Happy Snowy Birthday Elena!

The new year has brought many new adventures, but the one that blows my mind the most is that Elena is now SEVEN years old! How did that happen???

She is so much her own person. She knew exactly what she wanted for her birthday, and it was all about food.  She experienced donut holes on our Florida drive, and so she requested those for breakfast.

Shells and peas was the obvious choice for lunch, and for dinner, she wanted mussels.  Luckily, Safta took that one on.

Then, it was more donut holes for dessert.

Of course, there were presents too, toys, books, and a finished puzzle.

Since her regular birthday was on a Friday, we had a birthday "party" on Saturday with more presents and some special cupcakes.

But Sunday brought the best birthday present of all, SNOW! I came downstairs to find Elena sitting in front of the kitchen door in her pajamas just looking at the snow.

We got her into her snow gear, and she was out enjoying it in no time.

After playing with every bit of snow she could find on the back patio, she came in for her chocolate.

Vivian had spent the night at her friend's house, so she spent her snow day with them.  Luckily, her friend's mom took pictures and sent them to me.

Vivi wanted to stay and play with her friend, and Elena wanted more snow, so Elena and I went on an adventure.

Eventually, we found ourselves at a familiar house. Safta watched Elena's snow antics through the door.

I decided to channel some of Elena's energy into being helpful, and we cleaned the snow off of my mom's car.

When you put positive energy into the world, sometimes it comes back, and one of my parents' neighbors rolled a big snowball for Elena, just the right size for a snowman base.

Challenge accepted! We rolled the middle and a head.

Mom had a lime we could use for eyes, a carrot for a nose and grapes for buttons.  I got some fallen twigs for arms, but we weren't sure what to do about a mouth until another neighbor walked by and offered us some pink yarn.  Our snowman was complete!

Luckily, Safta and Grandpa have the ingredients for hot chocolate too.

The next day was Monday, but it was a teacher grade prep day, so the girls didn't have any work to do.  Instead, they got outside to play in what was left of the snow.

I think at least 50% of their motivation to go out is that they can then claim that they NEED hot chocolate when they come back in.

Elena was really sad that the snow was melting, and she must have had some birthday magic left, because the next morning we woke up to a world of snow.

Unfortunately, there no longer seem to be real snow days, so the girls still had their regular online classes, but I let Elena play with her birthday present during class, and then take a long break "between" classes to play in the snow.

Vivi got to a break in her classes and joined Elena outside.

Since the girls were mostly just rolling around in the snow, Jeff went out to help with snowman construction.  This day's snow was very wet and wasn't sticking as well, so Jeff inserted a stick "spine" and "neck" between the sections to give the snowman some stability.

We used Fruit Loops for the face, and Snowman II was born!

The weather is getting warmer now, and the snow is melting, but it's been a great few wintery days for the girls to remember in what will probably be their only winter for a decade of their lives.

I can't call January properly documented though with noting several other big things that happened.  Jeff and I were all excited for January 6, because we were doing a cheese tasting and my parents were watching the girls.

But we ended up spending most of the day keeping an eye on the news as an angry mob stormed the Capitol.  When the governor of Virginia declared an emergency curfew, we had to ask my parents to rush the kids home.

The next day, as we were recovering from all of that, our friends called us to say that they were heading to the hospital to have their second child, and could they drop their two year old off with us? Sure!  So we had three kids for a few days.  The girls were really great about helping out, and they were eventually repaid with baby snuggles.

WE were repaid with a cheese tasting with the parents to celebrate Inauguration Day.  It was a triple cream class with a sparkling Sauvignon Blanc.  It was absolutely perfect.

Jeff and I agreed though, that with such rich delights, it's probably best to take a break from cheese tasting for a while.  The best bonus news from January is that both of my parents got their first shot of the Pfizer vaccine, and, as a teacher, I got my first shot of Moderna. We can see the light at the end of this long tunnel.  Hopefully we get there soon.

 

Christmas 2020 and a Happy New Year!

Last Christmas we were on a cruise ship sailing through the Drake Passage. What a difference a year makes.  While 2020 has thrown us for a loop, Christmas is still an important time of year for the girls, so we tried to make it as special as possible.

Of course, parents need to be taken care of too.  One of the lines that has come up a lot this year (even though we haven't been on many airplanes) is put on your own mask before attempting to help others.  To that end, I gave Jeff his Christmas present on December 23.  Cheestique, a shop in Shirlngton selling all kinds of delicious things, was doing an online tasting of their 2020 best sellers.  I picked up the food and wine and dropped the girls off at my parents' while Jeff got us all set up.

It was our first ever online tasting, and I've got to say, I loved it.  The presenter and the food were great, and the other participants kept up a fun commentary in the chat.  It was the perfect, low pressure, completely delicious experience.

It was also a great start to closing out the year, since they interspersed the tasting with retrospective photos of the year that started out normally and then went completely sideways.

The next day I picked the girls up to begin feasting of their own.  The day before we had gotten a special Honeybaked Co. ham and sides.  I decided to prep the meal for lunch, since everyone's other favorite ham based meal is split pea soup, which I figured I could make for dinner.  The girls were happy to go along with this plan.

It helped that they had gotten a snowman full of goodies as an early Christmas present from the Goerss grandparents.

I worked on the soup in between watching Christmas movies.  I convinced my family to watch at least part of the Baryshnikov Nutcracker.  Elena has a nutcracker she lifted from my parents' house, so she was into it.

When the soup was ready, the girls begged for dinner in front of the TV, so Jeff and I caved.  We put on the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas which pairs wonderfully with split pea soup ;-)

Of course I caught poor Viv mid bite in the picture, so I had to take another one.

We reminded the girls that Santa wouldn't come if they didn't go to sleep.  Elena dropped right off, but Vivian had a really hard time getting to sleep.  Finally though, she got some sleep and the next morning they discovered that Santa had in fact left them presents.  Elena was especially excited about the narwhal she could see poking out of her stocking.

The girls let us sleep until seven, and then it was time to get started, stockings first.

Elena could finally hug her narwhal, and Vivian found a special treat as well, a new to her phone to replace her broken one.

Jeff was happy with his stocking too.  He got a cool new Mandalorian shirt with his favorite saying on it, "This is the way."

One of our 2020 activities has been a weekly Dungeons and Dragons session with some friends, so for Christmas I got my very own dice set, all purple of course.

My socks have also been developing a lot of holes lately, so my stocking was full of new socks, including this great pair.

Next, we moved over to the tree.  We asked Santa to keep it simple this year, since I'm trying really hard to pare down all our belongings before our next move.  The girls got a bunch of "magic painting" books to have a fun break from all the screentime of late.

There were also lots of regular books for our daily reading time, including Elena's new favorite series about narwhal and jelly and Vivian's favorite topic, Disney.

Then there were the long, mystery packages.  What could they be?

Lightsabers! It's a full on Star Wars Christmas!

One of the best parts about Christmas is guessing what could be in the big box.

I know Jeff was secretly hoping it was a new gaming system, but a crockpot with a lid that seals is a must for our chili champion.

Plus, who needs virtual games, when you can play real-life lightsabers with your kids?

Pixie, our elf, hopefully enjoyed the show and reported back to Santa that the lightsabers were a success.

Once Elena doubled up her lightsaber though, I did have to send them outside.

Eventually they wore themselves out enough for some painting and even a little rest.

But then it was on to the next present opening event, this time at Safta and Grandpa's. 

The girls got lots more books and toys and candy, plus some more breakfast.  Then, we came back home to spend the afternoon enjoying our fun new things.

Eventually, it was time to change out of pajamas and head over to Safta and Grandpa's for Christmas dinner.

Viv and I got matching red sweaters, and she still thinks it's great for us to match, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

My dad took a nice family picture for us too.

Then he went to carve the roast beast!

The day after Christmas was pretty great too.  We had lots of toys to play with, and we took the girls to the tennis court for safer lightsaber play.

Well, safer for the furniture . . .

While Elena was lying "dead" she noticed cool cloud shapes, so Vivian joined her.

We also got a Christmas continuation when a box of presents from the Goerss grandparents showed up after Christmas.  The USPS was definitely having a hard time meeting the shipping demand, but we made the most of it.

Elena was thrilled to get her very own Baby Yoda (aka Grogu).

And both girls were thrilled to have their own official bingo set.  It is definitely a bingo holiday season this year.

They immediately moved aside their art projects, put Grogu in a place of honor and started up a round of bingo.

That afternoon they also got another very special present.  Our D&D DM had set up a special quest just for the girls.  They were dragon riders, and they got to use my new dice.

My favorite part was their note taking.  It started out with Vivian just writing down people's names, but then Elena, our artist, decided she needed to add visuals.  The end product was fantastic.

We've really been enjoying our winter break.  It's so nice to have time at home without worrying about online school.  We've kept busy with art and reading.  Vivian used one of her Amazon gift cards to get an even more specific book on Disney's golden age of animation and Grogu has become a permanent fixture at Elena's side.

We've even had some sunny days for a walk outside.  We fashioned a sling for Grogu like the one the Mandalorian has on the show, except we made ours from my Colombian purse.

For New Year's we paired champagne with deliciousness.

We also watched Groundhog Day as a family.  The movie has stood the test of time well, and it felt like the perfect send off to 2020.  We raise a cautiously optimistic glass to 2021.  May it be a good a year.

On January 1st though, Elena was very upset.  We had had a lovely lunch at my parents', but she said there had been no special hats and no special cake.  Well, I couldn't let her start the new year off in tears, so I tried to think of what we had around the house that could help with a celebration.  As always, construction paper, markers, and tape provided a solution.  I helped Elena a bit with the basic head gear set up, and she added her artistic flair.

It was such a success that she decided to make one for everyone in the family.

While she was working on those, I was working on a new year's "cake".  I had brownie mix in the pantry and M&Ms from Christmas.  Put them together, and you have a giant brownie that says 2021 on it.  It was a hit.

We capped off the celebrations by watching the premiere of Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical on Vivian's computer.  She has been a huge fan of this crowdsourced project since it started, so this was a nice way for her to start the new year by focusing on good things that came out of 2020.

As the night wound down and Elena read her narwhal book while wearing her homemade crown, I let 2021 know that we had a lot riding on it, and I'm hoping it doesn't let us down.