Pals

These two are tight. It is fun to see their relationship grow into new dimensions.

They have their own games that they play together . . . David will find a hiding spot in the house, and call out, "Alina, come find me." He is very tenacious with this game, and sometimes calls that phrase for a long time before his sister engages in the game with him. 

David is such a strong personality that sometimes I worry that Alina will be overrun by it. However, she is holding her own quite well. She scolds her brother better than anyone else in these parts by saying, "No no Day-day." And she repeats it several times with slight changes in her tone for emphasis.

They love having each other as playmates, especially when they get to play outside. There's something extra fun about playing in the snow or mud together. 

The age difference quickly disappears in their outdoor play, and I think they get along better when they are outside.

David is thrilled to have help unloading the dishwasher, and Alina likes to feel big enough to help. Sorting silverware is the best chore for a beginner. She's not always interested in doing it, but when she wants to, we are happy to accept her help.

Sometimes Alina can convince David to read a story to her, and it's fun to listen to him put on different voices for the characters. They also have a fun time on the swing in our basement, and Alina really goes soaring when David is the one to push her. Because the swing hangs from an eye bolt, it goes in all directions. Apparently our girl has a strong stomach and can go high and fast in all directions--including circular--without any problems.

The other day David walked to our neighbor's house (with permission) to say hi to his friend playing in her front yard. It is a short enough walk that we can see their driveway from our house. But it's long enough that I stand at the window and make sure he makes it there without any problem. I think it's about 4-5 houses from ours. So I watched him make the walk, and then just as he was about there, I noticed that he had a little shadow following him. Alina had followed him outside (I thought she was still playing in the basement)--and she didn't have any coat. It was warm enough that the short walk wasn't dangerous to her, but I quickly ran outside and snatched my girl from being her brother's shadow. David had spotted his sister before I reached her, and he quickly turned around and held her hand to keep her from running into the street. I have a feeling that this is just the first time of many that Alina wants to do the things that her big brother is allowed to do and she's not quite big enough.

So far this year . . . Alina's world

My nice camera is out of commission until I locate the charger, so I had to rely on my phone for bringing me up to date on what we've been up to. I'll have to say that I need to get back to picture taking. These kids of mine are growing so fast, and sometimes I want time to stand still just long enough to soak their childhood in a little more. 

Alina has moved from words to phrases, and yesterday I realized that she is now talking in full sentences. However, it is still baby talk so no one outside of her family can really understand more than a word here and there. She is all vowels, often replacing consonants with "y". There are a few very stark exceptions, though. Spoon is still her chosen baby word of "gnnn." No vowels at all in that one. Her sweetest phrase is "Yuh you." Which is Alina speak for "I love you."

This week Alina has started asking, "Why" alot. In a most dramatic tone, she began saying, "Why, Mama? Why?" The first time she asked it, I stopped myself from giving any kind of a logical answer and just said, "Because I love you." This answer has become most satisfying to our sweet little girl. Sometime she will cock her head and put up her little hands and just say, "Oh, Thank you!!" And we all move on a little happier than before she thought to ask "why."

Alina and Daddy have some fun little games they play together. Sometimes Sam will grab her feet and hold her upside down to swing her side to side. They call this game "tick tock" and Alina will ask for it as often as she can. Daddy will also ask her, "Who does Daddy love!?!" Alina will begin her answer before the question is fully asked by dragging it out . . . "mmmmmeeeee!"

One of Alina's favorite things right now is a "buttawhy." She has her "buttawhy" wings on while Daddy gives her a ride.

I absolutely love the innocence of Alina's emotions. Of course a 2 year old is nothing but pure emotion, completely unfiltered. I love this age because I can see right into her heart without any pretenses. In my mind, there is nothing terrible about my 2 year old. It is just a challenge to figure out how to help her make sense of the emotions that beat so strongly in that sweet heart of hers. Distraction. Lots and lots of distraction to try and move past the harder moments

Her 2-year old independence is out in force right now. She wants to dress herself, and she would not like any help at all, thank you very much. So sometimes we go places with her pants on inside out and backwards, or every piece of her clothing on inside out and backwards. When people question it, I just shrug and smile. She is proud to be able to dress herself, and it's not really my style to challenge her on it unless it's important enough to me. Sorry store clerk at the grocery store, my errands are not important enough to pick a fight with my daughters' independent spirit. I'll save it for church and other such occasions.

Alina loves books. In fact, if there is one thing that drives me crazy at every turn is the number of books that are left around the house in every nook and cranny. 'Tis impossible to keep up with them as they move from room to room with the help of my book loving kids. I just have to pause and remember that having avid readers in my children is a blessing. But the number of books constantly displaced under foot sometimes feels like a curse.  

All of her clothes are on properly, but she chose the pajama pants over any other pair in her drawer. So be it.

Alina is clever. She is a tease. Sometimes she can really make us laugh, but mostly she is so innocent in her antics that she is funny without even knowing it. On this particular evening, she lost her fork during dinner time. We found it afterwards in her newly discovered "pocket." 

Another funny thing about Alina at dinner time is that she likes to use her napkin, and she prefers it to be clean. So once she soils her napkin by wiping her face, she will begin asking around the table to please use the napkins of her eating companions. We are hoping to break her of this before she goes on her first date, but for right now it's kind of cute. We put an extra stack of napkins on the table with each meal so Alina can wipe her face with a clean napkin to her heart's content.

Alina has been potty training for 6 months and we still only have about 50 percent success rate. It takes a lot of patience to potty train for such a long time, but it's a necessary skill so there's no way out except moving forward. She was taking off her own diaper last summer, so we began the potty training at that point even though she wasn't 2 yet. I thought she was ready with all of her signals, but she is taking her sweet little time with reading her body's cues. Sometimes she'll go 2-3 days without an accident, then we'll have a whole week without a single success. So I know she can do it, I'm just waiting for her to decide that she wants it done. I noticed this week that we rarely have an accident when we are out of the house. I think we are getting closer, but some days it is hard to see any progress when the cleaning up messes comes in rapid fire.

We love this sweet little girl. She is such a gift to our family, and I am so aware of it in my interactions with her. I love the closeness she seeks from me, and I feel blessed to have such a sweet little girl as my daughter.

Field Trip: Campbell Creek Science Center

We returned again to the Campbell Creek Science Center for a field trip. This is such a fun activity, and it's different each time we are able to go so it's an easy repeat for us.

I love the way our schooling approach and our associations through homeschool are so friendly to siblings. Alina was the youngest sibling there (other than a couple of infants in carriers), but she was just as welcome as any of the older children. After sitting on my lap for most of the circle time, she finally ventured over to sit next to her brother. It was a moment for me--that she trusted her brother to be there as her security, and he didn't mind having his little sister around.

This time the kids learned about plants. The guide took them in to the (very small) green house, and identified different plants with something special about each of them.

The seed lab was a hit--these microscopes are tough little things. The school district donated them to the Science Center 20 years ago, and they are still sturdy with good focus.

Once we were outside on the nature walk, this was the only sign I could get that David was around. If David doesn't know how to do something, he shies away from trying it. The group was told to run to a tree, run around the leader 3 times, then do 25 jumping jacks. David didn't do any of it because he couldn't remember how to do a jumping jack. But once he saw some of the kids substituting snow angels for jumping jacks, he was happy to participate. It's just David's style to only do what he is totally confident with. We continually try to stretch him into new things, and occasionally he figures out that he can do it after all. 

This littlest snow angel wanted to walk almost the entire way (we were outside for a good 45 minutes to an hour, traipsing through woods and snowy paths). It was only the last few minutes that she finally asked to be picked up, but for the most part she was a real trooper as the caboose of the group.

She kept doing this, and I thought it was so funny--she didn't appear to be licking the snow, but for some reason she liked touching her nose to it.

We don't have a lot of snow on the ground right now--just a few inches. The day for this field trip was perfect. It was in the upper 20's instead of the single digits that we had the week prior. Alaska is definitely a rugged winter wonderland.

Bottle her Up

I so wish that we could bottle this little girl up right now. She is so sweet, and we constantly watch her interact with her world with a smile on our face.

Please notice Teddy positioned to enjoy the fresh air and a view while she colored at the table.

Alina has taken after her brother when he was 2, and constantly says "thank you." In Alina speak, it comes out as "nay-nou" with a little sing-song tone, but it is immediate, without prompt, and sincere. And just for good measure, when we say "You're welcome." she'll do her best to say it too.

She is such a nurturer--she even wanted to cuddle the honey bear in the middle of breakfast. It had a cute face looking back at her, and I guess anything with a face could use a good morning hug. Alina was happy to oblige.

Alina hugged the honey bear, David hugged his favorite sister.

Sometimes I look at Alina and think, "Well, I must be doing something right. She is so sweet to her dollies!" Much of it is the nurturer in her finding expression, but some of it has to be what she sees, right?

Today she was on the couch, with a dolly on her lap and the blanket spread over both of them while she sang songs and had lots of happy jibber jabber. She puts on her high-pitched voice any time she talks to her baby.

When we come home, she runs to where she left her dolly and I can hear "Mama home!" in excited and sweet tones. She says it over and over, giving kisses, hugs and pats between her reassurance that the Mama has come back to her baby.

Some days her pigtails have a little more pizzazz than other days. Today after church she was ahead of me in a long empty hallway, and she kept turning around, cocking her head, pointing her finger at me and saying, "Beat you!" Then she would add a little squeal of delight and run a few more steps down the hallway to stay ahead of her Mom.

On this particular morning, she was playing in the kitchen sink, filling up pots with water. I took it as a wet activity, but also a chance to get a few things done. When I turned around, Alina had added water to each of the three pots and was climbing between them for a little swim.

At Thanksgiving, Alina approached Daddy with a very sweet look on her face. She had her lips all puckered, and acted like she wanted to kiss him. So Sam bent over and got with an inch or two of that sweet kiss when Alina spit juice all over his face. It was so funny, I could hardly stand it. I was the only one to see it besides Sam, but it was a real humdinger of a trick by such a sweet girl.

Alina's first flower from the man that she loves.

I have a feeling that we are in for a ride with this one--our sweet, tender, mischievous Alina.

Halloween 2015

We had a ghoulish good time this year at our ward's Halloween trunk or treat.

We took along our fierce Ninja fighter

And our sweet Care Bear.

Fierce.

Sweet.

Alina quickly decided that even a sweet good luck bear needed a few ninja moves to protect those cute cheeks.

The conundrum of choosing costumes is always a bit tricky for me. As a parent, I don't subscribe to specific brands and somehow our pattern of bringing toys into our home has never lent itself to my children latching on to one brand or another. Alina likes her care bear, but she also likes her no-name teddy and her Cabbage Patch doll. David was happy to be a super hero again this year, but he was indifferent between Spider man and Super man.

So we went looking for costumes with a wide range of possibilities. When David saw this light-up ninja costume, he was sold (the yellow edging all around the shield part blinked lights). It was the lighting feature, not the ninja, that was the selling point. But while he wore the lights, he played Ninja very well.

Sam and I were perusing a pop-up costume store on one of our date nights, and we came across this Care Bear costume. It was labeled as being for a 10 year old girl. Ummm. No. I would never let my 10 year old girl wear a costume that reaches the knees of my 2-year old. For our toddler, however, it was perfect. All of her cozy snow gear fit under the costume, and you have to admit that those round cheeks finish off the costume perfectly. I brought it home with a plan to alter it a bit. But once we put it on with the snow gear, we didn't need to alter it. Alina rocked the costume just the way it was.

After the trunk or treat, I let David knock a few doors while Alina warmed up in the back seat and I drove along with David. I thought Alina had fallen asleep in her carseat, until she passed up a piece of candy that she couldn't unwrap by herself. Upon turning around, I found that her fingers were capable of opening most of the sugary goodness on her own. Alina, didn't your mother ever teach you to let her eat all the best stuff sort it before you eat your halloween candy? Apparently she missed that part. She was happy as a sugar plum fairy in a cozy green care bear suit.

As for David, he was his independent self at the trunk or treat. Daddy stayed home with a stomach bug, so I was on my own. Passing out candy, hanging on to my care bear in an ice skating rink of a parking lot and keeping up with David proved to be too much. I finally handed my candy bowl over to be passed out by someone else, and held tightly to Alina after she took a nasty slip (good thing she was so well padded, or that fall from feet to back would have ruined our night). When it was time to pack up, I put Alina in her carseat, turned the car on for warmth, and went to find David. After several minutes of going from car to car (and a bit of a panic, wondering whose trunk he had climbed into) I finally found him inside the church hallway, with his candy spread out all around him. Apparently Alina wasn't the only one that missed the message of my lecture on saving the candy for the house. Thankfully, the trunk or treat is a group of friends that we associate with so their bags were safer than if we had just been going around to strangers.

Dirty (i.e. Duwty)

In Alina speak, she does not usually like to be "duwty." But really it's situational. She'll put her clothes away in the laundry basket after changing them (almost to a fault, so I am washing clothes that have only been worn for 5 minutes by our clothes-changing girl) and she'll meticulously use a napkin or three at dinner time. But occasionally she'll get into a mess of her own making, and she doesn't mind it one bit. In fact, I think she enjoys it.

On this particular day, I was on a 23 minute phone call in my room. It was important, and I couldn't be interrupted. David was lost in a book on the couch. Alina asked him to open the bucket of flour in the kitchen. He obliged (without thinking of the consequences of that sweet little request) and went back to being lost in his book. He was so lost, that he didn't notice his sister spreading flour all over the living room until he got a scoop of it dumped right next to him on the couch.

Guilty--Miss Flour Power had a really good time.

David was a little put out that his sister made such a huge mess, and really put out that he had to help clean it up. This was a lesson in "guilty by association." He didn't make the mess, but he enabled it by opening the bucket without thinking about what would happen. So he got to stick with me while we cleaned up the mess.

Meanwhile, Alina was a little busy body. While we were cleaning the flour from between the cracks in our wood floor, she climbed up on the kitchen counter, opened the cupboard and somehow this ended up on the floor below her.

The cocoa powder made me grateful for two things . . . one is that is smells so good. The other was that I didn't have this all over my living room. The flour by the cupful was much easier to clean up than a few Tablespoons of cocoa powder. Alina got to sit in the tub and wait for me while I cleaned up the chocolate.

All in a day's work, right? These kinds of things just happen. I refuse to get upset over a 2 year old mess. I would much rather laugh about it now and later.

Thanksgiving 2015

We just had our 9th Thanksgiving in Alaska. That means we should be getting good at some of our own traditions, I suppose. But it seems that while Christmas is laden with tradition, this holiday of giving thanks is a lot more flexible by the year. In 9 Thanksgiving holidays in Alaska, we have spent the day with 5 different groups of people. One of these years, it will be my turn to  host--but this was not that year. The weather is as fickle as we are at Thanksgiving Tradition.  Last year we had sheets of ice on the roads, and carrying food up a driveway and to the door was more than a little precarious. Another year was a major snow storm where we barely made it through the streets. This year we had wet roads with fog.

We were grateful to spend time with my second cousin Lindsay Weston and her sweet family. Lindsay is a beautiful and gracious host, and we always enjoy spending time with her family.

A table for the adults, then of course the kid table. Kenny and Lindsay Weston hosted, and their brother's family was there as well--Andy and Shalee Weston. It was a good group, and we really enjoyed the company.

This was the quietest, most well mannered kids table I have ever seen. I was so impressed with the appropriate level of noise and interaction at this table, which allowed for the adults to enjoy some adult time at the grown up table.

The kids had planned a super cute skit depicting--in completely original form--the pilgrims coming over from England. It began with 4 year old Kelsey shouting "Guards! Get them!" and it only got better from there. The Weston kids saved a spot for my kids to participate, but Alina was too little and David wasn't really interested. Until he found out they needed a tech guy. So he stood at the light switch and house lights went down then up with each scene change. (It was such a good reminder to me to let David shine where and how he wants. He's not a performer on stage as much, but he was bursting with excitement over his part as the kid that controlled the lights and fan.)

Lindsay had recently taken her kids to the high school play, so they didn't miss a single beat with what should be included in a grand production. Costumes? check. Memorized lines? check. Drama? check. Fan to make it windy on a stormy night at sea? check. Lights going up and down with each scene change? check.

Over the last week, I have reminded David several times that he is the family expert on the Pilgrims. We studied them extensively last year in our history home school curriculum, and he picked up a book by Rush Limbaugh that makes the characters come to life for him. He has read that book at least a dozen times, and many of the facts presented as historical fiction are well researched. David knows the story of the pilgrims really well. But he somehow doesn't know that he knows them. Next year I'll have to remember to pull out all of our short stories about he pilgrims so our  memories are a little better refreshed.

Today

I'm going to put to rest the nagging feeling that I need to catch up on posts on this poor neglected blog. I'm just going to start with where we are at today, and eventually I'll probably do some catching up.

In 100 years, I want to remember what our Sundays are like. 

Church is stressful, with two kids on the bench while Daddy is on the stand. I have not heard the message of speakers for several weeks, probably even months. Alina is learning how to sit through the meeting and David is just being David--and doing whatever will give him a reaction from others around him. His typical social self likes to interact with all the other people around him, so while I wish I could say we were past the hurdle of turning around in the pew, we are not.  Any chance he gets, David tries to make his way to one of the walls in the chapel and he likes to hear the echo of the floor vents near the walls. That is fascinating to him, and he escapes into his own world of fascination when he hears sounds like that . . .  but unfortunately, the tapping on vents is too disruptive for others around us, so it is a strict no. That time he took his shirt off in the middle of sacrament meeting? That was a reason to leave, but just for a minute while he redressed himself, then we returned to our bench. The other antics are typical rowdy boy, and we are working hard as mother and son to unravel the cyclical behavior of be naughty, get attention for it during this time of the week that is supposed to be so quiet. The poor people that sit around us might have a few other ideas about how frequently I should leave with my children from the meeting. But I believe that learning to sit through church can only be practiced by being in the meeting, so we do our best and pray for the grace of others that we may affect. We are really trying to build a relationship that inspires good behavior. Not many "things" matter to our boy. We can take away toys, outings, and privileges until we are blue in the face. So I am working on building a relationship with him where he recognizes my love for him and his love for me, and somehow this inspires him to please us as his parents. It might take years to get where we want to go with this relationship based behavior, but it feels like it is the right thing for us right now to fill up his bucket a little more, and put less strain on mine.

While Sunday at church can be very stressful, Sunday mornings before church are my favorite time of the week. We have very specific activities that are set aside for our Sunday worship. Over the last few months, The First Presidency has asked us to increase the spirituality of our Sabbath observance. So it has given me pause to reflect on how we spend our time on the Sabbath, and where we could improve.

On Sunday mornings, we begin by watching Music and the Spoken Word while we eat breakfast. (With the 2-hour time difference from Mountain time, it comes on just as the kids are usually getting out of bed.) Both of the kids love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Music, as well as the images they show during the songs. I really enjoy the messages, and the narrator, Lloyd Newell, was my professor at BYU fifteen years ago, in my last semester before graduating so that makes it especially fun to hear his wisdom week after week.

After breakfast and baths, the Scripture Story Box comes out and the kids each select a bag with felt pieces to tell one of the scripture stories. They love using our large flannel board to lay out all of the pieces. Even Alina likes to add her jibber jabber as she lays out the pieces, as if she is telling the story. She has a good example in her brother of trying his best to say the words just right as each piece is laid on the board. This box is closely monitored by me, so they know it is something special to get into it. I hope that my children always have the stories of scripture heroes written in their hearts, and this is one of the ways I try to emphasize that.

Besides the scripture story box, we have a large chest next to our piano that is reserved for Sunday activities. The kids can find copies of the Friend magazine, or coloring pages, or books that teach about the prophets in the big box. We try our best to reserve all of these things for Sunday, but if they come out on a different day we just go with it, as long as everyone puts things back in their place.

We have late church, 1-4 pm right now, so by the time we get home it's a mad rush to get dinner on. Daddy usually walks in from his church meetings just as we are finishing the dinner preparations, so we eat together. After dinner, we try to get the kids in their pajamas and we each choose a song to sing around the piano. Our family loves music, so this gives us a chance to become better acquainted with both the hymns and the primary songs in our home. Sometime we have a dessert after singing time, which is generally used to "encourage" (ahem, bribe) good participation during our singing time.

Because of his long day of meetings,  Daddy often goes to bed at the same time as the kids on Sunday nights. Although we have the typical stressors of getting out the door to church--no matter how carefully we lay out shoes and socks the night before, something goes missing or church clothes get dirty just as we are supposed to leave--I have to say that Sundays are some of my favorite days.