Isn't it funny

how you're "mummy" and "daddy" one minute, then when they really want something, it changes to "mamma" and "pappa" (insert appropriate whining tone here).

I'm sure my parents could shed some light on this too!

Feeding Baby

Practically the only time Alex has nursed Baby (she has "pumped" several times though) - and she even has that sleep deprived look down!

Already on the go

Sigh, the cliche goes that they grow up so fast...and it's true! Here's Sebastien doing what his favorite thing is at the moment - pulling up to his feet (just by straightening his legs but still!) and standing.
Sometimes his little face goes red from the exertion of standing and he blows bubbles at the same time.
But he smiles most of the time. Now, what about rolling over?

A visit from Galesburg

I really am slack - a friend who moved from Orchard Downs to Galesburg in northern Illinois visited a couple of weeks after my parents left for Australia, and I still haven't posted her photo! So seeing as I plan on meeting her halfway in January sometime, I'd better get off my butt and post it!

Jennie and I spent many early mornings, walking for a couple of miles and talking about just about anything - I certainly do miss my morning walking buddy.

A Conga line of Princesses

"They're waiting for a bus" was Alex's explanation when I took this photo. Thanks to Donita, we have a splendorous multitude of princesses populating our apartment. The rings you can see in one photo were a Christmas present so she doesn't keep asking to wear Mummy's...

Christmas Day

So we started off with Alex upwrapping her presents, interspersed with one for Mummy, one for Daddy or one for Sebastien. But she did really well - even if Santa individually wrapped stuff so there was more to open!







We enjoyed many gifts, for Alex apart from the CD player, the next hit was the doctor's kit - oh and the rings and lipgloss she got wasn't too far behind that. Sebastien enjoyed his 5-in-1 gym that he can lie under and kick to make music and lights - he also received a "cozy cover" for his carseat that he has been benefitting from since early December. Traditionally Daddy got "socks and jocks", whilst Mummy finally got a replacement windstopper jacket that actually zips up (and was wistful when throwing out the old, well loved one)! So the Nevin-Graham Family did very well for Christmas.


Then we went over to Neus, Javier and Ana's house for a traditional Spanish lunch - absolutely delicious! Neus is a marvel in the kitchen, cooking up an almond/fish broth soup (served cold), her family's favorite pressure-cooked meat dish with pureed potatoes and a spinach and cranberry salad. Dessert included white chocolate drizzled profiteroles and a wonderful plum pudding complete with brandy butter! I provided the gluhwein and spiced cider, so we were all merrily enjoying our lunch.



Neus asked Alex to help her with the profiteroles - notice the dress? She has this thing for wearing her "beautiful dress" - not sure where she gets that from! Four and a half hours later...we toddled off home - Neus refused to let us help wash up - what a woman! She and Javier have been wonderful friends, not the least has been taking care of Alex whilst I was in hospital having Sebastien. Unfortunately they are moving to Sweden in just over 10 days - so we hope to visit in the future.



When we got home, we talked to Australia again after finishing off opening some more presents. Finally Alex was in bed - a little earlier than Christmas Eve, but not much.

Merry Christmas!

After Mummy and Daddy got to bed at around midnight, waking up at a decent hour - and having breakfast cooked for me by Daddy - and then finally settling down to open presents at around 10am...nice!
Sebastien is sporting a "My first Christmas" Santa outfit that Aunty Lyndall and Uncle Pip bought Alex when she first came to Australia.
Alex is sporting a Grandma/Grandad and Grandie/Poppie ensemble - for a while she was just wearing the essentials: sparkly red glitter shoes and a Santa hat.
By the way, Santa left a few crumbs of the brownie on Alex's plate, which she made short work of!

After the children are asleep

Santa Claus came! Because we had received some mail from Australia during the week before Christmas, we took a gamble that it was Christmas related and put it under the tree too. Note the "apartment sized" Christmas tree that relegated the computer to its bag for December. Also there are 3 stockings hanging because the "lump of coal" ale Santa left in Daddy's stocking meant it had to rest on the floor.

Not a creature was stirring...

...except perhaps Sebastien...








...actually even he was finally asleep!

'Twas the night before Christmas

So with Christmas merely "one sleep" away, it was time to get dressed for the children's mass. This year we went to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Urbana. We even managed to make it to the 5pm service. Although cold, Alex wanted to wear her "beautiful dress" - actually an easter dress that is definitely not for a mid-west winter! A very different service to our usual catholic/presbyterian effort - no sermon or eucharist.
Here is Alex dressed for church - Sebastien is waiting for us to get ready before he gets changed.

Alex really got into the singing, her favorite "Gloria in Excelsius" - and continued singing the next day at home. She also loved lighting the candle to sing "Silent Night" - she was allowed to hold the candle by herself, with Daddy keeping a close eye on her.


When we got home, Sebastien got into his Christmas sleeper and Alex changed out of her "beautiful dress" - into something suitable for dinner. We had calls from Australia and a visit from Paul and Emily - whom we used to babysit every Tuesday evening for a couple of hours while her daddy lectured.
Finally, after everyone had left and no more calls came from Australia, we did the final window in the Advent calendar. Picture us going "where's #1?" and Alex "here" to her telling us which ones she ate and which ones she had to give to her daddy (suffering bad choice consequences)...Obviously it took us a long time to progress from 1 through 24. Here we are with the finished calendar (Santa takes the empty calender each year and puts more chocolates in it for us to buy again next year - the ultimate in recycling!) .

Then it was time to read "'Twas the night before Christmas" before bedtime. Alex and Daddy had baked Chocolate Brownies for Santa during the day (sampling some of course) and put out a slice on Alex's plate with an Australian beer for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer.

After a full day, it was almost 10pm before Alex was asleep - and that was even with a 5pm (not 7pm) church service.

Sebastien hits a quarter year

Wow! What with Christmas coming up so fast and preparation for the job market conference in the New Year, it's hard to believe that Sebastien is already 3 months! And doing really well! Well, if you discount the "not sleeping through the night like his sister was already doing" thing...and the "extremely gassy and unhappy baby in the night" thing...and the...well he's doing really well! He's smiling and almost laughing - one day he'll hear his voice laughing and it'll amaze him. He really loves to suck on the backs of his hands and is drooling up a storm. Another thing Alex didn't really do. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme here...

He loves straightening his legs to "stand up" and tries to stay upstanding for as long as possible. He isn't a great fan of tummy time, but can handle 15 minutes of it so long as the toy is interesting. He really prefers to be held: all - the - time...another difference with Alex. This is actually something that has taken its toll on Mummy's back recently so hopefully that will improve.

Anyway, here is HRH2 - complete with circle of friends...and HRH1 too:

Leading up to Christmas

The stockings are hung, the Christmas tree decorated. We are in the final week before Christmas - time for us to plan when we'll visit people, send our Christmas cards (ouch, ok maybe new year's cards), see the Christmas lights and sing carols. The night before Christmas Eve is when we decided to see the Christmas lights - bitterly cold night with a wind straight from the North Pole...hoping that Santa can hitch a ride on that on Christmas Eve!

Alex and Mummy at the 1st Main St Champaign Christmas Tree - how disappointing that the lights in the top third of the tree were not working.









Daddy, Alex and Sebastien at the Christmas Tree at 1st Main St Champaign. Too cold for Sebastien to get out of the car seat - plus he was sound asleep!









One of the many Christmas light displays we saw - this one is on Race Street Urbana.

From Snow to...

...nothing. It's a week until Christmas and the rain has just melted the snow away. Here is a shot I took earlier in the week - all that was left were the mounds in the carparks!

You know it's cold when...

...the rear doors of your car freeze "locked". Not good timing, you already plan to leave 10 minutes earlier so you can heat the car interior and scrape the windows of snow ad ice - and now you have to pass toddler and infant in carseat over the front seats into the back. Thanfully by the time you arrive across town they have thawed out...

A busy day

A busy day here in the mid-west. We went to a neighboring town for Sebastien's 3 month photo and afterwards, because I had read about them in the local paper, checked out a family-run confectionary business. They make their own candy canes and peanut brittle. We were able to watch the process from when the sugar hits the critical temperature, to the final produce - plus Alex was also able to "make her own cane" - well actually just shape the cooling candy into her own shape - but it was still pretty cool. Here are the photos we took:

It took a bit of work to find them - they were using a cafe that had recently closed. They brought out a copper bowl that had had the sugar being boiled in it - it had reached the critical temperature of somewhere over 300 degrees - and poured it out over a slab of marble to start to cool.




As they let it cool, they added the peppermint essence to it which created clouds of steam.







They spatula-ed the edges back into the middle until they were left with almost a lump instead of a puddle.







Then the man gathered it all up into a large cube, pulling off 2 quarters of the mix that were to have colours added to them (in this case green and red).






Then the man took the main part of the candy and "worked" it on a stainless steel hook. Apparently this starts a chemical reaction that canges its colour from caramel to white.









You can see the colour changes between the two photos. He the took it off the hook and shaped it into a cube on the marble slab.










Once they'd mixed in the colour pigments, and the candy looked really glossy and shiny, they added the coloured sections back to the white block - one on each side.






Then the man "cubed" the candy again and prepared it for the final stretching.







The man pulled a small section of it out from the cube, twisting it as he pulled. Then another man snipped it into sections and a woman rolled the sections to make them like a rope. Finally another woman shaped them into a cane and put them on metal trays to cool.




Alex sat back and intently watched the whole process - and I didn't get asked once "What's he doing?"










Here's Alex next to the table where I'd helped her push her "stick" into a shape...she wasn't really sure what it was all about.







Here's Alex with her finished product all bagged up to go.








Plus a "post game" interview here.

The day "cloth" went to work with Daddy

It's been almost a month now, so I feel comfortable blogging about this.

One day, after Daddy had finished getting Alex ready to go to playgroup (breakfast, potty and dressed), he set off to work. We got home from playgroup, had lunch and went down for a nap...only, where was "cloth"? This piece of cloth that had developed its own personality over the past 2 years was nowhere to be found. So as we've been talking about putting things back in their "homes" so we can find them the next time we want them, I told Alex that she mustn't have put it in its "home" after her sleep last night - it's usually kept on her pillow, for use at sleeptime only. She was upset, but not overly so. And she slept, eventually. And I saw I had an email from Daddy telling me he had taken "cloth" to work in his pocket - oops!

So, biting the bullet, we decided that "cloth" shouldn't make a reappearance unless everything went pear-shaped.

We've been "cloth"-free now ever since with only a few nights asking where "cloth" was - we reinforced the "everything has a home" theme accordingly. We had been slowly cutting "cloth" up - from diaper-sized, in half, then in half again - such that Alex had been waking at night asking "where's cloth?" and we'd had to go in and find it. Now it's much easier! Oh, and "cloth" had definitely lost its whiteness, in spite of regular washing!

Here's "cloth" in its latest form -









And here's Daddy doing an "Alex impersonation" with cloth - taking a "hit", usually before having to leave it behind on her bed. It really did look like she needed to "take a hit" before leaving it behind...her pacifier!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

...and it did! Overnight we've had so much snow - Alex helped Brett shovel the steps (on one side of the building - the other side are now icy) and found out just how cold snow can get when she insisted on delving into snow drifts wearing her fleece mittens...

This first one is the playground at Orchard Downs we often visit after playgroup.







This is of the MOUNTAIN that is "Hackberry Hill" in Orchard Downs - kids (college aged too) flock there whenever it snows. School's out for the uni so it's unusually quiet! I intend to go sledding there with Alex if the snow stays til the weekend.





One thing I'm yet to get used to is planning to leave 15 minutes earlier than usual, so that I can scrape the ice off the windows of the car and warm up the inside before Alex and Sebastien come downstairs. Also, this morning was the first time that the rear door locks had frozen locked - meaning that Alex and Sebastien had to go through the front seat to get into their seats in the back. Thankfully by the time we got to Monday Mania across town, Alex's doorlock had thawed, and by the time we got home for lunch, so had Sebastien's.

Ahh, wintertime...

Will it stay for 9 more days?

I just had to go check on a building (part of my "job") and it's been snowing all day - and WOW! Here are some photos - my hands are only just starting to warm up again.






Our carpark - our car is closest to us. We're going to need to dig out...time to "dig" out the snow shovel from the back of the storage closet!






The snow's blowing too - so much so that it's stopping our building door from closing! Piling up on the steps, we'll be shovelling snow tomorrow...

Unfortunately not enough ambient light to give a good image - and the flash just shows up the falling snow...and it's still falling!

But it looks like we might be heading towards having our first real WHITE CHRISTMAS!

Santa Skate

Well, part of living in the mid-west (and something we just really don't have a lot of in Australia) is having ice skating as a part of your life. Near Orchard Downs there is a pond and it has a sign warning not to iceskate - you just can't be certain about the ice thickness. But we don't have to worry about that because we have the U of I's Ice Arena!

Tonight, Family & Graduate Housing sponsored a free skate with Santa Claus - complete with free skate hire, hot chocolate and candy canes! Now Alex and Brett had already spent the morning:
1)doing the laundry
2)sledding down practically the only hill in town "Hackberry Hill" - well Alex pushed Brett down the hill
3)going swimming in the indoor swimming pool at CRCE.

So I was hesitant to have an evening out too - especially given she'd never skated before and Brett and I aren't natural skaters. But Brett convinced me we could just go and watch, to give her an idea of what it's like. Although the Skate went for 2 hours, we arrived for just the last hour.

Anyway - here are the results:
Alex gets her first pair of skates on - and yes I made her wear a helmet having seen a girl knock herself out falling backwards on the ice a couple of years ago - and yes she was the only child there in a helmet.









So it was initially up to me to take her out on the ice - though I hadn't planned on skating. It seemed the best way to introduce her to the ice, was to use the "frame". Though in actual fact my hands are under her armpits and I'm bearing all her weight whilst she "walks" - though she is sure it's all about the frame! Between that and hunching down to her level and skating around the rink, my back is killing me!






So as there were benches with Christmas trees set up in each "corner" of the rink, we skated between them, sat down for a break, then skated to the next one. Although, by the second "break", Alex said to me "I don't want to stop" - and then once sitting on the bench "Ok mummy, break's over, it's time to skate again". My poor back! I guess she was more interested in it than I gave her credit for!





Eventually the Skate-sled was free and Alex got to sit down and I got to stand up properly and skate around the rink - we even managed to pick up a bit of speed! Then I asked her casually whether she wanted to skate with Daddy (he'd asked me to skate with her as he thinks she takes to new activities better if she does them with me)...



"Come on Daddy!" she grabbed his hand and ran (no kidding, I can't run in those skates!) to get him fitted for his skates.







And off they headed (I think Brett was happy she was excited to "show him how" to skate).










So back with the frame - which Brett agreed made life difficult, so after visiting Santa in the middle of the rink (I'll post that photo in another post tomorrow) he deviously avoided getting the frame back...









...and they went it alone! She wasn't overly happy with that - here she's holding the polaroid photo of her and daddy skating as they head over to me.









But all in all, a very successful first outing - no falls (bonus for us!) and we went fast enough that she thought she was doing the skating. Although I tried to show her how to place her feet, she persisted in "walking" them - lucky for her I had her!

Oh, and the Santa part?...