Beaded Snowflakes

My Girls

Jane:

Jane has been incredibly clingy since we've been here in MO. She always wants me to hold her. She cries whenever I enter a room and she's not in my arms instantly. It's kinda cute, kinda frustrating. I'm so thankful that she got a flu shot this year and didn't catch this yucky sickness that we all got (knock on wood). She's just as cute as ever.

She said her first word. "No." Audrey was telling her, "no, no, Janey" while she was taking away the barbie car. Janey looked at Audrey and said, "NO! NO! NO!" then took the car back. Little stinker. Since then, she'll say it just for fun. She mostly uses it at Audrey though. :)

Audrey:

Despite being very sick (which today she's fully over it, thank goodness), she's had some much needed space to play and loving attention. There's so much to do here. She's had some great progress in her language, too. She's getting so much better at communicating what she means. We're still working on using "yes," but she'll get it very soon I think.

She's growing like a weed! But what else is new? Her and Jane both are growing out of their clothes faster than I can buy them new ones. Good thing their grandparents all go them new clothes for Christmas! Thank you!

What Dave got Me for Christmas

He did VERY well this year. He got the right size and everything. :)

The Big Day!

We didn't take many pictures of Christmas morning because of the craziness. We started out by giving Audrey a bath. She was pretty worried about her hair, which had a little bit of throw-up in it. Poor girl.
The loot.

After we all opened our loot.

Audrey with some of her loot.

Audrey's favorite present was a butterfly barbie that Jake and Kassie got her. She really perked up after she opened that. Jane just liked everyone elses presents. :) I got a beautiful framed print of my favorite picture. And we got a few pictures of the girls and our family framed from our last family photo shoot. Mom gave Janey the quilt she made for her (you can see it on the floor in that earlier picture). So cute!

Despite all this crazy present stuff, we did try to keep it real with Audrey. On Christmas Eve night, as we were putting Audrey to bed, Dave recited the Christmas story and bore his testimony of Jesus, then we sang Silent Night. It was nice. We have other traditions that we'd like to create for these days, but when we're away from home, it's hard to get things together properly.

Christmas Activities Part 1: Make Gingerbread Houses, Listen to Christmas Music, Watch Christmas Movies, and other Normal Activities

Not too shabby, huh?

This is what Jane did while we made them . . .

Audrey just piled sprinkles and things in the front yard of her house. It was huge heap, but she had fun. :)

We also watched a few classic Christmas movies (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story) and listened to the Rat Pack croon all the holiday favorites. Good times.

Christmas Activities Part 2: Win Big

Despite what a lot of you might think, I don't spend all my time playing Texas Hold 'Em on my Facebook . . . that would be my dad hacking into my account at playing with as me. Why? I don't kow. So, if you EVER see me on there playing it, it's him, not me.

That being said. I do love a good poker game. It's one of my little vices. Everytime we get together as a family we play. This year was no different. And yes, I did win. And no, that's not unusual. ;)
 

Christmas Activities Part 3: Clean Deer Carcass

No, we're not rednecks. But we did spend a few hours on Christmas Eve cutting a dead deer into jerky. Gross. There's nothing like that horrid smell of frozen, gamey deer flesh. Why did I help? Because I'm one of the big kids that's always had to help every year when I lived at home, so I knew how to do it. And I wanted to get on with Christmas and not have those two old men taking forever doing the job!

First, the deer was hanging in the garage. Audrey was naturally curious about what was going on while Dad and Uncle Steve were cutting it into chunks to bring inside. I asked her what they were doing, and she said, "Cutting the doggie." Oops. "No, no. That's not the doggie. See? The doggie is right there." Later on, when we started cutting, was asked her again what we were doing. She said, very matter-of-factly, "Cutting doggie. Like Abby." No. We explained to her that it was just meat, like a hamburger. The funny thing is, she didn't seem to care if it was a doggie we were cutting or not. She was just curious. I hope she's not scarred for life.

They made me do the hard part since I was "young and spry" enough to get down on the floor and do the tedious part.

I'll say it again. Gross.

Christmas Activities Part 4: Visit Grandma

My Gram has really taken a hit these past couple of months battling cancer. She can't go anywhere or do anything. She just looks terribly sick. And it just breaks my heart. We went over to visit her on Christmas Eve so she wouldn't be alone. She gets too overwhelmed and tired when lots of people come and visit her for any longer than a half hour or so, so we all couldn't do a big family thing there. And she's just too weak to come to us . . . so she spent Christmas Eve almost entirely alone. I could hardly bear it. It's bad enough seeing her this way, but it really hurt me to know that there was nothing that could be done to make the holidays like they used to be. I guess that's what just happens when you get older--everything changes, and not always for the good.

On a happier note, she really did seem to enjoy our visit. She was strong enough to hold Janey for a minute and she played with Audrey. She has a few little dogs at her house--this one that Jane is playing with is a puppy. Audrey had given it a few toys to play with in his little box. It was tiny thing, and the girls loved it . . . I'm just not sure how much it loved them! :)

Christmas Activities Part 5: Puke Your Guts Out

Audrey woke up in the middle of the night (as did my mom) sicker than a dog. She spend the night throwing up all over the place. Dave was super about taking care of it all while Jane and I slept in the other room.

But we all didn't realize what kind of treat we were ALL in for.

Christmas night Aaron, Jacob, Kassie, Me, and my Dad were all throwing up sick. And even today we've been a little woozy. Not so much festive attitudes as just a lot of lying around the house, shuffling because of sore muscles, sipping orange juice, not doing or saying much of anything. No Christmas dinner, no fun times. Just coping. I shudder to think of it.

I know for a fact that Caleb and Uncle Steve are sick too. I just pray that Gram didn't get sick. I'm certain a horrible flu like this would kill her . . .

Christmas Activities Part 6: Play with Uncle Jake

Uncle Jake loves to play with the girls. He pushes them around the kitchen/dining room in milk crates really fast. I know that Audrey loves it. Jane isn't quite as sure. :)

Why We Will Never Fly Anywhere Ever Again (Especially During Christmas)

You think that year after year of holiday travel consisting of bad weather and under-staffed airports, which always results in utter chaos, they'd finally realize that they should probably plan ahead for things such as these.

We got to the Elmira Airport with a good hour to spare in order to check in and catch our 3:30 flight.

What should have happened: We got checked in right away, passed security with no problems, waited for a few minutes, boarded our little plane, and were in the air by 3:45.

What actually happened: We waited in line to get checked in for an hour because no one was manning the desk. By the time we were done, Audrey was throwing a huge fit and made it a little bit difficult to hustle through security. Once we got settled to wait for our flight to board, we found out that it wouldn't be leaving until 5:00 . . . a huge bummer, but not so bad since our layover in Detroit was more than sufficient to accommodate a delay like that. We waited . . . and waited . . .

We waited some more.

What should have happened: While we waited, Audrey was perfectly content watching her movies and playing with the two other little girls that were waiting. She stayed in our sight the whole time and there was no major problems.

What actually happened: Audrey ran away from us when we weren't looking and got back past security. The lady yelled at Dave when he tried to go back through to get her. It was scary and infuriating to have Audrey roaming around the airport with strangers, out of sight, while Dave was made to run back and get his boarding pass and ID, when he could have just picked her up from the other side of the automatic doors where he first spotted her. The lady even checked us through the first time! It was a tiny airport, no big deal, there were no other people being checked through at the moment--it would not have killed her to let Dave get Audrey! It's not like someone had strapped a bomb to her! My anger and frustration at the stupidity and inconsideration of many airport personnel was rekindled then . . . but it was yet to burst into a full fledged bonfire.

We waited some more.

What should have happened: We boarded our flight at 5:00.

What actually happened: We didn't get to leave until almost 6:30 . . . They didn't ever tell us about any of these delays either until about 20 minutes after we were supposed to be leaving. Meanwhile, we're all getting kids ready to board, when really we had another hour . . . which resulted in frustrated children and parents.

We then had a pleasant flight to Detroit. The girls slept the whole hour it took to get to the next stop.

What should have happened: We got off the plane with at least 45 minutes still to catch our connecting flight.

What actually happened: Because there was not enough staff to guide us to our gate (which wasn't even available at first because of other delays), we sat on the runway while our connecting flight left. Yes, for an hour we waited. The girls did stay asleep. And our hopes were high that the KC flight was delayed also, but . . .

We missed our flight to Kansas City.

What should have happened: We caught the next flight and made it there that night with no problems.

What actually happened: The next flight available to KC wouldn't be until at least 24 hours later (although there were other flights to KC, they had highly over-booked them and there was no way we'd be able to get on them--my hunch tells me that when we didn't show up for our KC flight, and we were told they knew we were coming and were just delayed and they probably could have easily waited, they gave our seats away because they had too many people waiting to get on the flight). No way. We walked to the next gate over to see if we could get on the flight to St. Louis (despite the fact that that added TONS of extra driving time for my parents).

We did get on the flight to St. Louis.

What should have happened: They forwarded our luggage to our St. Louis flight since they had not put it on the KC flight when we didn't arrive to get on it and it was just sitting in the Detroit Airport. We picked it up when we got to St. Louis, no problem.

What acutally happened: We got our luggage the next day because we complained. They put it on an afternoon flight to KC from Detroit. And then my little brother was summoned by the delivery guy to meet him somewhere in KC (where my brother lived) to pick it up and bring it to us so he didn't acutally have to do the job himself. Whatever.

The good things that happened: The kids were actually pretty good on the flights themselves. We did get our luggage the next day and everything was in tact. It was nice to be home.

The bad things that happened: Audrey in particular was horrid in the airports themselves, throwing huge fits in the middle of the concorse. We got very mad and it was a long frustrating day.

The conclusion: We'll be thinking very long and hard about whether we fly anywhere ever again. I HATE AIRPORTS!!!

Visiting D.C. (and Jill and Jeremy)

We did TONS of stuff! And of course we didn't see half of what there was to see! Thank you to Jeremy and Jill for being such awesome tour guides!

Jane and Audrey being cute and just hanging out at their apartment. We had just the right mix of hang-out vs. go-out time. We played games and chatted. The only problem was Audrey was a little bit too rambunctious for their place. She was surely driving the neighbors below them crazy with her constant running around and jumping at all hours of the day and night. :S

Driving in D.C. looked crazy! But, luckly, we didn't have to do it at all! The Erbs, not only rented a van for us while we were there so we could stick together, but they also did all the driving! It was great!

Jill works for the Red Cross. She gave us a special tour of the building where she works and a really cool tour of the old Red Cross building that has all the old cool stuff to see: quilts signed by lots of famous people, huge stained glass window in a beautiful room which also had various gifts given to the Red Cross by lots of different countries (like an idiot I didn't take a picture of any of this stuff, it was really beautiful) . . .

It's a long par five to our nation's capitol . . .

Next we went and visited the museum of American History. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the whole thing before it closed. There was lots to see. Dave and I were compelled to get our picture taken with C3PO, which is weird because neither of us are really huge Star Wars fans or anything . . . If you were to ask me what my favorite things were, I wouldn't know where to start. I liked the cast of Lincoln's hands, the old household appliances and furniture, the atmosphere of sections like the America at War section and the musical instruments (which was very tiny), the surrealness of seeing things like Dorothy's slippers, Lincoln's hat, and Washington's chair . . . it was a very cool place. We would have loved to have seen more of the Smithsonians, but 1) it's so hard to do ANYTHING with the kids, we'll have to go when they're older to really enjoy ourselves, and 2) there's just so much!

We thought this girl needed some reason for having that expression . . .

Dave got ran over by route 66 . . .

This was fun. It was little virtual metro bus. It really felt like you were on a bus (which made me a little sick) and it had a life-size movie on the front simulating people riding the bus and talking and getting off and things.

They have this cool exhibit where you can stand at the podium and give one of a few presidents' (you choose) innaugural addresses. They put the right background behind you and post the words up and it looks like you're the president. (This picture is of Dave on the TV screen.) Dave chose Kennedy's speech. When we mosied over to try it there wasn't really anyone around. But Dave's speech was so powerful and moving (loud) that by the time he came to the really great recognizable parts, there were TONS of people around and they all put up a loud cheer and clapped really loud for him. It was really fun. :)

Their big dream: to be in the Supreme Court/in a judge's robe.

Hobnobbing . . . (this picture was acutally really cool, it had lots of presidents in it, but it got cropped).

This was how Janey was most of the time we were in the museum: a very good girl. :)

This is how Audrey was the whole time we were in the Museum: sound asleep. :D

The day after Thanksgiving we got all bundled up and went to see some outside things. Janey was pretty sung in that stroller. The rain cover sure came in handy to keep the cold wind at bay, except Audrey never wanted it on them . . . which brings me to how SHE was on this part of the trip . . .

The Washington Monument, and the obligitory leaning picture . . .

The view with our backs to the capitol and the Washington Monument, looking at the WWII memorial and the Lincoln Monument.

Here's a little more about the WWII monument. It's all very symbolic.

Audrey's own little "Freedom March" . . .

The Lincoln Memorial. Here is where we got to rub shoulders with EVERYONE in Washington D.C. . . . really, everyone was there . . . We also bought our one and only souvenier: a collection of very "old" (authentic-looking) documents such as the Constitution, Declaration of Independance, etc. This also brings me to Audrey's behavior on our trip. She had a MAJOR meltdown on the while we were here. She was tired and hungry and ready to be done.

These are sacred places . . . no smoking, eating, or . . . ice skating or bowling . . .

The Korean War Memorial was also incredibly symbolic, as all these memorials seem to be.

Our little track star wanted to take her socks and shoes off, so we had to stick her in the "sleeping bag." That's the life . . .

While we walk the path of monuments, Janey walks the path of enlightenment and attains a Zen-like "awakening" . . .

I loved this statue. It's the one at the Vietnam War Memorial. It totally reminds me of The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. A MUST-read. The boys look so young. In another universe that could have been David, but instead, there he is pushing a stroller with his daughters in it. We're so lucky.

This squirrel was crazy. Kinda scary. After that rabid squirrel attacked that guy on campus a few months ago, I'm a little leery of squirrels that come too close . . .

I'm amazed by the vast quantity of names on this wall, which is probably what the point is I think. It really brings it home that these were individuals with lives and families. When we walked by I muttered names out loud to myself that I read as we walked. People, with names. All dead in one war that they probably didn't fully understand at all.

Here we are in front of the White House . . . literally. :) I always thought "Big deal. Who would want to live in the White House?" It's pretty cool . . . I think I would be excited if I were going to be living there.

The capitol was really beautiful at night. Unfortunately, our camera ran out of batteries at the Lincoln Memorial (like an idiot I didn't bring my charger). It was actually really fun to just let Jeremy take all the pictures so we could just enjoy or vacation (another round of thank-yous and bonus points for our awesome friends for making it an awesome vacation). Anyway, it was really hard to get a good shot of any of this stuff in the dark. But it was lovely. :)

This is David and I arguing before the Supreme Court . . . :)

This is the Library of Congress. It was a really beautiful building, which brings me to the architecture in D.C. Now, I usually don't get all excited about architecture, but I was constantly being surprised at how cool and beautiful a lot of the architecture in this city was--on the government buildings, the museums, monuments, townhouses, houses, shops in the ghetto, everything! I think it would be cool to do a serious photographic study of the architecture of that place, every part of it. I'd be interested in that if anyone out there wants to take that on for me, thanks. :)

We stopped by the D.C. temple on our last night. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It's surrounded by, of course, a really beautiful neighborhood, but also a nice little forest. When you're coming up close to it to pull into the parking lot the temple can be seen glowing through this perfectly shillouetted forest, all the way around. And there's a panel of stained glass going veritcal along the front up the the angel Moroni. Amazing. In the visitor's center there was the new Reflections of Christ exhibit and tons of different themed Christmas trees, which was fun to see. :)

Jill and Jeremy took us to this really great Chinese place after we went to see the temple. I love this picture.

Here are some links to the places that we wanted to go, but that we just didn't have time for:

Arlington National Cemetary (we drove by, but didn't get to go inside)

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial

Jefferson Monument

Museum of National History (among other museums, there are so many, but this one will be my top priority next time we visit)

No visit to the White House this time. We thought we might get to go but it didn't work out.