advent 2011: day 7

though i'd originally planned
a lantern-making session for today
with my increasing understanding
of what would actually be
fun and achievable for a toddler
we decided to make instead:
coloured pasta garlands

to make coloured pasta:
take 2 cups of pasta
(penne or rigatoni are best for threading)
2 teaspoons of food-dye
and 3 teaspoons of rubbing alcohol
(called isocol - found in medical aisle at coles.)

put the ingredients in a ziplock bag
and mix gently until pasta is coloured.
spread pasta on lined baking trays
and leave to dry overnight.

to make the garlands
tie a wool needle on a piece of string
and let your little one
thread til their heart's content!
(which will probably take about 5 minutes...)

JT: Rebekah

Genesis 24:63-67 - One evening he was walking out in the fields, when suddenly he saw a group of people approaching on camels. So he started toward them. Rebekah saw him coming; she got down from her camel, and asked, "Who is that man?" "He is my master Isaac," the servant answered. Then Rebekah covered her face with her veil. The servant told Isaac everything that had happened. Isaac took Rebekah into the tent where his mother had lived before she died, and Rebekah became his wife. He loved her and was comforted over the loss of his mother.

advent 2011: day 6

more painting
with a new technique:
corks on skewers = toddler-friendly!

while i painted

the second coat on the play kitchen
little sister kept herself busy
munching dirt

yesterday i finally received
the advent reflections
i'd ordered in october -
they are amazing

p.s. husband got 83 for his uni subject - woot!

JT: Isaac

Genesis 22:13-14 - Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bushes. So he took the ram and sacrificed it in place of his son. Abraham named that place "The LORD Will Provide." And even now people say, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

advent 2011: day 5

a day of painting
of christmas cards and play kitchens
and realising my expectations
were a little lofty
on both counts.

but big sister had fun
stamping and swirling with potatoes,
(who knew you could swirl? how unimaginative i am!)
and now i have a new plan
for completing the cards and the kitchen.

simple reminders of the glory of jesus
and the eternal life we'll enjoy with him
where there will be no mistakes or futility!

JT: Sarah

genesis 18:9-14 - and they asked, "Where is your wife Sarah?" "She is right there in the tent," Abraham answered.One of the guests was the LORD, and he said, "I'll come back about this time next year, and when I do, Sarah will already have a son." Sarah was behind Abraham, listening at the entrance to the tent. Abraham and Sarah were very old, and Sarah was well past the age for having children. So she laughed and said to herself, "Now that I am worn out and my husband is old, will I really know such happiness?" The LORD asked Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh? Does she doubt that she can have a child in her old age? I am the LORD! There is nothing too difficult for me. I'll come back next year at the time I promised, and Sarah will already have a son."

advent 2011: day 4

handmade bon-bons today
for our christmas lunch on the 17th
with glueing by big sister
the rest (and fretting!) by me
(this is a good exercise
in learning the capabilities of a two-year-old!)

JT: Abraham

genesis 18:1 - One hot summer afternoon Abraham was sitting by the entrance to his tent near the sacred trees of Mamre, when the LORD appeared to him.

and a gratuitous pic
of my melon-munching lovelies

advent 2011: day 3

It was apt that on the day we read about Noah
with the animals in the ark
that we went to visit the zoo
for a friend's birthday party.

We saw:
peacocks parading
tigers prowling
kangaroos lazing
giraffes reaching
an elephant getting a bath
and big sister took a ride on the carosel!

JT: Noah

Genesis 9:11-17 - I promise every living creature that the earth and those living on it will never again be destroyed by a flood. The rainbow that I have put in the sky will be my sign to you and to every living creature on earth. It will remind you that I will keep this promise forever. When I send clouds over the earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, I will remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures. Never again will I let floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the sky, I will always remember the promise that I have made to every living creature. The rainbow will be the sign of that solemn promise.

advent 2011: day 2

christmas baking:
an allergy-free christmas cake
(free from dairy, eggs and gluten,
but very full of fructose!)

JT day 2: eve

genesis 2:21-23 - So the LORD God made him fall into a deep sleep, and he took out one of the man's ribs. Then after closing the man's side, the LORD made a woman out of the rib. The LORD God brought her to the man, and the man exclaimed: "Here is someone like me! She is part of my body, my own flesh and bones. She came from me, a man. So I will name her Woman!"

advent 2011: day 1

a wreath of hands
mummy hands and big sister hands
now hangs on our front door
(which is quite exposed to the weather
so i'm praying it will last through december!)

JT day 1: adam

genesis 2:7 - The LORD God took a handful of soil and made a man. God breathed life into the man, and the man started breathing. (CEV)

ready for advent

the jesse tree stands bare
while the advent calendar hangs bulging
ready for december 1

works in progress

while big sister lay in bed last evening
shouting "baa baa black sheep" like a punk rocker,
and little sister remarkably slept on,
i sewed christmas clothes for the girls.
almost done - just a few straps, some hemming and a waist band to go!

for little sister: shirred tops and matching nappy covers

for big sister: pyjama shorts and cord skirts

advent 3: prop construction

the things you can do when both girls are asleep

(and so you can't use the vacuum cleaner.)
i would love to work in prop construction on playschool!
this stable is in preparation for our advent story-telling
set to begin on thursday

breaking through

jig-sawing a window in the play-oven door

self-sewn pumpkins shooting in our garden


two little bottom teeth, finally emerged

a wee bit insane?

we're normal. what are you talking about?

i think that some people, namely my mum and my brother, suspect that i am going a wee bit insane following my recent posts on giving sugar and santa the flick. (well, living in a little house and doing things repetitively like rocking the pram could possibly be sending me a little barmy. and having been wanting to move to the country all year but having no control over when we're able to go and so living in limbo land has also turned me into a major control freak over the little things, and especially over stuff to do with christmas. sigh.) i am also really just trying very hard to be a thoughtful mother, while i have the opportunity to do some thinking and am not living by the seat of my pants.

i've had some supremely useful conversations this weekend, and have come to a more moderate and satisfying (for me) position on the big fat red guy. my decision is to, for the most part, leave the initiating of santa-talk to the girls, and i'll answer their questions as they come. we will celebrate sinterklaas in 2012, and i will explain to the girls about who saint nicholas was and what he was on about, so when they do ask about santa, i will explain him in relation to saint nicholas. i will continue, however, to maintain my no-red and white-christmas decoration policy.

it was pointed out that perhaps i have been over-estimating the impact of the whole santa issue, and underestimating the impact of all the other jesus-focused elements of celebrating christmas. touche. i needed to hear that. i guess in my fear of my girls turning into entitled, greedy brats who don't value the things that they have (which is the lifestyle i associate with santa), i forgot that God is powerful, wise, merciful and kind, that he answers prayers, that Jesus has already claimed victory over sin, and that God is at work in the world all the time. so i needn't worry so much.

i have also had ample opportunity this weekend to put my convictions about sugar to the test in big sister's life, as our saturday consisted of a christmas party, a birthday party and a thanksgiving dinner, all with sugar-laden goodies to be had. though i didn't say this in my previous post, the fifth "rule" of david gillespie's diet is that "party food is for parties," which means that it's okay to indulge in some sugary delights when celebrating something worth celebrating - it's just not okay to indulge in them as part of your normal eating pattern. (and if you're a sugar addict, which is what he contends most people are, you'll most likely regret indulging in the sugar because you'll have to detox all over again. anyway...)

so big sister got to eat lollies, iced-biscuits, cake, chocolate, juice and ice-cream - the last three of which she had never really even had before. (she didn't really like the juice, so i am secretly pleased about that.) i actually felt okay about her eating these things in celebration, but i am still convinced that i don't want them in our house and that it's not really okay for playgroup morning tea to consist of sugary treats. the gillespie book contains recipes for party foods (and other normal foods) that are made fructose-free by using alternate ingredients (such as dextrose and glucose syrup, which each contain the glucose part of sugar but not the evil fructose part), so it is allegedly possible to make these celebratory foods in a low-fructose version. will be testing these recipes out soon.

what to tell the girls about the big fat red guy

image from here.

i've been going around in circles lately, thinking about how to approach the whole santa-thing with my girls. i feel like i've got another year to figure things out before big sister starts asking questions (or knows anyone else who would tell her about santa), so i'm glad for the extra time to sort things through. in an ideal world, i would not tell the girls about santa at all, and to us he wouldn't exist or have any part in our celebration of christmas. sadly, our world is not this way!

my second preference is to tell the girls that santa is a story or a game, which other families tell and play at christmas time. but i don't really want big sister to be the one to tell other children that santa isn't real, when their parents still want them to believe that he is. a reaction i have to this train of thought, though, is that i'm sure there are many parents who would be prepared to tell their children that the story of jesus is just a story, and wouldn't mind if their children told my girls that jesus isn't real. it doesn't bother me if other kids tell my girls that jesus isn't real, because we know that he is and i am happy to talk with the girls about how we know that jesus is more than just a story. anyway...

my third idea is for our family to observe sinterklaas, which is a dutch christmas tradition, rather than following the australian tradition of having santa claus visit on christmas eve. i need to read a bit more about sinterklaas, but i like the fact that it is celebrated earlier in december (so that christmas day can be exciting simply because it is the day we celebrate jesus' birth) and that the gifts given by santa are extremely modest. i think it would also be a great way to cherish our family's dutch heritage (if you didn't know, husband's family came to australia from the netherlands when he was 8, and so the girls are half dutch.) the problems i can see with this approach are still how to explain about santa (whether to say that it's a game or to pretend for a while that it is real, which i don't want to do) and then how the girls would explain to their friends that santa visits them early just because they are half dutch.

so i'm still confused. i like the story of saint nicholas, who gave gifts to people in genuine need in his village, and would be happy to observe something that celebrates his compassion and generosity. but i don't know how to do that without buying into the extremely-bastardised version we know today as santa claus. any thoughts?

big sister's rain dance

from last friday evening, during a thunderstorm...

bye bye sugar

image from here.

two nights ago, we ran out of milo and i'm not going to buy anymore. we've also run out of dried fruit, sweet chilli sauce, orange juice and sweetened yoghurt, and i'm not going to buy anymore of those either. and when we run out of cordial, honey, golden syrup, icing sugar, etc, they won't be making their way onto my shopping list again.

i recently read 'the sweet poison quit plan: how to kick the sugar habit and lose weight,' by david gillespie. i'd read a couple of blog posts about it and since it was available at our local library, i decided to borrow it and see for myself what it had to say. i found it to be extremely compelling, relevant and able to pull together the fragmented understandings and wonderings about the role of sugar in our diet that i'd had floating in my mind already - in much the same way that hearing the gospel of Jesus explained clearly brought my worldview together into a sensible whole - which was quite a surprising experience!

gillespie asserts that fructose (which is basically the non-glucose half of sugar) causes the serious health problems we're seeing in our society, because we're consuming it at much greater levels than nature intended and in a non-natural way (i.e. without the associated fibre that helps our bodies to deal with the fructose in a healthy way - so consuming fructose in an orange is okay, but consuming fructose in orange juice is not okay because the fibre of the fruit is missing.) apparently fructose causes bad things to happen in our bodies when it is broken down, in a way that glucose does not. so not all sugar is bad - glucose is what fuels our brain, among other important things - only fructose is to be avoided.

i'll leave you to read the book for yourselves, but the thing that really spoke to me from this book/dietary theory was the assertion that fructose is responsible for messing with our brain's ability to tell our stomach that we've had enough to eat when we've consumed an appropriate amount of calories. this disconnect is what causes us to desire food when we know we don't actually need it, and to walk around in a perpetual state of non-satisfiable hunger. omg. that is me.

well, it was me about 3 weeks ago. since then, i have limited the amount of fructose i consume, and i'm already feeling much more in control of my desire for food. husband has read the book as well and also found it compelling, so we're planning to attempt to cut fructose out completely as a family after the christmas holidays. i don't think it will really be that hard - our current breakfasts, lunches and dinners are already very low in fructose, and don't really need much tweaking. our snacking is where the challenge will lie, but we've already switched to more savoury snack options (nuts, crackers with cheese or dip, corn chips, popcorn, toast with vegemite or avocado, etc) and life is good.

i've noticed that big sister's mood has been much more stable in the past 3 weeks - i haven't really needed to try out anything i've been reading about in the child wrangling department - and i put this down to reduced levels of sugar. i remember now the first few times she had sweetened yogurt as a baby/toddler - boy, did she cry whenever the tub was finished. and for several months this year i'd been using muffin bars to convince her to get into the pram when she didn't want to, and it always made her crazy. i'm glad she's only ever drunk water or milk up til now, because her snacks are really the only change we've needed to make, and she seems quite happy. her new favourite thing is homemade yogurt icy-poles - just natural yogurt with a bit of vanilla essence for flavour, frozen in icy-pole moulds. easy.

the book's title refers to weight loss, but i'm the only one in this house with any weight to lose, so we'll see what happens in that department. it's not particularly a motivator for us, though i do have a bag of lovely pre-motherhood clothes that i would quite like to wear again some day soon.

and if anyone who doesn't know me in real life is reading this blog, i most certainly didn't get paid for this post - i don't get paid to do anything! (except have babies, raise them and get them immunised, it seems...)

the life and times of little sister

sitting unassisted (with soft places to fall)
babbling while eating (very little is swallowed)
trashing the bottom toy shelf with her feet
shrieking to get attention
eating grass whenever the chance arises
rolling far and wide - no picnic blanket is big enough
the life and times of little sister

advent 2: craft activities

when i sat down to plan our advent, i tried to use the idea of "in" (to ourselves), "out" (to others/the community) and "up" (to God) to provide some kind of balance. and i wasn't too sure where craft activities fitted in to this model, but i knew i wanted to do some with big sister. i decided they would count as "in," because the joy in making would be ours. but our minister preached yesterday about the spiritual discipline of celebration, and i'm now convinced that our craft activities (which will produce christmas decorations) also count as "out" and perhaps even a little as "up," as they will encourage us and those who enter our home to celebrate more fully and more joyfully the meaning of christmas. below are a couple of the activities we plan to do:

paper lanterns will be the centre piece above our table when little sister's godparents and their beloved come for lunch in december. good thing we've got that jolly jumper hook in the ceiling already! from here

big sister is obsessed with having me trace around her hand and my hand whenever the textas are out, so i thought she'd enjoy making this wreath. from here

:: some updates: so toilet training has been a bit of a false start. no clue of knowing in advance that she needs to go = mummy frequently asking big sister if she wants to use the potty = annoyed and defiant big sister. will try again in january. and i've already made the felt ball garland - after an evening of shirring frustration and much wasted elastic, the instant gratification desiring, generation y part of me was desperate to finish a project, so those little felt balls are now on their string, waiting for december 1. ::

more rainbow things i'd like to make

ideas 1, 2 and 3 from here

idea 1: homemade bath paints - just mix food dye and shaving cream!

idea 2: recycled crayons - just combine bits of half-used crayons in a muffin tin and melt in the oven. big sister is still going with the crayons she already has, but when we get down to a bunch of stubs, i'll definitely be making some of these.

idea 3: homemade finger paints. this picture speaks for itself really. though i have to admit these paints look fun in a "let's go outside, away from the carpet and couches, and do this wearing our least precious clothes" kind of way...

idea 4: perhaps something for next year. found here.

just because

because putting cake in your belly button is more fun than putting it in your belly
because my house seems to have a strange sort of mess equilibrium (and i cleaned up my room last night, so of course tiny chocolate cake crumbs were going to end up in the carpet!)
because i needed that extra something to add to my pile of wet undies for washing

potty training day 1

wees on the potty: 0
poos on the potty: 0
successful trips to the supermarket with apprehensive father: 1
total nappies still used for the day: 2
accidents on the living room floor: 2
overall mood: enthusiastic