Let Christmas Begin

Every year, our Christmas week begins with decorating Christmas cookies at Nana's house and "Breakfast with Santa" at the Binghamton Club, courtesy of John's step-father. We brunch, we sit with Santa, there's balloon animals, and this year...dancing. Cute, enthusiastic Toddler Dancing.

I have to work tomorrow. Bummer, but it promises to be an easy day. My computer went completely ca-put the other day, and since I basically do 90% of my job on the computer...well, I'll be the one standing around the kitchen snarfing cookies. I will come back from break to a new computer, though. I'll take it.

I am off of work as of Tuesday until Monday, January 4th. The days are filling up with family celebrations, trips out of town and to three different doctors, helping my husband complete his letter of application to grad school, etc, etc. It will be busy, but it will be fun.

I'm looking forward the most (well, almost the most. I'm looking forward to Christmas morning with my daughter the most!) to those three days before Christmas. I'll be spending those days wrapping, baking, watching Christmas movies with G, and just generally getting holiday cozy with my girl and my man. I'm sure I'll be blogging some of our holiday moments with you.

Here's the beginning.


Quite a cookie artist, we have here.

Giuliana was not getting too close to Santa, no matter what promises of Christmas joys were made. We've been prepping her all week, too. No dice.

Rudolph the Orange Balloon Reindeer was a hit, though.


Four very adorable kids.

Our happy Christmas family.

And....I'll leave you with this: Merry Christmas from Us!

Welcome To My House

"Lunchtime!"

The shout rings out from the living room as I am unpacking our bag at the end of the day. More like dinnertime. But not in the living room at the dollhouse. There, it's lunchtime with Giuliana directing "Boy" and "Girl" to wash their hands at the kitchen sink.

"Mommy! Sit down wi' me! Play."

How can I resist and invitation like that? Actual dinner can wait, it's lunchtime for Boy and Girl.


"Help, Mommy. Boy sit. Chair."

I bend the little legs so Boy and Girl can sit at the table.

"How 'bout...mac an cheese!" She pinches her fingers together and pretends to feed tiny pieces of macaroni and cheese into the tiny doll mouths. "Ummm, umm, mac an cheese good!"


Now it's playtime. "Girl hide," she says as she stuffs the girl doll under the kitchen stairs.

"Boy find. Giii-rrrlll!?? Are you?" She hollers while hopping the boy doll from room to room.

"Here? No. Here? No. Under table? No. Baftub? No."

I play along. "Is Girl in the kitchen cabinet? No. Is she in bed? No."

"Here is! Found you!" She yanks the girl out and begins to stuff the boy under the same stairs.

"Boy hide."

This is a variation of our own Hide and Seek game. She doesn't quite get the concept yet, but likes to play anyway. For one, she always wants to be the "hider." For two, she always hides in the same place, under the kitchen island. Last week I finally convinced her to count and let me hide. I ran to the first landing on the stairs while she counted loudly from the dining room. Then I heard the tell-tale scraping of the kitchen island. I waited a few moments.

"Giuliana??"

"Yes, Mommy?"

"Are you going to come find me?"

"No, Mommy."

"Do you want me to come find you?"

"YEAH!!"

Eh. She'll get it eventually.

Bits of our Week

Monday evening we put up the Christmas tree. Giuliana played with the ornaments and danced and sang to Christmas carols.



Wednesday we had a snow day. G brightened up the snowy driveway while Daddy shoveled.




She was in awe of the snow on her slide. Wet slide and snowpants make for one fast ride, however.


And with the help of Mommy and Daddy, G made her first little snowman. Later she decorated it with necklaces. Then the dog came along and ate it's head. Also, while I was busy helping G craft a fine snowman my husband came along and put snow down my pants. There will be retaliation.


And this morning our little artist painted some homemade wrapping paper for her special Christmas gifts. Stickers and possibly glitter will be added at a later date.

How has your family been spending this holiday season so far?

Circle Party

I don't know if you'll notice...

but we had a theme for Giuliana's second birthday party...



it involved lots and lots of circles...

Not shown: meatballs, round chicken nuggets, mini round pizzas, and multi-colored paper plates (also circles, get it?) stuck all over the walls.

And we also had one cute circle chick who didn't want me to take her picture.


She kicked the party off by playing blocks and dress-up with the first arrival of the afternoon, Cousin Rosie.

And running around in...a circle. This was pre-sugar ingestion.


The gift opening, was, in a word, chaotic. Which is how it should be, I guess, when you have lots of cousins who want to "help."



BTW, see that Little People "Pink Castle, " as it's known in our house? She likes to put the prince in the highest tower and then yell, "Help! Help! Ayudame!" She has the princess come and save him. I did not give her that idea, I swear. Just good parenting, I guess!!

The party was so very fun. Giuliana giggled and smiled ear to ear the entire way through "Happy Birthday To You!" She was absolutely delighted to have all her friends and family singing just to her. She leaned over and blew out her candles without any prompting (we've been practicing. We sing "Happy Birthday" to the dog on a regular basis.)

Life so far with a two-year-old? Bliss.

"Mmmeee-seeege You-oooo-ooo"

Little G has been enamored with this video and song lately.

I love that Nick Jr. has it in heavy rotation. I stopped dead in my tracks the first time I saw the video, mixed in amongst The WonderPets and Nai-Hao, Kai-lan. Bob Marley? On Nick Jr.?? Really? How insanely cool!

If you know me you likely know that I'm not a huge reggae fan, unlike some of my besties. I can get into it for short periods of time...but a whole concert? I'm out. Sorry. However, I love this song. So simple and sweet. And I especially love watching G sing "mmmeeee-seege you-oooo-ooo!!" So. Freaking. Adorable.

She literally begs for "Three Birdies." So, inevitably, it has made it's way onto her Christmas list. The "B is for Bob" cd will be in her stocking Christmas morning. I can't wait. I think I may even find myself dancing along, too.

Two

Happy Birthday, Chicaboo!

You know you're the "birf-day guw" today, you've been talking about it all week. We've practiced singing "Happy Birthday" and you know how to blow out the candles. I think you know you're getting presents, too...you don't miss much and you've been to a few birthday parties lately. You were looking at a toy catalogue the other day and kept saying everything was a "birf-day toy!"

I can't wait to throw you your circle theme party later today! I haven't talked much about the circles to you, I want you to be surprised when the downstairs in transformed with circles. You have seen your party dress with circles on it, though, and you get sooooooo excited everytime you see it, wanting to hold it and hug it. Thursday night we went to the grocery store to buy food for your party. You helped me pick out decorations for your cake. And I found circles wrapping paper. You wanted to hold it throughout the rest of the store and you told me, completely unprevoked, "Gi'a yeuv circles!" When I laughed in delight you continued, "Gi'a aaaaaaaaaways yeuv circles!" Your passion for circles is something else, my girl. It cracks me up.

Now that you're two we've been putting away the last of the baby things. I'm sad to see them go, I have no qualms admitting that. But I'm so excited for you, too! You love your "big-guw" bed and you have only had one night where I've had to be firm and lead you back to bed multiple times. Every other night you happily climb in bed and stay there.

You're vocabulary is amazing. You are loosing some of your babyish pronounciations. You say "double-u" now, not "double." (That's still your favorite letter, too.) You speak in full sentences most of the time. You are so polite, too. You almost always ask "pees" when you want something (depending on your mood, of course). You say "thanks" and "no thank you" with out prompting, though you lately have decided that if you politely decline a request that means you should not have to do it....even when it was not a request to begin with, like changing your diaper. Thursday night when Daddy and I were putting you to bed you wanted us to sing you "Jingle Bells." After we serenaded you you said, "thank you so much." That just about did me in, Little Girl! I was in tears!

You have learned to do many things by and for yourself. You like to climb into and out of your car seat by yourself. You love to try to change your clothes by yourself. You pick out your own snacks. You would even change your own diaper if you could figure out how. I've developed little tricks, though, to avoid the screams of "Me, me, ME!" or "Gi'a SELF, Mommy! No!" I just step back, put up my hands and say, "ok, go ahead." Most of the time you work at it for about 5 seconds and then say, "Mommy, help you." If that doesn't happen I often conjole you that we can do it together and then burst into, "What's gonna work? TEAM-work!" ala The WonderPets. That usually gets your cooperation. However, you love to remind me that I don't have a flyboat. I guess that's your way of saying, "you're no WonderPet, mom."

Speaking of that, girl, that's one more thing I want to remember about you right now. You love to point out what everybody has and doesn't have. You are constantly saying things like, "Gi'a necklace." But then you say, "Daddy, HAVE a necklace" when what you mean is Daddy doesn't have a necklace. You forget to say "doesn't" but you reeeeeeeally stress the "have" instead, as your way of saying someone doesn't have something. I love it, even though I repeat it and add "doesn't" to help you learn. I know one day you'll lose that cute phrase and I will miss it. Another favorite topic for you is listing all the fun things in your life. I love that, too! You say "fun, Uncle Jimmy! Fun, Gramma house!"

Chicaboo, I love you. I know you love me, too, you tell me all the time now. I can't get enough of you! I'm so lucky that I get to watch you learn and grow. I often don't feel like I have much to do with it, you learn so fast, all on your own. I don't know exactly how or when, for example, you learned to count to ten in Spanish. But you do it all the time. You know several Spanish words, actually, and use them appropriately. I credit Dora with that. You call "ayudame!" when you need help, or say "enpujen" when you are pushing your doll stroller around. You didn't learn any of that from me. I wish I could take credit for all that you know. But it's all you, baby. You are amazingly bright. I'm so proud of you.

Happy Birthday, Little Girl. I can't believe you're TWO!

Family Roots

Partial Thurston family tree

Hello? Anyone still around? Sorry for the dust-bunnies and tumbleweeds floating collecting on the floors. I've been a little...busy.

Busy, you say? Work, motherhood, cleaning house, Christmas shopping, birthday party planning...that's probably enough to keep anyone busy this time of year.

But me? No, that wasn't enough. No, I had to go and loose myself in a new and time-consuming hobby. Remember how I told you about how I get a little "obsessed" at times? Yeah. I've found a new one. And we haven't even had G's big birthday party yet. Hmmmm... attention deficit much?

What was I saying? Oh, yes! My new hobby. I've fallen into the rabbit hole of geneology. I've always been interested in all things historical. History was my absolute favorite thing in school. A few months ago I acquired a book all about the history of Broome County, my hometown. I devoured it. I love trying to figure out where everything was/is located, what's there now. I relish reading all the details and secrets of long dead people's lives and the impact they had on my community. I frequently walk or drive past quiet neighborhoods lined with old, fading houses and wonder whose homes they were and what their stories are. But somehow the intrigue of geneology study had escaped me. Until last week.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I was at work, bored out of my mind. It was deathly quiet. Phones weren't ringing. Faxes weren't humming. Nobody seemed to need anything. My supervisor actually came into my office and said, "If you have Christmas shopping to do online, help yourself." That would have been a productive use of time. That Christmas list is collecting dust and I haven't done much about it. However, I had already been occupying myself online and by that point, I was long gone. Let me try to explain how I arrived at
Ancestory.com

This is vintage Kami. I don't know how you all surf when you have nothing else to do, but I tend to jump from topic and link to link as things pique my interest. So, I believe I began on The New York Times site, looking at the news. An article on the history of "Jewishness" caught my eye (the history thing, I guess, I'm not jewish.) From there I began researching an obsure Turkish empire in the Middle Ages called the Khazars. This led me to a very interesting article on the Samaritan people. On that blog site I stumbled upon an article about the history of a woman's husband's last name. Aaaaaaand, we've made it. She linked to Ancestory.com. I hopped over and was immediately absorbed in the surname message boards.

Arthur Thurston and his draft horses, circa 1925

By the end of the day I had done some significant research on my mom's father's family, the Creerys. I worked my way back several generations to an infamous guy named "Cherry Tree" Joe McCreery in Western PA. Apparently he was a friend of Johnny Appleseed and a real-life Paul Bunyan. I also solved the mystery of when and how McCreery was shortened to Creery. Turns out "Cherry Tree" Joe's son, Morgan Rheese Banks McCreery, was a dentist. When he moved to a new town and set up a new practice, the man hired to paint the office door mistakenly painted "Creery" rather than "McCreery." I guess it was easier to change his name than change the door. (Credit for that story belongs to my mother's cousin Clark Creery, who I stumbled onto online.) I was HOOKED!

I printed out a bunch of information and when I stopped by my parents' house to pick up Giuliana I ended up showing it all to my mom and pestering her to fill in some of the blanks. She didn't have all the answers, but she said she'd try to remember what she could and would dig up some pictures, too. We ended up spending all day at it on Friday.

I went home and set up shop in a corner of my kitchen with my laptop on the counter, and I remained there for the next 5 hours, lost on Ancestory, digging up whatever I could find on both of my parents' families. I came across some pictures of my father's parents when they were quite young and had no idea who had posted them or how they were related to me. I sent the woman a message and it turns out she is my father's cousin's daughter (second cousin? I never remember these things.) She and I have been corresponding ever since and she has sent me 40+ family photos and filled in many missing pieces about my father's family that even he didn't know. Turns out my family on his side has lived in Broome County almost since it was founded 1806. I had no idea. All of the sudden that fascinating book on the history of Broome County took on an entirely new meaning to me. This is not only the history of the area I live and love, it's my family's history. They were here and were apart of all of it. How incredibly cool is that?

Bessie Jones Thurston and Arthur Thurston and family circa 1922

Now that I've filled in most of the names several generations back, I've been focusing on my dad's family and the places they lived and worked. I've been driving around town, taking pictures of old houses that are still standing and empty fields where they used to be. I have a lot more work to do. John and I are off the week after Christmas and I have plans to spend a day at the Broome County library's geneology center. I hope to find birth, marriage and death records. I plan to dig up whatever I can find about my great-grandfather's company, Binghamton Warehouse & Terminal and the grocery store he owned later. I will look up deeds and census data so I can explore all the addresses and homesteads. (Might need more than one day!)

245 Clinton St. Binghamton, (one of) my great-grandparents' home

I suppose I'll have to squeeze a birthday party for a certain two year old and oh, yeah, Christmas in there somewhere this month. But for now I'm far gone and preoccupied (obsessed?) with my new hobby. Pass that deed book over here, would you?