It was a white 29th of December! We got a bit of the snow storm that blew through this neck of the woods. It was truly delightful! It is the first snow I have seen that actually stayed around more than 30 minutes!
Erik took Alyssa outside for just a second, and they brought me back some snow. Before I knew it we were all outside building snowmen together! Alyssa and I built a little one and Erik built one as tall as himself...until it fell over. The snow was perfect. We had so much fun! I am grateful for those little moments we have together! I am also grateful for the beauty of snow in small, delightfully fluffy quantities.
Unfortunately Alyssa does not wear her mittens. She doesn't seem to mind though, and we did not stay out for too long.
Our Rastafarian snowman. (Hat courtesy of Ben's Hat Making Skills)
I add this picture for my blog-to-book ambition. I want to remember what my "titles" were. Giving your blog a make over is like rearranging the furniture in your house. Maybe you don't do it very often. I sure can't anymore, but when I had my own room I rearranged my furniture probably once a month. This is pretty difficult to do when your bedroom is as big 10' X 8'. It was easier when I had a twin bed, but when I upgraded to a full...whoo. I remember finding myself surrounded by a huge mess and wondering how I was going to get out of the room since the dresser was in front of the door. (Thanks Mom and Dad for taking the carpet out of my room!) And when I had a twin bed, it was a day bed, the kind with 3 headboards so when I wanted to put my bed in the middle of the room I had to take of the long headboard. But I loved doing it. It was the only true way to clean my room. REARRANGEMENT! It felt so fresh when all was said and done and it allowed my chi to find new paths, to grow and expand! That's also what giving your blog a makeover feels like. So fresh. Go chi.
How was your Christmas? Ours was fantastic. We had a jolly time. Alyssa didn't wake up early enough, so I had to go help her along around 8:30 AM. She was super impressed with her stroller and she likes her chair. She received many wonderful gifts and we are having so much fun playing with them!
Taking advantage of our Delawarian position we drove to Washington's Crossing, PA and saw a "reenactment" of Washington crossing the Delaware. I just have to say that the actors' gumption wasn't quite what it would have been for Washington and his men. They didn't quite make it across the river as in they didn't cross at all because the current was too strong. But it was a moment to add to our eternity. Alyssa saw some white, curly-haired dogs and thought they were sheep. So we petted the sheep.
Those boats weigh 6000 lbs!
After WC we talked to Elder Nelsen on google+. It was really fun to see him and hear about his adventures. He is doing really well. Time sure has flown by, but he still has so long. Yet, it will fly still.
It was fun being in charge of our own Christmas. We opened a present on Christmas Eve because we wanted to and we ate lots of sugar. Our house was an utter disaster...packing peanuts everywhere (which turned out to be Alyssa's first favorite toy). But we had fun and joy and we were so blessed to be able to still see our families despite the miles that separate us.
Thank you to everyone who helped make our Christmas so merry this year!
We took a little travel over to Philadelphia and went to the Christmas light show in Macy's on Market Street. Julie Andrews was the narrator, which makes all things splendid. Alyssa really enjoyed it. There was a big tree in the middle of this light show that had different colored lights and then fun little lights lit up here and there, all around the square as a story was told.
We also walked through Dicken's Village and we were reminded of the tale of A Christmas Carol. A very good book. It gets me in the right ol' mood for the holidays by reminding me that I shan't be a Scrooge, but she rather try to be a Tiny Tim.
I am grateful Erik and I have so much time with Alyssa. We are learning every day how to be better parents. There are some really challenging moments, but they all seem so small compared to the good times. Erik, in particular, is very good at playing with Alyssa. I had no idea that I picked such a great father for my children when I married him. I knew he would be good, but I didn't know he would be this good. I am grateful for all he does for myself and mostly for Alyssa.
After writing about my predicament, I thought maybe I should try uploading pictures again and check on my allotted amount of pictures space. And miracle of miracles, they increased my storage to 5 GB since last time I posted pictures!!! Maybe they saw my sincere effort to delete all unnecessary pictures and gave me a gift for those efforts.
Now, here are some pictures.
I know the lighting is really bad, but Alyssa is HILARIOUS. She just started smiling for pictures again.
Alyssa and were having our normal popcorn snack and Alyssa had gone into the kitchen to get more popcorn. She was taking kind of a long time and being kind of quiet and I went in to find THIS! DUMPING salt on our popcorn. Now, Dad might say she got this from me, but I really did not teach her this! Also, she knows the salt settles to the bottom of the bowl because she wipes her pieces of popcorn along the bottom before eating them. She is a smart, smart girl!
Check out that left over salt!
Here is one of Alyssa's Christmas dresses. She looks so elegant. It's practically like we live the Downton Abbey life. (Ha. Sorry. I just had to put a little plug for that in here because I've been watching it a lot and...stuff.)
Her hair was perfect that day, and I didn't even try. Many people at church were impressed and I was just grateful we made it to church dressed!
In other news, Christmas is coming. If you want to get in to the Christmas spirit, read the Ensign for December...and your heart will be touched. The stories are quite heart wrenching, actually. I shed a few tears.
I had a clever title. But now I can't remember it. I have been playing catch up the last few days and I have a renewed desire to stay caught up. It does not take long to write a little diddy everyday. And when you take almost a picture a day and your daughter is growing every single minute, it is a necessity! With only one daughter this is more of a possibility. I am sure when more kids come it will be much more difficult to keep this going all the time. But for now, I will try.
I love to take snapshots throughout the day to remember the things Alyssa does. On these two days she was doing two of her favorite things:
1. Wearing her tutu and flipping through books
2. Lounging in the chair (which is now covered with her boogies from rubbing her nose on it as she climbs up) with her pretzels and drink (I'm pretty sure she has eaten half of her weight in pretzels.)
We have started Christmas celebrating. I have been struggling a bit with tradition making and finding my perfect Christmas. Thankfully I read last years Christmas Devotional talk by President Uchtdorf today and he reminded me that Christmas need not be perfect. It should be joyous, wonderful, and filled with love. So we are trying.
We went to a little Christmas Fest thing that was kind of a bust if I might be honest. It was in a small store, which I thought it would be outside, that was very crowded and noisy. So, we went over to our friend's yogurt shoppe instead where there was hot cocoa and kids crafts (a planned overflow from the Christmas Fest). Alyssa even wrote her first letter to Santa...that is what she is trying to open in the picture.
We also put up our Christmas tree and some lights. Alyssa loves the lights and wants them plugged in as soon as she wakes up or as soon as we get home and then as soon as I plug them in she says a variation of "oo la la"! It's quite funny and I am always so excited to plug them in for her.
*Note, the video is a little long, but it is part of my new attempt to also have our family videos be accessible. You are witnessing the Archibald Family Journal Project in action, Someday it will get better.*
(Erik preempted me on this post by proof of concept for text blogging. I had already started this post, though.)
Alyssa has taken a liking to the kitchen sink. I think it started with me letting her have a chair in the kitchen which has led to her "helping" a lot more. She stood at the sink for 30 + minutes on Sunday night. She loves the bubbles and filling up measuring cups and pouring them into things. Just watch...and enjoy!
Secondly: The Piano. Our good friends gave us their piano and Alyssa loves to play it! She will sit down and turn the pages and plunk the notes and pat the bench so I can come sit next to her while she plays.
Alyssa loves to play with cups of water in the sink. She dumps water from one thing to another with an unshakeable focus. She also loves bubbles and the soap sponge too. To our chagrin she also occasionally gets herself a drink of dirty water.
How long does it take you to whip up breakfast when a batch of pancakes is in order? Not that long, right? Unless you are privy to this:
PANCAKE CREATIONS!!!!
Our pancakes will never be the same ol' boring circles with Erik in the house. He has mastered the art of pancake cars, buses, fish, cats, hearts, and trees. I thought snowmen and Mickey Mouse was impressive when I was growing up, but I guess I was wrong! Oh, the possibilities are endless!
Alyssa particularly loves them. She likes cars most of all. She's a fine connoisseur of pancakes.
From the University of Delware we can borrow a camera. And when we have this camera we take photo shoots. This shoot is from a day in October. We went to old New Castle and looked at the Delaware river. Alyssa had fun picking up rocks and throwing them and playing in the dirt.
We found some bricks there. Either a ship carrying bricks caught fire and washed up on shore or there was a building made of bricks that fell down along the shore. We haven't solved the mystery but it was cool to see a piece of history. It makes you wonder what happened her so long ago!
I know Halloween has long since come and gone, but I just had to share a little pic or two from it! I wanted to take advantage of Alyssa's red curls for her costume and I decided a lion would do just the trick!
I crocheted the ear head band and make the skirt from elastic and scraps of fabric I had around the house. She was a very cute little lion!
At the last minute Erik and I decided to dress up, too. Dorothy, the Scare Crow, and the Cowardly lion made an appearance at our ward party! We took Alyssa to a few of the cars and she even tried to say trick or treat! She loves candy and Erik is her giver of candy. I'm afraid if I ever give her any she will ask me for it all day everyday!
