Getting Ready for Christmas

We finally got our Christmas tree up the other day. It's only partially decorated at this point, but at least it's up. We have an artificial tree that my husband & bought the year after we were married. Since we were married on Christmas Eve, we didn't bother buying a tree that year, but went ahead and waited until the following year to purchase the mammoth tree that is now in our living room. It's a much bigger tree than I had intended it to be, but with my total ineptitude at numbers, my mind couldn't register just how tall a 9 foot tree would be. I thought that was a standard size for a Christmas tree. Well, the corner of the living room that I had specially picked out for this tree would no longer do.....no, this 9 foot tall tree was way too tall to fit in that cozy little corner. So the only other place for this tree to fit was smack dab in the middle of the living room. It's at lest up against a wall, but as soon as you walk into our house - BAM! - the tree is RIGHT THERE. It's a pretty tree, that's not the issue, I'm just a little overwhelmed every year at the size of the darned thing! We have a beautiful angel that goes on the top of the tree which is, of course, a challenge to get up there and when we finally do manage to get her up there, her head hits the top of our ceiling. Yeah, it's a big tree!

And with it being December, that means it's also time for me to dig my favorite Christmas movies out of the DVD cabinet. I've been watching "A Christmas Story" quite a bit lately, sympathizing with little Ralphie as he goes on his quest to acquire the coveted Red Rider 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. My favorite Christmas movie of all time is most definitely "Christmas Vacation" with Chevy Chase. I just can't get enough of that movie! Unfortunately, my version of this movie is the European one and requires a special DVD player (or my laptop) to watch it, and my "special" DVD player is currently out of commission. I'm going to play around with it and see if I can fix it but if not, then I'll have to just keep watching it on my laptop. That's OK, though, because I can still watch little Ralphie, as well as the other fun favorites we have like "Jingle All the Way", "Scrooged", "Mixed Nuts", "Christmas With the Kranks" and, of course, all the fun animated classics with Rudolph, Santa, and Charlie Brown.

Some of my favorite Christmas rituals remain steady year after year. In addition to the obvious rituals of putting up a tree, buying presents, etc., there are the personal rituals that I derive such pleasure from: holiday portraits, candy cane and evergreen scented Christmas candles, special gingerbread and "nutcracker" flavored hot teas, candy cane flavored hot chocolate, and the incredible assortment of international Christmas delicacies that can only be purchased this time of year. I always look to Europe when purchasing yummy Christmas goodies, with Germany being at the very tippy top of my list. I love the German Christmas Stollen! In case anybody is unfamiliar with this yummy treat, it is a type of bread (not very sweet) with a heavy powdered sugar coating all over the outside of it. It's sweet because of the powdered sugar, but the bread itself is not sweet, but rather somewhat dry. It's not too terribly dry, but it's most definitely not a "moist" (like banana) bread. It can be found with or without raisins, but I like to purchase the Stollen with raisins in it, because then my older daughter won't touch it, and that means more for me! :-) Another favorite of mine is the German Lebkuchen, which is actually an acquired taste. I used to hate Lebkuchen when I was younger, but I've developed a taste for it over the years. It's a spicy gingerbread cookie and can be purchased plain, or coated in chocolate. I simply don't like the chocolate ones, I don't know why. The chocolate always tastes funny to me, but the plain ones are outstanding! Unfortunately, the plain ones are never sold by themselves, they are always (or so I've only found up to this point) sold in a variety pack with the chocolate coated ones. My daughter doesn't really like the gingerbread, but she loves the chocolate, so sometimes if I have these chocolate coated Lebkuchen, she'll pick off (and eat) the chocolate coating, then leave me the naked gingerbread cookie. It works for us. This past year we had a German exchange student (Gloria) for the benefit of my older daughter, Gabby, and Gloria brought me a new German treat called "Wibele" (pronounced "VEE-buh-luh"), which came with the recipe, so I might try to make it this year. Wibele is a snack-like treat, small, sweet, crunchy nuggets that look (at first glance) like dry cereal (or cat food, depending on your point of view!), but with much smaller nuggets. They actually even have a dry-cereal kind of taste to them as well. They're pretty good and if anybody wants the recipe, feel free to let me know. They look very easy to make, but are possibly somewhat time-consuming due to the tiny size of the nuggets. Remember those "Candy Dots" that came attached to the paper that are peeled off the paper and eaten? The Wibele are approximately that small, but I'm thinking they can probably be made a bit bigger, but I won't guarantee that.

One of the best pasts of having a baby is the beautiful portraits and fun snapshots that we either take or have taken of our little angels. Christmas is an especially fun time to have portraits taken and this year, being Annabelle's first Christmas, was an especially fun time for us. I took her down yesterday and got her portraits taken, but didn't actually purchase very many of the portraits themselves. Instead, I purchased a CD with all the poses on it, as well as the full copyright for all the pictures. So I now own the full rights to every single one of these pictures, and will purchase paper copies of them sometime after Christmas when our finances are a little better. Of course, I'm probably going to have to sell my car now, just to make up for the cost of this copyright release, but in my opinion it is worth it. I just *LOVE* photographers who sell me their copyrights! I was playing around on Photo Shop last night, and here's one of Annabelle's portraits the "normal" way (after I zoomed in and cropped some of the excess stuff out of it) and then that same picture, as it would have looked if it had been taken 100 years ago:





My mother is really into antiques and old-time things, and she actually has a couple of very old portraits that she found in various antique shops. I'm thinking of getting that old-timey portrait of Annabelle printed out and giving it to her for Christmas. I know she'd love it. I'm just wondering if it looks "real" enough to be an antique?!

If I could find a Christmas card that said something to the effect of: "Showing You a Little Love this Christmas", then this is definitely the portrait that I would put with it:

Annabelle was constantly lifting up her dress and, in that portrait (left), she did it right before the picture was snapped. I think it's adorable! And then below are a few more of the (38) portraits we had taken. I won't post all 38 portraits, as I find that somewhat cruel to the friends who are kind enough to sit and read all my ramblings! So here are a couple of the cuter ones:




Hmmm, does anybody know if Photo Shop can remove the background images? I'm trying to remove some of the background scenery and turn it into just a plain colored background, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. Does anybody know if this is even possible, or am I wasting my time trying to figure it out when it can't even be done?

Annabelle and I are still reading "James and the Giant Peach" and were are at the point where the peach has come crashing down to earth. The people below, thinking the peach is actually a bomb coming to destroy them, have run for cover while the peach, tumbling furiously down, has just lodged itself onto the spiked needle-top of the Empire State Building. Oooh, it's getting exciting! What will happen next? We've also worked a few Flash Books ("The Sun" and "My Umbrella") and had a little mini-lesson about how rainbows are formed. Annabelle seemed really into it....or maybe it was just Mommy's undivided attention that Annabelle really loved. She is such a fun baby! How blessed we are to have her!

The Christmas Parade

Well, I am extremely disappointed at how Annabelle's Santa Cow pictures looked on paper. I sent the photos to the Wal-Mart photo lab to get printed out so that I could send them out to some of my less internet-friendly friends. Santa Cow came out OK, but Annabelle was a bit blurry and out of focus, and the lighting was yellowish. The wallet size pics are much better than the bigger ones, but I'm still very disappointed. Annabelle doesn't look blurry on my digital pic, but I guess maybe she is. Either that or my eyesight is going bad. I don't think pics can go to the lab clear and in focus, yet come back blurry and out of focus, so I guess the error is on me. What a shame! I'm actually too embarrassed to send these Santa Cow pics to my friends. Well, Santa Cow will be at this Chick-fil-A every Saturday until Christmas, so maybe I'll consider going back next weekend. I'm inclined to think that the restaurant was so empty today because people were probably back on the town square getting ready for the parade, so next weekend will probably be pretty busy, as usual. Oh well, I'll think about it.

After our photo shoot with Santa Cow, my parents, husband, Annabelle and I all headed down to the town square to watch the Christmas Parade. The weather was, in my opinion, perfect.....chilly but not cold. I'm posting a few pics here of the parade. I was kind of disappointed at how some of them came out...my camera has some "shutter lag" so to speak. I'd take what I knew was going to be a great shot, only to have my camera wait two seconds before it actually snapped it, giving me a messed up shot. Several of my subjects turned around right after they saw me push the button down on my camera, yet my camera didn't actually take the shot until the subject was actually turning away. I have an awful lot of pictures of various peoples' backsides now! *SIGH* Well, here are a couple of the non-backsides of people, as well as a couple of the floats.

Right Down Moo Moo Lane......

We did it! We made it to Chick-fil-A to see Santa Cow! Annabelle slept quite a bit later than usual (2 hours later to be exact), so I was a bit apprehensive about how the morning was going to turn out. I woke her up at 8:00am, fed the dog, prepared Annabelle's bottle, changed her diaper and got her dressed, then headed out the door. I was absolutely certain that we were going to meet with a crowded restaurant (this particular Chick-fil-A is ALWAYS crowded!) and in my mind we were already late. I wanted to be there at 8:30am sharp, since Annabelle is always her happiest when she first wakes up, but now we weren't going to make it there until 9:00am or so. Well, we got there and much to my surprise, the parking lot was practically empty. Hmmmm, was I here on the right day? I grabbed Annabelle's carseat and brought her inside (the hubby was with me) and as soon as I walked in I saw this enormous cow sitting next to a Christmas tree. Was that a stuffed cow? I felt a twinge of disappointment as I "realized" that this was an oversized stuffed animal. Then I saw the stuffed animal's foot tapping on the floor. Hmmm, was this a mechanical cow? The foot tapping was at a very steady beat, with very regular intervals in between the tapping. What on earth was this thing? I must have just stood there for several seconds too long because all of a sudden the cow waved at me. Yes, he was "real"! I went over to Santa Cow and he stood up and shook my hand. One of the ladies with him offered to take Annabelle's picture with Santa Cow and I happily let her. Naturally I brought my camera along, with fresh batteries, and snapped several shots myself. The bad thing is, of all the shots I took, only one was any good. The good thing is, that one good shot was a *really* good shot as far as I'm concerned. SO.....here it is.....the moment we've all been waiting for...
Annabelle and SANTA COW!!



She was in such a happy mood! It was great! Since we are on the topic of Santas, I decided to take a picture of the picture of Annabelle on Santas lap, and post it here in my blog. I searched the photo completely, and there are no copyright stamps anywhere on the back of the paper.....I read the envolope thoroughly, and there is no mention of this photo being copyrighted, and I even looked over the receipt and read every word on it....nothing about any kind of copyright. So, on that note, I am assuming that this photo is not copyrighted in any way, or there would be some kind of notice somewhere.....so, here it is - from yesterday - Annabelle and Santa Claus:





After our photo with Santa Cow, the three of us, along with my parents, decided to go downtown to see the parade. My older daughter was supposed to hang out with a friend of mine, but that eventually fell through. Anyway, the parade was a lot of fun. The weather was chilly, but not too terribly cold. They were tossing and/or handing candy and little goodies and trinkets out to the children. I grabbed a baseball cap that one of the companies was handing out, but left the candy for the kiddos. I took a TON of pictures, and will post a couple of them in a separate blog entry. I love the small town atmosphere so even though this parade doesn't come anywhere near the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, it was still quaint and charming.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Santa Cow!

Today was such a fun, fun, super fun day with Annabelle. I had to make a trip to the mall (about 30 minutes away) to pick up a Christmas gift that apparently can't be purchased anywhere but this one store in this one mall, 30 minutes away. I suppose I could have purchased it online, but where's the fun in that?! Anyway, while Annabelle & I were at the mall, I noticed that Santa Claus was going to be making an appearance at 11:00am and that obnoxiously expensive photos could be taken and purchased with my little darling sitting on his lap. I looked at my watch...10:35am. Hmmmmm, in another 25 minutes I could go ahead and give this a shot while I'm here, instead of leaving and making this trek all the way out here on another, less convenient, day. Annabelle was in a suuuuuuper sweeeeeet mood, so I decided to stay. I didn't want to stand in the no-line (yet) for 25 minutes, so I wandered over to the food court to grab a bite to eat. Chick-fil-A was the only restaurant with any food available (everybody else was still cooking their first batches of food), so my only two choices were to eat at Chick-fil-A or go hungry for a little while. Chick-fil-A is one of my favorite fast food restaurants, so the decision was a no-brainer for me. I ate my yummy nuggets and 1000-calorie waffle fries and when I was done I meandered back over to Santa's throne to wait for him there. As I'm leaving the food court, I notice a Chick-fil-A sign indicating that "Santa Cow" will be available at various Chick-fil-A restaurants in the area beginning tomorrow and going through till Christmas, and that children can get their photos taken with him (it?) SANTA COW! (Holy Cow!!) What an image that puts in my head! I googled the term "Santa Cow", looking for an image of a previous year's Santa Cow at some Chick-fil-A somewhere, but nothing even remotely relevant came up. Well, needless to say, I'm going tomorrow! :-)

So, I finally arrive at Santa's throne and am the 2nd person in line. Unfortunately, the other woman was standing in the wrong area, which meant I was also in the wrong area, so I ended up being 4th in line when the other lady and I realized we weren't actually standing in line at all. Anyway, long story short (too late!) Annabelle went up to get her picture taken with Santa and was all smiles for the camera! It turned out soooooo cute! Unfortunately the pictures were so darned expensive that I didn't have any money leftover to purchase the disk with her photo on it. If I ever get a scanner, or can borrow somebody else's, I'll get the pic on here of Annabelle on Santa's lap. If I had known we were going to be doing the Santa photos today, I would have put new batteries in my camera (mine are *totally* dead!) and taken a few shots myself while she was sitting so cheerfully on his lap. Well, I've learned my lesson so I'll be better prepared tomorrow when we go to visit Santa Cow down there on Moo Moo Lane.....

Finished! (Whew!)

Current Novel: "James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)


What an enormous relief it is to finally finish a translation project! I love having the freedom to take my time translating, take unscheduled (and frequent!) cappuccino breaks, work in my jammies in the warmest spot in the house, etc. The list of benefits just goes on and on......but my absolute favorite part of this job is *finally* finishing an assignment and hitting the "Enter" key, sending my completed project on to its final destination (usually Russia). It is an overwhelming feeling of relief....a feeling that I never tire of! This latest project of mine was sent to me right before Thanksgiving. It was relatively short, but took nearly a week to complete due to my refusal to work on Thanksgiving....ummm, and the excessively large number of cappuccino breaks that I ended up taking this time! :-) I absolutely *LOVE* my job, but I wouldn't mind getting more projects, though. I don't get as many as I'd like, but I'm so grateful and feel so blessed with the few jobs that do end up trickling through my inbox.

Because of this job, we were unable to get our Christmas tree up this weekend, so we'll shoot for next weekend instead. I'm so excited about Annabelle's first Christmas! I'm trying to find a "special" Christmas stocking for her. I'm not sure what it looks like yet, but I'll know it when I see it. :-) I'm going to try to take some special photos of her with the Christmas tree, maybe try to find an extra large box that I can gift wrap and set my little Princess in. She is the 2nd best Christmas gift (Jesus being the first!) that I have ever received. Hmmmmmm, I remember many years ago somebody gave my older daughter an enormous stocking, some 3 or 4 feet long. Perhaps I can find another one somewhere and take a picture of Annabelle in it. Wearing a Santa hat! Oooooh, the ideas are flowing now! :-) I've been dropping very obvious hints that I'd like a digital SLR camera for Christmas this year. I'm certain that nobody is listening to me, though. I'll probably have to take Annabelle's Christmas photos with my "old fashioned" (i.e. non-digital) camera, which means I won't be able to post any of the pics to my blog.....unless I get a scanner for Christmas. Maybe I should start dropping those hints pretty soon! :-) My old-fashioned camera takes outstanding pictures, it's just frustrating that I won't be able to see what they look like until I get them developed. I remember when, only 2 short years ago, I swore up and down I would NEVER use a digital camera! I hated the very thought of them and SWORE that nothing would ever take the place of my awesome camera with the incredible telephoto lens. Now I'll be lucky if I can even find that camera by Christmas! Well, in any event, I do have an appointment to get her Christmas portraits professionally done so even if I can't take my own this year, I'll still have some beautiful pictures to remember this year by.

Annabelle is getting so big! I can't believe how much she is growing and changing! She is so attentive and intelligent, it amazes me. She is inquisitive and will just stare at somebody if that person happens to be doing something unusual (i.e. eating, typing, preparing food, etc.) She loves to watch the motion of people moving around and she also loves to stare at pictures in books. And she's just so darned cute! My heart melts when she stares up at me from her crib and breaks into that enormous grin that I absolutely adore! She is getting better at taking naps (thank you Lord!) and I am planning on starting her on solid food very shortly.



Annabelle loves playing in her exersaucer and I *FINALLY* got a picture of her teeny tiny pearly whites that are peeking through her gums.




We haven't gotten any reading done over the long holiday break. I'll have to make up for that this week. I'm eager to finish "James and the Giant Peach" and move on to the next book, which I haven't picked out yet. Annabelle really loves books...I'm going to see if I can find some tiny board books that she can hold and play with herself. I'm still trying to get her bedroom finished. I'm doing a fairy princess theme, but can't seem to find the time to get in there and finish it up.

UGH! I just figured out why I'm so tired. It's almost 2am! I really need to get to bed, as Annabelle will be waking up at 6am.....if I'm lucky! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Current Novel: "James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)

Flash Books: "Two Fat Sausages" and "I'm a Nut"



What a wonderful way to spend a holiday.....with loving families, abundant laughter, and grateful hearts. I just love Thanksgiving, always have!

My parents came over to celebrate with us. It's so great to have them around again. After being several states away for so many years, it is such a blessing to have them right around the corner again. My "family unit" is somewhat small...I live so far away from the rest of my family (most of whom are back in Florida, but a few are up in Maine and some are over in Washington) that holidays are spent with pretty much just my parents. The rest of my family doesn't really keep in touch with me, with only a select few even sending a Christmas card my way. My husband's parents are in Oklahoma (which is "right next door" to Arkansas) but they, unfortunately, are not on speaking terms with us and they choose not to participate in our lives. It's actually very sad....they don't even know about Annabelle and I'm not sure they ever will. Life is so short and I find it absolutely tragic when people just can't work out their differences.

But on a happier note: Our Thanksgiving dinner was absolutely yummilicious! The turkey was juicy, the stuffing (a weakness of mine!) was moist, the green bean casserole (my older daughter made that) was flavorful, the sweet potatoes (my mom made those) were....well, sweet. I made the mashed potatoes and they were.....um...."abundant". Normally I don't make Thanksgiving dinner - we usually go somewhere for Thansgiving, but this year (and last year, now that I think about it) we ate at home. I cooked the turkey, the stuffing and the mashed potatoes. Now, mashed potatoes are not something I normally cook. We love potatoes, don't get me wrong...but we just prefer them to be cooked in other ways. Ranch potatoes are the best! Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't cook mashed potatoes that often. Ummm, ever, actually. So I called my mom to ask her how many potatoes I should boil. Apparently she told me "approximately two potatoes per person." Has anybody ever heard of that game "telephone" where one person whispers something into somebody else's ear, then that person whispers what he just heard into the next person's ear, and so on and so forth?! Well, this is a fantastic example of how that game can fail miserably. Evidently my mother told me to boil two "POTATOES" per person, yet somehow I ended up hearing her tell me to boil two "POUNDS" per person. Yes, I did it...I boiled 10 pounds of potatoes for 5 people. I guess I don't need to mention that we had a few POUNDS leftover. I honestly don't know why I thought mashed potatoes should be counted any differently than potatoes that are cooked any other way. I never would have baked 10 pounds of Ranch potatoes for my family, so why should I think I would need 10 pounds of mashed potatoes? I guess I thought that mashed potatoes are "lighter" so people tend to eat more of them than potatoes that aren't mashed. Obviously I'm wrong. I think we all had maybe one scoop of mashed potatoes each....hardly 10 pounds' worth! I am never going to live this one down! That's OK, though, because I have an awesome recipe that calls for mashed potatoes, so these leftovers will definitely get used up. I've already divided them up into the correct portion sizes, so the next time I cook that recipe I won't need to prepare any potatoes for it! This fits in nicely with my lazy cooking style - less food prepping at meal time! :-)

Annabelle was a champ today! With all the hustle and bustle of the cooking, the loud conversations and the movie "Christmas Vacation" in the background (believe it or not, this movie is a Thanksgiving tradition in our family!) Annabelle was in a bright and chipper mood for the majority of the day. I was so proud of her! She was so attentive and would follow us with her eyes as we moved about the kitchen. She got to sit in her high chair for the first time today, although she quickly got bored sitting there. She prefers the Exersaucer, but the high chair worked for a little while. I'm sure she'll like the chair much better when I start feeding her from it! :-) She was great all through dinner, looking almost sad that she couldn't have any turkey with us!



But all in all, she was a very happy baby today!




Today was such a busy day that I didn't get any reading done with Annabelle, but we've still been plugging away at "James and the Giant Peach". It's exciting now because I can actually see that we are closer to the end of the book than we are at the beginning! We have now reached the part where James and the inhabitants of the peach are being carried through the sky and have encountered the Cloud-Men, who are busy making hailstones out of the clouds and are tossing them down at the people on earth. I'm working on developing her attention span and I think it might be working...she sat through more chapters than usual yesterday. At this point she still seems to prefer her board books, but I honestly believe the novels are actually more beneficial for her language development. Books contain so many different words that you just don't hear in normal, everyday conversation and I believe children can benefit tremendously from hearing these words. Board books are great for her visual stimulation, so we have tons of those around as well! :-)

I think we are going to put our Christmas tree up this weekend. We normally put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving. Christmas is going to be so exciting for us this year, having Annabelle here! Sometimes it is still difficult for me to believe that God chose to bless us in this incredible way! I am a little bit older than the typical "new" mom, so Annabelle's arrival is special for me in that respect. I obviously won't be able to fulfill my childhood dream of a house full of children...I'm too old for that now...but I count myself blessed to have my precious Annabelle here now. I simply can't imagine life without her! God has been undeniably gracious in giving her to us...what a priceless gift she is!

Shot Again!

Today was a rough day for my precious little girl. She had her four month set of shots today and, naturally, did not like that experience one bit! I can't blame her! My poor baby had 4 needles injected into her thighs and it was absolutely heartbreaking to watch. Then, on top of that, she is still teething. To add to her current woes, she is also having some constipation issues. It just hasn't been a good day for her. But now she is sleeping soundly and tomorrow everything will be right with the world again. But on a positive note, my little girl is very healthy and is developmentally perfect. She is in the top 95th percentile for her length and weight, and in the 97th percentile for her head circumference. She is, technically, a big baby...but she LOOKS so small, simply because of her length. She is a L-O-N-G baby, with L-O-N-G fingers and L-O-N-G toes (which she DEFINITELY didn't get from me!) so she actually looks much smaller than she really is. She is growing like a weed, though, and reached a milestone right there in the doctor's office when she rolled from her back to her tummy. She hasn't rolled from her tummy to her back yet, though, but that is my fault. Annabelle absolutely, positively HATES to be on her tummy, so I never put her in that position. Since she is never in that position, she hasn't had an opportunity to reach the rolling milestone of tummy to back. The doctor chided me about that and told me I need to put her on her tummy for at least 30 minutes a day to strenghthen those muscles. I think I'll break that 30 minutes into 6 sessions of 5 minutes each. If I keep little Annabelle on her tummy for 30 minutes straight, she will throw a fit like you've never seen! Oh well, I guess we'll seee what happens. If worse comes to worse, I can always break the 30 minutes into 30 sessions of 1 minute each! Hee hee hee!

It's been a bit warm here for the past few weeks with a cold day scattered here and there. However, it looks like tomorrow will be the start of the colder weather, with temperatures dropping into the 20s and 30s and STAYING there for a little while. Autumn and winter just aren't the same when the temperature is in the 50s. Hot cocoa and hot apple cider just don't taste as good when it's not cold enough to see my breath outside. I just love it when the seasons change.

Now that Thanksgiving is almost here, it gives me an opportunity to sit and think about what I am thankful for. I know I mentioned in an earlier blog about some of the childhood memories that I am thankful for, but there are so many things that I think I sometimes take for granted. Things like running water. It is unbelievably convenient to be able to go to the kitchen faucet, turn it on, and have water flow freely from it. It sure makes flushing the toilet a whole lot easier, that's for sure! I listen to the stories my dad tells me about growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania and having to walk to the outhouse in the middle of winter whenever he had to use the toilet. I would have never survived! I would have died of either dehydration or starvation, because if I knew I was going to have to walk outside in 4 feet of snow just to use the bathroom, I'd have stopped eating and drinking just to avoid that awful experience! Oh, how thankful I am for indoor plumbing! And thinking of 4 feet of snow makes me unbelievably thankful for central heating, which I firmly believe I would also die without! If I believed in past lives, I'm pretty sure I would have suspected that I was some cold-blooded reptile in a former life simply because of my intolerance for the cold. I love to admire the cold from the warmth of my kitchen window, but I don't necessarily enjoy being out in it. Nonetheless, I'm thankful for winter. Growing up in south Florida, I was so miserable in that horrible, oven-like heat. It never got any better and I would always pray that one day I could escape that nasty, sticky weather and go somewhere that has 4 seasons. And that makes me thankful for answered prayers. We have a God Who enjoys answering the prayers of His people....and I have every reason to be thankful for that! Yes, Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time to sit back, relax and just be thankful for all that we have, compared to the millions of people out there who don't have a fraction of what we do. God is good. Life is good. And the turkey and pumpkin pie aren't bad either! :-)

So Thankful

With Thanksgiving just barely a week away, it has given me a lot of time to reflect on what is important to me and about how grateful I am that I have been so blessed. I have a wonderful (most of the time!) family, a cozy home and I almost always have food to put on the table. :-) There are so many others who have nothing, next to nothing, or sooooooo much that they feel no reason to be thankful. I am a firm believer that all things we have are from God and He has every right to take anything and everything back that He once saw fit to give us. Anybody heard of Job?

With that being said, I am eager about Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays. It's a shame that Thanksgiving is often overlooked as merely "Turkey Day" where families get together and gorge themselves on the smorgasbord laid out before them, instead of taking advantage of the reason for the holiday: giving thanks to God for the smorgasbord laid out before them. Oh, I guess it would be politically incorrect to thank God in public, so I imagine that is the reason why so many stores and companies simply skip right from Halloween to Christmas (or "X-mas" or "Season" or "Holiday", since the word "CHRISTmas" has obviously become politically incorrect as well). I guess most people feel that there is no reason to include God in any of these holidays, even though He is the very reason for them. But I still love Thanksgiving...it reminds me that I have what I have because God chose to give it to me, and for that I am eternally grateful. I even love the turkey and the stuffing, the green bean casserole and the cranberries, the mashed potatoes and the sweet potatoes....and who doesn't love the pumpkin pie? As a child, I loved the fact that my relatives (who lived 15 minutes away, yet only showed up at Thanksgiving to eat the "free" turkey at our house) would come over, even though my uncle would often show up in a dress and high heels. It was still fun and I look back fondly at the memories of playing hide and seek with my two cousins, while one of my cousins and I would always "gang up" on the other one and hide in locations that we KNEW she would never find us (outside the boundaries we had set for the game.) Then, instead of coming out and finishing the game, my other cousin and I would stay in our hiding spot and just play. And we would laugh at Uncle Ricky's dress, which didn't quite zip all the way up. Fun times. This year I have even more to be thankful for and I still look forward to Thanksgiving with the same childlike "fun" that I had all those years ago.

Falling For Fall

Current Novel: "James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)

Extra Books: "Good Night Moon" (Margaret Wise Brown), "Zeit zum Schlafen, kleiner Zwerg" (Sabine Lohf), "Weißt du eigentlich, wie lieb ich dich habe?" (Sam McBratney), "How Will I Ever Sleep in This Bed?" (Della Ross Ferreri)



I just love fall! It really is the perfect compromise between the sweltering heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter. Right now the leaves are changing into various shades of red, orange and yellow and the chilly autumn air is blowing carelessly through the many open windows in the house. What a fun time of year! Since I didn't begin this blog until after Halloween, I'm posting a couple of pictures of Annabelle's first Halloween here:




She was the most adorable leopard I've ever seen! We don't do the whole "trick-or-treating" thing, and Annabelle would be too young for that anyway, so we went to our church for their annual "Fall Festival" which is a safe alternative to Halloween anyway. A lot of churches have festivals like this, and we go every year. We stayed for a little while, then I drove Gabby and a local South Korean exchange student (with Annabelle in tow) to the mall for their "Malloween" where kids in costume can go from store to store collecting candy. The teens had a lot of fun, although they complained that they got the "crummy" candy (i.e. hard candies and generic stuff), while the younger kids got the "good stuff" (i.e. chocolate in the form of Snickers, Reese's, etc.) Before we started going to the Fall Festivals, I used to hand out Halloween pencils, with some sort of Halloweenish topper covering the eraser. My sister hands out small containers of Play-Dough. I simply can't get into the whole candy thing. There is so much fat and sugar already added to our daily food, why compound the problem with 12 more pounds of sugar? Needless to say, my house was never one of the popular ones at Halloween, usually leaving me with a couple dozen pencils leftover every year! And I never had any repeat trick-or-treaters...*SIGH* Oh well.


Annabelle has developed some amazing bodily self control while in her exersaucer. When I first started putting her in this thing about 2 weeks ago, she couldn't stay in there for very long because her little body would flail around endlessly. She would laugh and have a good time in there, but it made me so nervous! Then I started stuffing a pillow behind her back, to give her more control of her body. That would work for a little while, till the pillow popped out. Now, I've noticed, she flails around a LOT less than she used to, and is able to hold on to the toys and bring them up to her mouth. She still is not reaching out and grabbing things yet, but she will flop her arms around and grab onto anything that gets into her path. She is good at keeping herself steady and absolutely LOVES being in her exersaucer! I guess this is all part of her gaining her independence. While she is in her exersaucer, she is able to hold onto both the seal toy and the lion toy, and proceed to flip the "pages" in the little circus book that is situated between the seal and the lion. It is amazing to watch! My little girl is already showing a preference for books! It does a mama proud!






Annabelle and I are still reading "James and the Giant Peach" together and are now at the part where James has ingeniously roped 502 seagulls (with the silkworm's and spider's help!) and is preparing for them to carry the peach out of the shark infested water. The poor earthworm was used as bait. The plan appears to be a success, but I won't know for sure until we continue reading later on today. Last night while I was reading Annabelle's bedtime stories, she managed to grab one of the books out of my hand and actually started flipping the pages herself! I'm so thrilled at the way she's developing!










I'm actually looking forward to the changes coming up.....when she learns to sit up, crawl, walk, etc. She'll be starting solid food pretty soon, so that will be another adventure that I am eagerly awaiting.

Bouncing Baby Bumble-Bunnies.....

Current Novel: "James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)

Flash Books: "Baby Bunny" and "Bumblebee"

Extra Books: "Knuddelhase" (Anita Jeram) and "Kiss Good Night" (Amy Hest)










One of the things I love most about being a mommy is going into my daughter's crib in the morning and seeing her face light up when she sees me. She is so happy in the morning and the joy is so evident when I look at her and she wiggles and giggles until I pick her up. She is solid sweetness and I just can't get enough of her!








With Christmas coming up, I've been doing a lot of thinking about Annabelle's Christmas portraits. Christmas will be right in between her 3 month and her 6 month portraits. Normally I go to The Picture People (they do an outstanding job!) but I think I'm going to try something different this time. I'm hoping the weather will be nice because I'd like to have some outdoor portraits of her. I've found a photographer (reasonably priced too!) who does outdoor photography, and I'm so excited about it that I'm already picking out the dress I want Annabelle to wear! :-)


Annabelle has stopped napping. This is a phenomenon that I haven't been able to figure out yet. She started sleeping through the night at just over one week old. At two weeks old, Annabelle was sleeping through the night 2-4 times a week. At 3 weeks old she was sleeping through the night 3-5 times a week. By 4 weeks old we simply expected her to sleep through the night every night...and we were right. She's been sleeping through the night, every night, since she was 4 weeks old. The only problem is, she traded her nighttime sleeping for her naps because she stopped napping at 4 weeks old, right about the time she began sleeping through the night. She'll doze during the day for 10-30 minutes, but that's about it. Now if I'm holding her, then that's a different story. She'll sleep for hours in my arm, but wakes up (and STAYS up!) when I try to put her back down. I've never been able to figure this one out because I've never allowed her to nap in my arms. Whenever she would fall asleep in my arms, I'd gaze at her for a little while, but then put her in her crib. She's always slept in her crib, yet she's refusing to nap there now, choosing either my arm or nothing. Anybody else have this problem? Annabelle took a 30 minute nap this afternoon in which she fell asleep while holding one of the little critters on her mobile-thingie. I thought it was absolutely adorable!






We read a little more from "James and the Giant Peach" and are now up to the point where James and the peach (and all the insects inside) are floating in the ocean and have discovered that they are surrounded by sharks. Everyone is counting on James to figure a way out of this difficult situation. It is taking us a while to get through this book, as Annabelle doesn't concentrate very well yet, but I'm confident that that will come with time. We also read "Knuddelhase" which is the German version of Anita Jeram's book "Bunny my Honey", which Annabelle really enjoyed looking at. To end the night, I read "Kiss Good Night" since that story takes place "on a dark and stormy night", much like the one we are experiencing right now. It is dark and chilly out right now, the wind is howling, and we are all warm and cozy and safe inside. Life is good.

Takin' It Easy

Last night at dinner, we discovered that Annabelle has two teeth coming in! It was really exciting for us and quite unexpected, too, since Annabelle is not even 4 months old yet. I read that the average age is 7 months (when a baby first starts teething) by a friend's baby started teething at 2 months, so I guess anything is possible!

We decided to take it kind of easy today. Annabelle is being a bit fussy lately (I guess she has a good excuse!) so we didn't do much reading today. Annabelle wanted some extra attention today, so I spent a good part of the day holding her, which was beneficial for both of us. So, we read a little bit from "James and the Giant Peach" and are now up to the point where the peach has dropped into the ocean, but its inhabitants haven't found out yet. The ladybug has merely made the comment that it feels like they are "bobbing up and down", and everybody goes up to check it out. Annabelle seemed really interested in the book today, which made it a lot of fun for me to read. The chapters are short, but we normally only get 2 or 3 read each day, so we'll probably be on this book for a little while yet.





Annabelle is starting to plump up. Up until now, she has still fit into everything in her closet....she hadn't outgrown anything yet, although her newborn clothes were starting to get a little tight. She is now just barely fitting into 3 month size clothes, so I'm quite certain her newborn clothes don't fit anymore. This just seemed to happen overnight! My little girl is getting so big!

The Joy of Learning

Annabelle and I enjoy reading a Flash Book together...and....



Annabelle stares intently at the apple explosion in her Dr. Seuss book.

Current Novel: "James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)

Flash Books: "The Apple Tree", "Eat an Apple", "Crisscross Applesauce"

Extra Books: "Ten Apples up on Top" (Dr. Seuss), "Katis riesengroße Reise" (Birte Müller)


It was another fun day for us, with Annabelle being in a bright, happy mood. She seems to really love books, which makes me undeniably proud! I have been a die hard bibliophile my whole life, so I guess I'm not really surprised at Annabelle's interest in books. It seems to me that most children have an innate fascination of books which can, unfortunately, be squelched by excessive amounts of television. Instead of going off into my anti-TV tirade, I'll just brag about my little girl. :-)


We read a little more from "James and the Giant Peach", which is turning out to be a cute story. I never read this one as a child, but if I had I believe I would have loved it. Right now we are at the part where James has just crawled inside the peach and is meeting the giant insects for the first time, mistakenly believing that he is going to be their dinner.


In picking our Flash Books for the day, I decided to keep with the produce theme of "James and the Giant Peach", so I picked out three apple themed Flash Books. Annabelle really loves these Flash Books and attempts to grab them whenever they appear to be within her reach. She watched, fascinated, as the words flashed before her eyes. She is still too young to imitate the fingerplays, but I did the "Crisscross Applesauce" fingerplay to her (tickling her in the process!) and she got a big kick out of it. It's an incredible blessing to see such innocence and playfulness in this tiny gift from God. What fun we have when we read together! :-)


And in keeping with the produce theme of the apple Flash Books, we also read "Ten Apples up on Top" by the great Dr. Seuss. I never had any Dr. Seuss books as a kid, so I guess I am trying to make up for it with my daughter....she has no less than 2 dozen of them! Our final book, "Katis riesengroße Reise" had nothing to do with apples, but I am attempting to expose Annabelle to foreign languages and I am doing it in the best way I know how....through books. We have an extensive collection of foreign language literature in various genres, reading levels and languages, which I hope Annabelle will be able to read on her own one day. I guess only time will tell if that happens.

Who I Am

Since I am new here, I thought I'd introduce myself and explain why I'm here in an effort to meet people who are here for the same reasons I am. I am Jodi...originally from Florida but now living in Arkansas. I am a stay-at-home mom to four-month-old Annabelle, and I have a 15 year old daughter, Gabriella, who attends a local public high school. After seeing everything that is going on in the public school system (and being a product of the system myself), I have decided to homeschool Annabelle. This blog is a record of my homeschooling journey and I'm hoping to meet some friends along the way who happen to be on the same journey. Traveling is always nicer with a friend. :-)

A little bit about myself and my family: I am a freelance translator, translating mostly medical and educational documents from either German or Russian into English. I love foreign languages and have a good working knowledge of French, Spanish and Latin as well. I know some basic phrases in Cantonese and Korean, although conversation in those languages is absolutely out of the question! :-) I work from home (usually in my pajamas in the kitchen!) and spend every free minute I have playing with my little girl. I hope to instill a love of languages in my daughter, as I feel that it is very important in this extremely global society. My husband is a computer programmer for a very, very, VERY large corporation and my older daughter is your typical teenager. We are a relatively "normal" family, all things considered.

My hobbies are, in order: foreign languages (this includes reading, writing and speaking them), photography (I never leave the house without my camera), and creative writing (I enter every poetry contest I can find). I read A LOT, always have, and I honestly can't ever remember a time when I didn't know how to read. My mother tells me that I was reading at three years old. I never even remember learning *HOW* to read...I've just always known how to for as long as my memory goes back. There aren't a lot of "modern" (the last 10 years or so) books that I've found that I enjoy, but there are a few. I admit it, I'm a Harry Potter fan, nothing I can do about that. Mostly, though, I enjoy the "classics", but will read anything I manage to get my grubby little paws on. (I enjoy the books more if they are written in a foreign language!) I also enjoy reading to my daughter, even though she isn't old enough to understand what I'm doing. After reading "The Read Aloud Handbook" (outstanding book, by the way!) by Jim Trelease, I'm convinced that reading to my four month old is NOT a waste of time! We are currently reading "James and the Giant Peach" together (well, I'm doing most of the reading!) as well as working on Flash Books. The Flash Books are nursery rhymes and they are designed to stimulate babies' minds, helping them learn to read at a young age. Since I began reading at a young age, I want to do this for my daughter as well. We worked on the "transportation" Flash Books today: "Airplane", "Choo Choo Train", "As I Travel" and "Zoom Zoom Zoom". She is really enjoying them and it gives me a fantastic opportunity to bond with her. She is such a happy baby!

As for photography, my daughter is my favorite subject to photograph although she isn't always the most cooperative! I love going on vacation because it gives me an opportunity to take pictures of things I don't get to see at home. One day when you have tons of time, ask me about the photographs from my summer abroad in Germany! :-)

I love to write poetry and have loved it since high school. I have to admit I'm hooked on MagPo (magnetic poetry) and love to play around with those little magnets. I am addicted to poetry contests and one day I dream of translating a collection of poetry from an up-and-coming hotshot from Russia or Germany.

We are a non-television-watching family. We own a set, but choose not to have cable and because of it, can't get all the "latest and greatest" TV shows. We don't miss it. Not one iota. In fact, we are so much happier without it. We have a DVD player and watch our favorite shows or movies on DVDs, but no cable. You'd be surprised at how quickly you can adjust to life without the boob tube.

Well, this is me and my family. Feel free to write to me, but please give me time to respond. I'm new to Blogspot and am still trying to maneuver my way around here and figure out how everything works! :-) God bless.