Merry Christmas

Santa Lucia

Inspired by my sister and my Swedish heritage, I've decided I want to have a Santa Lucia tradition during the Christmas season. This year was our first year.

Here is our Santa Lucia bringing us cinnamon rolls for breakfast with a crown of candles.

The stories and legends of Santa Lucia are all over the place, but by focusing only on Swedish history, this is the legend I pieced together that I want to share for the inspiration of this tradition. Santa Lucia lived around 300 AD and was the daughter of a wealthy Christian family. She devoted her life to serving the poor and praising God in a time when Christianity was outlawed. The legend goes that she would bring food to the shunned, poor Christians hiding in the catacombs of Rome. It would be dark and her hands were full of food, so she wore a crown of candles on her head to see.

Decades later in Sweden during a severe winter famine, there is a story of a brightly lit ship sailing into a harbor. At the front of the ship was a beautiful woman wearing white with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head. She brought with her a boat full of food to relieve the hungry Swedes. She called herself Lucia and left as quickly as she came.

Santa Lucia's story is a reminder both of the courage it takes to stand up for what you believe in (Santa Lucia eventually was killed because she was a Christian), and also reminder to serve those less fortunate than us. These are the lessons I want my kids to remember in the middle of the Christmas season, so that is why on December 13th we will celebrate Santa Lucia.

Word Girl and Captain Huggy Face

Britta as Dr. Two Brains

Scott as retro police officer

Hope your Halloween was fun and filled with sweets!

Keeping up with the Jones-ville

We live in a small town. The population of my town is only slightly higher than the population of my high school. In fact, our town is so small that in legal terms by the state of Michigan it's not even a town, it's a "village". When we first moved here I noticed the city website was hosting a photography contest to get some good photos of the town... *ahem* village. I thought, hey, I can take pictures, so I threw the kids in the stroller, walked around town and took some photos.

Well, guess what? I won! I won first place with a prize of $500! Pretty sweet. You can still see the winners praised on the website here, but if you want to see the winning photo, here it is:

Even if I haven't met everyone in town, I feel like everyone knows that I'm "new" and not local. A few weeks ago I met a neighbor who lives a couple houses down. I asked if my kids could pet her dog. She said, "You say you're from Utah?" Which I didn't say, by the way. I said yes and asked how she knew. She said, "Oh, I saw you in the paper." I made front page news in September for shopping a rummage sale.

When I met the hardware store owner, she asked me which house I moved into because she was familiar with all the houses in town. She hasn't been the only one. When others find out where I live they've said things like, "Oh, I've always loved that stone porch" or "You mean the house across the street from the Middle School?" They all know all the houses, and it doesn't seem strange to them to ask a stranger which house they live in. Here are some more photos I took of the town.

I'm still getting used to calling my congregation at church a "Branch" because it's too small to be called a Ward, like the normal congregations.

All the librarians at the local library know me and my kids and have been calling us by name since the first day we went there. I'm not even exaggerating. The third time I checked out books, I was fumbling in my bag to find my library card and the librarian just typed in my name and said, "I don't need your card, I know who you are."

By the way, the library is an old house converted to a library. I wish I had a photo. It's pretty tiny.

Even though it's small, it's a cute town, and the locals obviously care deeply about their town and values. I'm still getting used to it. There are some things I desperately miss about living in a larger community.

I'm hoping I'll find a groove soon that makes the most of this small town charm. They say everything moves slower in a small town and I can attest to that, including the time it takes to find my groove. There's a lot to love here and I'm still learning how to fit myself into it.

The County Fair

Our county prides itself on having the last county fair in the state, during the last full week of September. One of the favorite topics of conversation among the locals is crazy weather at the fair in past years. We were lucky this year and it was pretty good!

Grace couldn't go on many rides because of her size, but she loved the ones she could go on so much, how could we deny her?

I mean, seriously? We got this face on every ride. It was too cute.

Even if she wasn't screaming, she was loving the ride, this one with an affectionate hug.

Of course, we saw lots of animals.

Henry loved the baby animals tent.

And we got to explore various and sundry other agricultural pursuits, like natural pumpkin furniture.

The tractors were a big hit.

So was Ronald McDonald. I love that Grace still calls the restaurant "Old McDonald's" and this was just a "clown". After his little magic show, she ran up and gave him a big hug.

All about Henry: One year stats

One Year Stats:

weight: 24 lbs (67%)

height: 31 in (83%)

• Henry has two teeth and the next ones seem to be in no rush to get here. Despite that, he can eat almost anything he can get his hands on--except chinese chow mein noodles. That was a bad parent judgement moment...
• His favorite foods include ANY fruit in abundance. That's really the main thing. He also loves steamed broccoli and can eat it by the handful, over and over again. He eats 2-3 full pieces of pizza each time we have pizza and this morning he had almost 4 pancakes!

• He walks really well and almost runs. He still loves being held and he's a mama's boy. If he bonks himself and daddy is there to comfort him, he'll tolerate it for a few moments, then jump off daddy's lap and walk to me with renewed tears to let me know he needs me to comfort him, too.
• His favorite toys are cars, balls and wooden blocks of any shape. He likes leafing through books, too, but doesn't have as much attention for actually being read to.
• He dances! I remember Grace dancing as a baby, too, and gosh it's just so cute! He spins in circles, pivoting on one leg, while listening to music. He also nods his head like he's rocking out.

• His language skills are pretty hazy. Scott is convinced he says mama, I'm almost convinced. We think he knows dad, ball, vroom and Grace ("dace") but none of those are totally consistent. It's like he knows them for a couple days, then forgets them for a week. He nods and shakes his head for yes and no and he's good at pointing. Sometimes he gives me sign language for "all done" but nothing else has stuck.
• He's the cutest boy alive. I can say that because I'm his mother.

Yes we're going to a party, party!

 Happy Birthday, Henry!

 He picked at the cake pretty gingerly. He already knew the best part was the frosting... what does that say about the kind of food we feed our baby?

 Our new house has really dark lighting at night. I tried to take some photos without a flash (which I prefer immeasurably to flash photography) but none of them were clear. Despite that, Scott's favorite photo is the one below. Grace's expression is candid and perfect!

Dr. Henry

He did this all by himself! Then he walked around very pleased with himself for a few minutes, always checking to make sure the stethoscope was still around his neck, just like daddy.

Bat Strike Two!

It flew around the main floor for about an hour, now we can't find it because it crawled under the door into the basement around 9:30 pm and is hiding...

Sleep tight us!

The House Rental: part 2

Next on our tour is the main floor bathroom. Here it is!

Scott and I despise this shower. We are both tall and the shower head, which showers the back wall as it showers us, is a little low. In addition, if we have to bend over to pick up soap when it falls, we inevitably bump the curtain which pushes the bottom of the curtain out so that the water spray gets on the floor of the bathroom.

The bathroom itself is arranged a little awkwardly and we have had to improvise because of lack of counter/cupboard/closet space. When we first moved in Grace was afraid of the bathroom. I'm not sure if she's gotten over her fear, yet. She still begs us to go with her to keep her company when she uses the toilet.

Next on our tour is the crucible. I mean the attic. With record-breaking heat all summer and no central air-conditioning, this space has been pretty much unbearable to live in. It's a fun space, though, and I hope we will use it more as the weather cools off.

It also is useful storage space and is where I'm hanging my clothes for now until we get the afore mentioned dresser for the bedroom and redistribute the clothes.

In the attic is fire hazard #4 in the form of another archaic AC unit cut into the wall that has been stuffed with foam and plastic bags and is being held together by packaging tape. We have no intention of ever turning it on. We actually ignore its existence. I didn't even get a picture of it, I'm already that good at ignoring it.

In addition to the attic, we have a full basement! It's not really much of a living space for several reasons, some of which are minimal flooding at almost every heavy rainfall, a suffocating heavy air drenched in old cigar smell (or other smoked leaves) and mildew, and scary stairs for the kids. It offers much useful storage space, though, and a second bathroom which has a bathtub.

When we're feeling brave we make the trek down there for bath time. Otherwise we just bathe the kids in the kitchen sink. They both love it and I think they prefer the kitchen sink to the basement bathtub.

Speaking of the kitchen, here it is! I love that the sink looks out the window, and I love the graceful arching wood curtain frame above the window.

In the kitchen are fire hazards #5 and #6 in the forms of the oven and dishwasher. I could literally write entire blog posts about each of these appliances and their quirks, but I won't. I'll just cram bullets in here for your enjoyment touching on some highlights...

• The oven runs at least 100 degrees hotter than the dial indicates.
• There is no insulation so every square inch of the oven is burning hot to the touch every time it's on.
• On a whim I looked up the oven brand cause I'd never heard of it before, and learned that the company hasn't made ovens for around 20 years because they had so many problems, the most dramatic being spontaneously exploding glass doors. We're kind of scared of our oven.
• We ran the dishwasher once and it filled the kitchen with a burning plastic smell. And it didn't clean.
• The refrigerator has wheels that work really well. Yeah.

The kitchen cabinetry looks like it was put in around the early 90's, which is nice. When we lived in Kirksville our kitchen cabinets were probably from the 20's. I'm glad we don't have to deal with their problems here. The back door to the kitchen leads out to the laundry room.

The laundry room needs a big shelf, preferably above the washer and dryer. I think that's one of my next projects.

My main project since we've been here, besides cleaning and cleaning and raising kids, has been the yard. I'm determined to not be afraid of the back yard by the time Fall gets here. Since I took this picture the neighbors have replaced the broken wood fence with a pretty white vinyl one. Yay!

But I'm still battling rampant poison ivy, a huge mole infestation, a total lack of real grass, and overgrown everything else. In the spring I want to be able to plant flowers and a vegetable garden, so there's a lot of prep work still to do.

In the front yard I've already torn down the English ivy that was threatening to swallow the house whole. You can kind of see it in the first picture we posted, but it's hiding behind the other overgrowth that I mostly have cut down, too.

We love the big stone porch and have spent many hours on these steps watching the cars go by. We have lots of cars to watch because we live on a very busy state highway.

So there you have it!