Miriam Turns Three!

We threw Miriam's first friend-invited birthday party this year.  So, of course, I went all out!

I had big dreams and lots to accomplish because of it.  Luckily, my friend, Heather, came to my rescue and pretty much made the entire birthday banner I had planned.  I think I glued a piece or two and helped hang it up!

I made my first fondant cake and my perfectionist self was actually pleased with the results.  Professional? No.  But pretty good for my first one!  

I was so worried that it would be a huge flop, but I also know that crafty stuff is my forte and I can usually make my creations appear decent despite first-times and other hiccups along the way.  The biggest hiccup with the cake was remaking the bow a second time after Miriam decided she wanted to eat the first one!  I was actually not upset although dad was not impressed when she pulled that one.  My first thought was , "Well, the first one wasn't very good anyway!  Now I can make a better one!"

For invited friends, we were following the family rule of inviting as many friends as years old the birthday person is turning.  So Miriam could invite three but I allowed four because she wanted her cousin Cassie to come and we didn't want little sister Katie to be left out.  Some other adult friends and family were invited too so the final guest list was: Grandpa, Grandma, "Uncle" Mike, "Aunt" Heather, cousin Cassie, cousin Katie, Aunt Tara, Hailey (and Dani - her mom), Elise (and Carolyn and Michael - her mom and brother), and Mom, Dad and Liesl, of course.  It was full house, but we made it work!

We started with a couple games.  The party theme was Minnie Mouse, so we the mice hunt for cheese to earn their Minnie ears.  

 

Then we had a dance-off doing the "Hot Dog Dance" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  

Then we sang to Miriam.  She blew her candles out and made a wish.  She doesn't really understand wishing yet, but she said she made one.  Funny girl!  And we ate cake.  It was dry.  Bummer.  

She opened her presents and boy was she spoiled this year.  

And then we sent everybody home!  But Owen and I were so exhausted by the end that neither of us wanted to make lunch, so we let Miriam pick a place....McDonald's, of course!

Miriam's Favorites - Age 3

Favorite Color: Red
Favorite TV Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Favorite Toy: Doll house people
Favorite Food: Cheese
Favorite Candy: Chocolate
Favorite Song: Popcorn Popping
Favorite Game: Animal matching
Favorite Book: Hop, Dance, Jump 
Favorite Holiday: Christmas
Favorite Animal: Fish
Who are your friends? cousin Ethan, cousin Kylie, Elise, Michael, Hailey (sorry other cousins, she only mentioned those two regardless of any coaxing)
What is something you like about Mom? Playing with the doll house
What is something you like about Dad? Playing with playdoh
What is something you like about Liesl? She makes me laugh

Dear Miriam,

Holy cow, kid!  I can't believe you've been here with us for three years already!  It seems like just yesterday you came and flipped my world upside down.  And while I feel like I'm pretty well used to motherhood, you still seem to flip my world upside down on a regular basis.

You are my guinea pig child.  I make lots of mistakes as your mother and I'm trying my best to learn from them so I can be the best mom for you.  You are an amazing little girl.  I feel so lucky to be your mom.  So lucky your little spirit came to our home.

You are very bright.  Your dad and I worry that you are already smarter than we are.  Sometimes we don't know what to do with you!  We'll keep trying to figure it out though and in the meantime you'll keep trying to outsmart us.  That's just who you are!  And you'll talk our ears off while you do it.

I love your sweet singing voice.  You have always picked up on melodies and rhythms very quickly.  I can usually sing a song once or twice and you will already be mimicking me.  You know more songs than I can count, and now that you are getting a little older you even make up your own.  You have started to get a little shy when I notice you singing and especially if someone other than mom and dad is around.  I hope you'll always sing for me, though.  I love to hear you sing!

I love watching your imagination work while you play.  It is especially evident when you are playing with people or animal toys.  You could have endless conversations with those toys.  Maybe I like it because it saves my ears some.  Sometimes I get to hear what mom and dad sound like to you.  I don't always love that truth.  Really, though, it is just fun to see what you come up with.

I love watching you be loving and kind with Liesl.  You have grown up a lot in the last year.  Some because you're just growing up and some because you are now a big sister.  Sometimes you fight and make mischief with and against each other, but at the end of the day you always want to give her hugs and kisses before bedtime.  She loves you a lot.

I love when you help me in the kitchen.  Mom and dad love to cook and you seem to be following in our footsteps.  You help pour ingredients in and then mix them up.  You even beat eggs just like we do too, breaking each yolk first and then whipping it altogether.

You have a creative little mind and I can't wait to see what the rest of your life holds.  I love you, beautiful!

Love,
Mom

Christmas Jammies

 I'm a plan-ahead kind of person, so when I found 2 pair footie-pajama sets for $5 last winter I snagged up a few in sizes to fit Liesl (who wasn't even born yet) this winter and Miriam this winter and next.  I figured they would make great Christmas presents.  Well, little did I know Miriam would go on a clothing strike a few months after buying these.  So, being stubborn, I gave her some anyway!

After Christmas I started putting Liesl in her new jammies and offered Miriam the chance a few times also.  She usually wanted to wear them, but by morning they had been stripped off and she was sleeping in just panties again.  Then about a week after Christmas, I went in one morning to get Liesl and found Miriam still  asleep, wearing her new jammies!  She woke up shortly after that and I peeked in later to find her still in the pajamas, reading books.

Man, I love this beautiful girl.

Christmas 2010

We spent Christmas in Idaho Falls this year at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We had Christmas Eve dinner with Grandma, Grandpa, Heidi, Kelly, Amber, Brianna, Jeremy, Tara, Dylan, Ethan, Cassie and Kate (plus our family, of course).  Then the grandkids each shared (Miriam sang Picture a Christmas) a talent and grandma told about Jesus' birth.  Our camera died about five lousy pictures in.

Christmas morning, Miriam woke Daddy up bright and early.  Once I got up, I showered and got ready (a must if you were raised in my family) then got Miriam ready.  By then Liesl was finally awake too so I got her ready and we Skype-d Grammy and Grampy in North Carolina.  We were lucky enough to do a 3-way video call with Uncle Craig, Aunt Heidi and Ethan too.  It was fun, but chaotic and very trying for Miriam to be patient opening presents even longer.

We opened all our presents from Santa and Owen's side of the family downstairs and then we went upstairs and opened everything else with my parents.  My family has always taken turns opening gifts, starting with the youngest, so everyone can see what everyone else gets.  Again, fun, but chaotic trying to get Miriam to be patient and wait for her turn again.

We plan on doing our own thing next year.  I want happy memories of Christmas with my kids, not stressed memories because they aren't following the rules or waiting for the internet connection to cooperate or someone on the computer to watch.  It's just too much work to be fun with all that!

Christmas Cookies

Where I grew up, it's customary to take gifts to your neighbors.  Not just a select group of special people, but pretty much everybody.  Often the gift is some sort of treat.

I always thought this was something everyone everywhere did.  Naive, sure.  Then one Christmas, Owen set me straight.  Apparently, it's more of a Mormon-bubble thing.  Figures.

Anyway, since I was craving a few of my family's traditional goodies anyway, I decided to make up plates for my neighbors with a little bit of everything on them: fudge, divinity and sugar cookies (which aren't really a favorite of mine, but I wanted Miriam to get a chance to sprinkle the tops of the cookies like I remember my mom always doing with my siblings and me around Christmas).  I was hoping to get truffles done too, but I just didn't have time.  I was glad I had opted out of that one by the time I finished the plates and was wondering what I was thinking making goodie-plates at all.

I let Miriam help cut out cookies and put sprinkles on.  She played in the sprinkles and ate the sprinkles and licked the sprinkles bottle.  Maybe that's why by the end I thought it was a dumb idea.  But really, she was pretty good for an almost three-year-old.

Really I probably ended up thinking it was a dumb idea because I had to deliver the cookies in the brr-freezing-cold.  I had the plates sitting on my table for a few days before I actually dragged myself out in the cold (with Owen and the kids too) to do it.  Either way, I'm sure I will forget by next year and I'll do all over again.  It's a fun tradition and makes for good memories!

Thanks to the Liesl Crawl

Liesl's funny crawling finally wore a hole in a pair of her jammies. 

She doesn't seem to care.

Good thing I like her more than I care about her clothes!

In any case, after 3 or 4 months of funny crawling she seems to have picked up on the normal crawl.  And she is quite afraid of standing unassisted, so walking will be a while.

Owen's a Certified Hippie Builder

On December 10th at o'dark thirty, Owen and I rudely woke up our sleeping babies so we could make a treacherous drive to Utah for Owen to take the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED - aka hippie) exam.  So few tests were offered in Pocatello that we decided we would just take a quick trip as a family to Salt Lake City rather than wait till the next semester for an open spot.  Luckily, after an hour of scary driving, we were blessed with dry roads for the rest of the trip.

We got to the University of Utah about two hours before he was scheduled to take his test and not knowing that they would have let him take it early we played around Salt Lake City for a little while.  Nothing fun enough that we thought to take pictures, of course, but entertaining enough to kill some time.  Drive through pretty, historic neighborhoods.  Walmart.  Find a McDonald's with a play place.  Then back to the U so Owen could take th test.  He had two hours alloted but only needed an hour.  I took the girls to McDonald's for lunch and let Miriam run around to get some energy out.  While we waited, I got the call; Owen was finished and he.....PASSED!  Woohoo!  I knew he would.  He hoped he would.  It was an expensive exam (not to mention, nerve wracking) so we are both grateful he doesn't have to do it again.  And now I can pick on him for being a hippie too!

Liesl's First Haircut

I gave Miriam her first haircut when she was eight months old.  Her hair was stick straight and it was super scraggly looking.  I waited a little longer with Liesl because her cute curls masked some of the scraggliness.  Even so, I decided that nine months was long enough to wait and that her hair needed some evening up.  

So, after her bath that's just what I did!  I sat her on the closed toilet lid and gave her a few distractions.

I combed and prepped.

Then snipped.  Yikes!

Too late to go back now!

It was a couple inches.  Probably everything she had at birth.

Phew!  It's always nerve wracking to cut a wiggly baby's hair (for me, at least).  But I'm happy I did it.  I think it looks much better.  

Miriam and Liesl Meet Santa

This year was Miriam's third Christmas and her first Christmas to meet Santa.  It's just never been a big priority to me and honestly I still have mixed feelings about Santa anyway.  But she is old enough that she knows who he is now (a guy dressed in red who brings her presents -- what else is there to know!) and one of my childhood friends had invited Santa to her house for a few hours one Saturday morning.  No lines.  No pressure to buy a lousy picture.  No stress if she freaked out and wanted nothing to do with him.  Perfect.  So we went and lo and behold, she ran right for his lap.

After a few seconds I realized her bulky winter coat was putting a serious damper on my cute pictures, so we fixed that and added Liesl to the mix.  Liesl just stared and stared at him.  I'm sure she was wondering who the crazy man she was sitting with was.  She didn't cry though; just watched.

 Miriam with a cheesy camera grin -- not even bothering to look at the camera either.

Our ward party was later that night and Santa showed up there too.  I think she was a little confused.  I could almost hear her thoughts, "Wait, that isn't Santa.  We saw Santa this morning and his beard was short and grey.  And he had glasses on.  Who is this guy?"  She wouldn't even go near him until I picked her up and took her there myself.

Oh, and this Santa is the first counselor in our bishopric.  I laughed pretty hard when his own kids were scared. to. tears. of him. It's hard for a little kid to see past the costume.  Reminds me of the Halloween incident.

The Liesl Crawl

Liesl's mobility started to really take off when she was 5 1/2 months.  That was when she mastered the roll, look and reposition.  It looked just likes it sounds.  She would find something she wanted and start rolling across the floor.  Then she would look to see where the thing she wanted was after she had moved a little.  Sometimes she was closer and sometimes not.  If she noticed she was heading in a wrong direction she would spin on her tummy so she was facing in a better direction.  It was pretty funny to watch.

After a few weeks of that, she started into the army crawl.  Or at least her version of an army crawl.  It is similar to the roll, look and reposition other than she stays on her tummy which also eliminates some of the need to look and find the object of her desire.  So, I suppose it should be called the pull and reposition.  But we just call it the Liesl Crawl.  At nine months old, she is still sticking with it.

A Real-Life Blizzard

I've lived in Idaho nearly all my life and the word blizzard is often thrown around in conjunction with any large-ish storm around these parts.  Mostly, I think, because we live in a culture which lacks vocabulary and deems it necessary to overstate.  Regardless of reason though, I cannot actually remember another time in my life that the National Weather Service has called for an actual BLIZZARD!  So, I thought it was kind of "fun".  Fun because:

• it was something new, exciting and noteworthy
• it was only supposed to last one day
• we weren't planning on going anywhere that day anyhow
• we live in a part of the country that is well-prepared for crazy storms so the roads would be taken care of soon after the storm died down -- on the highway and main roads, at least
• I have a nice, warm house to stay in when icky stuff like that is happening outside

This is the as much as the grounds crew did.  And despite the 40-50 mile an hour winds leaving huge snow drifts, they only came once.  This is what they left us with.

Notice the stairs with oh, six or so inches of snow on them still.  We live up those stairs.  Owen worked really hard all day to keep our walk clean so should we actually need to go anywhere we wouldn't slip and break our head open on the way to the car...or get our feet stuck in the snow.

And although I think the only reason the storm really qualified for a blizzard was because of the insane wind!  We did get a fair amount of snow, but not really anything that spectacular for around here.  After things died down a little, Owen managed to catch a shot of the sidewalk in front of our home though.  Check out that wall of snow!

Is it crazy that I consider that normal?

First Annual Gratitude Tree

Miriam is finally getting old enough to understand and enjoy little family traditions, so I've been picking through my brain and some of my favorite saved pictures/blogs/ideas/etc. to start some out during these fun autumn and winter holidays.  One tradition that we started November 1st was our Gratitude Tree.  It's really pretty simple, but for my records, here's how we do it (or did it this year, at least) -- Each family member chooses a different color for his/her leaves and every evening before family scriptures we each write something we are grateful for on the leaf and add it to the tree branches.  

I wanted to keep things simple so I just took a long sheet of butcher paper, hung it on the wall and painted a bare tree.  I went to the craft store and picked out some fall colored cardstock and found a cute maple leaf die cut and went to town, or rather Owen did because I was busy keeping kids happy.  Easy peasy.  

Here she is in all her glory.  We didn't make it quite to Thanksgiving because we are slackers and we were traveling a day or two before also.  Lame excuses.  

Here, in no particular order, is what made the list this year:

Owen
flyash (something construction-y -- don't ask, cause I don't know)
Miriam
guns
home
Mom and Dad
TV
eggs
money
modern-day revelation
Liesl
books
Haylee
cell phones
router
wood
movies
snow
BYU-Idaho
In-laws
Humidifiers

Haylee
Miriam
being raised in the gospel
temple covenants
Jesus Christ - my Savior
a home to clean
dishes to wash
healthy children
Liesl
heat
a helpful husband
good in-laws
the internet and the millions of ideas I get from other blogs and websites
gospel of Jesus Christ
scriptures
dishwasher
Owen
having a worthy Priesthood holder in our home
a clean kitchen
my talents
good parents

Miriam
snow
cheez-its
Mike Burns
Heather Burns
doors
church
Grandma and Grandpa
nursery teachers
Baby -- we've tried to get Miri to name her, but she insists that her name is "just Baby"
Pooh Bear
dollhouse
cousins
Mommy
Liesl
Grammy and Grampy
Daddy
chocolate
Ted, the bear
Scary Bear
blankie

Liesl didn't get leaves this year because she doesn't communicate more than a few words in babble and milk through sign.  Next year though, she'll have leaves up there with the rest of us.

As for next year, I plan to steal the way Owen's cousin, Danielle does a gratitude tree with her family.  Instead of doing only things they are grateful for, on one side of the leaf they write things they are thankful for and on the other an act of service they did that day, making it a Thanks and Giving tree.

Miriam loved to "write a leaf" every day so I'm excited to continue this tradition with the addition of service being incorporated.  I love traditions!!

Well...

...we're still here.  So, if you're wanting to know what we're up to these days, read on.

Owen's semester is coming to a close.  He's been studying like a mad man in preparation for his expensive hippie LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) exam next week.  He's nervous for it.  I know he will do great.  He isn't working this semester and we have loved having him around home more often.  Plus, he's doing really, really well in his classes since he can get everything done.

  

I've been busy with a million projects, as usual.  One of these days I'll learn that it's okay to not do everything or at least not possible, but as for now, I'm still trying.  Maybe that's why I caught my dad's cold during the Thanksgiving break.  I sound like a frog and a smoker.  Oh well.  :)  I also chopped my hair off recently.  And by recently, I mean in September.  

I love it and hate it all at the same time.  I've never had a haircut cause me an identity crisis until now.  I'm always back and forth between keeping it or growing it out again.  I'm getting it trimmed up again tomorrow, so for now it's staying.

We celebrated Halloween as clowns this year.  We went to a party at our friends house and then had Trunk or Treat with our apartment complex the next weekend.  It was fun and exhausting.  Such is the life of a mom when any holiday rolls around I suppose.

Our friends and hosts, Evan and McKenzie dressed up as Alice in Wonderland characters.  

Miriam was NOT a fan of the Mad Hatter and even pointed Evan out at church the next day scared that he would turn around and still have big, bushy, orange eyebrows.  So, that's the reason for the face she's pulling in all the pictures.

 And, as mentioned already, I've been doing lots of projects.  Owen's clown pants were one of them.

We celebrated Thankgiving at my parents and ate too much.  But it was all really, really good food!!  I'm regretting it this week though.  Hopefully I will be able to beat this cold and get back on track with my exercise...and blogging too, of course.  But I don't really need to be able to breathe to do that.