2011 in review

In the dwindling hours of 2011, I'm reflecting on my life over the past year. To be honest, my feelings towards 2011 are kind of... ''meh''. I sort of feel like we've been in limbo this year. Nothing really amazing has happened, no big events, nothing catastrophic has happened. We're just sort of waiting.

• John still has the same contract job - which thankfully has been a great job for him. He's happy and the pay is good.
• This is my first full year as a stay at home mom. I've loved being home and getting to know my little girl that much better. It's definitely been a struggle at times though.
• I was approved to sponsor John's immigration to Canada, but his paperwork will take a further 10 months to process. Boo. 
• By living frugally, we've managed to pay off all nearly of our debt in a little over a year. It was a LOT of debt. School loans, medical bills, credit cards, two car loans. We're so thrilled to be just about done.

I definitely wouldn't say this has been a bad year. In fact, it really has been a good year. Steady income, loving family, debt payoff...these are good things. But I figure with all of the major life changes of 2012 coming up, we'll be glad we had an easy year in 2011.

We're ringing in the New Year at home tonight, with my little sister and her husband. We're going to make pizza (cauliflower pizza for my brother-in-law who can't have gluten) and we're going to play board games and let Fiona stay up as late as she wants. We'll have a champagne/sparkling cider toast at midnight, and we're just going to have fun and enjoy being with family. Sounds like a perfect evening to end an uneventful year.

Happy New Year's everyone!

Cauliflower Pizza Recipe

Minutes to Prepare: 15

Minutes to Cook: 20

Number of Servings: 4

Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, riced, 1 cup
Egg, fresh, 1 large
Cheddar Cheese, 1 cup, shredded
Oregano, ground, 1 tsp
Parsley, dried, 2 tsp

Rice or finely chop the cauliflower. Beat egg, add the cauliflower, and shredded cheese. Mix, then press into a greased pizza pan then sprinkle with the spices. Bake at 450 for 12 to 15 minutes. If you double the recipe cook 15 to 20 minutes.

Add desired pizza topping such as red sauce, mushrooms, green pepper, onions, cheese, etc. Bake until brown and cheese is bubbly.

Hindsight is 20/20

I'm discovering one by one, that the little things about Fiona that irk me are pretty much my own fault.

Fiona was potty trained shortly after she turned 2, but continued to wear Pull-Ups at night. Most of the advice I'd read said that kids will pretty much let you know when they're ready to be night-time potty trained, and that you should wait until there's been about a month of dry diapers in the morning before you stop using them. So we kept putting Fiona in (expensive!) Pull-Ups, waiting for her to stop peeing in them.  A year came and went, and another 6 months on top of that. Finally one night I decided I was done with it, and I just didn't put a diaper on her. Well, of course she wet the bed, and we were up at 3 am changing the sheets and her nightgown. The next night, I was ready to go back to the Pull-Up, not wanting another 3 am wake up call, but Fiona refused to wear it. And of course, she wet the bed again. But the third night? No bed wetting! And the night after that, and the night after that! Since then, she's only had 2-3 accidents over the past few months. Looking back, I realize that she was ready to be night-time potty trained ages ago, but she kept peeing in the diapers because I kept putting them on her...and that's what they're for! If only I'd realized!

One of the most frustrating things raising Fiona is how incredibly picky she is. The kid won't eat anything. I swear, she's subsisted on cheese-crisps, PB&J, cucumbers, and grapes. I've read books and articles and message boards and blogs, hoping for some answer to the picky eating, but everything pretty much points to "It's a phase". One of the things my mom said to me multiple times was, "Stop giving her so many choices." Every time I prepared meals, I would ask Fiona what she wanted to eat. I'd give her tons of options, but I didn't make her stick with any of them. If she didn't like the choices, I'd make her whatever she wanted. My thinking was, "She's so picky, I've got to get her to eat something!" We tried bribing her with dessert, but she's picky about desserts too. We tried the whole 'you're not leaving this table until you've eaten' trick, which just led to tears and stress. Finally, I read online a solution that made sense to me. You serve your picky eater the same thing everyone else is eating, and don't make a big deal about it. Don't force them to eat it, and don't draw attention to the fact that you've served them something new. Don't bargain and try to get them to just try one bite or anything like that. If they won't eat it, don't get upset, just make them a PB&J sandwich. Every meal. The idea is that eventually they'll get sick of eating the same sandwich over and over, and will try bits of food here and there. I discussed the idea with my mom and she thought it sounded good, just suggested that I make the PB&J as healthy as possible with whole wheat bread and natural peanut butter and my own homemade strawberry jam.
  Last night I put the plan into effect. I served Fiona a bowl of pork and veggie stir fry and brown rice, with no expectations of her actually eating it. I fully planned on having to make her a sandwich instead. She sat down at the table and looked in the bowl and promptly threw a fit. "THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED!!" *sob sob sob* I didn't react, just told her that we were having stir fry for dinner, and sat down to eat. She got up from the table crying and ran into her room. I didn't chase after her or demand that she come back. Two minutes later, she came sniffling out of her room and sat down at the table and started to eat her stir fry! John and I looked at her and then at each other incredulously. What? Seriously? After all the picky eating, she just plops down and eats a bowl of stir fry? Before last night, she wouldn't eat meat, she wouldn't eat rice, and she wouldn't eat a single veggie that was in that stir fry. I was shocked. I tried again tonight, and served her some sauteed chicken, brown rice, and corn. She didn't even object tonight! She just sat down and started eating with us! I'm flabbergasted. And again, looking back on this, of course my mom was right. I was giving her too many choices and letting her get away with eating whatever she wanted, because that was easiest. She probably would have gotten over her picky eating forever ago, or never even started with the picky eating, if I'd done this from the start!

If only I realized!

Oh well, we'll get it right with the next kid. ;)

It's that time of year again

Christmas is over, and the season of indulgence is over with it. And who's packed the pounds back on this holiday season? This girl right here. *sigh* Last year my New Year's resolution was to lose 40 lbs. I lost at least 40 pounds...maybe even closer to 60...unfortunately it was the same 10-20 lbs over and over. Gain 10, lose 15, gain 10, lose 10, gain 15, etc. My weight is a constant struggle for me. I have major issues with food, extreme and often unhealthy dieting, distorted body image. My goal this year was to get down to 160 lbs, and the lowest I got was 174. Unfortunately right now, I'm quite a lot higher than that. Boo. So I'm trying something a little different right now. No extreme yo-yo dieting at the moment. Just having a positive attitude, healthy eating , and increased activity. I've written lots of encouraging reminders on our big white board in the kitchen, and John is being very supportive, as always. I'm also not giving myself a goal weight, or resolving to lose so many pounds per week or anything like that. Just being healthier. So we'll see how that goes.

Laser Kitty!

Exactly like our cat Molly...Molly loves laser time.

Christmas surprises, sneaky husband

I love my husband dearly...he has many amazing qualities that make him a wonderful husband and father, and really, truly my best friend in the whole wide world. Surprises, however, are not his strong suit. Birthdays and Christmas, Valentine's Day and Anniversaries...I pretty much always know what I'm getting, or what we're doing. And that's ok, really. That's just part of who John is, and I love him for it.

But this Christmas, I'm finding myself constantly surprised.

A few days ago, John told me not to get the mail this week because he didn't want me to ruin my surprises...wait...what? I don't even remember telling him anything that I wanted for Christmas this year, and yet little packages have been arriving almost daily. He wraps them one by one as they arrive and puts them under the tree, with cryptic little comments which he knows are making me insanely curious.

Today he took piquing my curiosity a step further by showing me the envelope he'd just gotten...from Italy. My husband ordered something for me for Christmas from Italy. I'm soooooo curious it's driving me crazy! So far now, I've got 5 little packages under the tree, and apparently there are several more that he didn't order in time and won't make it for Christmas. I'm so excited for Christmas tomorrow!

In other news, Fiona and John have been tracking Santa...Right now Santa is in Madagascar!

www.noradsanta.org 

Swan Princess Silliness

One of my favourite movies as a kid was The Swan Princess - an animated movie loosely based on the Swan Lake ballet. I was excited when I saw the Netflix had it available to stream instantly, and turned it on for Fiona. She seems to really love it, but I'm a bit disillusioned with it now.

Derek and Odette are told from a very young age that they're going to be married when they grow up. The years pass and each summer is spent together, and it's clear that they can't stand each other. Part of that is obviously because they're just kids, and kids squabble. They grow up, and they're being pushed together for yet another summer together...but now Derek is a strapping young man, and Odette is a gorgeous woman. Their eyes meet across the room, and suddenly they're in love. They waltz around and sing about how they love each other, and end the song with a kiss. Derek announces to the room of people creepily watching them kiss, that they are to arrange the wedding. Everybody cheers except Odette, who brings the celebrations to a crashing halt by telling Derek to hold his horses.

                      Derek: What? You're all I ever wanted,  you're beautiful!
                      Odette: Thank you. But what else?
                      Derek: What else?
                      Odette: Is beauty all that matters to you?
                      Derek: What else is there?

Oops. Now, obviously that was a dumb thing to say. No woman wants to hear that. However, in the context of this movie, Derek kind of has a point. The only thing that has changed for them is that suddenly Odette is beautiful. For the rest of the movie, Odette seems one dimensional. There is nothing more to her than her beauty and "love" for Derek. It's all a little ridiculous. It just supports the fact even more that beautiful women don't need personalities. Odette is captured by the evil sorcerer named Rothbart. He wishes to marry Odette so he can have control over her dead father's kingdom. Odette refuses, claiming she loves Derek. I can believe that she loved him, since she grew up with him, but that doesn't mean she should forgive him right away.

Eventually, Derek finds Odette in Rothbart's lair. She seems so happy to seem him that she forgets what he said to her. I'm not one to hold grudges, but I am a stickler for unresolved conflicts. It's not even mentioned, "Odette, I'm sorry. You are very beautiful but also smart, caring, blah, blah, blah." ANYTHING would have been better than nothing. Instead, it's never mentioned again.

Also, what's with the bad guys giving easy outs to their spells? Doesn't it occur to Rothbart that her "beloved" will probably come looking for her? And most likely find her? Then why on earth would he allow the enchantment to be broken by a kiss and a vow of love? Why not just kidnap her and that's that. No way out. Then in the end, Rothbart says he'll allow Odette to live if Derek defeats him. Well, that's stupid. Where's the benefit in that for Rothbart?

There are quite a few little issues I have with this movie, so clearly it doesn't hold up to adult viewing. But Fiona is enjoying it, so I guess that's what matters.

This is how I feel today

Ugggghhhh

Please note...



That is all.

War, what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

The song called 'War' by Edwin Starr, was written about the Vietnam War, but I think it's especially appropriate now that we've officially ended the War in Iraq.  The last of the troops were pulled out of Iraq this week after nearly 9 years. And what have we really accomplished in our time there? 4,500 Americans dead, tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, 32,000 Americans wounded and a cost of more than $800 billion. But according to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, it was worth the price in blood and money, as it set Iraq on a path to democracy. That's interesting, considering the Iraqis hate Americans, and want nothing to do with our democracy.

"The Americans are leaving behind them a destroyed country," said Mariam Khazim of Sadr City. "The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them. Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans."

The entire endeavour has been a mistake from the beginning. Our mission was to retaliate for the 9/11 attacks - oh wait...you say Iraq had nothing to do with that? Well then of course our mission is to find weapons of mass destruction! Oh...no WMD to be found? Obviously our mission now is to get rid of Saddam Hussein! Mission Accomplished! Let's hang around for a few more years so we can shove democracy down these people's throats (and hey, if we can profit from some oil on the side...bonus!).  And the whole time this was going on, what was happening in our own country? That's right, the economy tanked.

Personally, I've been against this war from the start. I was against many of the policies of the Bush administration. I voted for Obama, because like so many others I believed his promises of change and the feelings of hope. For the most part, I've supported his policies over the last few years. He was handed a country in turmoil that was reeling from the poor decisions of his predecessor, and I  feel like he's done the best that he could, given the circumstances. He delivered on his promise to remove the troops from Iraq by the end of this year, and while he did stop short of calling this a victory, he did say this...

"I would describe our troops as having succeeded in the mission of giving to the Iraqis their country in a way that gives them a chance for a successful future."

That statement is so disappointing to me. This war was not a success or something of which to be proud. This war was a waste of life, resources, time and money, and I'm disappointed in our President for trying to spin it as anything but a disaster.

On the 8th day of Christmas...

My true love gave to meeeeeee....

Actually, today is not the 8th day of Christmas. Did you know that the 12 days of Christmas actually start on Christmas day? I didn't!

There are 8 days left until Christmas though. It's almost here, and Santa's watching...be good!

Random Happenings

• I'm drinking coffee with Cinnamon Sugar Cookie creamer...my coffee tastes like a snickerdoodle. 
• Best quote from A Muppet Christmas Carol:

"And how would the book keepers like to be suddenly UNEMPLOYED?!"

"Heat Wave! This is my island in the sun, oi oi!" 

• Fiona is currently obsessed with The Nutcracker...we saw excerpts from the ballet last week at a show her dance school put on, and now she's dancing all over the house to the Nutcracker music, saying that the Mouse King is coming after her and that she has to throw her shoe at him, and has called herself Clara on numerous occasions. She particularly enjoys dancing in her nightgown with whichever stuffed animal is handy to act as placeholder for the Nutcracker.
• There are 9 days until Christmas and I am completely done with sending out cards and shopping. Just have to wrap presents now!
• Fiona's favourite Christmas song is Deck The Halls...the only part she knows is "Fa-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-laaa".  
• For the rest of the month, our cat shall henceforth be known as "Kringus". Last night, she wouldn't get out of the tree.
• A picture of the little Christmas tree we've got in Fiona's room...tree and decorations cost less that $15 at Wal-Mart! She's loved having that tree in there.

 

Foggy Day

Here's something you don't see often in Arizona.

11 Days and Counting!

Less than two weeks until Christmas, and the world is going a bit mad. I dread going shopping anytime within the last two weeks before Christmas, and I won't go near a mall from Thanksgiving until New Year's. 
Last night I headed to Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping and to pick up a few more Christmas gifts. I had been listening to Christmas music, and was excited about the gifts I was picking up for other people. I was in a giving, Christmassy mood. When I pulled into the parking lot, it was a mess of shopping carts. Normally it kind of annoys me when people leave their shopping cart in the parking spot rather than taking it to the cart return. It just seems inconsiderate. But it's been raining on and off for the past few days, and Arizonans don't typically carry umbrellas with them. I understood that people just wanted to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. When I arrived, it wasn't raining so I decided to take a few minutes and round up all the carts in the area, and put them in the cart return. I just wanted to make it a little easier for the poor employees that have to go out into the icky weather to gather up the carts. After about ten minutes of putting carts away, a man who had just finished his shopping and loading his bags into his car, pushed his cart in my general direction, got in his car and drove away.  Ok, I'm clearly not a Wal-Mart employee in my green sweater and my purse hanging on my shoulder...but oh well.  'Tis the season and all that, stay happy, don't let it ruin the mood.  I put the cart away, and a few more after that, and I felt good about my bit of Christmas kindness. I headed into the store to do my own shopping.


A box of "Forgton" pictures
at Wal-Mart

Inside was exactly the kind of mayhem I expected. Long lines, people pushing and grabbing, low stock on popular and sale items. I had to go to the back of the store to pick up a gift I ordered online for Fiona, and was happy when I saw that there were only two people in line ahead of me. Unfortunately that line was like molasses in January. If you're unfamiliar with the properties of molasses and what happens to it in cold weather, it's SLOW moving. I waited in that line for over 30 minutes and was so ready to be out of there when I was done. I finally finished up my shopping, made it through the long line of pushy people who clearly wanted to be anywhere but in line at Wal-Mart, and headed out. ...Only to find when I got to the door that there was a torrential downpour outside and temperature had plummeted. I immediately regretted my decision to take the first parking spot I saw at the back of the lot. There was no choice except to run for it. The cart was heavy, and the water was deep enough to cover my shoes. By the time I got to my car, I was soaked and freezing. As I was throwing my bags into the trunk of my car with wild abandon, a car drove past and drenched me as it sped through the water. I finished loading my bags and got into the car. I cranked up the heat and tried not to cry.
This is why I try to avoid stores at this time of year. Christmas is supposed to be a time of giving, family, love, cheer and goodwill towards man. Instead, people are greedy and rude. Most of the presents I'm giving out this year to friends and family have been hand made, so I haven't had to do as much shopping as I would otherwise...but I still have to go grocery shopping. No avoiding that. Well, I don't have to go shopping again for at least a week, and I think I'll go in the middle of the night to avoid a repeat of last night's trip. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy the Christmas season with my little family.  Baking cookies, listening to Christmas music, enjoying our beautiful Christmas tree, wrapping presents - I just need to focus on my family and the happy aspects of Christmas that I love, and not worry about the rest of the world.

Two spaces after a period...Why it's wrong.

Not Mrs. Lockey...Lackey...whatever.

I don't remember my 6th grade typing teacher's name...Mrs. Lockey? Mrs. Lackey? But I do remember that she had big, blonde, overly-permed hair, she always wore bright lipstick, something about her teeth and her beady eyes gave her a kind of rat-like face, and that I was amazed that she could type 75 words per minute with ridiculously long, brightly painted nails.

I didn't learn much in that typing class - my ability to type crazy fast came from chatting to friends on MSN Messenger. But, that class did teach me to keep my fingers on the home-row (asdf jkl;) and to double-space after a period. Now, 14 years later, I've learned that my beloved double-space is completely wrong. In fact, even as I type this, my thumb automatically strikes the spacebar twice and I have to go back and correct it.

When typesetting first began, it was filled with inconsistencies in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But as typesetting became more widespread, typographers began to agree on certain conventions regarding the style and look of the typed word. One of these agreements was that each sentence should be followed by one space, not two. By the end of the 19th century, the one space rule was set in stone (or in type, as the case may be). So why then, are so many people (myself included) double-spacing more than 100 years after it was agreed not to?

Because of the manual typewriter.

It's YOUR fault, manual typewriter!

 

To accommodate that machine's shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do. The problem with typewriters was that they used mono-spaced type - that is, every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny characters (like i or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks loose and uneven; there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the adoption of the two-space rule - on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read.

I've never written on a manual typewriter, and I'd venture a guess that anyone my age or younger hasn't either. So why are we still being taught the double-space rule? Easy - because our teachers learned the double-space rule, because their teachers learned to type on manual typewriters. Essentially, it all comes down to improper instruction, and laziness. Is the single-space rule arbitrary? Yep. The same way that we type shop instead of shoppe, or phone instead of fone, or that we use ! to emphasize a sentence instead of  %. Double-spacing at the end of a sentence is just as incorrect as if I were to end this sentence like this@#  Therefore, abandon your double-spacing, all you double-spacers!

Adventures in Plumbing

About a year ago, one of Fiona's toys that she was playing with in the shower mysteriously disappeared. We assumed that she lifted the drain cover and the toy went bye-bye.  It was just a small rubber toy and it didn't block anything at the time, so we didn't give it another thought...until about a month ago when the shower started taking forever to drain.  I guess that little toy shifted and blocked the pipe.  Because the tub and the shower drain into the same pipe, the tub was slow to drain as well. 

This little jerk is
the cause of all our
plumbing problems.

We called a local plumber who came out and spent an hour snaking the drain but was unable to clear the blockage.  Thankfully he didn't charge us anything for the work that he did.  As I found out today, most plumbers will charge regardless of whether or not they're able to solve the problem. The plumber made it sound like since he wasn't able to clear the drain with the snake, that it was going to be a huge job involving jack-hammering up the tension slab base that our house is on.  Well that's an expense that we just weren't prepared for - especially since we're moving in a few months anyways.  So, for the past few weeks we've been using the shower in Fiona's bathroom. Not an end-of-the-world-crisis situation, but definitely a bit inconvenient. You don't realize how much you love your master en suite bathroom until you can't use it anymore!

Roto-Ruder.  Boo.

Finally, this weekend, John decided to see if we could find another plumber who might be able to clear the drain.  He went onto Roto-Rooter's website and set up an appointment for first thing this morning.  Well, the appointment window came and went and no Roto-Rooter. I called to find out where our plumber was, and they had no record of our appointment in the system, even though I had a confirmation number.  Well...frustrating, yes...but it's not like I took the morning off work or anything, so I didn't get too bothered about it.  They said they could send someone out within the hour. The hour came and went, and still no plumber.  After an hour and a half they called and said they were backed up and would send someone in about 3 hours.  Hm.  Ok, I was getting a little more frustrated at that point.  Having worked in a lot of customer service jobs, I can't stand poor customer service. I don't like getting jerked around and put off by companies that don't value my time. The plumber showed up around 3:00. He ran the shower for a few minutes and said, "Yep, something's clogged.  I can snake it for $178."  Sooo.  Wow.  That seemed really high to me.  $178 regardless of whether or not he could actually fix the problem. I called John and he agreed that it was much too high and to send the guy on his way.  On his way out the door, the plumber said to me, "Go ahead and try a few other plumbers. Then call us back when you actually want the job done."  Rude.

The only thing that could have made
 our plumber more awesome

I spent the next hour or so calling all the local plumbers and getting quotes.  Every plumber I called wanted to charge $100-$200/hr. Finally, I found one in the phonebook - Top Tier Plumbing - who quoted me $90 to snake the drain, and no charge if he couldn't clear the blockage. Yay!  To my surprise, he said he was just finishing up his last job of the day and would be over here in about 45 minutes.  In the end, he was here for almost 3 hours after the end of his work day, and only charged us the $90, even though he went above and beyond just snaking the drain.  He and John actually had to pull the stove out from the wall in the kitchen (the shower is on the other side of that wall) and cut into the drywall to get to the vent-pipe thingy.  He managed to shove something down into that pipe to send Fiona's lost little toy on it's merry way.  I'm so excited to be able to use our shower (and my big deep soaker tub!) again, but I'm even more excited that we found such an awesome plumber.  Chances of us needing another plumber again before we move are slim, but now I know that if anyone else needs a plumber, he's the person that I'm going to recommend. He was friendly and polite, professional and knowledgeable. He didn't just do the bare minimum like a lot of people would have, and he didn't charge us an arm and a leg like most people would have.  Excellent customer service, excellent plumbing skills, and an all around nice guy. 

Top Tier Plumbing, LLC - "Where Quality Service Matters."
Matt Kartchner - Owner
ROC265715, ROC265717
(520) 466-1200
287 W. Rio Dr. Casa Grande, AZ 85122

It's rainy today...

This time of year, most of the country is constantly dreary and people are yearning for a sunny day.  But it's always a nice change here in Arizona when we have a chilly, overcast, wet day.  These kind of days so seldom happen around here. This time next year we'll be in the same boat as all those people longing for a ray of sun to peek through the clouds, but for now I can enjoy the grey and the drizzle.

There are 13 days until Christmas and Fiona is getting more and more excited. Instead of a traditional advent calendar this year, I made 24 little paper boxes with peppermint candies inside, and strung them all together with red embroidery floss. Each morning Fiona runs into the kitchen where the boxes are hanging and opens up the one at the bottom of the chain.  She's thrilled about the peppermint of course, (what kid doesn't love candy?) but she's even more excited to see what number is written on the inside of the box, and tell me how many more days until Santa comes.  Fiona will be 4 in January, so this is the first year that I feel like she's really been aware of what Christmas is, and is actually anticipating it.  It's been so much fun this year.  

On Saturday we got our Christmas tree.  It's beautiful and my house smells like pine.  I'll always have a soft place in my heart for the scraggly, sparse, Charlie-Brown-type Christmas trees that we had in my house growing up...but it makes me so happy to see our full, conical, 7 foot tall tree.  One thing I did take from the trees we had as kids is that a hodge-podge assortment of ornaments makes a more beautiful tree than the trendy monochromatic or themed Christmas trees that you see in magazines and storefronts.  My mom's Christmas tree is covered in antique glass ornaments, popsicle stick reindeer, little wooden toys and birds - all the decorations that we grew up using.  There's no theme, no colour scheme...but there are lots of memories.  So that's what I've tried to do with our tree.  We've got an ornament from our first Christmas together, a set of nutcracker ornaments from the first year we went to go see The Nutcracker, an ornament we bought on our honeymoon...each year we get one or two new meaningful ornaments, and each year our tree is more beautiful and memorable than the last.  This year I bought an ornament that is a pair of ballet slippers for Fiona, since this is the first year she's taken dance, and loves it.  She was so excited to hang it on the tree. 

More Christmas updates to come!