My Heidi Girl

I love this girl! Heidi is so funny! She is very good at communicating. I'm pretty sure Heidi understands everything we say to her. If we ask her questions she will purse her little lips and then nod her head yes or no. If she feels like it, she'll say Uh-huh, or Uh-uh. To show us she's hungry, she'll walk over to the drawer, open it and take out a plate. Then she'll push a chair over to the counter and either take food off the counter, or if there isn't any in her reach, she'll point to the cupboard she wants food out of and screach until someone gets her what she wants. Heidi will say Mama, Dada, HiYaya, Ee-ah (for Leah), and her newest sound is Baba...which to her means baby. Heidi LOVES babies and baby dolls. The girls each got one for Christmas and Heidi has laid claim to ALL of them. She puts one in the stroller and one in the carseat and then hauls the rest of them around in shifts. She kisses on them and pats them, wraps them in blankets and gives them hugs. Occasionally she does find it humerous to throw them off the couch and laugh when they hit the floor.

Heidi is becoming quite dramatic. She will throw fits over the silliest things. She used to flop straight back, but she hit her head too much, so she's revised her antics. Now she'll flop in her stomach and then smoosh her face straight into the floor. Sometimes she hits her face a little too hard and then starts crying for real, gets up and comes to me looking for sympathy.

A new favorite past-time is digging her hand down the back of her diaper. I think she's just realizing that there is more of her body underneath the diaper. So far she hasn't found any treasures...just cheeks. Heidi loves baths and telephones and shoes. She loves to show off for anyone who comes over. Heidi loves her daddy and will run down the hall to his room looking for him, then knock on the door and yell "Dada!" until he answers and gives her a big hug and kiss. Miss Heidi baby is just the sweetest little girl. We all love her to pieces!

I Believe

Pictures top to bottom: 1. making graham cracker shacks with the cousins 2. Yaya with her completed house 3. Leah being the star of Bethlehem 4. Naomi and cousin Eli as Mary and Joseph 5. Yaya and cousins being angels 6. Our Christmas Tree 7. Heidi baby 8. The girls creating with some of their gifts

We spent Christmas Eve up with Grandma Ingrid in Hillsboro, OR. All of Lars's family got together for the yearly smorgasbord of delicious food, gifts from Grandma and this year we acted out the nativity while Lars narrated from Luke 2. It was a great time and great food. I tried brussle sprouts for the first time ever. Not too shabby. Ingrid roasted them with onions and pears. We also had danish pork loin, yams and apples, red cabbage, fruit salad, swedish meatballs, mushroom pate, hummus, meats and cheeses and crackers and Camille made a Yule Log for dessert. It was quite delicious.

This Christmas, as with many others, our family has been so blessed by the generosity of others. With Lars in his final semester of Grad school, we're livin' on love. Unfortunately, love doesn't put physical gifts under the tree...you know, the kind that kids like. Anyway, a couple days before Christmas, "Santa" left a box of presents outside our door. The girls were thrilled, and I felt very humbled. I can't wait for the day that I can give freely to others like that as well.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We totally scored this year buying our Christmas tree. There is a "used again" store in the next town over called H2O (Help and Hope to Others). It is basically a local Goodwill, except instead of handicap people working there, it's recovering meth heads. Wish I was kidding. Anyway, someone set up trees in the parking lot and were only charging $5 for them. We got a gorgeous tree! The girls had a great time unpacking the ornaments and hanging them on the tree. Heidi had a great time ripping them off the tree and breaking them. We kept moving the ornaments higher and higher until finally the top 1/3 of our tree is decorated. The bottom 2/3rds has one measly string of lights and few plastic ornaments that we wired to the tree. Heidi still tries hourly to rip them off, but she hasn't succeeded yet! I love the smell of a fresh Christmas tree! It's beginning to feel like Christmas.

Unexpected Perk

I guess there are some perks to the commercialism of Christmas. Tonight when I was putting the girls to bed, Yaya flopped on the ground and started crying that she was too tired to brush her teeth. So I told her to skip it and get in bed. She started crying even harder and blurted out, "But I don't want to be on the 'Naughty List', I want to be on the 'Nice List'!"

I haven't even pulled "the Santa card" once this season, but she used it on herself!

i never knew

Naomi cleared her plate from dinner, which was still full of food, and announced, "I'm full. Can I have some dessert? "If you're full," I said, "You wouldn't be able to eat any dessert." "Yes I can." Naomi clarified. "The dinner side of my stomach is full, but the dessert side is empty!"

Revisiting

In September I wrote a post, "Babies Can't Have Tastebuds". I would like to revisit that for a moment.
This morning I made the girls scrambled eggs for breakfast. After I got the girls off to school, I laid down on the couch. After a few minutes I heard some crunching. I couldn't place the sound, but I didn't want to get up and find the source. When it didn't stop, I got up and found Heidi had dug the egg shells out of the garbage can and was chomping on them. I guess next time I'll skip the scrambled eggs and give them to her whole. :)

Just not feelin' it

I'm trying really hard, but I'm just not feeling the Christmas spirit yet this year. Not sure what the difference is, but I haven't even baked one batch of Christmas cookies yet. I usually try to eat cookies for breakfast every morning of December...because I can...but I don't even feel like doing that. The girls and I have started doing some Christmas crafts, so it's looking more festive around here. Hopefully I can turn it around before the holidays are over!