How'm I doing?!

Grandpa Z. came to town!! George turned 8 and was going to get baptized. That's a big deal in our world, so George wanted it properly noted. He started Skpying Grandpa Z. some many months ago asking him if he'd come out for it. And true to his word, on January 7th, two days before the baptism, Grandpa appeared at our doorstep (if only it had been that easy)!




Just in time for Grandpa's arrival, the temperatures dropped down to like 7 degrees. But something had to be done, Grandpa was here! So on Friday after only a half day of school, the kids were rescued from their classrooms and we braved the elements and found ourselves at our favorite sledding hill.





Then Saturday rolled around with it's three basketball games, and the baptism! We were running to and fro literally all day long.







George played a piano piece that he had been practicing all week long. My dad and I both gave talks, and there were more people there than I ever would have guessed would show up at 4pm on a FREEZING Saturday afternoon. I was moved several times throughout the whole experience.

One, with the fact that my dad was there.

Two, with the fact that so many came to show their love and support of our family.

Three, with how wonderful of an experience it has been for our family to live way over here in Korea for these past couple of years.

Four, with how mature and grown up George was taking in the whole event.

And Five, that it was perfect. I wouldn't have changed anything (oh yeah, except for how crowded the tiny room was that we were using. We could have moved to a bigger room had we known that so many would show up!). It was so lovely, so wonderful, the Spirit was so strong and I was so proud of George.

And that sums it up for the most part. We came home from the baptism, dumped our stuff off and headed out the door AGAIN to see "The Princess and the Frog". Then Sunday came and went in a blink. And finally Monday where Grandpa sprung the kids from school once again to go bowling! Who ever heard of such shenanigans all taking place during school hours?!

On Monday night as everyone was going to bed, each kid expressed how quickly the past five days went by with grandpa in town, and how sad they were they he had to leave. Ruby asked him more than once if he would miss his plane. I guess they are all feeling the affects of living so very far away!

But, my friends, we are rapidly approaching our time when our Korean experience will be mentioned in the past tense. It's remarkable. And just when I thought January and February might drag by, January is nearly half over, and February is showing no signs of taking it's time.

I had three goals for this day of "life getting back to normal". One was to run! I have no more excuses! I must be consistent from here on out if I'm going to be ready to hit a marathon anytime this late spring or early summer.

Secondly, I had to get these shoes listed on Ebay.



Darin bought them a few months ago, and they didn't fit! They've been sitting around for quite a while now. Do you need a pair of brand new, brown leather Danskos? If so, go check out our auction...I'm even offering FREE SHIPPING! I feel our 1900 square foot apartment shrinking by the day. It's time to clear things out!


And finally, it was to get the blog updated again. So much happens so fast, I am surely going to be forgetting the details!


So that's not too bad for my first day back into a "normal" routine. I hope the rest of the week can be equally productive! I've got big, big ideas (but what's new?!)




P.S. Are you admiring the table runner that the Danskos are sitting on?! I sure have been. As soon as the Christmas sewing season ended, I was able to get to a few of my own projects that have been sitting around far too long. The table runner was one:



My "Krazy About Korea" quilt was another:

front.

back.

And the "RubyJane Dress" that has been floating around in my mind forever, was the third:

Original design, by ME. Sewn and created by, ME. Nothing so amazing as seeing my originally designed and created dress being worn by:

Jane.

Too bad her eyes closed. Some moments you never get back! Now onto the RubyJane Dress #2! It could be huge...maybe less poofy sleeves....maybe a pocket...maybe a different length...or a ruffle. I'm loosing sleep over it. Probably should just bring it to life!

over-and-out.

Wrapping Up 2009

The day after Christmas to carry on the tradition started last year, we set out for our favorite Bulgo gi House, Sam Il's. Imagine our confusion when we arrived and were met with the following sign:

Dear Sam Il's-

Will I ever dine in your fine restaurant again? It remains unclear to me.

Yours truly,
Annee

We ended up at another Bulgo gi house. But It wasn't the same. A day or so later, we decided it was time for Darin to stick his feet in the fishy water. Nothing says "Happy New Year" like having fish eat your feet:

I remain now the photographer for this activity. That's my preferred way of participating, thank you very much.

Did I mention that Ruby and Jane got an Easy Bake Over for Christmas? If you saw that one coming, I'm not surprised. It seemed inevitable that one of those would find it's way to our house.

Let me just say, you haven't really known a good time until you've Easy Baked with these little Ladies. And let me also add that there is really nothing "easy" about it. NOTHING. I think we've sampled everything now, at least once. I feel round two coming on very soon.

New Years Eve found us playing games with some friends until late at night, and eating breakfast around 10pm. But midnight was not going to happen for us, so we loaded the kids up and came back home. After getting the girls tucked away in bed, and dreaming of a quiet night of reminiscing with the Major, the boys somehow talked their parents into getting to stay up until midnight. And though I wasn't 100% in the mood for it, I caved in upon remembering my own first time staying up until midnight on New Year Eve, and remembering how for a kid it actually feels like, something. So at midnight I shoved them out on the balcony with loud tools, and made them make a lot of noise.

It may have been 12:03 am when they were in bed. But at least I cannot be called a Kill Joy!

The next afternoon, after we went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel (to which the Major declared that he had just wasted precisely 1.5 hours of his life, and wanted a refund), we were back home in time to celebrate the New Year on the West Coast of the US with our traditional cheese fondue.



And after about an hour of resting and making room for dessert, we gathered AGAIN for the second course of our two course meal, the CHOCOLATE!

I think it was during the second course that the Major and I began our discussions as to how we can get thinner in 2010. I think the first idea on our list was the elimination of all things dipped in chocolate. It's a 'one time a year event' to be sure!!

And just when I was patting myself on the back for a Christmas Vacation well spent, while getting the boys backpacks out of the front closet, and checking the lunch menu on Sunday night, I was awoken VERY early Monday morning with the news that Osan was blanketed in newly fallen snow, and school seemed unlikely. I wasn't sure I had the strength to endure it, but the children sure felt the hand of Providence in their lives. School was canceled instantly for the next TWO DAYS!!






And to be honest, here I sit at 2 in the afternoon still in my pajamas, perhaps I wasn't actually ready for real life to resume either. Perhaps two more days of Christmas Vacation hasn't been the worst thing ever to happen to me? Sometimes your own resilience will surprise you when put to the test. Sometimes.

So that's the wrap up. Maybe I'll go get dressed now??

Just what we always wanted...

The kids managed to wait until 7am to drag their parents out of bed. In fact, I believe the ladies had to be dragged out of bed as well!

Looking sleepy and adorable on Christmas morning 2009

Henry found tons of mint gum in his stocking! Sometimes it's the little things that get us the most excited :)

George giving us a fabulous Christmas morning smile. It wouldn't be a fabulous Christmas without George's enthusiasm!

Jane was excited to get Tiana from Santa. She came with outfits to change into and was exactly what she had dreamed of getting. Score for Santa!


Ruby having to blow a kiss of joy for the glittering princess horse that she had dreamed of getting on Christmas morning.


Henry showing an unusually jolly Christmas smile for having gotten the two books he most wanted!



Lately, I have been the reigning Scrabble champ in this house. It appears that perhaps Santa is questioning the integrity of some of my word choices. Needless to say, this is a gift I could get excited about!

Here's Darin, usually behind the camera on Christmas morning. I captured this shot of him assessing the Santa damage, and probably strategizing how best to get the placed cleaned and organized before breakfast.


I told Darin this year he was not allowed to give me any Christmas gifts. He has already given me everything I have ever wanted. And I wanted to see what it felt like to have a year completely focused on the giving rather than the getting. It was magical.

And here you have my all time favorite picture from Christmas 2009. It was delightful.

Merry Christmas!

From Korea with love. Happy to report that all of the children are in their beds dreaming of St. Nicholas.

Even happier to report that they are all wearing matching pajamas sewed by one festive Mama!

And super, super excited that I'm on my way to bed and it's only MIDNIGHT!!


After reading the story of Christ's birth from the book of Luke tonight, Darin asked Ruby what the job of a shepherd was, just to see if she'd been listening. Her answer was, "A shepherd's job was to take care of sheep, and watch the sky for new stars."

Her answer struck me. May we all be the type of people this year who can recognize the light of Christ in our own lives, just like the shepherds were able to recognize the new star in the sky.

Merry Christmas, and GOOD NIGHT!!

Word to the wise, don't have a baby six days before Christmas...

...Because you'll feel too busy every year when it's time for his birthday!

But if you do, celebrate his 8th birthday at the Bowling Alley. That will make things significantly simpler!!

Our very own George Z. Earnest turned 8 on Saturday the 19th. I decided Saturday birthdays are the BEST! Dad was home for the traditionally 7am birthday party complete with breakfast burritos and an entire pound of bacon, a la George!

(P.S. the 7am birthday party came AFTER the very intimate 6am party that included only me, Darin and George. Since George had been awake since 4:45 in anticipation of his birthday, it was all Darin and I could do to let the rest of the kids sleep for one more hour. We let him open the DVD of the movie Matilda! Genius idea, because then he was very excited to sit quietly and watch it since he's been wanting to see the movie after reading the book at school.)

And then, since it was Saturday, the friends party could take place at 11am. George picked the bowling alley and 8 friends to go there with. The bowling alley provided the party room decorations, the lunch, the cake, AND the party favors! And whatever that cost, it was priceless! As I was walking out the door to George's party, all I had in my hand was an ice cream scooper and some candles. Since it is six days before Christmas, I was so happy to have made this decision a month ago!!





Even more fun was that the party room had a Wii in it. We quickly sent Darin back home for some required Wii equipment, and very shortly thereafter, the boys were enthralled!

The party went off without a hitch. George had a blast and loved the fun time spent with his friends.

I know George had a great 8th birthday, and I've had an even better time being his mom for these past 8 years.

This last pictures sums George up in my mind. He is so full of life. He has often challenged me throughout our years together. I've been more frustrated by him, and more confused by him, and more worried about him, than maybe anyone else in my life. But in return he has loved me and helped stretch me, and has surely made me more than I could have ever been without him. And for all of that, I am honored to be his mother.

And besides, his smile is worth a million bucks! I love you George. Happy 8th Birthday!!

A Christmas sneak peak...

(Thanks for the early Christmas presents Grandma Z. And yes, the Christmas tree is sitting inside of a bucket. Just a little Christmas randomness to entertain us this year!)

Much like last year, I've decided at least while I live in Korea that making gifts is the way to go for most of my friends and family (hope you guys don't mind!). It does mean starting towards the end of November I'm immersed in gift making. It's a lovely ritual for the most part because I apparently love to sew. And given the fact that we have a mailing deadline, I always can see the light at the end of the sewing tunnel, so to speak. But this year, as soon as the packages got mailed off, I remembered two other gifts that I wanted to make, these ones for the ladies.

Months ago while craft blog surfing, I came upon a tutorial on how to make a mermaid tail. Ruby happened to be standing right by me, and saw the pictures of little girls running around with mermaid tails on, and instantly decided she needed one. She later found some sparkly purple fabric at the Happy Quilt and has asked me repeatedly when am I going to make one for her?!

Shhh, please don't tell her, but she'll have 2 wrapped up under the Christmas tree. Just in case it isn't fun to be a mermaid all alone, I made her a second one to decide if she wants a certain sister to be a mermaid with her. But the choice will be hers to make. Had I known how easy these mermaid tails were going to be, I might have made them months ago!! In case you are in need of a mermaid tail, here's the tutorial.

One day Jane came into my sewing room and asked me to open up my fabric cupboards. She stood on a chair staring up at the selection and I could see she was thinking of something. Suddenly she turned to me and said, "I need all of the polka dotted fabric sewn into a blanket!"

And you know what, I totally agreed with her. She doesn't know it yet, but under the tree she'll have her dreamed of polka dotted blanket, complete with the letter "J" appliqued in the fabric that she specified. And just for added love, it's backed completely in a fuzzy white minky fabric. The polka dot grid came together surprisingly (and thankfully) fast.

And to top it all off, all of these gifts were made completely with things that I already had on hand. I didn't have to make a single trip to any store to complete these Christmas gifts. That my friends, is the part about it where the gift is also a gift for me!!

I couldn't be more pleased to make these kinds of Christmas dreams come true! I know people say things like, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree", so I'm sure many of you aren't surprised that my girls wanted some homemade gifts for Christmas, but I remain enormously pleased that they have already learned to love my handmade offerings. What sweet ladies indeed!

Now it's time to start wrapping!

Traditions and time.

When I was growing up, Sunday dinner was a tradition. No matter what had happened during the week, by Sunday evening the table was being dressed with a table cloth. My mom had a collection which in my young mind was the definition of wealth and refinement. More often than not, the fine china was getting pulled out. There was an elegant water pitcher. There would be a roast, mashed potatoes, vegetables, rolls, fruit.

Okay, some weeks were more elegant than others, but to be sure, not a week was missed. I went through a phase around my junior year of High School where I actually couldn't stand eating the Sunday dinner, but all these many years later, it's all roses and smiles. And I'm so glad about that!

The food would be eaten and gone quickly. We were after all, a young family with six kids, but if my memory serves me right, there were times when we stayed at that table for up to an hour, laughing, talking, debating, teasing, etc. Sometimes so long that it would be time for dessert. I remember the go-to Sunday dinner dessert was a Pilsbury bundt cake mix, cooked in a bundt pan, drizzled right out of the oven with the sugary topping, served next to a ginormous scoop of any of five flavors of ice cream. We always had ice cream in five different varieties in the freezer at all times.

I haven't carried on the tradition of the roast, or the five flavors of ice cream in my freezer. But pulling out the table cloth is a must, as is sitting down all together. And often I'm still lingering at the table even after everyone else is gone, remember when I used to linger at my mom's dining room table as a kid. I hope that someday my kids will have longer attention spans, and more to say that just knock-knock jokes, and they'll linger with me. But for two Sundays in a row we've wanted to produce a Sunday dinner worthy dessert, and have had only the ingredients on hand to make magic happen. I'm happy to say that we've been able to pull out our Williams-Sonoma, bundt cake pans, most recently the "Snowy Village Cakelet Pan Set", and have a bit of Sunday dessert magic of our own. Turning it into the "snowy" village is the ladies favorite part. The batter is quite possibly my favorite part. But having a tradition, even if it is just the beginning of one, is of course better than any of it. And were I inclined to heartily endorse a product, I would indeed endorse Williams-Sonoma Bundt pans with all my heart. We have three. Each one works like a charm, every time we use it, including the first time we used it. And there isn't anything I like better in a product that faithfully producing the product it says it will produce. Know what I mean?

The Snowy Village Cakelet Pan Set, consider it as a Christmas gift this year, I'm serious.



In other news, Henry bemoans his homework every night. It gets in the way of his reading, and all he wants to do is read one good book after another. He doesn't even let a day laps between the completion of one, and the start of another. I LOVE that about him. He is MY son. I knew he was, but it's so sweet to see this trait emerge. He is ever searching for his next great read. Book series are his favorite because then you always know what to read next. But when it ends, it sometime hits him hard. George kind of teased him last night at the dinner table that he had a book. The Major suggested the book get put away, and I agree, but then I told them a story about when I had kids, one of the greatest things I dreamed of, is that they would love to read. George looked at me and said, "I love to read too." And I said, "I know you do, that's why I told the story. You have all turned into readers, and I LOVE IT."

Next, I am busily working everyday to get our Christmas gifts mailed back to the states. This is the first morning in about ten when I have felt like I could sit down mid-morning for a blogging break.

In hopes that it was my last time there, I was at the post office this morning at 9am. I didn't have the ladies with me, because I had just dropped them off at school. I ran into a young mother, a friend of mine, who's husband works with the Major. Her baby is seven months old, and she's tired. She hasn't slept an uninterrupted night of sleep in seven months now. She was appealing to me for some motherly advice. She thought she had maybe already asked me before how I ever got babies to sleep, but she'd forgotten my answer and wondered if I'd remind her.

I had to pause for a moment.

How did one get a baby to sleep?

I had almost forgotten.

I was able to remember a few anecdotes and mostly sympathize and give her encouragement that time passes faster than anything, and someday she'll be standing in a post office without any little kids around her, at all, and someone will ask her something about babies, and she'll forget that she used to know the answer to that question.

It's bittersweet I tell you. It really is.

But then she told me that she saw Darin the other night at a work function and that he had our ladies with him. She decided to ask him about his memories of how to teach babies to sleep through the night. She reported to me that his answer was something like,

"To be honest, I can't remember. Annee did it all. She just did it all. She let me sleep, every night."

I hope you'll believe me when I say that I nearly got a lump in my throat, and maybe had to wipe a tear out of my eye. The Major and I are not overly mushy or lovey-dovey. That would be unappealing to both of us. We are casual, and love to laugh with each other and don't ever say the lovey-dovey sort of things to one another, unless it make for a good joke, then we might. But somehow hearing that he had said that about me to a friend of ours had me glowing inside. What a sweet memory for him to have of me, during quite possibly the hardest time of our lives.

I'm certain I did not let him sleep through the night every night while I juggled about with two babies. But that that is his lasting impression is so unbelievably kind of him, I nearly wanted to bust into his top-secret location and give him a hug on the spot. But that most definitely would have violated our rules of non-lovey-dovey behavior.

Instead I just gave him a blog tribute. I hope he likes it :)

Those are my thoughts this morning in December. Have a great day!

Christmas is coming!!

Henry's school class was going to sing at the annual tree lighting ceremony on Thursday night. They sent the notice home, and I wrote it down on my calendar. Henry was to show up at 5:10pm for the lighting ceremony which would happen at 5:45. I was doing all kinds of things to make sure we were going to be there as a whole family. I sent Henry out the door right at 5:10 and told him to walk himself down to Base Theater where his class was gathering. I fed kids dinner early. I had everyone dressed, etc. But at 5:30 when the Major suggested we should walk out the front door, I suggested we still had fifteen minutes before it "said" it was going to start.

Still, we left pretty close to 5:30, all bundled up and prepared to listen to the music and enjoy the glittering festivities. So I thought it was kind of strange that the closer we got to the base theater, the number of people who were walking the other direction. And Darin tried to tell me about 1/4 mile away that the tree was already lit up, but I countered that I thought the tree had been lit up all week, and the "lighting" ceremony was mostly the kids singing, and I was sure we had not missed it. But sure enough, when we finally got in front of the Theater, there was Henry wandering around all alone, sipping some hot cocoa, because the singing happened right about 5:35.

Then everyone blamed me for everything going wrong. The kids missed the lights. Santa was leaving on his fire truck, etc, etc., and everyone turned to ME to ask why we missed it all.





What can one do? I tried my hardest. And that's my only defense. I really thought I knew what I was doing. Needless to say, that story pretty much sums up how I feel about the entire start of the month of December. I seem to be ten minutes late and out-of-the-loop, everyday. We don't even have the advent calendar out yet. I think I'm a little bit in denial that Christmas is really coming. I feel the need for some time laps photos in a blog post in the near future. I know I say it almost every time I write, but it's because I think it to myself every SINGLE day...Where does the time go?! Really. Where?

Unrelatedly, people often tell me how much they wish they had twins. I think it's a funny comment, because I don't really think there are that many ladies walking around with a four month old baby wishing she were walking around with TWO four month old babies. But maybe there are? But sometimes I understand what people mean, especially this week when I was sitting at Ruby's Make Over Store...

Because I didn't just have one four year old who wanted to doll me up, I had TWO. And then, I felt really special.


P.S. If I look really old and tired in this pictures, it's because sadly I am. I am both old and always tired!

P.P.S. Boy oh boy did I look fine. The girls were beside themselves at their creation. Jane kept saying over and over again how she had never seen a hairdo like mine before. And I said, "I surely haven't either!" And they couldn't wait for the Major to walk through the door to take a picture of me standing next to him. It turned out so awful. I'll admit it, I have too much pride to post that picture!