Last year we went completely Crazytown buying Christmas presents for Bridget. She was only two, so we knew we weren't setting a precedent that she would remember. This year we had Santa bring her a microwave for her kitchen, a Mulan doll and a Shen doll. That's what she asked for (a few months ago) and that's what she got. (Shen promptly broke his leg Christmas morning. That guy cannot catch a break! Wait, yes he did.)

I found a sweet little music box at Disneyland (the kind with a dancer that pops up when the box is open - the dancer is a Disney princess) and a necklace with a crown charm. Since we had just been to Disneyland, I decided to save this gift for Bridget's Christmas present from me.

Since Bridget is so into tents right now - she uses all our throws and extra blankets and drapes them over the furniture - Brian bought her a princess tent. I was picturing a small pink tent with images of princesses on it. Here is what it looks like in real life:
Ah! It's HUGE! And so very very pink! Of course Bridget is inside, wearing her Halloween costume (a Cinderella dress). When I saw it set up it occurred to me that we may have crossed the line. There is too much princess stuff in the house.

I didn't put up a picture of Bridget in her Halloween costume?! That's not right.
I watched the fairy godmothers at Disneyland while they did Bridget's hair so that I could recreate it for Halloween. I love how she's holding her hands in this photo.

The day after Christmas I found a great deal on some princess Christmas tree ornaments. When they get here, we can open up our Disney Princess store. Sigh.

Something To Do While We Wait

Even when I was a teenager I found myself thinking about what I could do to prepare to be a really good mother. I looked at the women in my life and what I admired in them and tried to learn how to do the stuff I saw them doing. My Mom is a great cook. Actually, my Mom is great at a lot of things. She makes being a homemaker art. When you think about it, having an organized and beautiful home is art. It's not easy to do. Anyway, I learned how to cook, can fruit, play the piano, organize the house - all from my Mom.

My Mom can also sew. She makes clothes, curtains, pillows, etc. She doesn't quilt, but I still wanted to know how to make heirloom quilts because my Great Grandma Rhoda did. She did everything by hand and would have the quilt frames up in her living room for weeks while she worked on them. I've decided to take a modern approach because I am a chicken and I want to make a lot of quilts (one for every niece and nephew when they get married, for starters). I finished my first major quilt for Brian's parents' Christmas present. I was done early enough that I made a couple of table toppers with scraps. (I have a lot of scraps. Fabric collectors refer to that as their "stash." I make and sell car seat canopies, so I have a stash that is starting to get out of control.) I pieced these things together myself, but I send them to a long-arm quilter for the quilting portion. (My sewing machine can handle really small stuff - like oven mitts or place mats. Ha! Oven mitts - I should make some of those.)

Anyway! Heirloom quilting is something I learned how to do in 2009. It has helped me take my mind off waiting for another baby and given me something worthy and meditative to do during "down" times. We've informed Bridget that she will need to have a lot of kids because Brian and I are going to be AWESOME at the grandparenting stuff. :) Here are some of my Christmas projects:

A table runner for my sister, Allyn.

A table "topper" for my sister-in-law, Diana. (There is a drop of my blood on this one. Quilting is a lot more vicious than you would think.)

Another table "topper" (with a cake pedestal, which I didn't make) for my Mom. She's a piano teacher, too. Perfect for her recitals. :)

Last, but not least, a queen-size Double Wedding Ring Quilt for Brian's parents.

Christmas Tree

We bought a new Christmas tree this year. We went with a fake one again. If that sounds a little Scrooge-y, it really isn't. For our first few Christmases together, Brian and I would buy a real tree. They always died before Christmas day and they are expensive. Double boooo. Five years ago we bought a huge fake tree because we have vaulted ceilings, so I thought we needed a huge tree. No, we actually just needed a tall one. I forgot how small our front room is. So this year we have a tall skinny tree! Hooray! Now it looks like we have a lot of ornaments. :)

Speaking of ornaments... Other than the ornaments I bought in sets of eight (red balls, gold balls, gingerbread ladies and gingerbread stars, and glittery "toys") for our first Christmas tree, our tree is decorated with ornaments we collect during the year. Sometimes we pick one up even though we're not on vacation - like the Cuckoo Clock I got while I was shopping with my Mom in Midway.

Most of the time, though, we get our Christmas tree ornaments during a trip. We go to North Carolina to visit family more often than any other destination, so we have several ornaments from there. My two favorites are the lighthouse we picked up in the summer of 2001 when my entire family stayed in a beach house for a week. Last year we went to North Carolina for an almost-family reunion (my sister, Makenzie, and her family couldn't come) and found a beautiful gold pine cone while shopping around Chapel Hill. In October 2003 I took a solo trip to North Carolina to visit with each of my sisters for a few days. (At the time four of them lived in different cities within the state. Now only one sister lives there.) While I was staying with Allyn in Winston-Salem, she took me to "Old Salem." It's just a street, really, but it's all decked out the way it looked 200 years ago. I picked up several Moravian star ornaments. (Allyn's oldest girl is pretty loud and I still have a clear memory of her shouting from the back of the van, "IS THIS OLD SALEM?" She didn't want to miss it. Hilarious.)

For Bridget's first Christmas, Brian's Mom gave her an ornament. I was so happy to get that for our tree. I'd been looking for one for months, but somehow Grandma found the perfect one. Bridget loves to visit it and she has finally stopped taking it off the tree. :)

Thanksgiving Traditions

My family lived far away from us for the first 9 years we were married, so we've spent most of our Thanksgivings with Brian's family. We were married the day after Thanksgiving in 1996, so it's a nostalgic holiday for us in many ways. Now that we've had a chance to spend Thanksgiving with my family (my parents live in Idaho now and we spent Thanksgiving with them in California and Utah over the last 4 or 5 years) we've discovered that our wedding was one of their most memorable Thanksgivings as well. They like to remind us that they ate Thanksgiving dinner on the plane and had to drive all the way to Manti in a snow storm. Thank goodness they also like to eat pie all day instead of just for dessert. :)

My first few Thanksgivings with Brian's family were different - in good ways and not-so-good ways. Football is almost a religion with his family and they kept the TV on during dinner with the volume up high enough for everyone to hear. This year my Dad and brothers were watching West Side Story just before and right after dinner. Hopefully you don't have to know me very well to know which of those situations I find more disturbing. Brian's family used to have store-bought rolls and pies. My Mom had approximately 2 pies per person, all homemade, when we went to their house in California in 2003. We eat early at Brian's parents' house so that we can eat all day and maybe take a nap. Somehow we didn't get to the crackers and cheese ball at my parents' house this year until 10:00 at night. (The top photo is Bridget sitting in her place waiting to eat. She went around the house telling everyone, "IT'S TIME TO EAT!" for about half an hour before we actually ate.)

My Thanksgiving "assignment" is pecan pie and for the last three years I've also made the sweet potato souffle. I've never liked sweet potatoes, but my sister, Katy, gave me the recipe for the souffle and now I love it. What a shocking surprise that all I had to do was add sugar and butter and milk and nuts... I guess not so shocking. :)

First Post and Halloween

We're finally doing a first post! Our purpose in starting this blog is to have an up-to-date place for birth parents and case workers to come and learn more about us. We've called it The Open Book because we hope to be open about our lives and what it's like to be part of our family. Brian and I both will be posting things and maybe I'll take dictation from Bridget once in a while, too. :) Each post will have a label and when we have more posts, you can look up the subjects you're interested in knowing more about. If you have questions for us, please leave them in the comments or e-mail us if you're more comfortable.

Halloween has really turned into our favorite time of year. Before we had children we were Hallowienies. Brian and I wore costumes one year in the ten we had before Bridget. For a few years we even turned off the lights and pretended we weren't home for Trick-or-Treaters. (Ah! I can't believe that now. Except that we were living on a busy street and the kids who came to the door were all over 12 years-old and dressed in a football jersey for their costume. I have a hard time rewarding such lame costumes.)

Bridget was born June 25, 2006. That Halloween we dressed her like a baby elephant and took her all over the place to get the maximum laughs out of the situation. Who knew it was so funny to have a baby look confused about what they were wearing and wondering why everyone was laughing? Not us.

The next year we borrowed a Pocahontas costume from one of Brian's cousins. That was the year my youngest sister had a baby boy, Gabriel (or Graybiel, as Bridget says it), on October 30th. We went to the hospital to see them on Halloween. In addition to taking Bridget to all the spots to show her off and get candy for ourselves, of course. The funniest part of the 2007 Halloween was that Bridget wanted to wear her costume. I saw some of her friends pulling things off their heads, but Bridget was careful to keep the headband on.

I feel like a real Mom this year because I made Bridget's costume. This is a huge turning point for me - I'm almost 35 years-old and I've never made a Halloween costume! I'm not a great seamstress (I do more quilting than clothes sewing), but I'm so proud of Bridget's costume. (I would like to be better at sewing. It's hard right now because the office/sewing room is under construction in the basement and when I sew I have to get all my stuff out in the dining room. Bridget picks up my fabric scraps and puts them on the sewing maching when I turn my back. Helpful. :)) We're looking forward to taking Bridget to Brian's work and trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and at Grandma's house. We even went into American Fork Canyon a few days ago to get some location appropriate photos of her in her costume. So I guess we've gone from zero to crazy parents in just three years, eh? I'm already planning for next year. :) Now THAT'S scary.