Sweet Life With Mary

Advent Calendar - a Christmas tradition that we never had in the Philippines, one that I was unaware of until Jack mentioned getting one for Mary last year (which we did not do since we did not find one that we liked— not that we looked all that hard.)

This year, we saw one at Costco for a reasonable price.  And this year, Mary is very much aware of all the excitement of the holiday season — it will be a fun way to count down for Christmas morning.

Not having any past experience to get ideas for the “little presents” that go behind each door, I relied on some creativity.  I did not want to just have candy behind the doors or little useless baubles.  Also, I did not want to spend a lot of money for 24 little presents. 

So here is what I came up with, at least for 11 of the 24 days.  On the first day, she will get a small fake Christmas Tree.  Then, for 10 days (not exactly the next 10), she will get the ornaments that she can hang on it.

To make it more fun and more involved, I thought to make the first one as a mini-Treasure Hunt.

Behind the door was a strand of beads, a little piece of chocolate and a note— the first clue. An unexpected bonus, she gets to practice reading. “LOOK FOR A YELLOW ARROW,” she read on her own, sounding out the letters.

The Yellow Arrow pointed to this second note.

Behind the Front Door was the little tree!

A Special Tree For A Special Girl
Your very own Mary Christmas Tree
Have Fun Decorating Me!

Every other day, I will lead her on a treasure hunt for the ornaments that will go on the tree.

Later on, she says “I love hunting for my present, Mommy. Next time, can we make it a longer one?”

—–

For other Advent Calendar ideas, check out Raquel’s Easy-to-do Advent Calendar.

Almost every Wednesday for the past two months, Mary had been going on a playdate with Marley, her newest best friend from Kindergarten. I am thankful beyond words that they keep having her over and that both Mary and Marley keeps enjoying their time together outside of school. As Marley is not comfortable yet to going to other people’s houses or being with other grown-ups without her parents, Mary always goes to THEIR house, giving me at least 6 hours on Wednesday to get things done at home. Thank you, thank you so much!

It is not enough that Mary gets to play at Marley’s basement playground (her parents have furnished their basement to be one big playroom with toys galore), K (Marley’s grandma) almost always take them somewhere special - the Butterfly Museum, a hair salon… This Wednesday was to “the mall.”

If you live in Louisville and Boulder area, “the mall” refers to Flatirons Crossing Mall. And in that mall is a Build-A-Bear workshop.

So, she came home with “Husky”… on a pink leash… with a bridal costume (complete with veil, garter and bouquet)…with pink cowboy boots… with skates…with eyeglasses that matches Mary. ALL courtesy of K. Then, there is the Gap shirt (that matches with Marley). And then, there is the photo with Santa. Oh, and she had chicken teriyaki at the food court, too. ALL courtesy of K.

What a lucky girl!

Thank you so much, K.

I have expressed my thanks to K personally and she was very gracious about it— “They had fun!”

But there’s this niggling feeling of “how can I reciprocate?”

In the past, we have taken one of Mary’s friends to Elitch Gardens, another one to the mall where I did get a little treat for the two girls but nothing close to K’s generosity. The other moms always offer to pay for something which I have always refused. When Mary gets taken anywhere and given treats on playdates, I also offer to pay for something and have always been refused, as well.

I guess, we should just be thankful that Mary has found a very good friend, one that enjoys her company as much as she enjoys theirs. And they happen to be very generous with their treats? Immensely thankful.

I remember that all through high school, I ws best friends with the richest girl in class. She is the seventh of 9 kids, mom is a doctor, dad is an engineer, she always had the coveted “Ace” leather bags, latest style “Gregg” black shoes, Mills and Boon romance novel AND her family has a pool. Felt so lucky to be friends with her as I get invited often to their house .

Now, what to do about the cross-dresser Husky?

Mary has changed the name to “Huska.” Still, I do not think it is a name fit for a bride.

—–

On another note, this is the last post for Nablopomo.  Yay! I made it!

Thanks everyone for stopping by and reading my posts, also for your wonderful, wonderful comments. I will still be blogging everyday. Its too much fun to stop now.

One that she would probably not have until later since she does not, currently, own any shoes with laces (Hurray for Velcro!).

But, she acquired this Build-A-Bear dog on a recent playdate (more on that tomorrow) and the dog is sporting laced skating shoes.

Mary, at 5, I’m happy to say, listens to instructions VERY WELL, when she wants to learn something.  I showed her the “Bunny ears” technique a couple of times, guided her fingers for a couple more and she was ready to try it on her own.

Focus

Get that loop into the “hole”

Tighten that Sucker!

The Finished Bow

Yay, Mary!

——-
Next time, I will teach her a different way— one that is said to be more secure. Found this at Ian’s Shoelace Site.

Make two loops and pass them both through the “hole” in the middle. Slippery shoelaces or serious sports are two good reasons for using this knot.

I have yet to try this out. Anybody else tie their laces a different way?

I participated in the Click! The Photo Event this November - my first time and after seeing all the other entries, I knew my photo was not up to the caliber of a lot of them.  I thought maybe for the Delish (Most Drool-worthy) category, I will have a chance…

Yay! I made it to the Top Ten on the Delish category.  After all, Mary rubs her stomach, makes yummy sounds and says, “Can we go now? Can we go now? Can we go now? ” whenever I show her this picture— its worth some drool-worthy points. Here’s that photo again.

Hey, Manisha - want to go get some noodles? Who else wants to come?

Left to my own devices, I would not have started putting up the Christmas tree this early.  But I’ve been inspired by Amy at Inherent Passion, The Deans, Beth over at Mommy Come Lately — they’ve done their decorating over the Thanksgiving weekend.

We usually wait until the 1st or 2nd weekend of December, probably because I was working full-time for the last six Christmases.  This year, since I have become an SAHM, why not have the Christmas spirit in our home early?  Mary is surely enjoying it.

We usually have a REAL tree.  This year, we are just going with our 3-ft plastic tree.  Mary does not mind and I really do not want to go to the trouble and expense of a Noble Fir tree (Home Depot has  their 7-8 ft for $52.97!) and then pay the Boy Scouts $10 to haul it away in January.  I’m going to miss that real tree smell, though. 

A lot of the ornaments for the tree are Jack’s from his single parent years with his elder daughter.  Like these fancy balls…

This ballerina ornament is from my first Christmas in Vancouver, Canada.

Larger versions of these star ornaments are the traditional decorations in the Philippines— called parol.

Mary’s first ornament - contains a piece of red, shiny wrapping paper— the only thing that interested her that First Christmas.

When told that she can get a treat from Cabela’s, Mary chose this ornament.

Mary is not quite finished decorating the tree…

But, the Christmas season in our home has begun!

I alluded to some “exciting” winter driving on a previous post while we were driving home from our Thanksgiving trip.

Was it truly exciting? You be the judge.

Here is what happened.

We left Des Moines, Iowa at 6:30 am, it was cold, there was snow on the ground, but the roads were dry as we headed out. It was very cold (18F), oh, I said that already. Normal conditions and if we go our usual route, we had a 10 1/2 hour drive ahead of us, back to Louisville, Colorado.

For this trip, the plan was to stop at our friend Doc’s place in Kansas for lunch. Making this detour only adds about a half hour to the total travel time. Add on the two hours we were planning to stay and visit and we were expecting to get home by 8 pm.

We stopped for breakfast (at a Happy Chef restaurant at Adair, IA - spent $25 for a very unsatisfying meal), stopped at a newly-opened branch of Cabela’s (Jack’s favorite outdoor goods store) in Omaha, ooh’ed and aah’ed at the overturned semi’s along the highway…

It had started to snow by the time we got to Doc’s farm much later than planned.  We enjoyed a “lunch” of salad (with his special berry vinaigrette), baked beans (he makes the best we’ve ever had in our lives) and ribs that were just falling off the bone. 

Mary got to feed his outdoor cats, Jack was able to have a short, well-deserved nap and I got to use the bathroom a few times (that’s all I’m going to say about that).  About 2 hours later, we headed back out.

It was starting to get dark, snow had been falling the whole time we were at Doc’s house and about 3-5 inches of snow had accummulated by then.   For the first 25 miles, the roads we were on had hardly been plowed.  Mostly two-lane highways, hardly any road markers.  Full dark came fast, all we can see was what was illuminated by our headlights.  As it is easy to see if any car was coming up on the other side (road was flat and straight for the most part), Jack drove on the middle of the road as it was hard to see the edge of the road.  He would move carefully to his side whenever he saw oncoming traffic. 

At one point, while Mary and I were quietly enjoying watching “Curious George” on our portable DVD player in the back seat, I heard a crunching sound, looked up, saw oncoming lights pass us… and then, we were headed towards the “No Passing Zone” sign which was on the other side of the road.  I knew then, something was not right.  Next, was swirling snow and the unmistakable feeling that the car was spinning around.  I was fully confident that Jack was doing his best to get the car righted so I did not panic.  I closed my eyes, held out my left hand toward Mary and clutched her back, felt the car slide down, caught the DVD player with my right hand and FINALLY, the car came to an abrupt Stop.  This is when Mary realized something was not quite right- “What’s happening, Mom?”  All I could say was, “We’re ok, we’re ok!”

And we were ok.  The car’s engine had stopped, Jack gave it a few seconds, started the car and the engine was fine.  Jack was confident that the Volvo’s 4 Wheel Drive can get us out of the grassy sloping ditch and it did.

So, we were back on the road.  “Maybe, we should go back to Doc’s, we’re not far and maybe, just stay there for a while?”

“No, we’ll be ok.  All it means is that I have to go much slower.  It’s a good thing, we were only going 30 mph.”

Jack, Mary and I were all fine. Mary did not know what was going on, I did not panic so consequently, Mary did not panic.   So, off we went.  For the next four hours, Jack very ably drove us through increasingly worsening road conditions— packed snow, packed ice, below freezing temperatures, not-so-careful drivers overtaking haphazardly, low visibility with the falling snow and a steady headwind. Ramps toward the rest area were hard to see and slow down for, so we did not make too many stops.

About 150 miles from Denver, the snow finally stopped and by the time we got to Denver, we were travelling at the speed limit of 75 mph — roads were clear of snow or ice. We were home by 11:30 pm.

So, what do you think?  Was it exciting enough?  The story is a bit boring — absolutely no damage to the car… we were all fine.. no heroic rescues… 

Thank God.

One of the things we enjoyed at our visit in Iowa was the Wii Gaming System that Jack’s sister had purchased for her grandkids to use when they visit her.  Mary enjoyed playing it so much that this has gone on top of her Christmas Wish List. 

No matter how many Santas hear of her wish,

unfortunately, it will not be under our tree come Christmas morning. 

It was sure cute watching her play Boxing, though.

I was privileged to discover another inherent quality that Mary possesses— a gentle touch with, and loving care of animals.

We stayed at my sister-in-law’s house while visiting Jack’s side of the family for Thanksgiving.  At her backyard is a pond filled with colorful koi of various sizes.  Beautiful pond, beautiful koi.

When Mary was told that she can feed the koi as many times as she wants everyday, she rose to the responsibility.

She went out there to feed the koi while it was snowing…

When it was too cold for me to venture out, she was out there, if only for a minute to throw a couple of handfuls of feed…

Her “fear” of the dark was not a reason to shirk her new job.

My sister-in-law had also just acquired some cats, Cookie who love to lounge on laptops…

…and Blackie, who grappled Mary’s leg while she was playing Wii

Mary abandoned her Wii baseball game so she could stay still until Blackie let go.

Now, Mary wants a pet of her own.  She would soon discover that her mom has an aversion to owning one…

On our way home from our Thanksgiving trip to see Gramma and we stopped in Kansas to visit a friend.  Though, it is not officially winter yet in our part of the world, we had been driving through some “exciting” winter conditions. 

More about it tomorrow, we just stopped at a McDonalds about 100 miles from Denver just so I can do a post for today.  Thanks to Jack for insisting that we make this stop or I would have “cheated” and backdated.  Instead, I got it in just in the nick of time.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

As I get ready to chow down on hearty, traditional American thanksgiving fare that Jack and his sister had prepared, I contemplate participating in this “unique meme that challenges and inspires you to set and complete realistic goals in life.”

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Some common goal setting tips:
1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Stay Focused. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.

3. Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.

4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.

5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

Once you have created your site, you can add it to the master list at Day Zero.

My First Goal?

001. Finish the list and post on its own page by December 1, 2007.

Wish me luck!