Merry Christmas!

Santa traveled through foggy weather to land on our roof, slide down the chimney and leave lots of presents under our tree. The unseasonably warm weather definitely didn't hamper Santa's Christmas spirit as he left many shiny, wrapped presents and lots of stocking stuffers for us, Nana and Papa, and even Junior B.

Faith's big present from Santa was a Barbie RV. Unlike Papa's, this one is pink and has a hot tub that holds real water (although we haven't mentioned this to her yet). Actually, the toy is technically called a "Barbie Hot Tub Party Bus", but we're happy that she calls it an RV. Papa, Nana, and Mom all helped put the RV together, which gives you some idea about the number of pieces that came with this pink party on wheels. (Papa discovered yesterday that all Barbie toys come with a million little wires and plastic parts to test the IQ and patience of the person opening the toy.)


Faith was very festive for Santa's arrival with the help of her Great-Aunt Donna. The traditional gift of a hat for Christmas may have reached it's pinnacle with this light-up Christmas tree hat. We're not sure how she can top this one. Faith thought it was pretty cool, and ran to the mirror when she opened it to see what it looked like on her head. She likes to wear it and jiggle her head so that the tree bounces.

Christmas morning was definitely fun for all of us!
Merry Christmas!

Another artist in the family

We have all of Faith's Christmas books sitting in a basket in the living room. Each night she picks out a book to read, in the spirit of the season.

Tonight she picked the book that Nana and Papa gave her . It's one of those books that you can get personalized for a child, so it has her name in it, along with ours, her address, and so on. She gets a real kick out of it.

What I didn't know was how much she attributed the book to her Nana and Papa.

Tonight, she was looking at the pictures of the reindeer in the book, when she said, "Nana is a really good artist."

Apparently Nana not only wrote the book, but was also the illustrator.

A new dresser

We have been busily getting the baby's room ready the last couple of weeks. Mom helpfully painted the room for us...a boy color called Camouflage. (OK, really just another shade of tan.) Faith actually helped quite a bit with the painting too. I painted the change table top that Paul built for us the same color so everything coordinates.

Part of the getting the room ready means switching Faith's dresser over to the baby's room (the change table goes on top of it), and giving her a new dresser. Mom and Dad have about 20 dressers at their house, so they sacrificed one for us. Mom found a small, three drawer dresser in one of her closets that's a perfect fit for kid. The only problem is that it needed a coat of paint.

So, we painted it white, and then Faith picked out "Sweet Taffy" pink for the dresser drawers. Faith helped paint it yesterday and as we were painting she noticed that part of the wood is split on the bottom of one side. She pointed this out to me and then said, "Gramma gave me this dresser because it's broken!"

I explained that Gramma gave us the dresser because she knew it was the right size and that the drawers open easily (unlike her current one), and that we could paint it to match her room. She seemed satisfied with this.

The next day we watched Cordelia and William (Rob threw his back out and Karen was working). Faith brought Cordelia down to see her dresser just as I was finishing the second coat. As I was painting, I heard Faith lean over to Cordelia and whisper, "My gramma gave me a broken dresser." OK. So maybe she's not over this yet. :)

The festive season

We've had a busy month so far, and it began with our annual tree trimming party. Although this year it was a much smaller affair, mostly due to my enlarging waistline and general lack of energy for entertaining large groups of people.

The decorating was fun, with excellent food provided by Curtis (catered not cooked:). The kids had fun decorating the tree, but had even more fun getting decorated. Mom brought her face painting kit...she's a walking theme park now. The girls all got princess faces, and Nathan got was the Christmas devil.

He chased the girls around for a bit, prompting Ava to say in a somewhat tremulous voice, "Nathan is scaring me."

The adult girls all got their faces done as well, but the boys mysteriously snuck downstairs to play pool and foosball before they could have a turn.

The next day, we exchanged Christmas gifts with Nathan, Dave, and Tracy as we aren't doing any travelling at Christmas (that baby thing again). Nathan like Battleship, and Faith loved her new Polly Pocket car. George was very happy with his liquid gift of Scotch.


That night, Faith got to ride the float with Sparks in the Santa Claus Parade. This was the highlight of her Sparks career so far...although darn cold! We froze watching the parade, but she was nice and toasty under a blanket and all bundled up.

Bigger and bigger

Tomorrow I hit 26 weeks, and I'm just getting bigger and bigger. Or rather, my stomach just keeps getting bigger and bigger...Yesterday I had another ultrasound to check on the position and growth of the baby.

First off, this one is definitely a boy. As I was watching the screen, he was cooperative enough to flash the ultrasound tech and I. That was about all the cooperating he did as he did not like getting poked and spent the better part of 45 minutes kicking like a horse. (He does a lot more kicking than Faith ever did.) He is also not cooperating in his position. He's decided to stay in the breech position, which explains why my ribs have been killing me. His little head is pushing up, up, up.

And, he is a very big boy...about 1 kg or 2.2 lbs right now. This in the 80th percentile according to the dr. Woohoo. Already a high achiever. :)

This morning Faith and I were eating breakfast when I showed her where the baby's head is sitting. I gave him a little poke and then he kicked me. Faith looked at me very seriously and said, "Mom. You shouldn't push the baby in the head." Sure, he can kick me in the cervix all day long, but I can't give him a little poke now and then.

Tonight I told her that we have to talk to the baby and tell him to turn around so he's facing head down. I explained that if he stays in the current position I have to have an operation to get the baby out.

Normally, when I put her to bed, we have a ritual of her saying goodnight to my tummy. Tonight, instead of her normal "goodnight baby", she said, "Turn around baby. My mommy's already had an operation and she doesn't need another one."

You got that right.

Putting your best face forward

Mom is developing another artistic business to keep her even busier (retirement...what's that?). She has started a face painting business. But this is no ordinary face painting...none of those simple, one or two color butterflies and hearts you see on kid's cheeks at local fairs. Instead, the faces are works of art. When she pulled out a red suitcase (!) full of different colors, brushes, and tools, I couldn't believe it!

Faith thought this turn of events was awesome! And, since Halloween was yesterday, and she wanted to be a bunny princess, Mom showed me how to do a bunny face for her costume. (Note...my attempt at the bunny face did not look nearly as good as the picture below.)
Next, Faith wanted to have a "princess" face. So she went through the many pictures that Mom has of different ideas to choose the face she wanted. The result is below, with Mom's special flare for color of course.


...and from the other side...
Faith discovered with this face painting design what most women have learned. There is no possible way to keep your lips painted and actually eat or drink anything. Mom retouched her about three times before we had to wash off the masterpiece.

I even got into the act with a pumpkin for Halloween on my cheek.


I told Mom that her house has officially become a kid's idea of the circus, complete with horse rides from Grampa and face painting by Gramma.

Wise words

George's Grandma Squire passed away last week. This was a sad time for the whole family, but also a time for us to celebrate Grandma's 92 years of life. Seeing her 10 great-grandchildren running around the funeral home was testament enough to that.

Fortunately, George and Faith were able to visit Grandma in the hospital the Sunday before she died. When it came time to actually tell Faith that Grandma had died, I thought that she would be able to understand it a little better because she knew that Grandma was having trouble breathing and that her heart was sick too. What I underestimated was how truly upset she would be to hear that Great-Grandma had died and was now in heaven.

But, in the way of five year olds, she was soon able to understand that Great-Grandma was in a better place. After sitting through Grandma's funeral on Monday, she told me, "I felt sad but I didn't cry because I knew Great-Grandma was feeling better now." (Strangely enough, she was also fascinated by Grandma's name as I don't think she'd ever actually heard her called by her "real" name before. She was obviously listening to the minister during the service.)

I think the most profound thing she said occurred at the actual cemetery. After the ceremony at the grave, we were waiting in the van for the cars ahead of us to return to the church. Faith asked, "Mom, what are all the flowers for?"

The cemetery was filled with flowers of all kinds on the different headstones...more than I had ever seen in one cemetery before. I explained that people brought them for their grandmas and grampas, aunts, and uncles.

"Then the flowers are for love," she said. Then she paused for a few seconds before saying, "There's lots of love here."

How do five-year-olds get so wise?