Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving, Iowa Style

We spent a quiet holiday, just the three of us this year. We'd toyed around with getting together with our fabulous neighbors, but they have a week-old baby and we have a severe lack of space and serving dishes, so it worked out okay this way. And didn't even matter so much when Lucy peed on the floor under the table just as we were putting dishes of food out, either. (Still working on the potty star here).

The day started off slow and lazy, like many of our other days. My little Lucy hung around in a diaper through the baking of pies and the start of peeling potatoes and squash.
This is our "low-rent" dinner. I thought it looked pretty good, but Eric things there needed to be some casseroles. I tried to make a green-bean casserole a couple of years ago and failed entirely. No disasters here, though Eric cooked his own ham, mashed the potatoes, and made the gravy, the three likeliest things I would be able to ruin.
Since the potty star is a work-in-progress, every time Lucy makes it she gets a happy sticker on her chart and a chocolate. Since she had three successes before dinner, served right at nap time, her appetite was less than voracious. She sampled a couple of sides and finished her mashed potatoes. No ham-hangover for this kid!
Cheers little (growing) family!
Here is my crowning achievement of the day - two beautiful, delicious, homemade pies. Admittedly I did not make the apple pie crust, but I've tried before and the store-bought ones always taste so much better. The chocolate cream pie is from scratch with a homemade chocolate graham-cracker crust and was fantastic. It was a toss-up which one was better. I had a slice of each and with every bite the pie I was eating was my favorite. Lucy loved the chocolate but wouldn't even hear of a bite of apple. Eric even tried holding her down and shoving some apple pie down her throat, but lost the battle. She doesn't know what she's missing!We hope everyone had a wonderful day!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Grandma's Visit

We were lucky enough to have Grandma for a whole week as she visited us from Maine. She was very clear that she didn't want us to do anything special or different while she was here, but just wanted to spend an average week with us. Literally as soon as she arrived, Grandma teared up just thinking about leaving. But the week stretched out nicely as our stay-at-home Iowa lifestyle lends itself to long days filled with toddler pursuits.

The weather at the start of the week was gorgeous for November, high 60s, so Grandma got to go to our favorite neighborhood park. Lucy impressed her with her ability to jump, climb, and slide. Since we've been coming to this park at least twice a week for three months now, there really isn't much she can't do here.
We also did some walking "the little doggies." I had Shorty on a leash here, and you can see who Grandma is walking. I'm usually a little bit embarrassed to be seen walking my dog and my kid together, but apparently it's not an issue for Grandma. Note the short sleeves in this picture. Beautiful weather little doggie!
Lucy also perfected her "Tink face" with Grandma. This is her mad look, formerly used in our range of emotional expression exercises ("show me your happy face!") but now used independently and given to Grandma on several occasions her behavior was deemed inappropriate. Grandma thought it was a good mimic of Tinker Bell's angry face from the new Tink movies.
We also had lots of fun celebrating Grandma's birthday! It was a big one, but her interest, I'll let you guess which big one it was. Here are Grandma and Lucy opening Grandma's gift that Lucy picked out. Thankfully the stained-glass woman still had one yellow flower left.
This is the beautiful no-bake cheesecake we made (though it was actually pretty good). There were lots of fingerprints in the batter and even a couple in the finished product. One of Lucy's favorite things to sing is happy birthday, and she sang sweetly to Grandma for several days. Proper York birthday etiquette: light candles, sing, blow candles out, and repeat. As many times and you're allowed.
Toward the middle of our week together the weather took a turn, and we got our first real rain here since the first week in September. A perfect chance to try out all of our new rain gear!
But most of all, just like Grandma wanted, we hung around the house and did what we normally do: dishes, laundry, play, make a mess, clean the mess. I'm not sure how Grandma got a picture of me doing the dishes, because I thought she did them all while she was here. I got a little spoiled. Anyone else want to visit and do my chores?
The last day of Grandma's visit was a gymnastics day for Lucy. If you've talked to my mother, you've probably heard about it. Lucy impressed with her usual feats of strength and agility, outshining the other kids in the class. Just add it to the Grandma brag book.
Feel the love! We'll miss you till Christmas Grandma!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Hello Grandma!

From this ....

... to this.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Pumpkins

Some shots of our first family carving experience.

The wide-mouthed pumpkin was a result of a rotten spot. We had to buy new pumpkins at Wal-Mart because our good one from the family farm was stolen off our front porch, which thankfully, Lucy didn't even notice.

Grandma's been here all week so I'm behind on my news but will have plenty to report as soon as she heads home on Tuesday.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Prick or Pete

Halloween in scheduled here in Iowa, and then rescheduled as not to conflict with any college football games, as the case may be. We ended up trick or treating the on Friday the 29th this year. Since Lucy is still pretty little and we don't know a ton of people in our neighborhood, we went to the downtown toddler trick or treat on Main Street at 10am. All the shops opened and had candy for the kids, allowing me to get a glimpse of all the Main St. stores while Lucy got her candy.

Here's my little Tinkerbell. It's a costume that Grandma sent a while ago (not intended for Halloween, I don't think) that Lucy wanted to wear. Not a surprise, really, pretty much everything is Tink right now. The felt on her shoes is actually sewn right to the sneakers to keep it on.
Our partners in crime were Jon & Mariel's kids, friend Gabe and baby Nico, Sarah & Jane's son Silas, and Ayden, who Sarah watches during the day. Sarah had to wait for Ayden to get to her house so Mariel and I had three two-year-olds and a stroller to wrestle for the first forty minutes or so. It was not a crowd to be reasoned with.
Apparently Gabe's shark costume was from last year. His mom & dad put it on him and held him up to the mirror. It terrified him to see his face poking out of the shark's mouth. This year he was much braver. Note also at this point Silas' orange shirt and hat "costume." His mom worked for days to sew a Super Why suit, a labor of love that he abjectly refused to wear. Maybe next year.

One part of this trick or treating (prick or pete as Lucy said) that did not elude my Tink was the fact that the candy in the bucket was hers. She was seen to try and take more candy out of the trick or treat bins, wrestle candy out of the hands of the storekeepers, and steal from other kids buckets. I'm prettu sure that the lollypop on the ground here was hers, but not 100%.

What a great looking crowd!