Christmas 2012

We had a very nice Christmas this year, in spite of the snow.  At first we planned on going down to my parents' house in Springville on Christmas Eve, but snow caused us to drive down on Christmas instead.

I thought that Cosette would be more excited about opening gifts this year, but Jeff and I had to open most of them for her.  In the days that followed I could see how much she liked her gifts, though.  She loves her Elmo pajamas and wants to wear them every night (and sometimes during the day, too).  We gave her a grandma book that you can personalize with photographs (which caused me to go to Costco on Christmas Eve, which is totally lame).  She has pictures of five different grandmas: Grandma (my mom), Grandma Darla (Jeff's mom, who has passed away), Grandma Rita (Jeff's dad's new wife), GiGi (my dad's mom), and Great-Grandma (my mom's mom).  She can now name each grandma, and she often likes to sleep with the book.  Another gift we gave her was a My Little People Noah's Ark lift-the-flap book.  She carries it around the house, takes it in the car when we run errands, and sleeps with it too.

Cosette with two of her gifts from Mom and Dad:
Elmo pajamas and a grandma book with photos

We acted out the Christmas story at my parents' house.  We usually do it on Christmas Eve, but they waited to do it on Christmas so we could join in.  Cosette and I were shepherds this year.  Cosette was a little confused about what was going on, but she was happiest when playing with a ball and sitting on the video rocker chair.

Entertaining herself with a ball during the Christmas play

One of the things I asked my parents for was a tree skirt.  For the past few years we've been using a green bath towel that only covered half of the space under the tree.  Here are some before and after pictures.

Before: our sad, sad tree skirt made out of a towel

After: our lovely, proper tree skirt

Striving to eat more healthy

For those of you who may be unaware, Jeff has been having stomach pain (and other symptoms) for about a month now.  We're not sure what is wrong, but he's had blood tests, a HIDA scan, a visit to the ER, and has an appointment to see a GI in a few weeks.  We've gone through a lot of ups and downs emotionally and physically, but I'd like to think that there's something positive coming out of this trial.

About a week ago we caught a health show on TV being presented by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  He talked about how unhealthy and unnatural the typical American diet of processed foods is for your body.  He also talked about the importance of micronutrients that we get from fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts.  Citing research and his experience with patients, he described how a diet based on these essential foods helps you to have more energy, gain and maintain a healthy weight, and avoid illness.

Well, Jeff and I were very interested in what he had to say.  Of course, I've heard a lot of this before, but I felt that we were more open to really listening and applying these principles.  While I was listening to his presentation, I was reminded a lot of the Word of Wisdom in the Doctrine and Covenants.  So I went back and reread it, and certain portions really stuck out to me.  For example, it says very clearly that meat should be used sparingly, only in times of cold and famine.  Again, I've heard this before, but I never really tried to apply it.  Our current diet has a lot of meat in it.  Now that I've been doing more research into how unhealthy that is, it makes my stomach churn to think about it.  We're certainly not setting out to become vegetarians, but we're going to be making real effort to cut back on how often we eat meat.

I've also been paying a lot closer attention to the labels on the foods we eat. Golly!  It's been an eye-opener.  Why are we eating all this junk?  I know why I've been doing it - convenience.  It takes work and planning to eat healthier.  But, little by little, we're taking steps to eat more fresh and less processed foods in our diet.

Take tonight's dinner, for example.  I heated up a frozen pizza - not the healthiest, I know.  But in the past, Jeff and I would eat the whole pizza with no side dishes. Tonight we only ate half the pizza, and we had a green salad and a fruit salad.  I counted afterwards and discovered that we had eaten 6 different kinds of vegetables (three kinds of leafy greens, broccoli, carrots, and tomato) and 5 different kinds of fruit (cantaloupe, mandarine oranges, apples, persimmon, and then pineapple on the pizza).

I wanted to take a picture to show you our beautiful variety of carrots as well as the delicious and interesting persimmon fruit.  We didn't know that carrots came in other colors, and we'd never heard of or tried a persimmon before.  These are courtesy of Bountiful Baskets (if you haven't heard of them, I encourage you to look them up - they are a wonderful way to add a variety of fruits and vegetables to your diet!).

Orange, yellow, and purple carrots - who knew?

Yummy persimmon in our fruit salad

In our quest to eat more healthy foods, I plan to:

1. Make a real effort to eat more salads - both as side dishes and as the main course.  Now that I know how good for you they are, they're a lot more appealing to me.  Neither Jeff nor I have been big fans of salad in the past, so this is a big step for us.
2. Buy fruits and vegetables from Bountiful Baskets more often so that we get a wide range of produce in our diet.
3. Invest in a high quality blender.  As I've been reading recipes in Dr. Fuhrman's book, I can see the benefit of being able to make healthy salad dressing, soups, etc. with the use of a good blender.  Our blender's motor gave out a few months ago, and we haven't replaced it yet, so now's a good time.
4. Look for ways to make things that I bake healthier, like replacing oil with applesauce and using only whole wheat flour rather than half white half wheat.  I've been experimenting with healthier substitutions like this for a while now, but I want to go a little further.
5. Strive to follow the Word of Wisdom more closely.  I now want to focus on the do's, not just the don'ts.  We're especially going to try cutting most of the meat out of our diet.
6. Try to replace processed breakfast and snack foods with healthier alternatives.
7. Cook less often with cheese.
8. Eat more beans, nuts and seeds.

I should have made a lot of these changes sooner.  But honestly, I think that it's taken Jeff being sick to make us take a hard look at our diet choices and how they affect our quality of life.  After the month we've been having, we're more willing and ready to make serious changes.  If any of you have any suggestions, tips, or favorite recipes - please share!  I will be trying a lot of new recipes and foods in the coming months, and I will make an effort to share my successes with you.

Fun with Napkins

I came into the kitchen the other day to find this:

 Cosette had discovered the napkins that I conveniently stored down low in the corner cabinet.

 She had lots of fun with them, so I decided to grab my camera and capture the moment.

Here is Cosette's attempt to "clean up."  The intent was good, even if the execution was a bit off.  And it was really cute to watch her do it, because she was counting as she stuffed them back in, "one, two, eight."

 I really didn't mind having the napkins ruined.  I had recently bought a large package of 600 napkins, only to discover that there was a reason they were so cheap - the quality is terrible!  Warning: stay away from Family Napkins - you get what you pay for.  So go ahead, Cosette.  Rip away!

Playdate with the Tanners

When I taught math part-time at Youth Village about a year ago, Tiffany Tanner came and watched Cosette for me.  She brought her cute little boy Nicholas with her, and he and Cosette got along really well.
I was sad when the Tanners moved away, but fortunately it wasn't far - about a 30 minute drive.  So I took Cosette for a playdate recently and wanted to share a photo and video so you could all see how cute they are together.

I love how they looked back at me at the end of the video.  Too cute!

New Calling

This is just a quick post to let those who might be wondering what my new calling is.  I have been called as the Family History Instructor.  It will be a new little adventure.  I downloaded the manual on my iPod and perused it last week.  I recently got into indexing as the Elder's Quorum President and found it enjoyable to work on the 1940 census.  I look forward to the class.  I don't know when I will start teaching the class.  Apparently people are chosen to attend my class and so I will have to wait until the bishopric says they have spoken to those people.  It looks like the class is pretty well laid out for the instructors.

Released

Well, after serving for two years (minus 3 days) I was released as elder's quorum president last week.  I was informed 3 weeks before that, and I definitely felt "trunky".  The stress was getting to me and I felt that I was getting sick every other week for the past few months.  Church is kinda different now.  People don't call me President; I tend to blend in; I don't have the huge overstuffed binder that I kept neglecting to clean out - and best of all - no more early meetings.
Mostly I am glad to be moving on to a new calling.  I know my new calling but I haven't been sustained yet.  They didn't want to give me too much down time.
It was quite a journey.

Halloween

Cosette was a little cow for Halloween this year.  Thanks again for lending us the costume, Suzanne!

She had a lot of fun at our Ward Halloween party. Her favorite part was the bubbles that she got from the spook walk (like a cake walk).  She went absolutely CRAZY over them.  I wish I had taken a video of that.

 These last two pictures were taken on Halloween night.  We took her to a few neighbors that lived in our stairwell, and everyone gave us tootsie rolls!  I thought that was kind of funny.

 Here's a video of Cosette enjoying her tootsie roll.  She hasn't had a lot of experience with candy, so it was a real treat!

Isn't it cute how she says please by rubbing her belly?  In sign language you rub your chest, so this is Cosette's version.  It's the only sign she does, and it's the only way she'll say please - she never tries to verbalize it.  I love my funny girl!