is the "M" and the "I" that she's really good at. And it is because of these letter blocks that she is starting to find "F" and "A" in other places. We haven't started lowercase letters (with the grand exception of the Wiggles g, of course) and last week when the number 2 was in a puzzle she was working on, she said it was an S. There is definately room for growth, but I am going to end just as I started. My daughter is absolutely brilliant and there's just no getting around it!

Christmas Crafts

I don't consider myself a "crafty" person, in personality or in the enjoyment of making things. But I have added two major (to my standards at least) hand-put-together projects to my Christmas decorations this year.

The first is a vinyl saying board that I have put above the piano. It is a quote from the second verse of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and one of my all-time favorite Christmas lines. It states "Born that man no more may die!" My favorite version of this song is done by Jewel on her Christmas album Joy (which is, by the way, one of my very favorite Christmas CDs). I feel that the line just sums up the entire reason for celebrating Christmas. For years now I have wanted to put the saying above one of my nativity scenes, and this year I did it. It is, like I said earlier, a vinyl saying on a painted board. The painting of the board was no problem, although I did wonder how to select the color of green that would match both the greenish wall and the green of the other Christmas decorations. The problem was solved when I realized I had paint left over from the greenish wall and just went with that, to heck with the other greens. Then came the application of the vinyl. I had a 9-step direction sheet on "How to Apply Vinyl" complete with a contact name and number at the bottom if I had any problems that I got from the craft store where I ordered the vinyl. I read it over about twenty times and debated taking the whole project to Boise over Thanksgiving so my sisters and sister-in-laws could help me do it right when I finally took a deep breath and just did it. And to be completely honest I think it turned out fabulous! I have it hanging over the piano over my Chilean nativity scene. I've had it hanging up for less than a week and have already had multiple comments both on the phrase and how good it looks. I absolutely love it.

The next project was a nativity scene that I found on Sugardoodle.net. I knew I would never do it alone, but quite liked it, so I invited my siblings to take part in the activity. We made sets after Thanksgiving dinner and it was quite fun. Miriam actually did most of the painting on this set, with some help from Malone. She was so energetic and focused that I don't think I could possibly have told her no. Each time she finished a piece, she turned and said, "more paint?" And she was quite sad when there were not any more, even after painting both sides of each one. When we were unpacking it and putting it out on the table, she said "Mimi paint! Malone help." Still now, she picks up a piece of it from time to time and reminisces about the time she got to paint. I kept finding them on their backs and figured it was a lot more wobbly than I thought. Then one day I realized that I had put them on the table that Zeke uses to look out the window. And the nativity scene doesn't stop him from using it. But I like the table it's on and I certainly don't want to take away a spot from Zeke because he might want to replace it with a spot that I don't like him in, so I'll just keep setting it up.

And while I'm talking about amazing homemade Christmas decorations, I just have to share when my sister Erin painted for all of us this Christmas. I have always been impressed with her talent for doing anything that she wants to, and this is just another example of why. I don't know how the project came to her, but she did an absolutely amazing job. If you can't tell, it's the wise men traversing across the desert. One is pointing the way, one is leading the camel, and one has his hand on the camel's side. There are stars stamped in the sky and letters stamped onto it saying "Hallelujah, glory to the Babe who will save us all." Because this is my blog, I will take credit for the saying. It is from an extra verse that I wrote to "We Three Kings" in an arrangement that will someday be described in an entire seperate blog entry. But although I put the words together, she stamped them on the painting in silvery paint and it looks awesome. I am just so dang impressed.

Decorating for Christmas is one of my favorite things to do. One reason is because each item I take out of the box is a reminder of the birth of Christ and how His life has incredibly and undeniably affected mine. I am so grateful for this time of year and the chance we have to focus so much on Him and His life. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Please accept with my best holiday wishes my gift to you, my dear blog readers. It is a link (I am nothing if not generous) to a "Twelve Reading Days of Christmas" article. It is a list of suggested scriptures starting Sunday the 14th and going through Christmas, highlighting aspects of the nativity, the prophesies of Christ, and their impact on our lives. I am excited to use it as my daily scripture inspiration for the next few weeks and hope that it makes your holiday brighter.

Things Miriam Loves #1

Because she spends most of her times with me, I still have a large impact on the things Miriam does or does not do. Still, she definately has her opinion and lets me know if it's something that she loves loves loves or something that she'd rather not do again. So although I have a deep and abiding love for public libraries, it's not just my love rubbing off on her. I do believe that Miriam's very favorite time during the week is her Library Class time. Officially it's called "Storytime," but we always call it her "Library Class." After trying out various and sundry baby and toddler library classes across the valley, I finally attended one at our closest library. The suggested age is 3-5, so I didn't take her earlier, but I should have. It's a small enough group that the storytime leader can interact with all the kids. She has a routine setup, starting with "If You're Happy and You Know It," and ending with a craft. No matter how many times I sang this song to Miriam before we attended our library class, now when we sing it, she always identifies it as Miss Kami's song. I frequently tell Miriam something that's we'll be doing the next day as she's getting ready for bed. If I tell her that her Library Class is tomorrow, however, she gets super excited and runs to the door, sometimes even grabbing a library book to turn in on the way, yelling "Kami Kami Kami!" Even if we are attending the library on a non-class day, Miriam gets really excited to see Miss Kami. When she goes to Miss Kami's desk, she gets a stamp on each hand. Miriam LOVES her stamps. She shows them off to everybody she sees for the rest of the day and says "Stamp. Kami." The picture above is her doing just that. And thankfully, Miss Kami knows and likes Miriam too. The other day we went to the library and Miriam was talking about Miss Kami the whole way. It made her think quite a bit when I said that the library isn't Miss Kami's house, but that is is Miss Kami's work. When she walked in and saw Kami at her desk, she yelled "KAMI!!" Miss Kami, bless her heart, looked up and said "Miriam!" Then Miriam went and collected her stamps, telling Miss Kami all about something or other that was super exciting. I don't know how much Miss Kami understood, but she sure acted excited about it. And one strange twist of it's-a-small-world-ness, Miss Kami turns out to be the cousin of my friend and Logan roommate Kristen! No wonder she's wonderful! Anyway, Miriam also knows the setup of the library, and usually helps me turn her books in before she trucks off to the board book section and sits down to make some selections. She also knows where the videos are and usually requests either Elmo or the Wiggles. I'm not sure if the "Thing Miriam Loves" is the library in general or the class or Miss Kami herself, but the combination of the three is definately a highlight of her life.


This is Miriam choosing a sticker from Miss Kami after her class was over. Please note the marshmallow turkey clutched in her hand. By the time we drove to dad's work after the class to show him, the mini marshmallow feathers were gone. But she kept the big marshmallows to be able to show him what she did with Miss Kami in her beloved Library Class.

Daddy-Daughter

Miriam adores her daddy. And her daddy adores her. No matter how sad or frustrated she is, as soon as she hears the back door opening which signals the arrival of dad from work, she runs to it yelling "DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY!" She simply loves him and loves being with him. The other day, I picked up the camera to look at some pictures and I found this adorable little series.
I had no idea she could make faces on command for the camera. She's never done that for me! I'll have to ask Brent what his technique was. I also know they're in the office, what with the window and computer in the background, but other than that I don't know the circumstances under which these were taken. I recognize Brent's "mean face" in the last picture, although the expression is a bit skewed when he's trying not to laugh. Miriam doesn't look too mean, either, but she's trying!

Zoo Boise

One afternoon in Boise we decided to take Miriam to the zoo. Last summer when she started making animals sounds and otherwise identifying animals, we went to Hogle Zoo for an afternoon. It was hot and the animals were all asleep in the shade and Miriam couldn't see them because they weren't moving and it was super crowded with tons of kids and strollers and everything else and it just wasn't all that much fun. We decided after that to just go to our local pet stores for our animal viewing pleasure. And Miriam has loved it. But like I said, one afternoon in Boise we decided to take Miriam to the zoo. And it was wonderful! I don't know if it was the perfect fall temperature combined with the fact that there weren't a lot of people there added to the fact that the animals were all up and moving around. Either that or Zoo Boise is simply a much better toddler destination than Hogle Zoo. We may never know. Whatever the reason, we loved the zoo in Boise. They had an African exhibit. The lions were right across the way from the zebras, and there was one lion who had definately realized this. She paced back and forth in front of her windows keeping her eye on the poor little zebra. At times she would even rub her nose against the glass. Miriam loved it. She ran with the lion on the safe side of the glass and thought it was hillarious. She saw tigers and turtles and monkeys and birds and a giraffe. She climbed in a turtle shell and slid down a giraffe-neck slide. She has also gotten to the "lookatme" stage. When we first got there she said, "Mama! Camera!" I had to break it to her that I had forgotten to bring the camera. Not about to be stopped, she said, "Mama! Phone!" So I broke out the cell phone and took pictures of the cute little girl at the zoo. And because she did, I can now post them for your viewing pleasure. What a thoughtful girl she is. For some reason she was very taken by a recycling bin that was shaped like a dolphin. We spent quite a lot of time there and she really wanted a picture with the dolphin and herself and daddy. After I took it, she decided she wanted to be sitting down in the picture. The way I see it, it's easier to just take the stinking picture rather than tell her no on something that simply doesn't matter.

What dreams are made of

One middle-of-the-night while we were in Boise, I woke up to hear Miriam moaning in the corner. "Brown... brown... brown..." I understood the word but couldn't figure out what she was thinking. Frequently she will identify her blankets and sippies by color, but she doesn't have any brown blankets or brown sippies. Due to the fact there were a whole heck of a lot of people sleeping in the same house, I immediately went to her pack-n-play to see what was up. She continued saying "brown" as I crossed the room, and when I reached into her crib she finally got to the point. I almost burst right out loud when she said "brown ice cream." I changed her diaper, got her a bottle, and she went back to sleep. I don't know if she was requesting a chocolate ice cream cone or dreaming about it or both, but I just had to laugh. I also don't know if she remembered the incident. The next day when we had ice cream out, she opted for green. I sure love this crazy little girl!

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The main activity is being with family, cooking and eating a great meal, watching football, and in general just being together. The main purpose is to recognize and thank our Heavenly Father for the multitude of amazing blessings we have received. It is all of the family-ness of Christmas without all of the expectations. This year Miriam, Brent, and I traveled to Boise and spent Christmas with my entire immediate family. All my siblings, all their spouses, and virtually all their children (one step-niece opted for Coos Bay instead, although I sure can't see why) were in attendance. It was crowded and wonderful. I am so thankful to come from the family that I do, where there is love and understanding and enjoyment of each other. Miriam loved being at "Nana's house," and very quickly identified her favorite activities. She now knows all of her cousins by name in person rather than just in pictures. This picture isn't from the Thanksgiving meal, but rather soup the night before. I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at this bar with all my siblings hundreds of times in my life. It just thrilled me to see my daughter and her cousins at the same table, sitting on the same chairs, and enjoying the same delicious cooking that I did. There is just so much to be thankful for!