Friday, November 23, 2012

A Holiday Thank You

Happy Thanksgiving! The Bookers had a quiet holiday this year. Brad has been working some crazy hours for the past few months and had the entire day off so I absolutely insisted we stay home and rebuffed any would-be company.

Harper pronounces it "Shaun the Shipe", just like any good Irish lass should.

Our Thanksgiving (or Great Feast of Starch, as we call it) was simple. Since I am vegetarian and Harper is too (thus far), Brad opted to barbeque a couple of turkey thighs for himself while Harper and I were sated with poultry-esque veggie patties. We feasted on all the standards; mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, dressing, green beans, buttermilk biscuits, cranberry sauce, and finished with pumpkin pie for dessert. (Yes, store bought pumpkin pie. I am not as hard-core as you Bess “I’m going to whip up a couple of homemade pies on Thanksgiving morning and make everyone else look bad” Bauer.)

Those of you who have kids know that teaching manners gets big around two years old. So I thought a perfect way to reinforce saying thank you could be taught during the meal.
When our plates were served but before we started our meal we explained to Harper that Thanksgiving is a day when we say thank you for the things we love. Then I started by saying I loved daddy so thank you for daddy, and I love Harper so thank you for Harper etc. When I was done I asked Harper what she loved.

She looked down at her plate and said, “Sweet potatoes.” “Yes, sweet potatoes,” I encouraged. “Thank you for sweet potatoes.” “Thank you (cranberry) sauce,” she said. “Yes. Thank you for cranberry sauce,” I agreed. She went on. “Thank you green beans. Thank you chicken.” By this time she really was in the spirit of things and looked up from her plate. “Thank you dinosaurs. Thank you parks.” It was so sweet and heartfelt and I really feel like she understood the meaning behind the exercise. What a special moment to cherish and remember! Then Brad said his thanks and we ate.

Brad is totally going to love this movie some day, if he ever catches up on sleep. 
 
After dinner we all sat around in a carbohydrate coma for about an hour. Later, after we had washed the dishes and put everything away and after I was able to pry Harper away from Shaun the Sheep to put her to bed I finally, after two years of prodding, got Brad to watch The Princess Bride. Or, rather, it was playing on the DVD player while Brad slept through it.  

Oh well. Maybe next year.  
Season’s greetings from the Bookers!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Dress Up

I wish these photos were better but I had to live in the moment and snap what I could before she stripped everything off. I know, I know, we need a better camera.

Harper picked out her nap time ensemble this afternoon...

then she took a minute to check herself out in the hall mirror.

For the record she's wearing a fleece snow hat, fleece gloves, Chinese silk paiamas (thank you, Karen), pink striped leg warmers and fuzzy silk slippers. She also insisted on wearing her underwear over her diaper.

Friday, November 2, 2012

A Halloween Retrospective


The day before Halloween we managed to go to the Children's museum.
Harper LOVES that ball pit.

So Halloween happened.

With Harper’s birthday party on the 20th and Brianna’s fundraiser on the 28th (which was a HUGE success, by the way) it was on top of us before we even realized it. I was going to make the cutest little fish tank costume for Harper (per her request) out of foam board, felt cut-outs, shells, sand and plastic aquarium tubing but, after some serious soul searching and time basic management calculations, came to the conclusion that it was not to be. So on Saturday we went to the mall looking for a tutu to complete a zombie-ballerina ensemble (what are the odds, Jenny?) and ended up going home with a dragon costume instead. Luckily, Harper L-O-V-E-D it.
My sister-in-Law's sister's twins were zombie ballerinas for Halloween.
We live in a small, zombie lovin' world. I love their little zombie walk!
 
I hope the Great Pumpkin didn’t skip our house for our seeming lack of enthusiasm. I had just enough time to pick up some very basic decorations Halloween morning and then carved the pumpkin during Harper’s afternoon nap. But in spite of time constraints I had the front porch decorated by 3:00 pm sharp and I had enough time left over to toast the pumpkin seeds and make apple cider for snack time. I love toasted pumpkin seeds and warm apple cider.

Before going out for the evening I did the Halloween drill with Harper:

We say Trick-or-Treat. We take one piece of candy. We say thank you.

We practiced until I thought she had it and then I put on her costume. She was so excited to get dressed! Neighbor Karen had given her a Snoopy doll wearing a pumpkin costume a couple of weeks ago (thank you, Karen!) which she decided to bring along in her multi-tasking library/Easter and now Trick-or-Treating owl bag (thank you, Wessels family!). Brad had to stay home and hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters but took a couple of minutes (at my urging) to take some pictures on the front porch for posterity and then we were off in the red wagon.
Harper's spooky dragon. When asked what sound the dragons make Harper replied, "Stomp! Stomp!"
 
Our humble Jack-O-Lantern (Harper specifically requested a "happy pumpkin").

Harper and mommy about to hit the town.

A surprised daddy and Harper.

Kiss!

Let's go, mom!
 

Harper got performance anxiety at the first house we visited. After some coaxing she finally whispered a barely audible, “Trick-or-Treat,” as the elderly woman handed her a piece of candy. “What do you say?” I prompted as she put the treat in her owl bag. “Another?” she queried. Of course the woman thought that was the cutest thing she’d ever seen so Harper got another piece of candy, which only served to embolden her at every subsequent home we visited.

We only stayed out for about an hour. Harper came home exhausted and with quite a stash. We let her have one lollipop and then it was off to bed. Afterwards, Brad and I turned out the porch light had some quite time. It was a nice evening.
Happy Halloween!