Happy Birthday Papa!!

We're sorry that we cannot be there to celebrate (you know how we love steak), but hope that your birthday is lots of fun!

Why is almost 3 so hard?

The other title I thought of for this post was "Off the Deep End". Because lately my life feels like a combination of the two. For folks who haven't noticed, it is really hard to have an almost three year old. I don't know why, but it seems like she wants to test everything these days. Everything! And the questions come fast and repeated. If I have to answer "What day is today?" (followed quickly by its siblings "what day is tomorrow? what day comes next?") I am going to scream. Or if I have to read another Disney princess story, I am going to scream. Or look at another Disney princess sticker. I am sure that Belle, Ariel, Cinderella, Jasmine, and Aurora never suffered through having almost three year olds tell you that "I want to do NOTHING!" when you ask them to come and eat their lunch. They wouldn't be smiling so nicely, nor would they have such great looking hair.

Things have been hard around here of late, and in all fairness, it is not all due to Julia's growing pains. We started her back in daycare last week so that I could finish up my Seattle work and find a job. So that transition has been rough on her and me. And, for the folks who haven't noticed, it is really hard to find a job these days. Nobody in the Philadelphia metro area seems to want to hire a Ph.D. molecular biologist with a background in neuroscience and biophysics. Unless you have five years of industry experience. Or just a B.S. degree. But with Julia back in daycare I am feeling more pressure than ever to finish things up and find that full-time job again. See, I didn't plan on retiring when we moved here, but I also didn't count on the stock market crashing the first day of Dan's new job either. All of these things have combined into a major storm of stress swirling in my chest most days that makes me snap at my family and keeps me from sleeping at night.

We knew this was going to be a huge leap of faith to make this move, and so far it feels like it was a huge mistake. I miss my friends back in Seattle, I miss the weather, the city, just feeling like I knew where I was in life. I hope we can look back at it all in five years and laugh, but I am not seeing that clearly yet. Spring will be here soon, so I just keep telling myself that things will come to pass...winter will be over, Julia will soon turn three, and I'll figure out how to swim again.

They're getting ready for Christmas!

This has been a continual phrase around here for the last two months. Well, maybe actually 3, since Julia noticed back before Halloween that stores were already getting ready for Christmas. It was a lot of fun this year to get ready for Christmas with Julia. She was much more into decorating, wrapping presents, etc. even if she didn't quite understand the whole Santa thing. Some of my favourite memories from the past month:

-Sharing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer with her....my favourite Christmas movie that we let her watch in 20 minute installments over a week. Now everytime she wants to watch TV, she says "Let's watch Rudolph!" I can already see that my no TV rule is going to be tested.

-Making fudge and cookies with Julia. She loaded up the sprinkles on our cookies...it turned into a shake off the extras from the cookie sheet before the oven, evenly distribute the sprinkles to other cookeis, and call for parental reinforcements to sort out the sprinkles kind of evening. But the cookies taste good.


- reading "The Night Before Christmas", then having to reassure her that I would not let the reindeer into her room to lick her face on Christmas Eve.

- Watching her open gifts and hearing her say: "You gave me a new babydoll!"

- Julia was the delivery elf at several family gatherings this year, which was made all the sweeter by her telling the recipient was was in the box/bag. It was really cute, although she was a little confused by our laughter each time it happened.

- Taking her to 34th Street in Baltimore to look at the lights; one of my favourite things about this season is the light displays and this neighborhood went all out. It was beautiful, people were friendly, and the weather was just cold enough. We have been teaching her to hiss at blue lights (thank you, Uncle Chip!) and have also decided that all of the inflatable Christmas lawn displays have ended up in the greater Philadelphia metro area.

Wishing everyone a blessed and simple new year!

Apple Picking Photo Essay

This was done back in October (as you can tell by the pumpkins). We had a really nice morning at Solebury Orchards in New Hope, PA. It was a beautiful day and we ended up with 20lbs of Empire and Melrose apples. A month later Julia and I went back and picked another 23lbs of Pink Lady apples. We have been eating a lot of apples and I plan on making apple butter before Christmas. This has definitely been the best thing about moving back east...the orchards. There are lots of orchards in Washington, but it always seemed too difficult to get to them (they were over the mountains). Now that the cold has settled in though, we are missing the milder and wetter weather in Seattle. Already planning a vacation back there for the summer....

We went to the woods

What Julia does while I am away....

I go away for a week, and my little brother already has her watching football and eating snacks! Look at how happy she is! I'm glad she is having a good time though, as am I. Kind of. I miss her and Dan, but I am getting lots of work done out here in Seattle. Looks like I will have to make the trip again, but not because I didn't work hard enough (stupid centrifuge).

Stuck.

This song is stuck in my head. Maybe getting it out would be good. Maybe someone can tell my why it is stuck in my head and if there is significance to the words in my life.

Maybe it's up with the stars
Maybe it's under the sea
Maybe it's not very far
Maybe this is how it's supposed to be.

Maybe it's trapped in a jar
Something we've already seen
Maybe it's nowhere at all
Maybe this is how it's supposed to be.

Looking forward as we rewind
Looking back is a trap sometimes
Being here is so easy to do
If you want to.

Jack Johnson, Curious George