Flamingos, Reindeer, and Meerkats--Oh My!

We've been meaning to visit the L.A. Zoo for a while now, and we finally decided that today was the day. Single-day passes would cost $34 for our family (two adults and one child - Daniel's free cuz he's under 2), but we discovered that we could get a year-long family pass for a mere $75. If we go even two more times this year, the pass will have paid for itself. Plus, we won't feel pressured to see everything in one day.

We barely covered a third of the exhibits today, but we saw a lot of fun things.

There were flamingos . . .

. . . reindeer (taking it easy after their big night last week) . . .

. . . and some meerkats checking out all the funny-looking humans.

My favorite thing was this fun exhibit, where you could pop up out of the ground and get a close-up look at the prairie dogs. Awww . . . aren't they cute?

Almost as cute as this guy.

Christmas Bells are Ringing

I love the holidays - the family time, the fun, the food . . .

We had our annual music fest with Phillip's mom and sisters, singing carols . . .

. . . and enjoying the percussion trio.

Our visit with my relatives was a little crazy so I didn't manage to get any pictures. Joy received a baby doll from Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa, and though she hasn't been very interested in dolls in the past, the arrival of her baby brother has apparently increased their appeal. Joy loves feeding her baby doll a bottle (and occasionally giving him some play-food pancakes, too--cuz who doesn't love French fry and ice cream pancakes?).

After Christmas dinner we headed up to my parents' cabin. It was cold up there (we even saw a little snow left over from a recent storm), so I decided to make Daniel a hat with one of the Knifty Knitter looms I recently bought. I tried it on him at one point to gauge how many more rows I needed to knit, and it made him look remarkably like a crown roast.

Here's the finished product. "Uh, Mama, I think you made it a little too tall."

"That's OK, Buddy--you'll grow into it."

The holiday season wouldn't be complete without a birthday party for Daddy. Here he is blowing out a candle atop his birthday apple crisp. Mmmmm.

Joy preferred bright red peppermint cupcakes for her birthday. And of course, everything tastes better when you're wearing spiffy headgear with a pompom on top of it.

Happy birthday, Joy and Daddy.

And happy birthday to the Savior, Who gives us meaning in life and hope for eternity. We hope you all had an inspiring, wonderful Christmas.

I Love To See The Temple

Since Joy is such a fan of the temple . . .

. . . we decided that this year's holiday festivities should include a trip to see the Christmas lights on the Los Angeles Temple grounds.

The place looked magical, with colorful lights all among the flowers . . .

. . . and strung through the trees.

There was also a simple Nativity scene, which gave us a chance to remind Joy (and ourselves) why we celebrate Christmas.

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours.

Toy Tree

It took us a while to get around to decorating our Christmas tree this year. After waiting patiently for several days, Joy decided to take matters into her own hands.

She started by adding a few balls . . .

. . . then before we knew it the tree was sporting plastic food, magnets, a few Nativity figures, and some Play-doh. I was tempted to leave the toy tree as it was for the rest of December, just for fun, but Phillip insisted we go the more traditional route.

Once we opened the ornament boxes and showed Joy the cool stuff we could put up instead of her toys, she was more than happy to help us remove the first round of decorations and get to work on the second wave.

Ah . . . much better.

Play-doh Chaos

Joy is currently obsessed with the ten jars of Play-doh she got for her birthday.

The first day, her OCD mom just let her play with one jar at a time. Then I realized it was her Play-doh and there was no instruction manual that said there was only one right way to play with it, so if she wanted to open more than one jar at a time and mix the colors with wild abandon, there was nothing wrong with that. [twitch]

Thus began our descent into Play-doh chaos

It started small. The first day she just mixed a few colors in the jars, and actually came up with some beautiful color combinations. (She's dashing toward me in this photo because she loves seeing the pictures on our camera's screen after a I take a few shots.)

The next day Joy had all the jars open at once, and was thinking outside the jar--er, box--using an empty container to make impressions in her big rainbow pancake.

The following day the pancake had grown, the Play-doh looked like someone threw a rainbow in a blender, and Joy had started using our Little People Nativity figures as her artistic implements of choice. She rarely uses the jars now--since we can no longer distinguish the colors, we usually just roll all the Play-doh into a big ball and store it in a baggie so it won't dry out.

But don't worry--Joy found another good use for the jars.

Baby Fashion

Independently of each other, Daniel's parents felt compelled to photograph him in his high chair today. We captured, er, rather different looks.

Daddy photographed him doing the Baby Gangsta Thang (or maybe its the Alvin and the Chipmunks Thang) . . .

. . . and Mama photographed him having a grand time with his man bag.

And while we're talking about baby fashion, I think Daniel's first date will squeal with delight about fifteen years from now when we show her this picture of Daniel in his cow towel.

Rough Day

Today was a rather grueling day for Miss Joy.

First she fell in the pool. Don't be alarmed--she just stumbled down onto the first step in the shallow end, but it startled her and let's face it--no one likes being wet and cold in December, even in California.

And of course, this happened AFTER I packed up all her clothes and sent them home with Daddy this morning. At least we still had her penguin PJs to change into.

Then there was this guy.

At our ward Christmas party, Joy only went along to meet the dude in the red suit because I said that I wanted to see him. She had no interest in sitting on some stranger's lap until she learned that she could get a toy for doing so, and even then she obviously wasn't too keen on the idea. I suppose I can't blame her.

The funny thing is that I feel no great motivation to perpetuate the myth of Santa Claus to my daughter, yet for some reason I feel that Christmas isn't Christmas unless I've arranged the traditional picture of my child sitting on some stranger's lap ("Now remember: Don't talk to strangers unless they have red suits and big white beards").

I never said I was a rational creature--few humans are. Just ask a Vulcan.

Spice Art

We're housesitting for my parents this week, and this afternoon I found myself thinking, "Hmmm. My toddler has been playing quietly in the next room for some time now. I wonder what she is doing?" When such thoughts cross your mind, you can virtually guarantee that there is a mess in your immediate future.

As I approached the kitchen where Joy was playing, I noticed a pleasantly pungent spicy aroma. When I rounded the corner, I discovered that Joy . . .

. . . had raided Grandma's spice cabinet . . .

. . . and dumped the entire contents of seven or eight jars on the floor so she could make spice art. Meanwhile, she served her bear a delectable repast of cream of tarter with green sprinkles.

Here's a closeup of Joy's handiwork.

Does it diminish the impact of parental discipline if I take lots of pictures of a mess before I lecture about how wrong it was to make it? Yes, probably. Will that stop me from doing it again in the future? Not likely.

Holiday Spirit

We spent Thanksgiving with Mom H today.

She prepared some costumes to help us get in the spirit of things.

We didn't want the fish to feel left out.

Day in the Park

One of the blessings of living in So Cal is that you can enjoy a day in the park even in November.

Joy loves climbing trees . . .

. . . riding the swings . . .

. . . and playing in the sand whilst contemplating the deeper meaning of life.

"Like sands through the toy sieve, so are the days of our lives."

Family Time

The kids have enjoyed lots of fun time with family lately:

Here's Joy reading with Pink Grandma, in front of a picture of her and Daniel . . . reading with Pink Grandma. I'm noticing a pattern here. :)

Daniel's learning early that Red Grandma loves to feed people.

Joy and Papa bonding over firearms as Papa cleans his shotgun.

Aunt Heather doing double duty at the playground.

Aunt Alissa reading a little book to a big girl.

We love you, family!

Little Foodies

My cooking apprentice (Joy) has a set of plastic "food" items, and she's really into playing with her food these days.

She and Daniel are particularly taken with the ice cream cones.

Joy likes to feed them to Elmo (note that he has a bib on to keep him nice and tidy--it reads "I'm A Little Hungry").

Daniel would rather eat my hair.

Yum.

Joy's Heartbroken Over A Few Dates

Joy and I were eating dates this evening, and suddenly Joy said, "Dwah hawtbwoken" ("Joy is heartbroken"). I asked why she was heartbroken, but she just climbed into my lap and kept repeating that she was.

I realized that she had probably picked the word up from a current favorite board book in which Gossie the gosling is "heartbroken" when she can't find her bright red boots. I don't think Joy grasps the full meaning of the term, but she does understand that a heartbroken person needs comfort and is therefore likely to get lots of hugs. I was more than happy to help her with that--I like hugs, too. :)

There's the Rub

In addition to keeping my offspring fed, clothed, and reasonably clean, I aspire to stimulate their motor skills, mental faculties, etc. (I don't actually manage to DO the latter very often, but I do aspire). To that end, I decided to do a Creative Activity with Joy this evening.

Here are the materials: paper, leaves, crayons, and a Trader Joe's sticker (contributed by Joyful). The idea is to put leaves under your paper, then rub a crayon across them to reveal the leaves' outlines.

Joy didn't entirely get the concept (she tended to color wherever the leaf was NOT), but she did have fun which, after all, is far more important. Here she is holding up her masterpiece for all to admire. Of course, when I asked her to hold her drawing "up for the camera" . . .

. . . she promptly held it DOWN for the camera. Maybe she doesn't need her creativity stimulated after all--it's pretty well-developed already.