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

So what we have here are bookmarks that say what lesson you’re on each week, 3-up and made painstakingly in Microsoft Word so you can adjust them to your ward’s schedule and print enough out for everybody. They will thank you for them, and you can get more next year. There are 53 Sundays this year, and 48 lessons–so 53 minus two Stake Conferences minus two General Conferences still leaves one Gospel Doctrine week with no lesson. Priesthood and Relief Society have more lessons than weeks, so you’re okay there. But someone will have to make the call in your ward as to what to do with what is listed in the bookmark as December 30th. But no matter what, you’ll have to make some adjustments since you’ll have different ward conference and stake conference dates than I.

- 2012_Lesson_Schedule.PDF
LDS Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson Schedule (PDF format)
(right-click link to save file)

- 2012_Lesson_Schedule.DOC
LDS Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson Schedule (editable DOC format)
(right click link to save file)

And here are links to previous years’ bookmarks: 2011 New Testament, 2010 Old Testament, 2008 Book of Mormon.

Please comment below–it motivates me if nothing else… Of course holler if you need any help.

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?

This is Colin. I’ve created the 2011 New Testament Sunday School/Relief Society/Priesthood Lesson Schedule Bookmarks. Close to 1000 people downloaded last year’s bookmarks, so we’ll keep making them.

So what we have here are bookmarks that say what lesson you’re on each week, 3-up and made painstakingly in Microsoft Word so you can adjust them to your schedule and print enough out for everybody. They will thank you for them, and you can get more next year. This year was a little weird for me, since there are 52 weeks in a year, minus two general conferences, two stake conferences and a ward conference leaving 47 Gospel Doctrine weeks. The Old Testament manual has 48 lessons and the New Testament manual has 46. So at least in our ward we’re teaching OT48 on Jan 2. But no matter what, you’ll have to make some adjustments since you’ll have different ward conference and stake conference dates than I.

- LDS New Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson Schedule (PDF format)
- LDS New Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson Schedule (editable DOC format)

Please comment below–it motivates me if nothing else… Of course holler if you need any help.

The point of this background is that I grew up celebrating a lot of Jewish holidays in an orthodox fashion and now I like to squeeze them into my own little family’s life here and there.  When we moved back to the States, our family continued to occasionally and mostly casually celebrate some of these holidays in a modified fashion.  I think my parents still have a Bushman-style Passover seder every year.

For months I’ve been meaning to make latkes, the Hanukkah classic, which are basically hashbrown pancakes.  We always ate them with sour cream and applesauce growing up, and I think that’s an Israeli/Jewish thing we picked up.  Finally, seeing the holiday was this week, I managed to gear up the energy to grate a bunch of potatoes and fry them up last night.  They didn’t turn out very well, actually, I think because I couldn’t get the electric skillet hot enough.  And I skimped on the oil.  So they ended up greasy and not crisp.  Better luck next time.  The brussels sprouts and chicken sausage I served with them were a bigger hit with the adults, but the kids loved the potato pancakes.  What is it with kids and round, flat foods with toppings?  Maybe I should start calling more things pancakes!

Hanukkah is a celebration of a miracle involving oil.  Israel had been occupied by the Seleucid empire (Syrian-Greek), who were somewhat successful in their efforts to unify their empire by wiping out all religions but one–the idol-worshiping Hellenistic religion.  They had conquered Jerusalem and vandalized the temple there, carrying away many sacred items (including the golden menorah) and placing their own idols inside.    A small band of Jewish men, the Maccabees, fought off a huge Syrian army and won back the city of Jerusalem and the temple.  They fashioned a new menorah and rededicated the temple, but discovered that there was only one day worth of properly prepared and oil for the menorah, which was required to burn without interruption.  God miraculously made that one day’s worth of oil burn the entire eight days required to prepare new oil for the lamp.

Homemade sufganiyah. Yum!

The miracle is about oil, so oily foods are eaten to commemorate it.  And, apart from latkes, my favorite Hanukkah food growing up was sufganiyot.  Sufganiyot are deep-fried jelly donuts with powdered sugar on top, and I remember eating these and getting powdered sugar all over everything, including up my nose.  And I loved it!  I’d never made donuts before on my own, but I felt inspired by my hanukkah-y dinner to try it.  I found a recipe online here and made the dough before dinner.  After dinner, the kids and I rolled out the dough, cut it, and fried it.  Then I tried to put some of the blackberry jam I made this summer inside with a ziplock and a frosting tip, which didn’t work at all.  I guess the jam was too liquid, because it just kept draining out before I could get it into the donuts.  So, we dipped them in powdered sugar and ate.  And some of the donuts were raw in the middle (that’s what I get for frying without a thermometer), but the smaller ones were great!

Some of our sufganiyot

Degen discovered that you can cut donuts into other shapes–like a Christmas tree and an angel–and they stay that shape when you fry them!  And thus we got Christmas Sufganiyot (I’m hoping that doesn’t offend anyone).   Does Heidi look happy, or what?

Degen created this angel-shaped donut

Heidi this morning at breakfast, enjoying her donut

We’ve only had lice once at our house, and that was me right after I got home from girls’ camp!  Pretty exciting, and expensive, let me tell you.  I had to strip all the beds and treat all the heads in the house, though in the end I was the only one who found a louse.  I don’t generally do a good job at keeping up with the laundry, so having to do ALL the laundry in one swoop was  a big challenge.  Oh, and the VACUUMING!  Both of my least favorite chores at once, extra thorough.  I’d much rather prevent, though I’m probably not going to use this as an everyday shampoo.  These Zippity Doo products smell surprisingly pleasant, as opposed to the decidedly outdoorsy-smelling stuff I bought at the drugstore post-infestation.  I’m going to save it for next time we go on a train or plane, stay in a hotel, go to girls’ camp, or head toward New York.

It’s so fun to win something free!  Thanks FreebiesandMuchMore!

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