bragging

This picture can be explained by just quoting a Facebook status from December 11: "Ryan is awesome. There has been something floating around in the body of my computer for a long time, and then today there was an odd clicking sound that Ryan quickly diagnosed as something in the fan. So now he is taking apart my computer to get it all out. We found the screw that's been floating around, and then we found that it fell off of the hard drive (several other screws on the hard drive were also loose), and now he's going farther in to get to the fan. I have to give major points to him for being able to do that--and a few points to myself for trusting him."

He got to the fan and found a tiny piece of plastic in the fan. Then he put my computer back together. And it works just like it should. He did a great job and I am very blessed to be married to my computer repair man.

Oh, yeah, also Annandag.

The day after Christmas we went to the Johnsons' annual celebration of Annandag Jul. There were most of the usual foods and Reed gave the same speech explaining all the foods and making sure people knew that the proper way to slice cheese is to use a cheese plane (not whack it!). They always make a big fish. Usually it is a Spanish trout, but this year they had a flounder. I don't like most sea food, but I always look forward to the big fish for Annandag. I brought Lion House Rolls and got a lot of compliments. It's a great recipe.

One thing that was different this year was that we didn't have to spend the entire night chasing Kevin down. He mostly played in the living room with his friend Joseph and sometimes he asked to go outside and play with the dog. He was delighted to get to throw a ball for the dog to chase. It was so odd because normally he is running around and getting into all sorts of mischief, but apparently he's starting to figure out how to just go play with toys. Heidi just wanted to sit on the steps right next to the candles. She didn't want to play with the candles or climb up and down or jump or anything--she just liked to sit there. I think Ryan ended up blowing some of the candles out to prevent a fire. So it was nice to get to actually talk to people and enjoy our dinner instead of chasing the entire time.

After dinner we did ring dances and danced Christmas into the house by walking around the house holding hands in a long chain and singing a song. This is done every year. Kevin liked it. He wanted to do the ring dances too, but he was too shy, so he mainly just watched.

Christmas 2012

On Christmas Eve we went to Jared and Kristi's house to have dinner. We had Chinese food and it was delicious! Probably my favorite Christmas Eve dinner ever. We had egg rolls, General Tso's chicken, fried rice, chow mein, and Grammy Jenna's cheeseball (which I make every year). I got ambitious and decided to make my mom's wassail recipe. I always want to make it (it's a very easy recipe), but it makes a lot of wassail and I'm always afraid I'll end up with gallons of wassail that only I will drink. It was so yummy and tasted just like home. The adults liked it and Anwyn tried it and liked it, but the rest of the kids weren't interested. That's not much of a surprise. It's a little strong and I think I didn't start liking it until I was maybe ten years old.

After dinner we did the nativity. Anwyn wrote out the script and assigned the parts herself and did a good job. After that we had crunchy ice cream balls, ice cream, and mint brownies. Then all of the children got to open a present--new pajamas. I made Kevin some pajama pants using an old pair for a pattern (I know they look way too long in the picture--I hadn't hemmed them yet), and Heidi got some footed sleepers that I found in the "clothes-she'll-grow-into" box because she has more clothes than we know what to do with.

Christmas morning was fun. Kevin had fun opening his presents, but Heidi just wanted to scarf down the candy. It was crazy. She was dripping chocolate and minty drool everywhere and we were following her around with a washcloth to try to keep it from getting all over everything. She enjoyed it so much that it was mostly worth it. The kids got penguin crackers (Aldi's knockoff of goldfish) in their stockings and thought that was pretty exciting. The struggle the rest of the day was getting them to eat real food (not a surprise). I finally managed to get Heidi to eat half a cup of applesauce for dinner. Kevin ate a little better. He didn't ration out his stocking candy as well as the rest of us, so when he was all out and saw candy in other people's stockings he kept going for it. He was so upset when the rest of us hoarded our candy. It was sad. I probably won't give up the Christmas candy tradition because I know it's fun, but it does always lead to a lot of frustration for the rest of the day.

We were blessed with many fabulous gifts from family members. We've added several books and movies to our collection, which we love. Ryan's parents gave the kids a cute play mat of "CTR Town" that has roads and buildings. They have done a lot of imaginative play with the mat. Kevin got a duplo train set from my aunt that he played with for an entire day after opening it. It must have hit the sweet spot for him since the train runs by itself, he can build and take things apart, it has people, and it has a gas tank. There are so many different things he can do with it. He has never in his life played with something for more than half an hour, so we have been amazed at how much he has enjoyed this toy.

Here are some pictures of Christmas activities throughout the month:

Decorating the tree . . .

Sunday morning photo shoot:

Christmas morning:

Reading books after Christmas presents had been opened:

the kids in December

Kevin
"I'm having ______." (Fill in blank with whatever he is playing with/holding/using.) This is something Kevin has actually been saying for a long time.

"It's probably ______."

I am so amazed at some of the language developments Kevin has made in the last few months. He is also so much more imaginative than he was a few months ago. I think Kindermusik played a big part in bringing that about. Before we started going to Kindermusik he would often get annoyed if I would dance or do actions to songs. He liked to listen to them and would occasionally dance, but he wasn't interested in doing music and actions with me. Now he listens to his Kindermusik CDs all the time and is always looking for different things to turn into instruments, and he loves it when I come up with new movements or actions to do with songs. He also sings along with the music a lot of the time. I think Kindermusik helped him learn how to respond to music. Kevin can be sensitive to sounds--it's not that loud noises hurt his ears, it's that his activity level and behavior are strongly influenced by sounds. If I run the vacuum cleaner or grind wheat he will suddenly go from being calm to bouncing off the walls and screaming. So I think he was having a hard time knowing how to respond to music, and going to Kindermusik helped him figure that out a little bit.

Yesterday (12/14) he had an imaginary cash register set up in the washing machine. He was sitting on the spinning thing in the center and telling me what various things were, so I asked if I could buy some milk and he pantomimed the entire process of scanning the groceries and bagging them and handing them to me, and when I pantomimed handing him my debit card he "scanned" it and handed it back. Every time he imagines like this I get excited because a few months ago I wondered sometimes if he had any imagination at all. Back then he wasn't even interested if I tried to initiate pretend games (and would sometimes get mad at me if I suggested it), and now he does it by himself. I am so impressed by the things that he notices.

Kevin is also starting to be more purposeful when he's drawing lately. Usually it's pretty hard to tell what he has drawn, but at least he is drawing things and saying that they are mountains or bread or circles instead of randomly scribbling like he used to.

Ryan came in and found him wearing my glasses as if that were a perfectly normal thing to do.

Heidi
Heidi is learning to say her prayers, sort of. At random times she will fold her arms and say, "A-wah-wah," (Heavenly Father) and then smile and run away, and she will also say Amen at the end of prayers. She recognizes Jesus in pictures. She has been doing great in nursery since she started going at the beginning of the month.

Heidi's favorite thing is for us to hold her hands and spin her around in circles. She is always coming to me and holding out her hands to get me to do it with her.

Video: http://youtu.be/OB0YRbPXm54

The kids are good friends. Heidi takes a shorter nap than Kevin, and after she is awake all she wants to do is go wake Kevin up so he will come play with her. Until then she acts bored and gets mad if we stop her from going into Kevin's room. They love to turn on Kindermusik CDs and dance. Their favorite song is In My House: "Oh, in my house I help clean up with a dust-a-dust dust-a-dust-a-dust . . . " They both sing along and I love it. Kevin has decided that one of his train tracks is his banjo, and when they are listening to music he runs around pretending to strum it. (It does sort of look like a banjo or guitar.)

It looks like we have finally got the kids sleeping in the same bedroom at night. Heidi has been sleeping in a pack n play in our closet for nearly a year. We have made a few attempts at getting them to sleep in the same room in the past, but there were various problems. We had to put Heidi in there first and wait for her to get to sleep, and then sneak in with Kevin. Then they would sleep all night but wake up at 6:00 in the morning, which is way too early (they normally get up around 7:30-8:00--yes, we are pretty lucky). After too many early mornings I decided it wasn't worth being too tired to function and Heidi went back to the pack n play in the closet. But I wanted to try again during Christmas break when I didn't have school to worry about, so we tried again a couple of days after my last final. We didn't even do anything special--we just put the kids in their beds, turned off the light, and said good night and I love you. They chatted for quite a while, and then Kevin came out and greeted us and then turned and said, "Come on, Heidi, let's go get your dog." Yes, he had somehow managed to get her out of the crib. So they got her stuffed dog and then we escorted them back to bed. They chatted for a long time and then finally went to sleep. I figured as long as no hitting was happening I wouldn't interfere. The next night they went to sleep just fine and have continued to sleep in the same room for a couple more nights. They've been getting up around 7:30. I'm glad that we decided not to push it and just waited until they were older. This was easy! Heidi does still sleep in our closet for naps, but it seems like the kids are doing fine sharing a room.

I have been taking the kids to a free program at the University Mall called the Traveling Teacher Show. We have gone twice now. The two teachers sing songs and do activities with the kids and talk about different ways to help the environment, and then at the end the kids get to make a craft out of recycled things. The first time we went we made reindeer by decorating toilet paper tubes and the second time we made New Years Ned puppets using paper bags and various things that were leftover from previous classes. I don't like it quite as much as Kindermusik for the music aspect, but it's nice to expose my kids to doing crafts since that is not really one of my talents. The kids like doing the crafts and they are proud of their creations. In reality I just end up making the thing for them because they don't like deciding what else to glue on, but they're still proud of the result. The teachers have a furry green muppet named Org who always makes an appearance during the songs and also comes and looks at the kids' crafts and tells them how much he likes what they did, and Kevin and Heidi both think Org is very interesting. I can tell that Kevin feels very nervous during the singing and activity parts because it's a new experience and he doesn't know any of the people. When we walk in he holds onto my leg and then after we've been there for a while he starts crawling around and sticking his tongue out. I know it probably looks really odd to people who don't know him. I am hoping to keep going to the Traveling Teacher Show because I think it's helpful for him to be put in new situations like this so he can figure out what to do with himself.

Our apartment complex has a chronic problem with people leaving their boxes by the dumpsters instead of flattening them and putting them inside the dumpsters designated for boxes. It looks tacky and it's also the first thing that people see when they drive into the community. I don't see why adults in graduate school can't seem to be responsible enough to take care of their boxes properly. I think the apartment manager has just started putting the boxes in because the garbage/recycling collectors won't collect the boxes if they're piled up like that. The pile is always quite impressive right after Christmas.

I'd love to tape this note on all the front doors of the buildings, but I don't think I can bring myself to actually do it.

The quiet book pages are finished. There were other pages that I wanted to do, but I can make them later and add them onto the book if I feel like it. I ended up with eight pages.

I had to laugh tonight when I was finishing off the pages. I was sewing around the edges of the very last page to finish it off, and I ran out of bobbin thread two inches from the end. (Isn't it funny how often that seems to happen?) I was not about to take the time to wind up the bobbin for two inches of stitching, so I decided the page was done and wrapped them up to put them under the tree.

I'm really proud of how the pages turned out. I will try to post pictures of each of them later.

favorite ornaments

The kids have been very interested in the ornaments. Kevin's favorites are two small metal trumpets which he loves to blow on (most likely mixing his spit with the spit of all of Ryan's siblings as well as many of Kevin's cousins' spit--yummy!). When we got the trumpet ornaments out he held them and kept saying excitedly, "I'm so happy! I'm so excited about the trumpets!" Magical.

Heidi's favorite ornaments are these tiny wooden dolls (shaped like the nesting Russian dolls, except they're all the same size and don't nest) and of course a little stuffed bear that she likes to snuggle while lying down on the floor. It's so sweet to see her get one of the wooden dolls off the tree and happily walk around holding it and showing everyone.

The kids also love the two jingle bells.

I am getting closer to having the Christmas gifts done. Yesterday I finished the bean bags. I ended up with 20, which is a ton once you look at them. I cut out rectangles, folded them in half to make a square, and sewed around the edges, leaving some space, then turned them inside out. Then I filled them with rice and sewed them shut. It was a fairly easy project. The quiet book has been more work. So far I have five pages done, and I was hoping to make eight. We'll see how far I get. I'm getting pretty good at sewing buttonholes now. I'm not even scared of them anymore. I'm still trying to decide how to divide the pages up, since I wanted it to be a gift the kids would share, but I want them to both get to open some of them. Sometimes I am amazed at what my old sewing machine manages to pull off. A few days ago when I was making the buckle page, the sewing machine sewed those buckles down with no protest at all. A lot of pins got bent in the process of making the bean bags, though.

Enjoying the Magic

In past years I have been somewhat uptight about Christmas. We didn't even get a tree the past two years because I didn't want to deal with Kevin knocking it down and breaking ornaments and biting lights. But this year I have been feeling like I need to just let them enjoy the magic of Christmas. Our friend Teresa left us their artificial tree last year before they moved away, so we set that up and put lights on it soon after finals were over. (By the way, a benefit of an artificial tree is that if it gets pulled over you don't have to worry about water spilled all over the floor.) (Why yes, Heidi did almost pull the tree on top of herself and it scared her to death.) The kids were so excited and fascinated with the lights. It was slightly stressful but I made myself step back and see things from their perspective and I could see how magical it was for them. Then today I finally got out the ornaments and the nativity sets and we put those out. The kids love to look at the nativity sets, and I let them look at my nativity set on the floor for a while before I got nervous and put it up high. As we got the ornaments out I realized that we really only have a couple of ornaments that I would be nervous would shatter. Most of the rest are made of wood or cloth or metal. So at least we don't have to worry about stepping on broken ornament glass. I really like that I can let the kids take the ornaments on and off if they want to, except a few that are purposely at the top of the tree. This year we are going to enjoy the magic.

research project

I thought I'd share a brief synopsis of the research project I did this semester.

Here is a map of the area I studied:

There was a master's student who graduated last year who did an extensive study of the chemistry of the soil in this region (at the spot marked "Sun's study site"). The results of the Strontium analysis were very interesting. Strontium has a few different isotopes (same element, but with different weights due to different number of neutrons), and one of the ways to determine the ages (and other characteristics) of rocks is to find out how many of each isotope there are in the rocks. So they take Strontium-87 and compare it to Strontium-86. In this area, you would expect the ratio of 87Sr to 86Sr to be low because it is in the coastal plain and the rocks are relatively young. But in Sun's project, the 87Sr/86Sr ratio was higher than expected--more comparable to the older rocks to the west. So my adviser came up with the idea of having me collect water samples from the area and then find the 87Sr/86/Sr ratios for all of those samples so we could compare the results and get some ideas for what's going on.

So I collected the water samples and separated the Strontium out, which I blogged about before, and then I put the Strontium on filaments to run in a mass spectrometer to measure the amounts of the different Sr isotopes. The results were that the four samples on the west and the three samples on the northeast had 87Sr/86Sr ratios that were about what you would expect--similar to the seawater and groundwater of the area. But interestingly, the three samples within the national forest (CF-C, GL, and HC) that are near Sun's Study site all had high ratios, although not as high as the ratios for the soil she studied. So now the question is where this area is getting 87Sr from, and there are a lot of possibilities.

The main thing I learned is that I still don't know very much. But I do feel excited that the numbers I got from the mass spectrometry make sense and have some meaning. I'm guessing I will be studying this some more next semester.

Fun in the Cupboard

This is one of Kevin and Heidi's favorite games. As you may have guessed, I am not currently doing a very good job of rotating my canned food storage.

a placebo

One of Kevin's newest phrases is, "This is called a _______."

"It's kinda good/kinda gross." (Generally in reference to food.)

"I'm not being naughty!"

"I want to do it . . . by myself." Or, "I want you to do it by yourself" (if he doesn't want to do something).

"I can't--I'm just . . . too busy." (I don't know where he got this from, because I really don't think I say this that often.)

"I want medicine sugar on my toast." (He means cinnamon sugar.)

Most-requested foods: Berry muffins (plain muffins with 2 cups of frozen berries) and pizza

He addresses people as sweetheart and honey. At least there's one positive thing I say that he is copying.

Kevin is finally getting to the point where I can "help" him say the right thing. I'll see if I can explain what I mean. I've always been really frustrated when I go to the park or a playdate and Kevin acts up and then there's this expectation that I teach him what to say, like, "Kevin, you need to say you're sorry. Say, 'I'm sorry, Sally.' " Or, "Kevin, you can't take the toys away. Say, 'Bobby, can I please have a turn using the shovel?' " I think it's great to help kids learn how to speak politely to their friends, but it only makes sense if they can actually speak. It's just dumb to try to get little kids to say long sentences like that when they can't even say their own name. So anyway, Kevin is finally to the point where it makes sense to teach him to say the right thing, and he's big enough that he can not only repeat it, but later on he does a better job of applying it. It's actually really nice. I appreciate that now that I've had him practice several times, he is starting to apologize to Heidi with just a little bit of prompting. Or if he demands something, I can respond by saying, "Please, Mommy, I would like ______," and then he remembers and asks again with better manners. Don't get me wrong, this kid has a lot of learning to do, but it's nice to occasionally get a sign that he actually is internalizing some of this stuff.

One Saturday morning Kevin came out of his room complaining he was sick and needed some medicine. He took one bite of Cheerios and moaned even more loudly that his tummy hurt and he needed some medicine. We were convinced that what his tummy needed was food, not medicine. Besides, Children's acetaminophen doesn't do much for tummy aches anyway. After unsuccessfully attempting to get Kevin to eat, Ryan pulled out the syringe and medicine cup and said, "Well, if we can't get him to eat and medicine won't help, I know something even more powerful than medicine. A placebo." He then mixed up a tablespoon of Country Time Lemonade in the medicine cup and gave it to Kevin by syringe. Kevin perked up quite a bit, but he still moaned occasionally and refused to eat anything. It turns out he really was sick, because a little while later he threw up a little on the couch. Then he was back to normal. But the placebo did help.

[The couch is fine, by the way. It's a magic couch and has miraculously cleaned up nicely after all sorts of messes, including multiple episodes with pens.]

Kevin likes to take pictures of suckers. He also likes to eat them.

A favorite game these days is to tip over the rocking chair, drape a blanket over it, and play underneath like it's a fort or a cave or a tent. Sometimes both kids will go in and play nicely for a couple of minutes.