Heidi-cat taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. Say "Cheese!"

Heidi has been potty training the last couple of weeks and it’s coming along.  She really likes to wear panties, but doesn’t mind so much if they get wet because then she gets to try on another pair!  She’s getting there on her own once in a while, though, which is great progress from running to the bathroom after the fact.  Boy, it’ll be nice having all three out of diapers.

Happy even after having her hair done

Maggie normally hates having her hair done and refuses to let anyone touch it, except the almost-daily brushing Sonja or I give her while she protests loudly.  Today I convinced her to look at some hair styles online with me and I let her choose one.  She chose this one, but with ponytails instead of messy buns.  Maggie’s aesthetic sense is really distinct.  Given how much she normally hates having her hair done, I was surprised how pleased and emphatic she was about her hairdo choice and her alteration to the plan.  She LOVED the idea of having three ponytails–not two, not four.  And she wanted her bangs a certain way, pushed to each side symmetrically.  In the end, she let me tie all three ponytails together into one at the bottom, adding up to five rubber bands in her hair at once.   When she looked in the mirror, she pronounced it “kind of pretty.”  I’ll take that over screaming and kicking any day!

Five ponytails at once

Now Maggie has taken on her favorite motherly/teacherly role with Heidi and is carefully writing (with much better handwriting than she does her Kindergarten homework) labels for everything in the house on pink Post-Its because she’s “teaching Heidi to read!”  This process involves a lot of questions for me.  ”How do you spell ‘microwave’?”  ”How do you spell ‘Jesus’?”  That last one was the baby Jesus in a manger in our nativity scene.  Heidi just asked Maggie to spell a gibberish phrase.  ”Can you spell ‘magnet adkhadkjwei’?”  Maggie said “no, I don’t know how.”  Being a teacher of smart people is tough, I tell you.  They ask questions you don’t know the answer to!

Maggie has a strange combination of hating getting dressed, being extremely opinionated about what she wears, and loving to accessorize.  Every morning and every evening we have an all-out brawl where I wrestle her out of her current clothes and force a new shirt or nightgown over her head.  She hates all of her clothes until they’ve been on for 45 seconds, then she doesn’t mind at all.  I guess it’s just the transition.  When I figure it out, and figure out how to make it a more peaceful process, it’ll be a great day.  In the mean time, Maggie loves to wear scarves and jewelry, and the last couple of days she’s been playing around with her socks.  On Sunday she wore three full pairs, only partially matched, and got upset when I didn’t want her to wear a pair of Heidi’s tights as a finishing touch.  She said she wanted her feet to be warm (it’s really not that cold here in California, but it was cool out).  And she wanted everyone to notice how beautiful they were together.  When we got to church, all the socks came off at once, tossed carelessly to the floor, and I had to carry six socks in my purse for the rest of the day.

This morning when I got up Maggie had dressed herself.  Wow.  This is a big deal.  I told her how great I thought that was.  Then she showed me her socks.  Two socks on one foot, none on the other.  That’s the plan for the day at Kindergarten.  I asked her to go get matching socks for the other foot.  She eventually agreed, but I haven’t checked on her progress yet.

Heidi just brought me “a present,” as she calls it.  ”Four presents!” she corrects herself.  A diaper, a container of Costco-brand wipes, a Heidi sized-shirt, and a pair of 2T pants.  Then she walked away.  I gotta go help her get dressed.  :-)

We’re reading a bit of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol together each night this month. Degen and Maggie both love it and almost invariably ask for more when I close the book for the evening (might also have something to do with lights-out after reading time). Heidi, on the other hand, isn’t interested at all and loves to sing and talk loudly to herself while I read. Tonight I was at the part where the Ghost of Christmas present sprinkles his “peculiar incense” on people and houses and food to bless them. Heidi proved that she actually was listening a bit by chiming in with “What’s peculiar mean, Mommy?” I answered “It means ‘special.’” “What’s special mean, Mommy?” she returned. “It means different from everything else.” “Okay, Mommy.” Vocabulary building for nearly-three-year-olds by Charles Dickens.

I wonder what question she’s really asking, then answer “Well, God knows everything.”

Maggie: But how did he learn how to write?

Me: He probably had to practice. (trying to encourage her to practice, too)

Maggie: But who taught him?

Me: I don’t know, Maggie.

Maggie: Yeah, you don’t know that much.  But Daddy knows everything. At least he says he does.

Me: Should we call him and ask?

Maggie: Okay

I call Colin on the phone and repeat the conversation.  He says “Tell her His mommy probably taught him.”

I repeat it to Maggie.

Maggie: Well who taught her?

Colin: Her mommy.

Maggie: What about her mommy and her mommy and her mommy?

Colin: Their mommies.

Maggie: That’s silly.

Colin: It’s not silly!

Maggie: It is silly. Her mommy and her mommy and her mommy.  (in a sing-song voice as she walks away)

Whoah.  What’s next?

I’ve been thinking about Easter and its religious significance, and I wanted to make this year’s celebration a more personal and spiritual experience for myself.  So, when I read Eric Hunstman’s article (here) on how his family observes Easter, I jumped on his tradition of reading in the New Testament each day of the week before Easter about that day on the last week of the Savior’s mortal life.  For each day of the week, he’s posted a simple list of scripture references from the four Gospels detailing what happened on the correlative day of the week of the first Easter.  I’m sure this isn’t a new idea and that I could probably find a similar list in the LDS Bible Dictionary or by googling it, but that’s where I found it and I give him credit.

Each day’s reading so far has only taken a few minutes to read, and I’ve found myself coming away wanting to know and understand more.  So I checked out the New Testament institute manual lessons about that time period here.  It’s really helpful to have the added context of maps and historical details and discussions of how the passages of scripture relate to each other.  I definitely recommend spending the extra time reading about the events of Easter there.

Easter and Passover overlap this year, and I’ve been thinking about their intertwined messages.  Since I was a little girl when we lived in Israel, my parents have participated in a Passover seder every year.  I haven’t been able to join them in a long time, but I remember our seders as some of the most meaningful celebrations of my life.  I miss them!  I really should find a community seder to attend someday.  I wonder if Colin would want to go with me.  I just looked it up and there’s one in Berkeley tomorrow.   That would be a totally appropriate Family Home Evening…but it’s $45 each!  Eeek.   And how would I explain the wine to my kids… and our no alcohol thing to the hosts?  Maybe another year.  And I have a box of Matzah in the cupboard for my own mini-celebration of the Exodus.   There is a lot to be grateful for this week.

Speaking of Family Home Evening, we should have an Easter FHE tomorrow.  If we do, and it were to go the way I planned it (it never does), this is how I’d do it:

Song: Did Jesus Really Live Again?

Prayer

Lesson: Watch the DVD of “To This End Was I Born” (or on YouTube here), or the shorter “Lamb of God” video if we have less time

Talk about what we saw.  Discuss how the symbols of eggs and flowers and Spring itself point to Jesus Christ and the resurrection.

Activity: Dyeing eggs is an obvious one.  Or we could perform our talents for our family reunion talent show–Grandma wants at least one of the kids to recite the 13th Article of Faith. I’m not totally confident that any of them will be able overcome their stage fright, but maybe practicing would help.

Song: I Know That My Redeemer Lives

Prayer

Refreshments:  How about these cute little chocolate “nests” with jellybeans for eggs?  They look super easy.  They have the added advantage of being gluten-free, which is good because we found out a couple of months ago that Colin is gluten-intolerant so he has to eat food that has no wheat in it.  If we wanted to get more complicated, I’ll bet we could use our favorite 5 Minute Cookies recipe to make the nests.

Simpler, we could just distribute Peeps.  I’m not all that into them taste-wise, but have to admit they are cute.  And it would get the kids in bed sooner.

Possibly more yummy, but certainly less dessert-y, would be deviled eggs.

Hey, these bunnies are adorable and look easy and kid friendly!

Can you tell I like dessert?

We invited five girls and three are coming, plus Colin’s sister Kim.  Maggie’s counting her among her invitees (unlike the moms of the other girls), and I’m not sure how Kim’s going to react to Maggie’s plans to have her sit at the table with them.  Hopefully she’ll love it!  All the girls have been invited to wear their “princess dresses,” whatever that means to them, and Maggie doesn’t yet know that Kim will be coming as Snow White!  It’ll be interesting to see whether Kim comes “in character” (she used to be various princesses on Disney cruise lines so she really knows how it’s done) and whether Maggie will be excited to see Snow White or disturbed if Kim insists that her name is Snow White.  Four is such an unpredictable age….sometimes.

We’re serving “Pink Pink Lemonade,” as Maggie calls it.  I bought a can of pink lemonade concentrate and another of raspberry lemonade concentrate and asked her which she wanted, and she said she wanted the pink one.  Later I explained that raspberry lemonade is pink, too.  Then she got all excited and said we could mix them and then we’d have “pink pink lemonade!”  We’ll have peanut butter and jam sandwiches, cut into heart shapes, and cucumber sandwiches, cut into triangles.  And I made chocolate covered strawberries this afternoon, so I think they’ll like that (moms too!).  And we have a honeydew melon and grapes in the fridge, so if there’s time I may make melon balls and skewer them and the grapes with toothpicks for fun.

Yesterday I baked the cake, which I have yet to decorate.  My mom made me doll cakes when I was growing up and I adored them!  She gave me her cake pan this summer when we were visiting and now Maggie wants one.  I’m excited and nervous–I’m not half the cake decorator my mother is, and that’s not false modesty.  But I would love to make Maggie feel as good as I did when I got those beautiful cakes and it’ll be a fun challenge.  I want it to look something like this one from my fourth birthday, only in pink.

The one thing Maggie asked for specifically is a pinata.  I know, it doesn’t seem very princess-y to hit a candy-filled container with a bat while blindfolded, but Degen had one and Dora the Explorer had one, and she wants one.  And guess where I found a PRINCESS PINATA… At the dollar store!   How could I say no when I could give her her dream for $1?  So, we’re going to play musical statues and hit the pinata as activities (Maggie wanted to do “pin the tiara on the princess” earlier, but I’m hoping she’s forgotten about that).

I’ve got pink and white streamers for decorating the deck in the morning and I talked to the florist at the grocery store this morning and she said that they arrive at 6am, so we might do some helium balloons with those streamers if I’m feeling particularly relaxed.  If not, no one will know they were a possibility.

The favors will be the candy and toys (dollar store necklaces, ring pops, fun size twix and reeses, and some dollar store princess watches) from the pinata, plus a couple of princess-y accessories set next to their places at the table.  We’ve got dollar store tiaras (4/$1) and plastic jewel earrings (also 4 pairs/$1) and scepter wands (8/$1).  And I’ve still got to have Maggie decorate those white paper bags for the girls to take their things home in.  I hope I don’t forget!

I still haven’t talked to Maggie about what she’s going to wear for her princess outfit, though I’m counting on her going for her fairy princess costume from last Halloween or for a church dress.  And Degen protests that he’s definitely NOT a prince, though he does want to participate in the birthday festivities…so we’ll see how that goes.  I think Heidi will happily put on a pretty dress.  Oooohh…maybe I should do light pink icing on that cake since we’re having princesses in fancy dresses over.  I wonder if that’s why Mom chose yellow for my cake–I’ll bet it washes out easier.

I also need to make a Happy Birthday banner for the kitchen for Saturday (a Bushman tradition, those banners), plus maybe a sign for the front door for Friday.   And I suppose this evening I could cut some flowers in the garden for the tables. And I should set out chairs for the adults on the deck as well as the kids.  And I should have Colin help Maggie pick out a playlist on his iPod of music for the musical statues game.  Oh!  And I just read this idea to pre-scoop ice cream into paper cupcake liners that I may do.  I hate scooping ice cream under pressure.

Hopefully I’ll remember everything.  I’m planning on taking a photo of all the girls together in their princess finery and then printing the photo out and having Maggie help me write thank you notes on the back.  But if I’m going to do that, I have to remember to TAKE the photo!

Here’s my party schedule:

Kids arrive, play musical statues

Sit down at tables: tiaras, earrings,

Snow White arrives: lemonade & sandwiches

Pinata

Cake and ice cream

Open presents

Hopefully that will take up our hour and a half and the girls will go home happy and content.

For those of you researching for princess party ideas online like I was, here are some other good and inexpensive ideas I came across, but that I’m not going to do…

Favors: glitter, feather boas, lip balm, light colored nail polish, princess stickers

Activities: Make crowns, decorate cupcakes, play princess dress-up with goodwill prom dresses and mom’s accessories (or make it a relay!), string candy necklaces, practice walking with books on your head like a princess, build cookie castles (like gingerbread houses)

Food: cheese cubes on toothpicks, cream cheese and jam sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, anything cut into a heart or crown shape with cookie cutters, frosted sugar cookies with sugar glitter, olives (4 year old princesses look lovely with hands bedecked in olives), cupcakes, castle cake

Decorations: red carpet (made of tulle or felt or tissue paper or plastic tablecloth), “welcome to the castle” or “Last Name Kingdom” sign at entrance, tulle canopy

Two trips to AT&T Park in a week!  That is seriously unusual for us.  But the week after our free giants game was free opera day at the ballpark. This is one of the amazing perks of living here–free world class arts events.   And we got to see Verdi’s Aida.

We almost took the kids, but I think it’s good that we waited till they’re a little older.  Not because of the content of the show, which was fine, but because of the lateness of the hour.  We didn’t get home until after midnight and they simply wouldn’t have been able to stay awake and be happy that late.  Aunt Kim volunteered, unasked, to babysit at her apartment that evening and made it memorable for them with macaroni and cheese, strawberries, chocolate, and a golden sunset viewed from the roof of her building.  Then they all sacked out on her floor until we came to pick them up.  Aren’t we lucky?

Speaking of lucky, isn’t it amazing that I got to marry a man who likes opera?  Colin loves just about all styles of music, but I’ve been particularly impressed at how much he appreciates opera.  Even more than I, most of the time.  As we sat in the stadium, Colin wearing his new Giants t-shirt from the week before, the man in front of us laughingly commented that I must have tricked him into coming by making him think he was going to a baseball game.  It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, the concepts of tricking him and him not liking opera were so foreign to me.   When I finally caught on, his benign comment made me love Colin even better.

We attended with Colin’s parents and a friend from church, which made it all the more fun.  Sonja brought Subway sandwiches and cookies and we brought water and cookies, so there were plenty of cookies for everyone!  The official attendance headcount was over 32,000 people in the park and it was really neat to look around at everyone in their casual clothes eating baseball food watching a transcendent opera.

I’d never seen Aida–never even heard the story till I read the synopsis online a few days before.  The story is fine, the music was great, but the visual parts of it were my favorite.  The costumes and sets and lighting were really, really cool.  Bright, intense blues and golds and elaborate, memorable wigs were the order of the day.  The sets featured an ever-growing Egyptian hieroglyph that looked like an eye.  All on a humongous screen with a background of the bay and a gorgeous full moon.

I think I’ll resist temptation and settle for approving his self-chosen outfit (no stains, please) and sending him out with his dad for a haircut before school.  After all, this is for posterity and we want a school photo that looks something like him at school, right?

We got to go to the Giants game on Friday!

I entered all the kids’ names in a drawing at our public library a few weeks ago, and Heidi’s entry won!  I’d already forgotten about even entering when Colin called me as I drove back from dropping Degen off at school and said that the librarian had called informing us of our good fortune.  So, we picked up our four free tickets and started planning.

Here’s the irony: Heidi won the tickets, but she didn’t go.  And we all could have gone together because kids 2 and under can go free if they sit on their parents’ laps and we had four tickets.  And at first I intended to take her with us to enjoy the spectacle.  But I had a couple of days to think about it, and realized that the game didn’t even start until after her bed time and that she’s 1 1/2 years old and WIGGLY!  She’d be miserable sitting at the top of the bleachers being forced to sit on my lap the whole time.   And once Grandma and Grandpa offered to babysit I was sold on the idea that she’d be so much happier being spoiled at home than being cramped at a stadium.  And in retrospect, I think we did the right thing.  So, thanks for the fun Heidi and I’m glad that you got to have ice cream with Grandpa!

I made a picnic for us to eat at the park, and Maggie helped me make caramel popcorn for the trip (Cracker Jacks replacement, you know).  We brought water and juice boxes and some cookies and we were good to go.

We left really early, straight from picking Degen up from school.  I think it took and hour and a half to get there and park, and then we had to find a bathroom for Maggie (ahh!), which took another 20 minutes.  I’m sure the man in front of us in line who was in the one-stall bathroom for what seemed like 10 minutes must have had a good reason for not letting her go first and for taking so long.  But may I appeal to anyone who happens to have a small (say, 3 year old) girl behind them in line doing the potty dance and who thinks they can wait a few minutes more to let her cut in line?  Please?

Once the potty emergency was successfully managed, we moved on to the walking and waiting part of the game.  We didn’t know it beforehand, but apparently the Giants were giving out free T-shirts to the first 20,000 people in the stadium, and so there were HUGE lines to get in.  We got in line just before 5 when they opened the gates, and got to our seats around 6.  The kids amused themselves and the others in line by jumping and spinning and dancing and singing to themselves.  And all four of us got bright orange Posey T-shirts!   The people next to us in line were veteran Giants game-goers and told us we HAD to take the kids to “the Coke bottle” and told the kids they could play baseball, too.  We’d explained to the kids before we left that we were going to watch a game, not PLAY baseball, and Maggie loudly informed the kind lady of that fact.  Undeterred, the lady explained that there’s a kids’ field next to the big Coke bottle where they let you swing a big bat and hit a plastic ball.  The kids were sold and Colin and I weren’t sure we were glad and half hoping the kids would forget about it since it would almost certainly involve waiting in more long, long lines.

Our seats were WAY up high in the highest section, but we had a great view from behind home plate.  We had our picnic while we waited for the game to start, and I was so happy to not pay the $6 price for a $1 hot dog.  Can you believe that a cup of hot cocoa cost $5.50 and a churro cost $4.50?!  Shocking.  If we’d bought our hot dogs there instead of bringing our own, it would have cost at least $24 for the four of us (and we had two apiece, so it would have been $48).  And then drinks would have been another $16 and a treat another $16.  And if we’d paid for our seats… For the other families we saw there, this is a multi-hundreds of dollars event.  Wow.

The SF Opera chorus sang the National Anthem, which we all loved.  And a little kid Heidi’s age said “Play Ball!”  Degen and Maggie loved watching the mascot, a giant seal, dancing around and at one point riding around the park in a 10th Anniversary Prius.

I was surprised at how well both kids followed the game once we explained some basic vocabulary like pitcher, batter, base, plate, strike, foul, ball, and umpire.  Degen was enthusiastic in his cheering for the Giants, his team.  Maggie watched the pitcher carefully to see if the batter would hit the ball this time.  They were both shocked at the man a few rows behind us who heckled and booed the other team in such an unsportsmanlike manner.

About the seventh inning we decided that the kids would never forgive us if we didn’t visit the very-visible Coke bottle and packed up our stuff to brave the lines.  Upon finding that we were first-timers to the Giants, and the kids first-time baseball fans, the elevator attendant sent us to the service desk to retrieve orange “First Time” certificates with our names on them to commemorate the experience.  While we were there Colin and I noticed all the advertising for the “Designated Drivers” program where you get a free soft drink if you promise not to drink alcohol while at the ballpark.  It was too late in the game to sign up, but we thought it would be funny another time to sign up since we don’t drink alcohol anyway.

The Coke bottle fans area was as great as promised, with surprisingly short lines.  I don’t know if it was the late hour of the game keeping kids home or that we went there so late in the game, but it wasn’t crowded at all.  Typically, Maggie was daredevilish about wanting to go on the biggest slide as quickly as possible and my cautious Degen wanted to watch see several kids get down safely before he would try the smallest slide.  In the end, both were so pleased that they went down again with great gusto and took their Dad with them (see Maggie’s orange T-shirt/dress under her sweater?).

Just before the end of the game, we went to the kids’ ballpark and let them play, which turned out to be a highlight of the whole baseball experience.  Degen loves this picture where his white ball looks like a streak and the woman behind him looks amazed by his impressive hit. Maggie used the tee and ran the wrong way around the bases and loved it, and Degen was pitched to and hit the ball and ran “super fast!” and loved it.

Thanks to the library for a great evening out with our family at the ballpark!  And thanks to Heidi for the tickets and to Grandma and Grandpa for keeping Heidi happy while we were gone!

Opening Song: Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam (Heidi can enthusiastically say “BEAM!” now, so we sing it a lot–”We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet” would be equally appropriate)

Opening Prayer

Lesson:

I had one of the kids hold up a picture of the First Presidency (Pres. Monson, Pres. Eyring, and Pres. Uchtdorf) and asked them to identify the Prophet and President of the Church.  They pointed him out and I asked one of them to tell us his name (“President Monson!”). One of the other kids was wiggling, so I gave her an old Conference issue of  the Ensign to hold and show everyone–President Monson was on the cover, smiling, and we talked about how he loves children and wants us to be happy.

I explained that the Prophet is the one who Jesus Christ has called to lead the Church, and that when he wants the whole Church to know or do something, he tells the prophet.  I asked Colin if he knew any scriptures about prophets, and he opened to Amos 3:7 and helped one of the kids read “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.”  Colin explained the verse to everyone.

Then we read a scripture about prophets from  D&C 21:5 that says “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.”  Colin and I chatted a bit with each other about what “patience” means in that verse and the kids got bored.

I planned to have our family look at a talk from President Monson from the most recent General Conference and decide together what we could work on this month to do better at following the prophet, but the attention span had been exhausted and it was time to move on.  Maybe we’ll do that part this week instead.

Activity: Follow the leader around the house

Closing Song: Follow the Prophet (Children’s Songbook)

Closing Prayer

Treat: Oatmeal cookies Grandma baked earlier in the day

I’ll try to come back later and add links and pictures, but the Church web page is apparently having technical difficulties at the moment.  I can’t get to anything but the scriptures right now!  I guess if you can only get one thing, the scriptures are the thing to get.