Cookie Helper (Videos)

Remember, to watch these, you have to click through to the blog. They don't play in emails.
More cooking. Our little master chef in the making:

Becoming Martha

I've been learning to sew in my copious amounts of spare time. I even purchased a sewing machine. This is the first sewing project. Prepare to be underwhelmed but soon, my friends, you will ooh and aah over my sewing skills. And Jamisen + Baby Bell Pepper (who I can feel kicking now) will be the best costumed children at Halloween every year. No pressure. No pressure.

   

 Look at the evenness of my second project - those stitches! The tricky lines of the circle and heart:

   

 Proving I am trying to give Martha a true run for her money, I've been juicing for the family most mornings. Jamisen sometimes drinks as much as 3 ounces of it in a morning. And remember, greens are all about calcium. Goooooo strong bones!

   

 But, lest you think it's all healthy - these are the cookies I made for the Bramble Berry Cookie Exchange - Andes Mint cookies with a chocolate mint ganache .... but yeah, I didn't eat any and neither did Jamisen so maybe we are the all healthy family. Gold star. Gold star.

  

I was told they were delicious. 

PS - I was at a Winter Solstice ceremony/ritual the other night and we were told to imagine powerful women who have guided us in our lives. Of course, my Mom came to mind first. Followed by Amelia Earhart. And then, Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart. Top Three female influencers in my life. Other women at the Solstice ceremony were mentioning Joan of Arc and Athena and suitably impressive women of history. Me. Martha Stewart. I wasn't sure whether I should be proud or ashamed. But whatever, I'm following in her footsteps so I'm going for proud.

A Little Monster Booty for You?

Happy boy loves the Christmas lights. We now have two trees with lights and every morning, after he finds 'Bah!' the Elf, he asks to have the tree lights turned on.  

This morning the Elf was guarding a Christmas present - a very nice bottle of wine from Norman.

  

Chris is still in the running to join the CNN Ironman Triathlon Team (with all his spare time). We are so proud of him, of course.

  

Though Jamisen still isn't speaking (meh - he's fantastic at sign language), he clearly is learning a lot (as evidenced by this text from his Nanny, McKenna):

  

Cutest pants in the world - a little Monster Booty for you?

Happy Tree Hunting

For some reason, I have it in my head that a Christmas tree that we stalk ourselves and then cut down is somehow better than a tree purchased pre-cut. For that reason, I drag my husband (and now young son) out every holiday to freeze, while trying to hold a hacksaw. It's a delightful holiday tradition that I'm sure Jamisen + unborn sibling will thank me for one day. More realistically, they'll thank their father who does all the heavy lifting and cutting. Either way, it's all about holiday happiness.

We decided that we didn't need to walk all the way to the back to get the 'best' tree and that we'd be able to find a great tree in the front row. And, somehow, when we found the 'perfect' tree in the front row, we just had to keep walking. It was almost like it if wasn't hard to find, it wasn't somehow 'good.'

Well, after traversing the entire tree farm multiple times, we made it back to the front row where we figured out a dirty little tree farm secret: all the trees up in the front rows have been manicured within an inch of their little tree lives so they look more attractive than the average tree from the road. Thus, we happily found our perfect tree and claimed it as our own.

We love bowl cuts!

Jamisen got a little scratch on his face at Hillcrest (his 2X, half day pre-pre school). You can see it right by his eye. It's healing well with no signs of infection.  

He loves his new 'kid sized' stool, though one might argue he's not quite using it in the traditional way that chairs are typically meant to be used.

  

He is still having a major love affair with remote controls:  

Soon after that photo was taken, I took the remote away from him since eating the buttons off the remote control seemed to be possibly unhealthy and a bit excessive considering the remote was not ours. Man, oh man, temper tantrum meltdown! I did my patented 'Wander away and do something else and do not care and then, look like I'm having fun!' but it did take him a bit of time to regain his equilibrium. My belly is starting to show a lot at night, a little in the morning. I call it my 'food baby' at night. I'm refusing to wear my maternity pants yet so keep with the rubber bands in my normal jeans. I'm doing that for as long as I possibly can, which isn't much longer.  

 Daddy gave Jamisen a traditional bowl cut - do you love those bangs? How hilarious are they?!  

 Chris is on his way back from Detroit right now. I think he was in Ohio today though don't quote me. He was going to sign an agreement with a college to license their x-ray technology. It was a quick two day trip but involved 4 flights. He should land soon and be home to us by early tomorrow. Both Jamisen and I are excited. We both miss him dreadfully when he's gone though this time, he pre-recorded books on the iPad for Jamisen so he reads to Jamisen and I turn the pages. Jamisen really seemed to like that.

Two Bikers in the Family

When we visited Grandma and Grandpa Faiola, we all went to Sabbath School. Jamisen behaved so-so. It was his first time so he didn't quite understand the 'sitting' concept but he did okay. 

 

 He was way way excited about his new trike/bike/thing from our friends at Dandelion Organics who happily shared their hand-me-down.

  

 Chris has entered the CNN Triathlon team competition. You can watch his video entry here: 

 

Jamisen is hot to trot to help his Daddy win the bike portion. Look at his form! 

Go Chris, GO!

The biggest news of the weekend? Chris finished his Seattle Marathon in 3:25, almost a full hour faster than his time last year (blog post from last year here).  

 Can you see him waving at me through the crowd at the start? He's been training a lot more AND more importantly, dropped 25 pounds from last year's race weight. I know, I know, I have no idea where he was hiding that 25 pounds because he was in shape last year. I secretly think that he's losing all the weight, hoping to intersect my weight when I hit month 9 with our Bramble Baby 2. There are choice bad words for men that do tricks like that.

Jamisen and I kept busy while Daddy was running. We explored the Seattle Children's Museum thoroughly! There was a lot to see, including holes where animals burrow. Jamisen was fearless, going into the dark, dark hole until he popped out the other end. I was pretty delighted to see him (after all, what if the hole had a trap-door and really was an elaborate child smuggling ring that only picked little blue-eyed, strawberry-blonde boys?) 

 We played for 2 hours until it was time to go get Daddy and then, imagine our surprise when we walked to the appointed meeting place 15 minutes early to find Daddy waiting for us! He finished a full 35 minutes ahead of his goal time, and a full 55 minutes ahead of his time last year. We were so proud of him!

The salmon are making their annual migration in Washington state, going back to their birthplaces to spawn (and then die soon thereafter). Despite the incredible 'liquid sunshine' display the PNW gave us, the entire Faiola family clan ventured on a hike to see the salmon run. Jamisen was intrigued by the majestic creatures and thankfully didn't seem to notice many of them weren't really moving anymore.That's code for: there were dead fish everywhere, on the banks, smelling horrible as they decayed.

Does his outfit remind you of Paddington Bear? It kept him mostly dry but his pants still got soaked. He was such a little trooper, walking an entire half mile in pouring rain, without complaint. He mostly looked shell-shocked but game for the trip.

Clearly, we did not starve at Thanksgiving. We were also joined this year by Granddog Toby (Erik's contribution to the grandchild mix), who feasted on Pumpkin Apple pancakes for breakfast. The entire family, well, except Chris who is mostly forced into it, is vegetarian so our Thanksgiving celebrations involve lots of pasta and vegetables. They sound simple but they don't end up all that healthy, thanks to the happy helpings of cheese we always put on everything.

It was sure nice to go to Grandma and Grandpa Faiola's house for a few days because Grandma took care of Jamisen almost the entire time, leaving me to lounge luxuriously on the couch and read (with a slightly guilty conscience since so many of the Bramble Berry team worked all weekend to ship out orders). I finished two books (I'll admit, they were trash books - the new Clive Cussler and the new one in the YA Matched series. I went through a phase after 'Hunger Games' when I read a lot of YA.). We also saw 'Life of Pi' (I read the book and felt like the move was pretty true to the book plot line) and played some fierce 'Settlers of Catan' games after Jamisen went to bed at night. It was such a treat to have Grandma (and Grandpa) take on all the heavy duty parenting tasks (I didn't change a poopy diaper for three days!) that we might need to make Thanksgiving at their house a tradition.