Merry Christmas

A little blurry, but cute, right?

Just thinking about how to solve the world's ills.

Cora and Mary with cousins (Sophie and Jaxon)

This year marks the addition of our sweet little Mary Adele. She’s six months old now, which has gone by with hardly a blink, and we’re already sad at the prospect of our baby growing up. Recent accomplishments include eating rice cereal and mashed bananas, growing a new tooth, and trying really hard to NOT be adorable—but failing miserably! Mary looooves her older, more accomplished sister, Cora, and constantly hopes for any glimmer of a chance that Cora will pay attention to her or perform for her in some way.

Cora is good at making up songs, dancing in her “butterfly” dress, and finding a million ways to entertain Mary. Her favorite game is playing “boo!” to see if she can get a giggle out of Mary. Often times she is successful. Cora is currently potty training and that is going well (finally!). She is becoming such a big girl—we don’t know whether to throw a party or a funeral! She’ll be 3 in February and already does so many big kid things: she likes to feed Mary and change her diapers and often volunteers for tough jobs like sweeping the floors and doing the laundry—with mom’s help. Oh, and this year at our church Christmas program Cora sang Silent Night all by herself. In a microphone. We could almost hear it. (I think she got a little shy.)

Oh, also, Cora is afraid of hair and melted cheese--because they both wiggle and could "get" her.

Chad is still working for Accelerated Care Plus as a Business Analyst, which is a good fit, though he is always looking for ways to expand on what he is doing. As a rule of thumb, Chad will always enjoy sports, sweets and good business ideas. Any combination or permutation of those three things and he is doing just fine. If the fountain of youth were taking applicants, Chad would be at the top of the list just so he could play sports forever, and he will most likely own his own ski slope, tennis court and baseball diamond by the time he is 50.

I am busy as ever being a happy little mama. It’s so much fun watching the girls grow and learn. I always wonder what they will be like when they get older, but I try to just appreciate the small and tender moments we have while they are little. Sometimes those moments are anything but tender, and sometimes they are nothing but! I’ll take what I can get. New news on the Becky Farm is that I’m a Pampered Chef consultant! It’s been really enjoyable and I am lucky to have something I can do a few times a month just for fun. I recently got a new website that you can check out at your leisure (wink wink…) www.pamperedchef.biz/fishbein and let me know if there is anything I can get for you or party I can throw for you to earn your own free products!

We are happy to have this time of year to celebrate the birth of our Savior—especially that He has made it possible for us to be a family forever, which is one of the greatest blessings of all. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you have many merry Christmases to come.

Diapers, snaps and bananas

Mary started eating solids this week. I think she's been fantasizing about it for a few weeks now because she went at it like a natural. It was no sweat even with the first bite! She just gobbled down her rice cereal and mashed banana and said, "more please" with her eyes. And her mouth. And her hands. She's been grabbing at my food and dishes for the last month or so, but I put off the transition for a few reasons (mainly because I just didn't want to see my baby grow up, but also because I didn't want the stinky diapers. I know, I'm totally selfish).

But now that we've ventured into the "solids" realm, it's kind of fun. Hopefully it stays that way! I've been giving her tastes of things we have at the table tentatively hoping it might broaden her palate for future meals in the Fishbein household. She loves to "sample" carrots, apples, bananas, teething biscuits--maybe because they are all great chew toys, now that I think of it. But still. Even Cora feeds her without a fuss. I think she even does a better job at it than I do!

New topic. Kind of. Cora said the cutest thing today when Mary was nursing. She looked at Mary and said to me, “When my a mommy, I’m gunna feed Mary too.” It was soooooo cute how she just wanted to take care of her and be a big girl all at the same time. She actually knows how to change Mary’s diaper almost all on her own by now, and she’s not even three yet! Just REALLY motivated. As in, she throws a mega tantrum if I try to change Mary's diaper without her help. If she knows I'm upstairs doing it on my own, she comes peeling up the stairs and yelling, "wait mommy! Wait for me! I wanna open the diaper. I wanna do the wipes!" This morning Cora and Mary were lying on the floor next to each other in pajamas, and I asked Cora if she could unbutton some of Mary's snaps to get things started while I looked for some clothes for her to wear.

After half a minute I turned around and saw Mary there wiggling around on the floor without p.j.’s or a diaper. Just skin! Cora got some of her snaps undone all right! She also got Mary's arms and legs out and her diaper off, and I never heard Mary make a peep. That was the funniest part!

Pretty soon Cora will be changing her diapers, giving her baths and feeding her, and I’ll be out of a job! (If she could just be that motivated about potty training...)

I Have Hands

Mary has been discovering the five-fingered toys she came with called hands.

Recent discoveries:

• If she hides her hands from herself and pops them back up, they are still there! But just to be sure, she wiggles them and moves them around. Yup. Those are the same ones.
• If she pats them on things--the table, the high chair, Cora's head--then it makes different sounds and probably feels different too.
• If she is holding onto a toy, she has figured out that she has to let go of it if she wants to pick up a different one.
• Her FAVORITE thing to grab is hair. It's so soft and easy to pull.
• Her second favorite thing to grab are her feet--so soft and squishy and wiggly too!

A dead mouse or other uncertain specimen

It's a little gross, so don't read this while eating anything, but there seems to be a dead something rotting in my kitchen walls. I only barely noticed the smell a couple days ago and thought it must just be "leftovers" from Thanksgiving lingering in the garbage or the sink, but I could never quite find the source. Each day it kept getting a little stronger, and last night I was so sick to my stomach (with disgust and worry) that I almost told Shelly to delay her visit for a day while I got an exterminator on the problem. This morning I woke up with a resolve to spend the day at my sister-in-law's house (and stop for breakfast on the way) so we wouldn't have to spend one single minute in the house or near the contaminated kitchen. I could even smell the stench from all the way upstairs in my bedroom as I was waking up, and I marveled at how quickly it had permeated the house in so little time, but as I went downstairs to get my phone so I could call the exterminator I couldn't smell anything. I was still tense as I calculated the potential bill that would ensue with having to tear open the wall and seal it back up again, but to my great surprise when I got to the kitchen, there was no smell. I literally inched my way toward the stove cupboards where the problem originated, but I still couldn't smell anything.

My mom was over for a little visit today and just to be sure I wasn't imagining things I had her take a whiff of the cupboards beneath the stove. She curled her nose up and made a gag face. So I wasn't imagining things. I don't know why I could "smell" it up in my room, but I think I dreamt about it, so it was probably just lingering from my subconscious. I don't know. Call it a miracle, or call it really hungry worms (did I gross anyone out with that?), but the smell is mostly gone now. I'm just really happy it's "died" down--punn intended for sure. Hopefully I won't have to pay for an exterminator after all.

I'll just burn a cinnamon candle in the meantime. Can't wait for Shelly to get here! Yum!

Mahalo and Aloha!

Chad is in Hawaii with his sister Kristi this week, so Cora, Mary and I are having a big long Girls' Night Out! But tonight we were feeling especially lonesome with our Chad gone, so when I put Cora to bed I told her she could say a prayer and it would help her feel better. I gave her some ideas on what to say, and her prayer ended up going something like this:

"Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day. Thank you that mommy isn't crying and that she got the monster today. Please help me to be happy, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

I'm not sure which monster she was talking about, or what she meant by me crying (we did cry on the way home from the airport yesterday when we dropped Chad off. Maybe that's what she was referring to.)

I think she felt better after saying her prayer, but I know I did.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine dry ingredients:
2 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
a shake or two of pumpkin pie spice (optional)

In another bowl, beat wet ingredients together:
1 cup pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Combine dry and wet ingredients.

Add chocolate chips to your delight. (Too many might distract from the subtle pumpkin flavor)

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 13-15 minutes. (Altitude tip: 345 for 13 minutes was PERFECT for my oven...)

Soooooo yummy!

October was FUN!

October was fun! That's all I have time to write. Enjoy the pics!

October 2009