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| "This is my crazy face. It's a little scary" - Juniper |
.... Solstice, Christmas, New Year... it's been awhile since I posted! Lots to celebrate, to be sure. We had a lovely, quiet holiday season, which is just what we needed. Things got started early with a visit from my parents and my sister Faye in mid-December, and then moved on to some Solstice celebrations, Christmas, New Year's - and here we are, just coming out of it all on the other side. There were no grand adventures - in fact, Clark worked for most of it, so in some ways it was just life as normal. Except, of course, with a much more laid-back attitude, fun surprises and celebrations, and more than a little indulgence. Here is a glimpse of it all.
Some Early Christmas Visitors!
We had a fun time with my parents and Faye in Mid-December. We met them for a weekend in Boston (where I very serendipitously and unexpectedly got to see Leonard Cohen at the Wang Theatre?!?), and then brought them back to the Cape for a few days to have some extended family holiday celebrations.
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| Bob, Mary and Faye. We must have taken two dozen versions of this photo, and yet the best one still has Juniper with her hand down Mom's shirt. Go figure. |
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| Choosing a Christmas tree. Not sure why this drawing that Juniper is holding needed to be included. We ended up with a VERY modest Charlie Brown tree for a whopping 20$. Welcome to the Cape! |
Solstice Celebrations
We got invited to two lovely Solstice celebrations. The first was a bit of a variety show, geared toward (and mostly featuring) the kids. Juniper, in particular, loved it. At the end, there was also some wreath decorating:
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| Working hard |
I am completely kicking myself for not capturing it at all, but the highlight (for me and Clark, anyway), was this act called the "Snowflake Song". It was organized by our neighbours (and new friends), Mak and Liz (and their son Kunio). It involved singing and playing a Japanese song about snowflakes, while the "snowflake kids" (a bunch of kids wearing toques and holding some cut-out snowflakes on branches), danced around the stage. It was incredibly cute, and lovely to watch. The reason it was so amazing for us, however, was that when someone said "OK, I need my snowflake dancers to get on stage!", Juniper promptly jumped up and joined the act. She wasn't wearing a toque, had no clue what was involved, but figured she should be a part of it. Luckily, there were some extra snowflakes on sticks to go around, and she pranced around the stage with some inspired gusto. Hmmmm... perhaps she has a little of her mother in her?
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| The final product! |
Christmas Lead-up:
The lead up to Christmas/Solstice this year was actually pretty fun. I fashioned an advent/solstice calendar (*side note: can you tell we are a little undecided about what we are trying to emphasize? We're still trying to feel our way through this now that Juniper is old enough...*) Anyway, I fashioned this calendar for the kids:
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| The "Advent/Solstice" Calendar |
As you can see, there is an "ornament" for each day leading up to Christmas, and you turn them around as you get to them. For a little extra fun, each day there is a little slip of paper in the pocket of the "ornament", giving clues as to where to find a little present, or stating what the fun activity of the day is. For example, some days there was a new book or a candy cane, other days it was an outing of some sort (dinner at Friendly's, for instance), and still others, there were promises of making cookies or building a gingerbread house (etc). It was a lot of work, but boy oh boy did Juniper have fun with it. And it made December pretty extra-special, if I do say so myself. Here are some pictures from advent surprises:
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| "Girls Night". We went to a café, got a treat, and wrote in our journals (and played "I Spy", and other such things, of course) |
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| Making special mint chocolate cookies for Santa. |
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| Decorating our awesome gingerbread house (the day earlier , Juniper and I made the pieces) |
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| Notice Juniper licking her fingers? That happened a whole lot during this process. She explained it was the only way to get all that excess icing off. |
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| The finished product. And yes, that's our christmas tree on the dining room table. |
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| Decorating the Christmas tree. I love this photo, because Juniper is examining the ornament with a photo of her great-grandparents |
Christmas Morning:
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| Requisite tree shot |
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| Requisite family tree shot |
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| Linden checking out his new glow turtle, wearing his new Tigger costume (?) You'll have to ask my mom about the costume. |
New Year's:
At the very last minute, we were invited to Fiamma (Clark's post-doc supervisor) and Rosalba's place for a New Year's Eve dinner. I was a little shocked to get the invite, as they had just (like, the day previously), gotten home from a family trip to Italy. But we sure weren't going to turn it down! They have two kids, Kea (who is almost exactly Juniper's age), and her older brother Yani, so it's always loads of fun to get together. We had a delicious meal, and then counted down the New Year at 6pm (midnight Italy time), and popped a bottle of sparkling apple juice (Juniper opted for water, however, as the bubbles taste "spicy" on her tongue).
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| Kea and Juniper having a chuckle before dinner |
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| Yani made these amazing "Pear Mice" for desert |
All the rest:
Those were all the festivities, but of course life happened as usual as well:
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| "SSR". (silent sustained reading. How adorable is that?) |
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| On a carousel at the big mall in Hyannis |
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| Hanging out at Spohr Gardens |
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| Juniper insists on making her very own pizza now, from scratch. She actually does a pretty amazing job! |
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| At the Woods Hole playground... |
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| ... and the Falmouth playground |
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| Look who's big enough to go down the slide by himself! |
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| When I asked what Juniper was working on, she replied "my PhD". Sigh. |
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| Snack time. On a train, I think. |
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| Linden very quietly snuck off one day. This is how I found him. He clearly takes dental hygiene very seriously. |
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| Juniper's latest obsession: doing the dishes. We'll see if the enthusiasm lasts until the point where she can actually properly clean them! |
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| Linden helps out with the gardening. This may seem like a mis-placed photo, but in November, we worked our butts off to completely tear out all the wild overgrowth in our garden patch and get it ready for planting in the Spring. |
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| More gardening. Linden is also a serious gardener. |
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| This is what we were doing when everywhere else was getting nice wintery snow. |
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| Clark brings home a mini wave tank to do some internal wave experiments with Juniper. He is likely giving Juniper a lecture on the basics of fluid dynamics here. |
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| See? Learning CAN be fun! |
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| OMG, we got SNOW! |
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| Juniper and Linden sliding on a Boogie Board we found in the garage, in our almost flat yard. Hey - it worked! |
And there you have it, folks! I've got a video montage in the works - stay tuned!
