Thanksgiving week

Olaf has been busy re-assembling his pirate ship into one that is continually bigger and better. Soon I imagine it will self-destruct from it's own weight, but so far, so good.

We've had bits and blobs of snow, but nothing that has stuck around.

I've been sewing more little dinosaur baby toys. With crinkle paper in the necks.

And I sewed another pair of baby pants. I love the t-shirt pattern.

and out of the scraps, I sewed a few baby hats. I'm learning how to do the fun stitches on my sewing machine, so my hems suddenly got a great deal nicer looking.

Julia's decided that accessories are the key to life.

For Thanksgiving, we made Grandma Wahlberg's cranberry sauce.

In her old grinder we ground up 1 lb fresh cranberries, one orange with a little bit of the peel left on and one peeled apple. Then stir in up to a cup of sugar and let it sit for a day before serving. No cooking! I love a bowl of this with whipped cream.

Since we had the grinder out, we ground up the carrots and celery and apples and onions for the stuffing. Stuffing is what I live for at Thanksgiving.

and I made apple and pumpkin pie.

Julia's into play dough

and Olaf was too, making it into Octopuses attacking the ship.

the sun was out, the weather was mild. Granny came over and we feasted.  I was a tad distracted by all the food, so no photos. 

and later that night I finished another self-designed hat. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving!

winter comes and we take a trip

Julia was impressed with the first snow fall. She quickly discovered the joy of eating snow.

Since snow was falling, I made caramels. We didn't have a candy thermometer, so I was relying on mom's expertise and the Joy of Cooking candy section. They turned out rather well!

After they cooled, I cut and wrapped them. Some were sprinkled with coarse salt and some with walnuts. 

wrapping took forever!

Olaf wanted to make rolled cookies, so we did that too. A full day of premature Christmas celebrating.

Julia's rocking chair is getting some holes in the wicker, so I sewed a little cushion to save it and Julia's backside. 

Olaf made his biggest lego ship yet. 

In a frenzy of last-minute planning, I decided to take the train to Seattle over Veteran's day weekend to visit a few friends and family. Julia did very well on the 12 hour train ride. I was worried about how we'd handle potty time, and ended up bringing part of the potty chair along. She used it several times on the train, but figured out quickly that she was in disposable diapers and that was the end of the potty. I was fairly nervous that this would mean she would forever refuse the potty, but upon returning home, she went right back to it! We spent a night and part of a day with my friend Erin, then met up with my sister Grace for a quick visit, then met up with Grandma Gini for a night, had a quick visit with my sister Caroline, then went over to Grandpa Dave's for our last night before taking the train back down to Klamath Falls. 

Some reason you have cigars hidden in your cupboard Caroline? 

I thought Caroline's Christmas apron made a lovely little dress for Julia. 

Auntie Gracie made kale!

Julia was rather pleased with it.

She seemed to remember the grandparents. She headed right over to the stash of toys and grandma Gini's

do we still look alike?

Grandma Gini made spritz

Auntie Caroline seemed to enjoy the coloring as much if not more than Julia. She told me about the unexpected  meeting of Grace's emo "boyfriend" the night before! I was shocked, as Grace had completely neglected to mention any such relationship in our 1 1/2 hours together.  Today Grace retorted with this via facebook:

"Contrary to what Caroline may have said, Michael is not emo. Not at all, she concludes this based on the fact that he has black hair. And was purely coincidentally wearing a black pants at the time."

oh, I do love my sisters!

At this point, I fell off the picture taking wagon and failed to get any at Grandpa Dave's or on the train home. Grandpa Dave had a little rocking chair for Julia, handed on from his cousin! Julia thought it was lovely and I felt my typical conundrum of stuff: 

The rocker was lovely and in better shape than the one in Klamath Falls, but I would have to carry it on the train and then carry it back up somewhere after Christmas. 

Take it to Alaska? 

Would I then leave it there when we move? 

Can I do that with a rocker handed down from family? 

Will the rocker even fit into a rubbermaid tote to mail? 

If I don't take it with us, will she outgrow it before she can use it?

Will I appear ungrateful by leaving it behind at Grandpa Dave's? (Which I did, for now.)

These questions and many more bother me constantly. What to take and what to leave. Such as the stroller? I use it daily and can't imagine what I'd do without it, but Julia's getting too tall for it, and will we have a deep snow winter rendering it useless in Alaska? If I leave it or sell it, will I go stir crazy trapped inside all winter? I could bring the baby backpack, but Julia's so heavy now that it gives me huge knots in my shoulders. I could buy a sled. Will Julia like taking walks in a sled? Maybe I should sell the stroller and try to buy one with more headroom? Maybe I could get one shipped to Alaska? But how would I know it would fit her well without seeing it first?

On and on the questions go. 

The train back was less fun since the novelty was worn off, but we managed fine. Julia was pretty thrilled to be back in her comfort zone, resumed using the potty and I resumed doing class work.

A new endeavor

This past week we celebrated Granny's birthday with lunch and cake. 

She accidentally got trick candles that re-light themselves on her cake! Julia thought this was the most amazing thing. 

A few days later, we celebrated Joe's 16th birthday. Only one trick candle for him. While I don't usually like giving money as a gift, Dave and I gave him money to help buy a new pair of skis for the downhill racing season coming up. 

Halloween activities abound here. We went to "scarecrow row," a downtown festival. My favorite scarecrows were the nerdy one (with packing tape suspenders!!)  

and the one with a baby pumpkin strapped to her front in a sling. (Ghost Olaf is sanding next to the scarecrows)

Olaf's favorite one was at the computer store, made entirely of computer parts.

Joe taught Julia how to open the screen of an ipod in church

She was very pleased with the knowledge. 

I finally replaced my favorite sweat pants with a new pair! the old ones saw me through my pregnancy with an incredible ability to expand, but were finally getting holes in the crotch. Waste not, want not, so I turned them into toddler sweats and baby sweats. My new sewing accomplishment with these was to use grommets for the waist string holes.  

This summer I garage sale-d a lovely knit sweater, but I hated the buttons (below) so I finally got around to replacing them with buttons I liked.  

mother of pearl. ick. anyone want 6 of them?

and I made some folded paper stars in anticipation of Christmas 

We needed to bring the worm bin inside for the winter, so we dumped most of the worms and black gold compost out onto the outdoor compost pile. The chickens had a feast! You can see that the white one is looking much better now that the feathers are growing back in. We'll add more food scraps to the worm bin throughout the winter and they will have worm babies and fill the bin up again. 

Julia got to wear her wings again at Jungle Gym, which was having a Halloween party on Thursday. 

I've brought several new moms to Jungle Gym to try it out and have earned free sessions for doing so! So far, everyone who tries it has loved it. 

Julia is still in love with the ball pit

but has also discovered the joys of a rocking boat. 

She also discovered rubber balls covered in suction cups. She had a great time sticking them to the mirrored wall. 

That night was the Halloween party at the library too! Julia cuddled up to Olaf for the stories. It only lasted a minute or two, but I thought it was adorable. 

At home, Julia's new best toy is the mop bucket. She loves filling it up with various objects and pushing it around the house or yard.  

Check it out, a potty! We're giving it a try. A week or so ago, Julia informed me "tee-tee" and then peed on the floor, and I saw that as a sign that maybe she'd be ready to give it a try. She likes to sit on it, and she likes to carry it around the house and disassemble it and we've had a few successes, but they are mostly because I see that she is acting like she's about to pee or poo and run her over to the potty. When she succeeds, we make a big deal out of praising her and she gets a couple m and m candies. If she's wearing a diaper, she'll pee without indication, so while we are home, she's generally without one and I am trying to train myself to ask her if she needs to go potty often. Out and about, she's in a diaper and I don't worry about it. Our best successes seem to be first thing in the morning. When she's tired in the evening she is much less interested in sitting on the potty. 19 months seems maybe a little young, and I'm trying not to get my hopes too high, but Mom says that she got us girls potty trained around that age, and that the boys in the family took a little later. She's against the concept of 4 and 5 year olds still in pull-ups, so I hope we succeed before we reach that stage! We have family friends, The RB's who told us about their daughter who just HATED to wear diapers. They finally just told her one day that if she wasn't going to wear diapers she had to use the potty, and she was potty trained from that day on. I both love the story and hate them for it!