Happy New Year

 Our New Year celebrations were fairly mild. We went on a family walk earlier in the day so that the neighbourhood luminaria could be our last walk of the year. When Rachel was getting ready to go she tried to zip up her coat but got all confused and ended up like this, with her bottom and top zippers connected:

The year is dying in the night

Around this time last year we sat down and made a list of family and individual goals to work on in 2013. We did fairly well, especially on the goals we were able to break down into manageable chunks.

1) One of our goals was to go on 100 family walks together (and also swims and later in the year we started counting family grocery shopping trips as well). Andrew, our resident nerd, has made a graph of the walks we took throughout the year:

Just in time!

Last night Karen asked me a question I'd been dreading: "Have you put Benjamin in Andrew's old suit?"

Aunt Susan made Andrew a darling corduroy suit when he was a toddler and Karen kept it packed safely away until Andrew had a boy of his own. She pulled it out and gave it to us before we moved.

It's a tribute to her organizational skills that she knew exactly where to find it (even though no one had worn it for a quarter of a century). It's a tribute to my lack of organizational skills that I had no idea where it was for the year and a half we've lived in this house. I suppose that's not quite true because I remember seeing it (and a couple other outfits I thought might fit him) at one point early on but I haven't seen this suit in about a year and I had no idea what I did with it.

"No!" I moaned. "I can't find it! I know it's in a box in the attic but I don't know which one. I thought I went through them all but I still haven't been able to find it!"

This has been so frustrating for me, especially because I think that with Aunt Susan's death this suit has been on everyone's mind this past year (I know it's been on mine).

We'd already decided that when we put the Christmas stuff away (which we did today) that we'd get down all the boxes of clothes (which we did today) so we could do an overhaul on Rachel's wardrobe (which we're currently doing) and finally find that blasted suit (which we did today)!

It looks like we found it just in time! The jacket fits perfectly, though the pants are a little roomy.

He thought he was hot stuff and his sisters declared, "He is so handsome!"

And he is extremely handsome. I just wish Aunt Susan could've seen him wear it.

And also that I had a picture of his daddy wearing the same suit. Do you have one, Karen?

Benjamin's words

Since I haven't done it yet, I figured I should attempt to make a list of words Benjamin says. After all, I did so for his sisters, and Benjamin has recently begun trying to talk enough that a list might be merited (finally).

So here are some things Benjamin can say:

• Cheese (sounds like chiz (this is currently his favourite word))
• Ball (sounds like baa)
• Bowl (also sounds like baa)
• Shoe (sounds like shh)
• Cookie (sounds like a messy, drawn-out k: khhhh, sometimes duplicated khh-khh)
• Baby (sounds like bebe)
• Nurse (sounds like nuh-nuh)
• Banana (sounds like naa-naa)
• Mom/Momma (he actually says this correctly—of course, it's been the only thing he's said for the past forever, so he should say it right)
• Dad (he says this correctly, too, though sometimes he says daa or daddy instead)
• Rachel (sounds like rah-rah)
• Miriam (sounds like mee-um)
• Benjamin (sounds like ben-juh-muh (he has only said this once))
• Dog (sounds like daw)
• Water (sounds like waa-waa)
• Amen (sounds like meh)
• Bobo (sounds like Bobo (this is the name of the monkey in the book Hug))
• Boo (sounds like buh)
• Bye (sounds like baa)
• Hi (sounds like hi)
• Duck (sounds like duh-tee)

Christmas dinner and beyond

For Christmas dinner we wanted to do something classy, memorable, and traditional. Andrew made potato pancakes (also known as latkes) and beef stew, we spread a table cloth over the table and set glass dishes for everyone but Benjamin. We had an assortment of beverages and a vegetable platter.

A boy and his alligator...or crocodile

Benjamin really loves this crocodile...or alligator. Whatever it is he loves it. He likes to make it bite his fingers. He likes to feed it its bottle. He likes to use it as a stool. He just loves it.

Here are some pictures of him feeding his alligator today:

Presents!

One of the books we got from Sister Wood was Santa's Toy Shop. We read it and the girls went to bed wondering if Santa would choose their house as his last stop so he could take some time to play with the toys he was bringing for them. We told them he might.

The Christmas Swing Set

Yesterday Brother Brown (who had been "hiding" our swing set in his field) phoned to say he had the swing set loaded in a trailer and was ready to come to our house. This was a surprise for us because we'd been planning on helping to load the trailer ourselves. Brother Brown had enlisted the help of a couple of neighbours however, and instead of helping load a swing set I found myself hurrying to get out the door before they arrived.

Our neighbourhood has two entrances and I briefly considered turning left to go out the "other" entrance but I'm a creature of habit when it comes to driving so I turned right and went to our "usual" one. Just as I was pulling up to the stop sign, who do you think comes driving by in a big, shiny truck pulling a trailer burdened with a play set? Brother Brown, of course.

"Whoa!" Rachel gasped. "Is that for us?"

And thus I was faced with lying straight to my child's face in order to preserve a surprise. But I didn't lie. Not once.

"Why do you think it would be for you?" I asked her, deflecting her question with a question. "Didn't you see that huge pile of presents we have at home?"

"Well, I thought you wanted to order a swing set," she pointed out.

It's no secret in our house that (a) Rachel wanted a swing set and (b) that I'd been scouring Craigslist for one of decent price and shape.

"I didn't order a swing set," I told Rachel. And that's true—you don't order things from Craigslist. "There's no way we could afford a swing set like that!" That is also true.

"Well, maybe you just borrowed some of Dad's money without him knowing," she suggested.

Nativity 2013

The kids were just choosing their costumes to act out the nativity when Brother Brown came by with his gifts. I didn't catch Miriam in her original Mary costume...she ended up being an overly-dressed-for-the-occasion Mary, sporting an elegant gold ball gown and crown rather than a simple frock and headscarf.

Benjamin was a wise man. He wore his galabeya, a gold cape, and a pig hat (his choice).

Making Christmas

On Saturday morning Daddy went to Brother Brown's house to do some repairs on the swing set we'll be giving the kids tomorrow. Brother Brown was already hard at work when Andrew arrived. They worked on it together for a couple of hours. It's nice to know someone so knowledgable about fix-it stuff!

Brother Brown reminds me of Ron Swanson (only slightly more liberal and far less anti-social—he's even got the mustache). I don't think there exists a thing in the world that he couldn't fix!

While Daddy was off working on the swing set, we were at home lazing around. Rachel was coming down with whatever Benjamin's just getting over so she wasn't feeling too great. Miriam wanted to go to the playground but Rachel just wanted to stay home. She appeased her younger siblings by breaking out the face paints.

She turned Benjamin into Elmo: