Where The Deer And The Antelope Play

On Sunday we spent much of the day on an outing to Custer State Park, perhaps not quite an hour from our house. We may have seen a bigger variety of animals than we did on our September vacation to Yellowstone. We saw many bison, antelope, prairie dogs and donkeys, all pictured here along with tiny pics from the day of me and my three kids.

As you can see, the donkeys were extremely friendly, especially if you had cinnamon sugared graham sticks to feed to them. Alexander got a big kick out of them. Anna quietly observed and seemed a little tentative about them being so close. She definitely voiced her fear of the big and ugly, yet awesome, bison beasts. We see so many deer and wild turkey in our own yard that we didn't bother to photograph them at the park. We also saw horses, and for good measure Mikel and I spotted a fox later in the evening on our way home from the movie.

Dad, who is in town until Tuesday morning, sat with the children while Mikel and I enjoyed a rare movie date night. The children didn't nap during the afternoon since we were too busy viewing wild animals, so they were in bed for night-night before we even left the house.

Christmas Parade

After a little holiday shopping Saturday, we went downtown for the city's annual Christmas parade, which is really a holiday parade of lights. Main Street lamps are turned off and all the floats are lit up with no doubt thousands of lights. Like last year, we watched the parade from Mikel's office. His office faces Main Street, which is where we waited for the parade to start so my dad could take advantage of the television set and flip between the Alabaman-Auburn and Kansas-Missouri football games. There is a little patio next to Mikel's office that overlooks the street as well, and we watched most of the parade from there so the children could better take in the sounds and sights and nip in the air.

Thanskgiving 2007

We enjoyed our second Thanksgiving together as a family. At last year's celebration, we'd only been home with the children for about three weeks. We were so thankful then to be home with our children, but I remember it being a bit more stressful time as we were so new to parenting and the children were much younger and we were all just getting to know each other. Plus we were in that little apartment. This year we're in our own home and we were very thankful that my father could travel up from Mississippi for a long holiday visit. The children call him Paw Paw, and they very eagerly anticipated his arrived late Wednesday. We awakened the children around 10:30 p.m., slipped their winter coats and snow boots on over their pajamas, and loaded up in the car for a late-night trip to the airport. The children are so groggy and cute when you have to wake then up like that. But they quickly snapped out of their hazes when they realized we were going to pick up their Paw Paw.

The next morning was devoted entirely to cooking the feast! We had turkey, sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, corn, dressing and cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and homemade pecan and apple/pear/cranberry pies. I'm sure I left something out. We ended up with way too much. Dad cooked the turkey perfectly and I did the rest. The kids and I pretty much stayed in our PJs all the day long.

Friday was devoted to college football. We were devastated when LSU lost in triple overtime, so we had to get out of the house to console ourselves with a meal that didn't consist of leftovers.

Here are photos of Thanksgiving lunch and our Friday night at a local restaurant.

A White Thanksgiving?

We woke up to a little snow this morning. It pretty much snowed the whole morning until early afternoon. It didn't amount to a whole lot and didn't completely cover the grounds. But rooftops, porches, some patches of road and grass had some accumulations.

I attend a Mothers of Preschoolers meeting this morning with Alexander, and Anna was in school, so we weren't able to venture out until after the children's naps. I'm not sure what the exact temperature was, but it felt bitterly cold. I had my gloves off thinking I'd be OK. But even without touching the snow I couldn't stand it and had to put them on. The children's noses and cheeks were getting red, so we didn't stay out too long.

Then we went inside for their first taste of hot chocolate cooled down to a lukewarm temperature. Alexander didn't like, as expected, but Anna did.

Tattletales

As soon as Mikel walks through the door from work in the evenings, Anna and Alexander have to tell him all about their day. Actually, it's not so much about their day as it is about who did what; usually, who did what wrong. We've thought Anna was more of the tattletale and Alexander was more of the immitator, the one who, you know, pretty much says and does everything his sister says.

Well, yesterday he turned the tables on her and surprised me. He said "Anna waste water, mommy!" She was brushing her teeth and left the water running during the brush part. He's one to talk. I've said before how both children have this fascination with the water and are constantly turning on the faucet, so he's not that innocent. He even likes to pull his body up onto the sink so that he can put his mouth under the running water to enjoy a drink!

Other verbal notes:
* "Stan me?" = "Understand me?" This is something the children are asking each other all the time, especially Anna. I reckon they've picked this up from me. When I'm not so sure they're paying attention or wanting to behave, I'm likely to put my hands on their upper arm and ask them if they understand me. Of course they always answer, "Yes." When they try to repeat it, however, the combination of the "st" sound isn't quite there yet, so it comes out sounding more like "Dan me?" Which, of course, when I first heard her saying this always made me think she was saying the "D" curse word.

* It's so interesting how children learn and the things they pick up on. Anna is getting the hang of adverbs, and I can only assume she has learned this by listening to others. I haven't sat down with her for a hard-core English lesson, and I'm sure they also haven't at school. Example: In the bathtub she likes to pour water from an empty bubble bath container into small Tubberware-like bowls, cups and lids perched along the edge of the tub. Perhaps she can sense my apprehension that she might spill over onto the floor and she says, "I pour carefully." There are other adverb usages I've noticed as well.

Princess Party

Anna was invited to a princess birthday party on Saturday. Her little friend turned 4, and all the girls were encouraged to come dressed like princesses. Since we don't have a Cinderella or Snow White costume, I put Anna in her Halloween fairy costume. I figured that was close enough. The mom also made pretty tulle skirts for girls who didn't arrive in the proper attire. I'd say most partygoers came dressed up somehow, even if only in their ballet outfits. We had a fun time, and it was really cute to see all the little girly girlyness going on. Here are some party pics, including a few of Anna pretending to cook as the party was winding down.

When we arrived home, a furniture store service man was here fine-tuning a door on our new bookcase. I could tell as soon as I walked in through the kitchen door that Mikel was having a lively conversation and was a lot more interested than he normally would have been. As it turned out the man is originally from Russia! His family emigrated to the States in 1992 after his father was persecuted and had been imprisoned during the communist rule for his religious involvements. They even received some kind of refugee status, which helped them in many ways once they arrived. I think his father had been some sort of music minister or something in a Russian sort of Baptist church. He talked a lot and we asked many questions and could have kept going, but he had other calls to make. It was so nice to meet him and we exchanged contact information. He said there is a very small group of people from Russia here in our city, and it would be nice to meet them. You hear sometimes that you might encounter Russians who really frown upon people taking their children from their homeland -- as if they're somehow better off in an orphanage without parents -- but he was very supportive and happy for us and our children. He even read to Anna one our Russian Disney books that we had displayed in the case. It didn't seem apparent that hearing the accent or the Russian language sparked any memories for her. While we want them to know about their birthcountry some day, I'm kind of happy about that for now. I picked up on a few words he said to her, including the word that sounds like "krasiva," which means beautiful. A lot of people might disagree with this, but he also seemed to say that the children should do really well in school — as his school-age children have — because, essentially, they weren't born spoiled and came from poor conditions and have the sort of ingrained mentality that you have to work very hard to get things or to get ahead in life. I can see where he's coming from, but I also know it's more about a child's particular home life and the values and priorities that are instilled.

Paint and Stuff

No pics this time, just a quick post as I pass the time with my laptop (I've downloaded our photos onto the big computer). I'm waiting for the children to quiet down for their naps before I resume painting in our front room. If I start moving around in the living room before they're asleep they'll hear me and never go down.

I'm almost done with our third color of paint in, oh, about three weeks. I'll post photos of the new room (paint, furniture and all) soon. After our first two color choices were a bust for one reason or another, we finally decided to go with the same color we have in our bedroom since we know we like it. We first painted the room a dark chocolate, almost the exact color we had in Auburn. I think it worked in the front room, but it made the hallway going up the stairs to the bedrooms pretty dark. We lived with that for two weeks before deciding to try something different.

Last weekend was spent painting the room a buttery gold color. But on Sunday evening we decided we were going to change it because it felt really bold. It's a beautiful rich color on the paint chip. Maybe it's our lighting or something, but up on the walls it just felt a bit too shockingly yellow at times, especially up in the hallway where all the light is artificial. The front room has been a wreck since last Friday, almost a full week. I wasn't about to rip up the painter's tape and remove the plastic covers from the floors and furniture once we knew we would not be going with the buttery gold. I knew we'd have to go right into the third round of painting or else it would never get done.

I can't tell you how much money we have thrown away on gallons of paint (especially the second color which was Martha Stewart and about 50 percent more expensive than a non-signature color) and the rollers. And I have to get the good rollers, too, so that nappy stuff doesn't stay on the walls with the paint. I use to try to wash my paint rollers so that I could reuse them. But what a pain that is! Plus, we're out of town now and are on a septic system, so I'm trying to be very careful about what goes down the drain. I mean, I don't even think I'm supposed to use bleach, as it would kill off the bacteria that breaks down our sewage and make everything run smoothly.

Some non-painting notes:

* I took Alexander through the car wash again yesterday on our way to pick up Anna from school. He had a fit. As the guys were spraying the soap and high-pressure water on the front grill and back bumper areas during the prewash, I could tell he was going to get upset. Then, as the car started moving through the automatic car wash tunnel thingy he put his hands together like he was praying and cried, "No More!" All red faced and teary. All I could do was take off my seatbelt, rip off my winter hat and contort my body around so that I could rub his arms and legs and try to ease his fears. The first time I took the children through a car wash he was scared. But the second time, Mikel was driving the whole family and he wasn't scared at all. Heck, I remember he even applauded at the end. Maybe his father's presence makes him feel more comforted or less afraid than mine does!

* On Sunday I performed in a concert with a local choral group. It was a Veteran's Day performance and all patriotic stuff. We had a section that fell more into a USO show category and was not necessarily patriotic but more Broadway tunes and that sort of thing. Boy the place was packed! The venue held more than 600 people and they were bringing in folding chairs and even set up rows of them outside the doors. I never thought of myself as that patriotic or anything, but it did bring tears to my eyes when we sang a medly of songs from each of the armed services divisions ("Off we go into the wild blue yonder," etc....) and veterans from each of those branches proudly stood up and received loud applause from the audience. Mikel brought the children, and they behaved beautifully throughout the whole two hours. I'm sure it helped that there was an intermission. He even got comments on their good behavior from others around them. Granted, I think they colored and flipped through brochures a good portion of the time. I wasn't sure about this group at first but am very glad I decided to stick with it. We practice one night a week and will also perform two holiday shows on Dec. 16. When in New York I sang with the Syracuse University Oratorio Society and was extremely honored to have been able to sing with that group. We always perfomed with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra in big venues. I was constantly challenged and grew so much as a musician, and the pieces were difficult. No patriotic stuff for that group. In fact, our first performance that season was Alexander Nevsky, all sung in Russian! I sang Russian before I spoke it, not that I really speak it.

Well, it's about 2:40 p.m. here and it sounds as if the children have decided not to nap today, which means I can't paint until later tonight after they're in bed. Darn. I'm very anxious for the house to be in order again. Stuff is strewn everywhere.

Swaddling

Anna surprised me yesterday after her nap by laying out her baby's blanket flat on the floor, placing Baby in the middle and then perfectly wrapping the blanket around the baby swaddle style. Whoa! I asked her where she learned how to do that (not me!). She said school, but sometimes you just wonder if they tell you that because that's the most logical response. The only reason I can imagine teachers would have showed children how to do this is because one of the teachers recently had a baby. Anyway, I was impressed.

Thanksgiving Mobile

We finally finished our Thanksgiving mobile. We started by tracing our hands. There are four little children hands and four adult hands. We thought about doing Shreve's paw, but it wasn't going to resemble anything like a turkey. We have a cornucopia as the centerpiece, and I also sketched out autumn leaves and pilgrim hats for fillers.

Beautiful Watercolors

Yesterday the children got to paint for the first time. They loved it! They stayed interested in it for a good hour or so. And I loved that I didn't have to do too much supervision and could feel somewhat relaxed.

We'll never Crayola again.

Cheering on Daddy

Here are photos of the children at one of Mikel's recent volleyball matches. His team played early enough in the evening that we could bring along the children without getting them to bed too late. Anna had to put on some "lips" in order to properly cheer. I had to make sure the children didn't get smacked in the head with the ball, which is played really hard and fast. Near the court is not a safe place to be, but when you're in a smallish gym you don't have an option. Also, before the match we ate dinner at Pizza Hut. Here's a pic of Alexander coloring at the table.

It's getting cold! Brrr. It's supposed to get down to 19 degrees tonight. It might be a cold Thanksgiving, which I can't believe is only 2.5 weeks away! I'm singing with this group here in RC, and our holiday performance is in about five weeks. Man, Christmas will be here in no time.

In other news, Alexander is progessing nicely with his potty training! He tells me when he has to go, though he does also go in his diaper, and can "hold it." Maybe I should take the plunge and try him in regular underwear soon. Because of the mess, I delayed too long on this step with Anna and kept her in Pull-Ups for like six months! But my life is so much easier now that Anna is completely self-sufficient in the bathroom. She can reach up to turn on and off the light, use the bathroom, wipe, flush and wash her hands all by herself. I don't even have to go in the bathroom with her anymore. And it's not just with her. My life has become much less chaotic/stressful/busy/etc. as they both get older, grow into more responsibility and need hand-holding less and less.