We Love the Nutcracker Ballet!

A Family Hike in the New Year

Today our family threw our packs and our kids in the car and drove to Sycamore Canyon in Poway. It was a chilly but sunny day which warmed up as the morning went on. Chris and I each carried one child on our backs and we set off into the canyon. The first part was on the canyon rim trails which are narrow and a bit steep. Natalie serenaded us with her version of "a dog singing Jingle Bells," "an owl singing Jingle Bells," and basically any animal on Earth singing Jingle Bells. Noelle chattered away happily, most of the time in "Noelle-ese." We eventually reached a pretty oasis of sycamore trees and bright green grass down on the canyon floor. After this part came the longer trek back up out of the canyon. After a while, whining ensued and we finally agreed to release the youngsters and let them run. They immediately took to collecting rocks on the trail and running around like wild banshees, drunk with their newly found freedom. I snapped a few pictures before continuing our trek back to the parking lot. The hill on the way back was a bit daunting but we all made it. We had to put the kids back in their packs for most of it which as you can imagine, was not met with gratitude. All in all, it was a successful three mile hike with the girls. They are not as light as they used to be, however we are excited to see them becoming more independent in walking the trails themselves. The most precious part for me is to see the girls discovering nature and enjoying the natural world so much. Our family certainly will have many hiking adventures to come.

Happy New Year from the Girls!

Christmas 2008

Well, Christmas has come and gone. It has been an unusual Christmas this year, mixed with highs and lows. The highs included happy times with friends and family, sipping peppermint schnapps hot cocoas with my playgroup mamas, viewing holiday light displays all over town, and attending all Christmas themed events near our house. The lows mostly have to do with how my poor husband got laid off in late November in this economy that we now know to be pretty unfriendly to financial types like my husband. While there have been little bites of interest every now and then that have at times gotten us hopeful, nothing has panned out thus far. It is a crazy time for so many people out there with job loss, the stock market plummeting, and house prices sinking. We know we are not alone in our search, although this can make it harder since we also know that there are a lot of other financial/bank people out of work and looking all for the same jobs. We found a job in time last July to keep us afloat with our San Diego mortgage. It could be that this time ends up being different and that we have to rent our house out and move away. For almost a year now we have lived in a state of limbo-- not knowing where we will be in the next six months. While it is certainly a challenging time, it does have its merits. The girls and I are ecstatic to have "Dada" around a lot more and I think that these difficult times have brought Chris and I closer because we have had more time to talk, analyze, and enjoy one another. This Christmas was a lot less about gift lists and mall shopping and a lot more about being a family and enjoying the beauty of the season. With help from Mimi (Grandma), Natalie saw her first theater production of "The Nutcracker" along with her Aunt Renee and cousin (whom she adores) Addie. She sat wide eyed through the entire lengthy production and seemed absolutely dazzled by the music, the dancing, and the colors. Now she can't stop talking about The Nutcracker. She likes to say "My favorite part was when the Nutcracker got hurt. But then I helped him and he got better." She also says "I like the mice.. I want to be a mouse!"
Now that Christmas is over, I have put the fake tree away. Soon the lights will be taken down and we will ring in the new year (inexpensively). We are hoping that 2009 is filled with wonderful new opportunities for our family. 2008 has not been easy but we know that we have a healthy family and great friends and these things make us very rich indeed.

Noelle: The Little Mommy

Here is a Celebration of Natalie's First Three Years.. Enjoy!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Birthday Natalie Sage!

Today my little baby is three. Ok, so she is not my "littlest" baby but she will always be the one with the biggest blue eyes that stared up at me through all those long nights after she was born. She will always be my chatterbox child who didn't really care for walking until 15 months old but could say 20 words by 12 months and could count to ten by 17 months. She will always be my little independent free spirit child who veers off on her own during playgroups and finds every leaf and every bug. Now my little girl seems to be taking big girl steps instead of baby steps and I fear before I even look up, she is going to be packing her bags for college. Today was a day of pink and red cupcakes (just what the birthday girl ordered)and tissue paper (seemingly her favorite present of all). Tonight as I lay her down in her bed, I asked her how it felt to be three. She grinned broadly and exclaimed "It's good!"

My New Love Affair with Being Healthy

So I can't contain it any longer.. I need to proclaim my love for thedailyplate.com! It is a free calorie counter site where you put in all your stats and it basically tells you how many calories you can eat that day in order to either gain, maintain, or lose weight. I have lost 25 pounds since July and I didn't even think I was anything but normal. I am stoked now! I feel so much better about myself and really have the confidence with my body looking the way I always wanted it to look. Why do I feel like I am part of an info-mercial? Anyway, I have started running on the treadmill at the gym and I am going way faster than I ever did before. I also feel like I can have a day or two off and go right back to it without much guilt at all. It is like a video game where as long as you follow the rules, you win! Chris has now been on it too and also has had quite a bit of success with it and many other friends/ family as well! I think I have realized that what I thought was a normal portion size was actually quite large. I also realized that I was eating the wrong foods (think white enriched flour instead of whole wheat and sugar junk instead of fruits and veggies). I now have a philosophy based on "You on a Diet" and modified so I can graze basically all day long on smaller meals so I don't have to kill someone in a starved rage. Anyway, it is great to finally feel like I look good. Thank you thedailyplate.com!!! P.S. From one snacker to another, those mini kettlecorn popcorn bags that are 100 calories are seriously the greatest thing since sliced bread (which, especially if it is enriched flour, has ended up not being such a great thing after all!)

Halloween

I can't believe how fast October has raced by. Suddenly, the big day is here... Halloween. I am basically obsessed with Halloween. This month, I have dragged the girls and Chris (when he has been free), to every single event I could find that had anything to do with harvest, pumpkins, ghosts, and candy. We have been now to four harvest festivals, three pumpkin patches, two Halloween carnivals, and one nocturnal animal night hike. Natalie has climbed on tractors, run through corn mazes, sat on hay rides, and has saddled up on three different pony rides. It has been an amazing Halloween season! I have been happy to notice that Natalie does not seem affected at all by the "scariness" that can come with the holiday. While we walked by decorated houses the other night, she told me "Momma, I see a ghost! I love ghosts!" Maybe she will end up like me, a lover of all things spooky.. or the fright factor will hit her next year. Noelle points out each pumpkin, spider and bat with the same joyful yell of "Ball" while she points eagerly for me to notice the particular decoration she is referring to. On one night, she was calling pumpkins "Nan-nin" but the next night, they had turned back into "ball"s. Two things have put Noelle over the edge and petrified her this month and they include the person dressed as a giant penguin at Sea World and the pastor at Natalie's Christian preschool. All he had said to Noelle was "Well, hello there!" Her face crumbled into an expression that could fit someone who just lost a finger in a machine. I had flashbacks to the kid in "The Omen" (the devil as a child) when he realizes his parents intend to take him inside a church. Pretty funny really.

Now the month and alas the Halloween holiday season is coming to a close. Our Halloween parties are already done and soon trick or treating will be here and gone. My little spiders (they have spider costumes this year) will fill up their candy bags and then it will be all over. While part of me will be sad, the stores are already gearing up for Christmas and that will bring with it new and different holiday experiences. I must say though, there is simply nothing like Halloween.

Happy October Everyone!!