Let it Snow!

Last Sunday we got ready for church and I decided to let Xiana wear her Christmas dress so that she would have more than one opportunity. Little did I know, this was the foreshadowing of the weather.... white Christmas indeed! Anyway, this if from the back because this dress has beautiful bows on the front and the back... and she looked beautiful!
My cheesy little angel!
My friend Karina gave Xiana some homemade bows for her birthday that looked like they were made with the dress. So much so that Karina herself was wondering where I had gotten them for a little while. It took her a moment to recognize them as her own.
That evening we went to our monthly potluck (there is a group of us that have a potluck at rotating houses every month. It is so much fun and doesn't leave an extraordinary burden on any one family. I really look forward to them. The only sad part for me is that, thus far, Brian has only made it to one of them.... we will try to remedy that!) When we got there it was chilly. And when we left....
It was snowing!
Kacie picked up this adorable and warm jacket for Xiana right in the knick of time!
The next day we played in the snow. Well, let me rephrase that, I helped my dad shovel snow while Xiana ingested as much as humanly possible until she was frozen. She loves to eat the snow! I have to tell her everywhere we go that she is only allowed to eat snow at our house.
My dad found her a little sand shovel so that she could help with the clearing. Phew, it's a good thing she was there. I don't know how we would have managed without her.
The shovel also served as a helpful utensil to consume more snow.

you you you you say it

Yesterday Xiana started stuttering. She has an immense vocabulary and speaks really well. She suddenly started saying, "you you you you you you you you try it..." or whatever. I was a little freaked because it was so out of the ordinary for her. Tonight I looked it up and was filled with great relief from webmd and parents.org. Here is what they had to say (and it makes sense to me):

• Normal nonfluency looks like stuttering, but is usually temporary. When children are developing their language skills they often try to organize their language and process information quickly resulting in repetition of sounds or words.
• There is a difference between developmentally normal stuttering and speech impediments. The former is quite common and is the result, essentially, of being able to think faster than one can produce words; in the mismatch, some language gets "stuck". This is likely to occur right after having a linguistic growth spurt when sentences are moving to a new level of complexity. (Xiana's sentences have certainly evolved to a new level of complexity lately. She suddenly understands and articulates concepts that shock me)
  
• Wait it out. Do not draw attention to it (which would foster self-consciousness) and do not finish his/her sentences or offer the next word.
• It may be a result of a rapid development in conceptual knowledge and a need to communicate that knowledge without the requisite vocabulary skills.
• Essentially, the child's cognitive development is slightly ahead of his/her speech development. In other words, they can't get the words out fast enough!

• Basically the idea is that they are focusing so hard on expressing a more complex thought than they have before, that in doing so, they regress on skills they already had, like articulating clearly or getting a whole sentence out smoothly.
• Some children (especially kids who are articulate and have big vocabularies) have brains that work ahead of their mouths. Their thoughts are so far ahead of them that they have to repeat words as their brain resupplies words already passed by. The problem stops when their mouths catch up with their brains.

So, all is well in the mind of Lenaya and I am, once again, reassured of the incredible intelligence of Xiana :) And we both remain ever so modest! good good good good good good night!

Psycho- analysis

Last week I had my high school students write poems following the format of "I too" by Langston Hughes. Now, I will grant that the poem is dramatic and certainly follows the motif of teenage drama so what I received should not have come as a surprise to me. I asked them to speak from their hearts and to write about themselves, who they are. The poems I got were beautiful, tragic, haunting, and filled with teen angst. At first I found myself somewhat envious of them. They are still capable of defining themselves in such dramatic, self indulging ways. Their ability to just put their raw emotions out there was both shocking and satisfying. Then I felt a little sad. Sad because in them, I saw so much anger and discontent; so much passion and confusion. It made me wonder if I was ever like them. Then I felt silly for reading so much into it. Of course I wrote poems just like these when I was 15. Of course they are filled with teen angst...they're teenagers and they're filled with upheaval. Yet there was something so profound about their expressions. I remember feeling with such intensity about people and things that wouldn't hold a candle to the people and trials of my future. Still... when you're a teenager you're so honest, so confused, so lost, so alone, and yet, you know everything. In these poems I saw so much anger, fear, such defensiveness. Already so many of these kids have built walls in ways that could be destructive to them. It surprised me how much pain I saw in these kids, but then I was reminded that you can't feel joy without pain so.... I guess they are on their way to extreme joy. I also found myself analyzing my own feelings. Why is it that we are so capable of such passionate emotions as teenagers and then so much more muted as adults? In a lot of respects, I have considered myself to be quite rational over the last 5 years or so. I don't feel like I am particularly moody, or emotional, or sensitive. This is, in part, because I was single. It's easy to maintain one emotion when you aren't actively involved in a relationship. Xiana was too young to really push my buttons, and I was lost in the void of motherhood, incapable of seeing anything beyond my own frantic circle of "new mommy." But now, suddenly, I am emotionally tied to her and she can make me want to simultaneously scream and laugh. Likewise, since I have been dating Brian, I suddenly find myself feeling and expressing so many things I thought I had left by the wayside. Jealousy, insecurity, anxiety, joy, peace, happiness, passion, excitement. So the adult me and the teenager me are really not so different at the root. It's just that the adult me is better disciplined and more equipped at keeping raw emotions at bay. Also, with more wisdom comes the ability to discern and then articulate what I am feeling making me more able to get to the source of most emotions and then deal, clarify, or validate them. I will admit, however, that I'm still a sucker for writing a haunting, dramatic, narcissistic poem when the mood strikes me right. I guess I'll settle for a brooding blog instead :)

FHE.... and cold weather

For FHE last week Brian did the cutest lesson. I would steal it if it hadn't already been done for Xiana. He made a prayer book for her. It starts with a page that says "my prayer is" and then he put a picture of her on the cover. Then he printed out pics of family, friends, the prophet, Jesus, temple, the scriptures, items she's thankful for, etc. Next he cut them out and on some pages wrote, "I thank thee for:" and other pages, "I ask thee for:" He glued the pictures to the appropriate pages and then put "in the name of" (Picture of Jesus) "amen." Next he had each of us write a page or so about memories we have of Xiana's prayers and of our own special experiences with prayer. We read them aloud and they were touching. It was really special to learn more about my parents and their perspective of myself and Xiana. Then Brian glued each of our pages to construction paper to make a book. It was really neat. Xiana will treasure that book as she gets older and gets to see the special messages it contains.
A few weeks ago we went to the park and this is how bundled we had to be....
This week it DUMPED snow... more on that later!

We came home to cousins!!

While we were in Vegas, my brother and his family and my aunt all came to my parent's for the holidays. I was bummed that I was going to miss them but.... they were still here when we got back! Xiana couldn't have been a happier little girl to go from playing with Brian's nieces and nephews to mine! She loves Eva so much and followed her around the whole time they were here.
She also loves Jared a lot. Despite the fact that they are a year apart... he is bigger than her. That is not so surprising I guess.
The Frey kids LOVE to read! They will sit for books for hours and hours. When Xiana was one she had a short attention span and I was worried because all the examples of toddlers in my life have had such an adoration for reading. I thought that she had missed the gene... I was just being silly I know now. She loves to read with the best of them these days!

Stratosphere

Several months, yes months, before our trip I told Brian that for my 30th birthday I wanted to go on the Stratoshpere rides. I have been on them several times before, but since I got pregnant had not gone on a single ride (unless of course you count the kiddie rides at the carnival that I finagled my way onto for free as Xiana's escort) and I was fiending for a thrill. I absolutely adore roller coasters, rides, anything that makes your stomach do little flips. So... he said, "sure" maybe he even said, "of course." I don't really remember what his exact words were, only I know that he was supportive of my plans. Then, a few weeks before our trip, he went to Vegas for the weekend and when he returned he explained to me that I had somehow failed to mention that these rides were 100 stories up. I don't know how that could have slipped my mind, but I also don't know how he could possibly not know about the Stratosphere... he is from Nevada after all. I know people who think it is a compass that EVERYONE uses for directions. At any rate, he wasn't quite so pleased once he got all the details. Nevertheless, he agreed to take me on the rides. So...after much pleading, persuading, cajoling, and finally snapping, we went to the Stratosphere. For those of you who don't know what these rides entail... here are some descriptions...

The Big Shot

The Thrill Ride that Touches the Sky! Strap in to the Big Shot and prepare to be shot 160 feet in the air at 45 miles per hour as you overlook the majestic Las Vegas Valley. In a matter of seconds, the Big Shot thrill ride catapults 16 riders from the 921-foot high platform up the Tower's mast to a height of 1,081 feet and down again. Before you catch your breath, you'll be shot back up again! Experience a gut-wrenching four 'G's of force on the way up, and feel negative 'G's on the way down as your legs dangle in the Las Vegas skyline.

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream on X-Scream!

Ever played on a giant teeter-totter, 866 feet above the ground? With the X-Scream, you can! With a space age, yet simplistic design resembling a massive teeter-totter unlike anything you've ever seen, the X-Scream will propel you and several other riders head-first, 27 feet over the edge of the Stratosphere Tower. Try not to scream when you go over the edge - you don't want to scare the other riders! After being shot over the edge, you'll dangle weightlessly above the Las Vegas Strip before being pulled back and propelled over again for more.

Three 'G's of Pure Insanity! Insanity the Ride is a truly mind-bending experience! A massive mechanical arm extending out 64 feet over the edge of the Stratosphere Tower at a height of over 900 feet, Insanity will spin you and several other passengers in the open air at speeds of up to three 'G's. You'll be propelled up to an angle of 70 degrees, which will tilt your body into one position - facing straight down! If you're brave enough to keep your eyes open you'll be rewarded with a breathtaking view of historic downtown Las Vegas. Experience Insanity and walk away to tell the tale!

His sister is brave like me and she willingly, I dare say enthusiastically went along.
Here is the view from the window at the top of the tower. Brian has an uncle who got out of the elevators and then ran, oops, I mean crawled back into the elevators immediately. Brian kept teasing me that he was going to do the same. But...
he made it!! He doesn't look too scared either does he? He claims he was, but he seemed to be having such a great time I think he was just joking about the fear of heights thing, right babe?!
Double thumbs up ready to go.
I could not persuade him to go on the swings, but his sister went. Truth be told, I knew that he wouldn't go on that particular ride because it spins in circles which I know he can't stand, so I let him off the hook of that ride very early on.
The other rides, however, I insisted on... and he liked them. In fact, I heard him say more than once, "that wasn't bad." Okay, so that might not be a shining recommendation, but it sure beats the alternative. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed myself and am so happy that I got to go on the stratoshpere for my 30th birthday. Maybe for my 40th I can jump out of a plane.....

Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving morning: the house was bustling with busy hands cooking, prepping, baking. There is an Andersen family tradition to have scones with ham and cheese on Thanksgiving morning. I have to admit, I initially scoffed at this plan. Why on earth would you want to have such a fabulous breakfast on a day that you are going to be eating forever? Why? Because it is ah-mazing. Seriously, this is a tradition I can get behind. They were delicious. And I am happy to report that the Andersens, like the Freys, call fried bread scones, unlike the traditional-what-people-really-call-scones-scones. I love it! At any rate, whilst all these hands were busily preparing food, what were my hands doing? They were heading up to the mountains to go four-wheeling. *gasp* I know, pretty rotten of us to desert the women folk and head for the hills, but believe me when I say they were better off leaving my contribution with clean up rather than cooking. Brian's cousin was so kind as to invite us to go ride his four-wheelers and get the kids out of the way for a bit. So we went out where the sheep hunt had been taking place for the earlier part of the week. It. was. beautiful. Living in Vegas it's easy to forget that there is gorgeous scenery on the outskirts of town in every direction. The city is so cluttered that it's hard to imagine these empty hills and mountains. This was the beast that we got to ride in. Please notice that Xiana's car seat is attached into the back seat. That is a serious mountain climbing monster spacious enough for the whole fam!
Ready to go!
Brian's cousin and his twin boys on either side of him. Did I mention this was a blast?!
Xiana woke up pretty cranky (I think from all the over stimulation and lack of sleep) and as soon as we got on the bumpy roads, she followed her normal motif and fell asleep. I don't know how she does it with her head bouncing around all over the place, but it seems like every time we go off the main roads, she falls asleep.
We got out and hiked around and got to see the "blood rock." I think I'm gonna stick with the "don't as don't tell" policy on that one.
Xiana got to drive and it's a good thing because we were out in the mountains. She always assures me that "only mommy drive on street, but nana and brian drive in mountains." Right she is.
I wish their faces weren't shadowed because I love this shot!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... The girls really did outdo themselves. There was enough food to feed an army! Everything was delicious.
I felt a little guilty not helping and then eating away, but like I said, I adamantly insisted on being the clean-up crew which helped assuage my guilt.
Xiana is giving Brian kisses and Ali is taking a little Thanksgiving nap.
This was a great day. The food, company, setting, and feelings were perfect. I am thankful for family and friends who mean the world!

Brio's babies and butterfinger

I got to meet Tiffany's newest little babe, Hudson, right before I moved to Sparks. Boy has he grown. I was so grateful to get the chance to run around my old stomping ground and eat at Brio's (the most delicious meal ever) and hang with the fam. Tiffany wears motherhood like no one I've ever seen before. As a boss, love her, she was particularly, how do I say? OCD?! As a mother, she is calm and happy and peaceful, and wears an air of competence and loving authority that is surprisingly wonderful! It is so fun to see the transition in people as they try on new hats, particularly the hat of parenthood.
We had a casual photo shoot on the patio.... Danny said I looked like a New York mom... Cool!
Steven got me this hat and gloves for my birthday and then managed to sneak away from work/school to surprise me for dinner (this trip sure was filled with surprises). He must have gotten the "grey and black shirt" memo that Danny received because the hat matched perfectly and can be considered my new favorite accessory!
Wendy got baby time! She turned her head for a split second and Hudson managed to wreak havoc on the table. Babies are so fast!!

Despite their significant age difference... Xiana and Hudson are roughly the same size! They were so cute playing together.
No trip to Town Square would be complete without a visit to Yogurtland (Brian and I went also so I got my fix twice!). Danny introduced me to this heaven on earth and I subsequently introduced everyone I know... I believe it is a legacy I left behind! Then we convinced a security guard to take a picture of all of us. It was beautiful at town square. It made me a little sentimental. Actually, all of Vegas did. As soon as Brian and Jenn picked me up from the airport I found my heat strings being pulled in a way that I had not anticipated. Vegas was our home. My life changed there. Xiana's life began there. It was emotional to revisit the places and people we spent so much of our lives and went through such huge transitions with. It was a wonderful, overwhelming trip. Still, I'm happy to report, at the end of it all, I was extremely grateful to be heading back to my home in Sparks, despite the COLD, where I feel confident I belong. And where I am HAPPY to be!

Play time

So whilst we were in Vegas, we stayed with Brian's brother and sister-in-law who were the BEST hosts you can possibly imagine. They went all out to insure our comfort.... along with Brian's parents, two brothers, niece, sister, and all the various family members that came over to visit/eat. I was impressed. It was a daunting task to say the very least, but Jenn just whipped up food morning and night and made it look easy. They have a son who is about a year older than Xiana and they are so much alike. They alternated between having the time of their lives and being evil little monsters. They are both feisty, passionate, and possessive resulting in many real and proverbial tug-of-wars. They are also both kind, loving, and energetic resulting in many fun and wildly imaginative games. Here they are right after church while they are still playing very nicely together.
The boys went hunting at roughly 3:30 am every day leaving Jenn and I to our own devices. Being somewhat experienced in the world of kids cooped at home= disaster, she planned some fun activities. One morning we took the kids to a place called pump it up where they got to run around, jump, scream and yell like hooligans. It was perfect. My good friend Morgan met us there with her boys and ALL of the kids insisted that I participate in the jumping fun. And they were right, I would have surely missed out had I not jumped inside these apparatuses with the chillens.
They had a big slide and a little slide. Thank goodness because Xiana needed assistance on the big slide and would have demanded repeats had it not been for the little slide.
This bounce house had hoops and balls which were prize possessions. There were a lot of boys and they had to often be reminded about taking turns and leaving the balls in this particular house. It's funny how different boys are than girls when it comes to some things, but how similar they are when it comes to others.
Big slide.... so fun!
Xiana has so missed her good friends Spencer and Henry and apparently, the feelings are mutual!
The next night we went to CiCi's for a birthday party for Brian's grandmother and roughly 30 of their relatives (I swear I am not exaggerating!) It was a lot of fun, but also quite daunting (I'm not gonna lie). It's neat that he has so much family. I have my immediate family, but my extended family is roughly 1/10 the size of his so it was a new experience. I got to meet aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. It was really nice and everyone was exceptionally kind. One aunt asked me, "now whose girlfriend are you again?" and I teasingly replied, "I thought they were all married." (There are six boys in Brian's family so you can see where the mix up is.) Anyway, there was an arcade there and it never ceases to amaze me how much Xiana absorbs. Granted, there was a great deal of hunting talk as this trip was designed for a hunt, but still! She walked into the arcade and saw the hunting game and said, "I wanna shoot the animals." Brian would have been so proud:)
She then proceeded to take the gun down and start foraging for food (at least that's what I keep telling myself:)