First Looks

 Christmas is coming!  Scott cleaned out the garage Saturday and put our Christmas tree on the front porch, so I invited it in early for a little holiday cheer.  We got on a bit of a roll and hauled out all the trees, and now our house is a twinkly wonderland.  It's only fitting that Christmas arrive this week, since it's Nutcracker week!  If you're going to have that iconic music running through your head, you might as well have ornaments to look at and, come to think of it, hot cocoa to drink.  We have it all. 

 Sneak peek at Ari's Nutcracker gifts for the other Blue Soldiers:  elf-striped socks.

 The tree.  It looks better in real life!  Not perfect, though, since our decorating method is "get the ornaments on the tree."

 I just think this is funny.  Ptolemy had a horrible rash on his face.  He's holding up the skeleton saying, "Scary!"  With the arrival of Thanksgiving/Christmas, Halloween is officially dead around here, so hopefully this is a LAST look.

My table was set all week, waiting for my Women's Shelter lunch, my heavenly respite from the world/weekly therapy session.  My mom's Thanksgiving china got a trial run today with some non-holiday fare:  pesto pasta.  And on the table is a new book by Mike Ramsdell, author of Train to Potevka.  His new book is called Gift of Potevka.  Scott ran into Mike yesterday at Costco and had him autograph a book.  I can't wait to read it! 

And in other first looks, last night was our first Nutcracker dress rehearsal.  Golda looked so darling in her clown makeup and Ari was adorable as a blue soldier.  It is so fun to see them onstage!  Ruby's part is double cast, so tonight will be the first time we get to see her in all her costumed glory.  My Chinese dancers performed their best, so now I can relax and enjoy the curtain going up...on both Nutcracker and a wonderful holiday season.  What is your first look at the holidays looking like?

Other Things Nobody Heard Me Say

If the vacuum smells like it's burning, turn it off.

If you set that glass on the edge of the counter, it could fall and break.

I want everybody's room clean when I get back.

Lean over your plate so you don't get spaghetti sauce on your church clothes.

Close the door!

Don't forget to flush.

But that's OK.  Don't tell the kids, but I'm not listening to them either.  I already know how light bulbs work, I don't care about the kid in your class who went to Disneyland and I've seen Barbie Rapunzel, so the scene-by-scene recap is not registering at all.  I'm busy thinking about why you're not putting your backpack away like I told you to do six times!

Communication gap?  Yeah, but I know something everybody hears:  Who wants ice cream!?

Is Anyone Listening To Me?

This was me in the car this morning on the way to piano:

"Xanthe, be very careful not to drop your toast.  We don't want peanut butter all over the car."
"Mom?"
"What?"
"I accidentally just dropped my toast."

So...when I told Xanthe to be very careful, did that register at all?  Hello?  Can anyone hear me?  Why do I even talk?  I'm like the parents in Charlie Brown. 

Food Rules for Today

These are things that make me feel better and, as an added bonus, are good for weight loss. 

Cereal mix:  I love to make granola with oats, flax seeds, wheat germ, butter and brown sugar.  It's not very good for you, but I mixed it for a ratio of about 20% granola and 80% Cheerios, puffed wheat and Grape Nuts and it's still delicious.  Also, I bought skim milk for the first time in my life.  My dad makes skim taste better by putting it in the freezer until it's slightly frozen.  Top it with fruit and yogurt.  I buy Mountain High plain yogurt because it's half the price of Greek and has all the live, active cultures and no added sugar.  There is really no point in eating yogurt if it has corn syrup in it.

My favorite bread, Jack Spratt's, is so good drenched with butter!  Now I eat it toasted with avocado slices or mashed strawberries instead.

We eat a lot of Mexican-style food, which I like to eat with cheese and sour cream.  We had chicken fajitas this week, which were just as delicious with no cheese or sour cream, just salsa and cilantro.  I'm trying to use spices and fresh foods like salsa to flavor food instead of relying on various forms of fat and sugar like so many recipes do.

Whole grain pancakes made with pumpkin, cinnamon and grated apples are a big hit with my kids.  (Scott is a MUCH better pancake maker than I am.  I don't have the patience.)  Instead of syrup and butter, we top them with lots of yogurt and fruit.  It's good for dinner, especially if you cook the pancakes and dice the fruit beforehand.

Sushi...so fresh and so good for you.  I know I can eat it when I'm preggo, but there's such a stigma, I think I'll wait until after the baby before I indulge in a Rainbow or Spider roll.  Tolly and Ruby like a tempura-battered Rock and Roll with cooked salmon inside.  I'm still working on some of the other kids, but Japanese food is a good, healthy habit to foster. I lived with Japanese roommates for two years and their diet couldn't have been more fresh or tasty.

In China, oranges are traditionally served after meals.  I try to keep with the idea of single-ingredient foods, especially for dessert.  Apple slices, those Cutie oranges or even a piece of dark chocolate, which is the standard at Coco and Bill's, are healthier than any baked good.  Which isn't to say that Jennifer should EVER stop bringing me apple pie whenever she feels like it.  There are healthy foods, and then there are foods that make life worth living!  Balance, right?

A Lot of Gall

I feel like I haven't been blogging lately.  I didn't finish posting about the trip and I have no creative thoughts in my head whatsoever.  All my energy lately has gone to figuring out what's wrong with me.  I got sick our last night in France, which was good timing except that I never got better.  In the Dallas airport, I sent the girls to dinner at T.G.I. Friday's by themselves while I watched the luggage, thinking that I had a 24 hour flu.

24 hours turned into two weeks, and I had major problems and no energy.  From what doctors can guess, it's my gall bladder's fault.  The poor little thing was overworked.  Looking back, I had this same problem last time I was pregnant, I just didn't realize what it was.  No wonder things got out of hand in France.  My diet was solely composed of pastries, gelato and things made of delicious fat, like gyros with french fries in them and ham, egg and cheese crepes.  The French are not stingy with their cheese, either!

Now I'm on a low-fat diet, which makes me feel a lot better, but is sad, since butter is one of my best friends.  Now I have a tub of something called "A Change for the Butter," a fridge full of salad greens, beets and salsa and a giant container of filtered water.  For some reason, one website I read said tap water could aggravate symptoms, so Coco brought us the water.  Freestone monitors my water intake, of all things.  He came home from school and said, "Oh, I hope there's no miscarriage.  Are you eating all the right things, Mom?  No tap water?"  He's so sweet.

I think Scott used fear to get the house clean last Saturday while I was teaching, telling the kids that we had to protect the baby by helping me rest.  The house sure was spotless when I got home!  So there are advantages to being a little sick.  And I do feel good about the new diet plan.  I thought I was a healthy eater before, but now I have to think about each bite and whether it's going to make me suffer.  Pain is a great motivator for a healthy lifestyle.

So I'm completely fine and more realistic about my limitations.  It's amazing what a lot of effort it takes to gestate a baby, and what it does to your body.  Even so, I love it.  I'll be driving down the road and think, "I have a little person here with me, and I'm so glad she's here."  And I'm not talking about the little person in the backseat calling out, "I go to Daddy's office!  Get candy!  Wet's go see Daddy!  Get me out of my carseat!  Push the red button, Mom!  Get me out of here!"  That's a whole other cause for fatigue!

Apples and Cheese

Ruby recently made up a hyper-annoying and extremely catchy tune called "Apples and Cheese."  Believe me, you don't want to hear it.  It's contagious like the Plague.  I love it.  Ari hates it.  She said to me, "Mom, you know that song Ruby made up, Apples and Cheese?  Well, I think she needs a new voice teacher."

I said, "Ruby doesn't have a voice teacher."  Ari seemed relieved and said, "Well, then, she shouldn't be singing."  Problem solved.  Except that now the whole family is belting a smarmy, "Apples and Cheese!  Apples and cheese!  Apples and! Apples and! Slices of cheese!"  Cheesy.  Really, it's worse than the flu and there's no vaccine.  We'll try to stay quarantined until we find a solution.

Thanksgiving. Oh, and Christmas.

Scott and I are hosting Thanksgiving for the little King family, and I'm so excited!  (Of course, we'll still get the delicious Dopp dinner on Friday.  We couldn't pass that up!)  We have our menu of everyone's favorite dishes, including roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and jello with apples, mandarin oranges and walnuts.  Felshaw is doing the turkey, Coco her famous stuffing, Ruby will whip the cream and table setting plans are in place.  Guests are in charge of desserts.  It's fun to plan the details of a big event for a small crowd.  Just for fun, what are your favorite dishes/activites/traditions/table ideas for Thanksgiving?  Tell me your favorites!

Oh, and since it's almost Thanksgiving, my Christmas cards are nestled all snug in their envelopes waiting for addresses.  If I don't have your address and you want a Christmas card, email me.  If I keep sending you Christmas cards and they're really annoying to you, well, email me and tell me to stop!  :)  And maybe if you give me a good idea for Thanksgiving, I will.

Extra Hour

Daylight Savings!  I love it in the fall, hate it in the spring.  When I lived in Indiana, I always felt a little smug when everyone else altered their clocks and we Hoosiers just kept doing what we were doing.  We don't need Daylight Savings!  But as long as we don't have a choice, I always like to use my extra hour purposefully.  Technically, I used the extra 2:00 AM hour to sleep, but I'm not counting that.  I think I'll use my hour to go for a Sunday drive with Scott, talk about all the things we never have time to discuss and secretly admire how handsome he is.  Unless Scott uses his extra hour to watch football, in which case I'll have to use mine to read Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, which I am thoroughly enjoying.  In fact, I may have already spent an extra hour staying up late to read.

The way the extra hour works, Scott could use his to watch football after I use mine to go with him on a Sunday drive.  Then, since Ptolemy doesn't need his extra hour, I could use it to write my Christmas card letter.  I could really get into this extra hour thing.  What are you going to do with yours??  Whatever you do, make that hour work for you!

Fall Into Winter

Now that it's winter, I guess I'll post my pumpkin carving pictures so we can remember the glorious autumn that we enjoyed so fully...until the snow came and broke all the branches and drowned all the beautiful leaves.  I'm going to miss those plump little pumpkins in the flowerbed.  I'm going to miss the flowerbed! 

 Xanthe trying to eat a cookie and carve a pumpkin at the same time.

 Tolly, stuck with the ice cream scoop instead of a cool, sharp knife.

 Golda, too tired for pumpkin carving.  Ruby and Golda had to do an ungodly amount of make-up work when we got back from the trip, and they had to do it all in one week, since it was the end of the term.  Kids, stay in school!  And if you do leave school, don't ever go back.  The make-up work will kill you.

 Ruby was just glad to have first term behind her.  She looks a little shell-shocked, doesn't she?

 Proud pumpkin boy

 Coco and Bill brought everyone jammies from a cute store in Paris.  How adorable are these kids in their matching velour?  I love these little guys!  (OK, I do admit that this picture was taken very soon after Scott and I had a conversation about whether family time is fun or not.:)  The pumpkins got us down for a minute!)

The kids do look ready for a snowy night in these warm jammies.  And I did start setting up Christmas trees in the kids' rooms.  Maybe I am ready for winter.  Fire up the scented candles and deck the halls!

Happy Tenth, Araceli!

If I had to choose one word to describe Araceli, it would be loving.  But that one word doesn't begin to cover the vast and deep array of emotions she displays or the breadth of her creative, complex mind.  It's hard to believe it's been a decade since this perfect baby came onto the scene.  For a few minutes when she was born, her name was Mary Delilah.  She would have made a great Mary, but I'm glad we chose the most beautiful name in the world instead, Araceli.  It fits her perfectly.

This morning, she went to McDonald's with Daddy to get a smoothie.  Soon, she'll go to lunch with Scott and me and later she has a cello lesson and celebration and dinner plans with Ellison.  I hear rumors of Boondocks and Chuck-a-Rama.  I have to admit, I'm thankful not to be planning a birthday party for 18 girls today.  A low-key night out with a friend and SuperDad sounds like just the thing for a ten-year-old young lady.

Our family is lucky to have our delightful and spunky Ari in our ranks.  She is a great nanny to Ptolemy, protector to Xanthe, friend to Freestone and little sis to Golda and Ruby.  She already has plans to raise Tzipporah herself, so I'm looking forward to completely taking it easy after she's born!  Thanks, Ari!  Love ya.