Just-the-Look-at-Baby-Jesus

I always enjoy decorating for Christmas. Especially once it's all done and the house is so cozy and festive. This year we've had the added aesthetic bonus of a real wood burning fire since removing our gas logs a couple of weeks ago. (Might sound like a strange thing to do, but whenever we turned the gas logs on, the whole house would smell strongly of gas. Gas company said there was no leak, but clearly something was wrong. Then last summer we had to take a tree down, which gave us lots of really nice cherry wood, so those two things combined convinced us to go old school. :)

Anyway, back to Christmas decorating...

Eliana loves to play with the Little People Nativity that my cousin gave her for her first birthday. Every year I've been putting it away around the end of January, so it's like a new toy again as Christmas approaches. My mom collects Nativity Sets, so at her house, many of them are not so playable...this led to Eliana saying, "Oma, I want to see 'just-the-look-at-Baby-Jesus'."

Eliana's THREE!

Saturday, November 29th, Eliana turned 3 years old. She had lots of fun at her "My Little Pony" Birthday party with friends and family. This marked the first year she blew out her candles all by herself! It was a fun weekend, and I'll post more later...

another Mr. & Mrs. Perkins!

Congratulations, Dan and Amy!

Two weekends ago we traveled to Amy's home town, Lancaster, Ohio, for Dan and Amy's wedding. It was a beautiful weekend with gorgeous, warm, weather. We spent a few hours Friday enjoy the wonderful fall day at a great park. The rehearsal dinner was on Halloween night, so we let Eliana dress as Snow White. The wedding day was equally beautiful. Stu and I were both attendants, and Eliana was the flower girl. She was very excited about her role and had been practicing her "flower girl walk" for weeks. When the moment came, she threw the first few petals, but then sat down in the isle to play with them. It took a little coaxing, but she made it the rest of the way, followed by the beautiful bride. There's lots of pics here if you're interested.

Guess Who's Thirty?!

Happy Birthday, Stuart! I love you!!

2-year-old Etiquette

I'll be posting more about our trip to Ohio and my bro-in-law's wedding (with pics!), but right now (since I'm at school and supposed to be working) I just wanted to tell you a quick story about our trip that I found amusing. Hopefully you will too...

The morning of the wedding we went down to the hotel lobby for breakfast (the free kind :). Eliana was enjoying her "vacation breakfast" of fruit loops, and ate them all. Of course she had a big bowl of milk left, and proceeded to pick it up and drink the milk. She got a quick rebuke from my mother-in-law. Grandma was appalled that Eliana would drink her milk from her bowl! What really made it funny to me was: 1. Stuart had just done the exact same thing, but his mom hadn't noticed, and 2. the look on Eliana's face. She had a mix of surprise, shame, confusion, and regret that I just can't quite communicate. Trust me, it was priceless. Like a good little girl, she set her bowl down. She asked me later why Grandma had gotten upset with her, and I guess I un-did the etiquette lesson, because I told her it was okay to drink her milk from her bowl. In the realm of "picking your battles", for me, this is definitely not one of them!

Persimmons

It's not often I get to try something new, but the other day a co-worker of mine brought me a bag of persimmons harvested from a tree in her backyard. She had to explain to me what they were! I've done a little research... Persimmons are an Asian fruit, not common to the United States and grow only in a few places on the east coast and California. They are a fall fruit, harvested October - December, and provide important nutrients like beta-carotene, Vitamin C and potassium. Orange colored when ripe, Fuyu persimmons can be eaten out of hand like an apple or pear, and there isn't any need to peel them. The California Grower's Association described them as crisp like an apple, sweet like a pear. You can let persimmons ripen until soft (fully orange) and use as a puree for baking or sauces, or make easy sorbet by just freezing and then peeling. Its flavor reminded me a bit of pumpkin - very fall tasting! - so adding nuts, raisins, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc. when cooking would be a nice compliment.

Swimming in October!

We haven't gotten around to closing the pool yet, so today Eliana decided to take advantage. She had been playing outside and it was quite warm, so I figured, why not? She wanted me to swim with her, but there's just something not right about swimming in October.

Yeah, that's a leaf floating in the pool with her...