Christmas Tree Hunting

Every year, we go and hunt a Christmas tree. Chris has a strong feeling (he's probably right) that fresh-cut trees last longer. We have a family tradition to go out, find the "perfect" tree and chop it down to take home.

Luckily, we have two amazing helpers to give their opinions and help us find that perfect tree that has ideal spacing for ornaments, will fit in our house and also fits the pocketbook requirements.

The kids took their job very seriously and examined what felt like every single tree in the entire Christmas tree farm Obviously, every tree on the farm was equally beautiful and my kiddos gave them a major case of the insecurities because they literally went from tree to tree (to tree to tree to tree) until we found the perfect one for our household. 

We ended up coming home with a lovely, perfectly proportioned Noble Fir for our Christmas tree. Jamisen helped cut it down and we wall helped drag it out of the Christmas tree forest. 

The kids had such much fun helping to decorate the tree. Funny story: I put up all the Christmas lights myself (I mean, after the kids straightened out all the lights) and it turns out that putting on Christmas lights takes an engineer. Chris was gone during that episode and when he got home, he had to redo all the lights because, again, it is much much harder to put on perfectly done Christmas lights than it would appear.

Chris and I also got super lucky and were able to go to a fancy Christmas party at Chateau St. Michelle in Woodinville, WA. Chris is part of the Entrepreneur's Organization and they had their annual Christmas party there. One of the children's former nanny/babysitters moved to Seattle so she came and watched the kids in the hotel room while we went to the party. The kids had brand new play dough sets, and freshly delivered pizza to keep them busy. It was fun to have a date night with Chris.

Snow and Soap Shops

Our little Lily is so hilarious! She has been doing a "work" at Montessori school involving cleaning windows so lately, she's been all about cleaning any shiny, glass surface. I swear, I had literally only been out of sight for 2 seconds (maybe a minute) when I turned around and saw this little daredevil with zero safety inclinations precariously balanced in the pedestal sink, "cleaning" the mirror. Photos over safety however, so we managed to get this for posterity before saving her life.

It's been a crazy weather year and we have gotten snow galore here in Whatcom County. Jamisen has never really seen snow that he can remember so it's been fun to watch both kids explore it. Time will tell if Lily remembers this snowfall. Do note that it's night outside in the photo because it was SO early when Jamisen got up. He was ridiculously excited about the snow and got himself dressed and ready to go without our help.

Lily was excited as well but seems to be affected by cold a little more than Jamisen. That said, she's a trooper and wouldn't come inside even with wet gloves and pants.

Little Lily set up a soap shop to sell soap. She's turning into a little entrepreneur-in-training, just like her brother.

Google. Swim Lessons. Hilarity Ensues.

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The kiddos have been taking swim lessons. It's been going well in the grand scheme of things. Jamisen has been excelling at the mechanics of swimming. Lily has been having a wonderful time but is less about the skills and is more about the sparkly fun to be had at the pool. It feels like every-other-lesson that we're pulling one kid out (usually Lily) because they're not listening to the teacher. Parenting is hard. 

Both kids are loving their roles in the household as helpers. Lily is obsessed with being at counter height. We try very hard to make sure she's positioned in the middle of the counter so there's zero chance that she can fall off but she loves to see whatever we're doing, including cooking. She's more into the controlling part of helping as opposed to helping- helping. Her favorite food to help with is banana egg pancakes.

Jamisen continues to be very into domestic arts. In the photo above, he helped to clean up an art project that went awry. He knows how to hook up the vacuum cleaner and how to use it. That is a sure sign that he's going to be quite the lady's man in college and beyond.

He also loves his Grandma Faiola very much. This is a sweet photo from the last weekend of my Nutritional Therapy course where he got to go to the children's museum with Grandma and Grandpa. It was wonderful to have Grandma and Grandpa Faiola in the same city as the school (and probably the only reason that the schooling set-up worked).

I recently had the honor of speaking at Google. They invited me to speak on 'Resilience' and what that means to me. It was amazing to be at their campus, speaking to their team and family members. I spoke of the importance of integrating all the experience and parts of yourself.

It was a career highlight and also deeply terrifying. There were so many smart people in the audience and it was hard to give the talk in a vulnerable and open manner and not feel nervous about how it would be perceived and received. 

Ultimately it went well (I think). Audience members seemed appreciative and open and had good feedback after the talk was over. It was a definite career high for me and I felt (and feel) grateful for the opportunity to share my story. It was amazing and it felt once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully it's not! Hopefully it's just the start). =) 

3 Questions. And, Christmas is here.

It's official. 'Tis the season. Many thanks to Cheriss (and Erik) for hosting Thanksgiving. It was epic with a huge contingent of family descending on Erik and Cheriss's house.

It was such a nice Thanksgiving and we all appreciated Cheriss for hosting. The standout dishes belonged to my Aunt Sharon who made a cheddar cheese cookie and then filled it with jalepno jelly or a sweet wine jelly. They were amazing. 

 

Of course, the day after Thanksgiving, Santa magically appeared. It's like clockwork, that Santa appearance. 

The kids are reinforced with the Santa / Elves / North Pole history at home because the Elf on the Shelf (both of them) visit nightly, generally causing significant mischief every night. Jamisen recently declared that he "hated the elves" because they were "listening to everything he said," after they brought him a new silicone food cover for Mommy because he had "accidentally broken hers." He was legit freaked out.

We all bought matching pants at the Gap. This is solely so the kids have something to go to therapy for in 15 years and so we have amazing photographs for their high school graduation.

Lily remains the apple of my friend Jody's eye. She invited us over for a make-your-own pizza dinner (and for those of you with eagle eyes that are noticing that her sweater matches the pajamas in the above picture, points to you. We purchased every item in the store with that pattern. Every. Item.) I asked Lily the 3 questions tonight. These are her answers:

What is your favorite color: Pink
What do you want to be when you grow up? "I want to eat M&M's" (that makes two of us)
What is the meaning of life: "Prayomantus." Me: "Preying Mantis?" Her: "No, Prayomantus." Roger that. She's obviously speaking in tongues. Ramtha, is that you?
Bonus question: If you were any animal, what would you be? "I would be a flying mermaid. And, I would be pink,"

Halloween Fun

Halloween this year was full of joyous little ones, goblins, elves and full streets in Fairhaven. We went trick or treating in historic Fairhaven along with roughly 304582 other small children and their parents. Bless those retailers; they must have spent roughly the equivalent of a Porche in candy money to give all of the adorably dressed munchins their requisite sugar.

Lily was a Sparkle Pony Butterfly (yes, that's a thing in Lily's world). Jamisen was a space explorer / astronaut. They filled up on candy that night and now it is languishing in a hidden high shelf in the pantry, hopefully never to be seen again.

I went as a flight attendant. I was most commonly mistaken for a Cigarette Girl however.

The other day, Lily and I went to my friend Jody's house for a little dinner party with just the girls. As we were driving up the driveway, Jody's house was lit up and gorgeous. Lily looked at the house and said, "I love that house!" And I said "Yes, it is so pretty isn't it." And she said, "Mama, will I live in a house like that when I grow up?" And I said, " Sweetie, if you work hard and plan and save, you may be able to afford to make the choice to buy a beautiful home like this." And then she asked sweetly, "Work hard like a Daddy?" With forced brightness in my voice, through gritted teeth I answered, "Or like a Mommy. Work hard like a Mommy."

This little Sparkle Pony Butterfly and I were having such a sweet morning the other day. I said to her tenderly, "I love you so very much. I love you more than any other girl on the whole planet." And she stopped me and said, "God loves me more than you do. And God is in charge."  That's a show-stopper; not much to say in response to that one...

Arizona Fun

We were so lucky to get to visit Scottsdale Arizona with Grandma and Grandpa Faiola a few weeks ago. The kids brought their ride-on suitcases and that made airport time more fun and interesting. Also, people pointed and laughed and I'm pretty sure we sold several sets of the suitcases to people who stopped us to ask who made them

The kiddos got to pack their own suitcases which was great! They loved to really show what they thought was most important to them. In a surprise move, Jamisen packed his entire soccer gear - including his soccer shoes and shinguards. Given that he has shown zero propensity to engage in most sports, this was interesting and also served to put his overzealous, over-scheduled-mother on a hopeful notice that perhaps our child might participate in the age-old baseline activity for learning how to be a team player ... by actually being on a team. A sports team specifically.

We went to basically every tourist attraction possible. We reprised our visit to the Butterfly Palace. Jamisen loved the life cycle of butterflies and was fascinated by the many species of butterlies and moths.

Grandma and Grandpa took the kiddos to Legoland for the day. They had a WONDERFUL time and really enjoyed it. They spoke excitedly about it for days. It was a nice break for Mom and Dad since Dad needed to work and Mom had to study for her final exam for the Nutritional Therapy Certification (terrible timing to have it the week after vacation). One less than sunny moment did occur and needs to be documented so none of us shall forget the valiant efforts of Grandma Faiola during this trying time. Thanks to a side effect from the antibiotics to heal her UTI, Lily managed to projectile diarrhea all over the Legoland bathroom (I write this solely for posterity sake so when Lily is reading this at the age of 17 she can spare a fond thought for her loving and kind Grandmother who had to clean up the mess without any wet wipes). 

The kids are turning into proficient floaters and sort-of-coordinated movers in the pool and hot tub thanks to multiple sessions of swimming lessons at the Y. They really enjoy the hot tub!

We also visited the aquarium. It was amazing with some great kids exhibits and activities. They kids very much enjoyed a particularly innovative water movement system and played there for at least an hour. They also had a world class cafeteria with a wood-fired pizza oven. The bathrooms have sharks swimming by (inside the bathroom ... so you can watch them while you're washing your hands). This seemed like particularly good planning on the part of the architect.

We also visited the Firefighters Museum which was way way too old for the kids. Nothing except one model fire engine could be touched. It took us longer to drive to the museum did it did to go through it since literally, the kids could touch nothing. Interestingly enough, the entire museum (giant - 50,000 square feet at least?) was filled with memorabilia that was one man's hobby. He literally started a museum to house all of his fireman paraphernalia.

The kiddos loved the lazy river at the Marriot. It's a long slow current of movement so the kids can float on an adult or an inner tube. You can find a chair and just park yourself there for most of the day (that is, if you can stand the traditional pub food - overpriced, greasy - for the entire day). The adults subsisted on a lot of protein bars.

Chris was extremely kind and took the kids to the lazy river most mornings so I could study. This quality study time is probably the only reason I passed my test.

Oddly enough, the kids are not fans of sunscreen. Despite their distaste, between all of us, we all avoided sunburns. That was quite a victory for the week!

The resort has a children's wading pool. We spent many happy hours there as well though it's pretty clear that Jamisen has mostly outgrown that area. We had a wonderful time at the resort and feel very lucky that we got to spend the week with our family, bonding, laughing and playing outdoors.

Voting, Dentists and Running

This morning as I was taking the kiddos to school, Chris's car was behind us the entire way. When it came time for him to split off and go on the freeway, I rolled down my window and waved and encouraged the kids to wave too as they both exclaimed, "Bye Daddy! Bye Bye!" 

Lily got upset and said, "Daddy won't know I was waving!"  I answered her thinking she was upset her window wasn't rolled down so Daddy couldn't see her hands and said, "It's okay; he probably saw you waving through the window." She said, quite puzzled, "I wasn't waving with my hands. I was waving with my mouth."

Before I could think of a suitable reply, Jamisen reassured her: "That's OK. When you get to see him he will be so happy that you will scream."  (Nope, none of that makes sense but to a 3 and a 5 year old, it does and that's all that matters).

The election has been big news in our house with lots of debates and spirited discussion. The kids have picked none of the policy nuances but have definitely formed their opinions on the two candidates. After Hillary won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote, Lily said very sweetly, "Mommy, I'm sorry that your friend lost."

With regards to the Presidential election, Chris and I have spoken about economy policy, immigration and trade deals. We have stayed far, far away from the more unsavory aspects of the election (i.e. the terrible behavior of the President-elect towards minorities, women and people with disabilities). Unfortunately, not all of his classmates have equally buttoned-up households. This is an actual conversation at our house tonight:

Jamisen : Mommy, did you know Donald Trump called a woman a pig?! He called a woman a fat pig!"

Chris: (playing for time) I don't know if that's right. Where did you hear that?

Jamisen : My friend Noah Glass. And he knows everything! He knows alllll the snakes.

Chris:  (stalling)  I don't think he said that. 

Me: I heard the quote. He did say that and it was wrong. It is never okay to name call.

Lily: Donald Trump needs to be voted off the island!!!!!!

And with that, the discussion was over.

The kids had dental appointments. Lucky kiddos got a new dentist that has TVs on the ceiling. The kids were so excited about the TV that they were lulled into ease and submission. The dental appointment went swimmingly!

Both kids were cavity-free and were so excited about the Cavity Free tree. They get to write their name on large "leaves" and place them on the tree. They also got a gold coin and were able to choose from a number of cool little cavity-free-yay toy dispensers. The kids both will brush their teeth more easily when we say things like "Do you want to get your name on the cavity-free tree again?" 

I ran a half marathon with my bestie Patrice. We beat our time from last year which is great because the course was way, way, way more hilly. Also, last year, she may have been pregnant (see the pictures? What a difference a year makes!).