Ra and Me

My twin sister, Rachel, and me

When you grow up as a twin, life just isn't the same when you're apart.  I never went to school alone until college, and I never had just one set of clothing until then either.  I've never had my own birthday.  I was never alone.  I always had a built-in best friend, someone on my side.  You know that feeling that you sometimes get that something is missing?  You've done everything right, gotten everything together, but it's just not complete?  That's how life is for me when Ra isn't here.  Yes, we speak multiple times daily on the phone.  But it's just not the same.  Not when you spend the first eighteen years of your life next to someone.  So finally, this year, Christmas was full.  It was right.  Thanks for making the trip, Ra.  Next time, I just want you to stay.

Christmas Cookies, Dimond-Style

Nate, Abbie and I made Christmas cookies this year.  They did most of the cookie cutting while I took care of baking.  I must say that these were some of our tastiest cookies ever.  The icing was sweet and bright, while the cookies remained soft days after their trip through the oven.  Even though they were quite an effort to produce, I'm so happy that we made all these cookies.  I had so much fun with Nate and Abbie; it was definitely worth all of the time spent.

This is one that I decorated

This is one that Alan decorated (later on).  He said, "I feel really immature all of a sudden," after looking at his cookie and then mine in the picture above. :)

I accidentally baked this gingerbread man too close to the snowman.  Alan decided to decorate the conglomerate too appear as though there's a monster eating a gingerbread man.  I wish I could have bottled the laugh that came out of Nate when he saw this the next morning.

About 1/4th of the cookies that we produced.

Christmas Etchings

I'm learning how difficult silhouettes can be!  Here are a couple of my new attempts:

Charlie

An elf came to live with us for most of December!  The kids named him Charlie and every night Charlie went home to the North Pole, then returned to us each morning.  When he arrived back at our house, he landed in a new spot.  When Abbie and Nate woke up each day, they ran to the living room to find Charlie.  They talked to Charlie, told him the things that were on their Christmas lists, and Charlie monitored their good deeds (and the not so nice ones too...).  We loved Charlie.  Now he is home at the North Pole with his other elf buddies and Santa Claus.  But we're hoping that he'll return to us again next year before Christmas.  Here are a couple of pictures from some of the more interesting places at which Charlie landed:

Spiderman and Freezer Paper

Nate has a good friend from school named Tommy.  Tommy loves Spiderman.  In October, Tommy had a birthday party to which Nate was invited.  Unfortunately, I ended up in the Emergency Room due to a herniated disk, and Nate missed the birthday party.  Back to the point... We decided to do some freezer paper stenciling to make a Spiderman shirt for Tommy.  It turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had first anticipated because unlike in the shirt below, I connected all of the threads in the web.  That led to a puzzle of spiderweb pieces to piece together on the shirt after I had cut everything out of the freezer paper.  I got it done and it looked wonderful, but it was too much effort.  Nate, however, loved the shirt.  So I needed to make him one as well. :)  Luckily, I learned my lesson from the first one and drew the spiderweb threads so that they were close, but not connected to each other.  You can see the end product below.  Nate loves it, and that's all that matters to me.

Hope, Love, Faith

As the kids and I settled in for pizza and a movie, our worn-in and comfortable call-night ritual, we each chose a coaster for our drinks.  Our drinks being a special treat of Cherry 7-UP, another call-night special.    I was struck by the choices that we each made, as they truly seemed to symbolize who we are.  Nate chose faith.  Nate is, by far, the most faithful member of our family.  Abbie chose love.  Abbie is full of love, always doting upon her dolls and her brother.  And I chose hope.  I have seen myself without hope, and thus endeavor in every moment of every day to embody hope and to shine it on to those around me. Coasters...

Disclaimer

I should have put a disclaimer in my post about the Christmas cards.  The vast majority of the cards are not my design.  The credit goes to Karen Clark, a Stampin' Up demonstrator.  I am by no means the creative genius that you all somehow thought I was.  I am merely a card-maker, and sometimes a less-than-amazing creator.  Thanks for all the compliments, but they really don't belong to me!

Cards. Lots of Cards.

I love Christmas cards.  I especially love receiving them--There's such fun in receiving pictures and updates from friends far away.  I hang them on my wall and adore them all season.  They make me feel loved.

I do not, on the other hand, love sending Christmas cards.  It's quite tedious to make them, write on them all, and then address them.  And then there are always those few people who no matter how much I bother them, seem to refuse to send me their addresses.  For example, I still have two cards, written and stamped, but lacking addresses.  Frustrating.

Since I do love receiving Christmas cards so, I figure that I should probably send them.  I decided to only send cards to family, and then to friends who live in far away places and with whom I have little regular contact.  This year, due to my back problems (being stuck at home most of the day), I was able to make all of my cards.  I made a ton of different varieties and had some left over from previous years. In all, I made over 50 cards.  Yowsers!  Here are a some of the ones that I sent.

Christmas Love

Woodmans Cuts ALL Mental Health Benefits

Please follow the link to read the article.  This is very important.
Woodman's


A lot of words come to mind: Discrimination, shameful, and appalling are a few that I feel comfortable writing.  Also, it is beyond me how the lawmakers didn't see this coming; it's a rather large loophole to miss.  The founder of the chain, Woodman, strikes me as ignorant and prejudiced.
     It is pathetic that in this day and age, somebody in a place of power, and with the authority to make such healthcare decisions as to cut all mental health coverage for all employees, still believes that mental illness is not an "identifiable physical situation."  This is ten steps backwards from the progress that has recently been made in de-stigmatizing mental illness.
     I am now boycotting Woodman's.  I will not shop there until a change is made to provide mental health coverage to all employees.  I will be writing to the executives of the company as well.  I know that Woodman's is a cheap alternative to other Madison grocery stores, but this is intolerable.  I ask that you consider boycotting as well.  Please let me know if you'll be participating in the boycott so that I can mention it in my letters.  I fear that if Woodman's gets away with this, other companies will follow suit.  I cannot sit idly by and not do something to try to change it.

O-R-E-O

Oh Oreos, how we love you.  We love how you stack.  We love how you dip.  We love how you taste.

Celebrating Chanukah

Growing up, I had a mother with Jewish roots and a father with Catholic roots.  My parents decided, for my sisters and me, to rear us without any religious connections.  Therefore, come December, we were among the most envied group of children, because we celebrated both Chanukah and Christmas.  Our celebrations of these holidays were, for the most part, secular.  But I have extremely fond memories of both holidays.  During the eight days of Chanukah, we joined with family friends and ate a wonderful meal, latkes being my personal favorite.  We lit the candles on the menorah every night and recited a Hebrew prayer.  Instead of receiving gifts for each night (after we were older), we all contributed money to a bowl in our living room near the menorah, and then donated it to a different charity each year.  My memories of Christmas revolve mostly around singing carols with my sisters.  We would turn off all of the lights in our living room except for the Christmas tree lights, then sing for what seemed like hours.  To be honest, I still long for those moments.  I'd do anything to recreate those moments.  Before my tears flow any longer, I better get to the point of this post.

Despite being a Christian family, we have decided to include Chanukah in our family traditions.  It was never a religious holiday for me growing up, but I have such wonderful memories of it.  I didn't want to drop my family tradition just because we're not a practicing Jewish family.  I wasn't as a child either, after all.  Here are some pictures of our Menorah and the kids' one Chanukah gift for the year.  I told them the Chanukah story, we lit the candles, I recited the Hebrew prayer, read them the prayer translated to English and enjoyed watching the lights glow.  Alan and I are both glad to have Chanukah be a part of our December holiday traditions.

Snow. Lots of It.

Last Wednesday, Madison got a massive amount of snow.  We're talking about 17 inches in 2 days, I think.  The University of Wisconsin closed down, all city offices closed down, the buses stopped running and even the Madison Public School District cancelled school.  That never happens.  Ever.  We had to get to the hospital by 10AM on Wednesday morning for an appt. that I had.  Alan shoveled the driveway and uncovered our car.  There was a path in the street where a couple of other cars had driven, so we thought that if we could just get to the tracks, we could make it out.  We backed out and got stuck.  Our neighbors came out to help shovel us out and at that moment, the snow plows came down the street. I honestly don't know that we would have made it to the hospital without that snowplow.  It was quite miraculous as the first reschedule date for my appt. would have been Dec. 21.

Anyways, the snow created a winter wonderland.  I do not like winter, but I must admit that I loved the snow.  The world turned serene and white and beautiful.  It didn't hurt that my kids spent literally two or three hours outside playing in it.  They built a fort, a tower with snow stairs, paths all over the yard and some major snow tunnels.  A friend from Nate's kindergarten class last year, who happens to live down the street, also came over to help build with her dad and brother.  It was a fun day.  Alan still was supposed to go to work (no rest for the weary, right?), but all of his patients cancelled.  UW delayed their clinics until 10AM, and WISPIC, where Alan has his patients most of the time, actually closed their clinic.  But Alan was working at the VA on Wednesday--No Federal closings, I guess.  Thank you patients for canceling and allowing my husband to be home with our family.

Here are some pictures from the major snow storm and the days of playing after it:

Our van--Can you see the sparkling snow?

Here's Abbie on the snow tower

The snow stairs leading to the top of the tower

Nate on his way into a tunnel

There he goes--This was completely terrifying to me.  I was sure that the tunnels were going to collapse and leave my children buried in snow.

Nate on the tower

Abbie kind of freaked out mid-way through the tunnel

Nate spends about 80% of his day with his tongue somewhere outside of his mouth

On top of a snow tunnel, trying to dig a skylight into the top

I love the rosy cheeks that winter produces in my children

Here's Abbie doing some shoveling (and talking to herself, like usual)

The setting sun turned the smoke coming out of our chimney to a stunning orange-pink color.

Watching for Santa

A few days ago, I was in bed resting my back when the kids starting screaming.  Nate ran screaming into my room and I managed to get, "Santa just drove down the street and went in the neighbor's house!"  Santa had driven down our little street in a green Honda and had entered the house across the street.  Hmmm?  Nate and Abbie then spent the next 30-45 minutes on the top bunk of their bed peering out the window, waiting for Santa to come out of that house.  It was magical to watch:

I Am A Duck

Nate asked me if he could be done eating his lunch.  After a discussion about how much he had eaten, I told him that he could be done if he took three more bites and wrote I AM A DUCK on his face.  Clearly I was joking, but I guess that Nate is still learning to decipher my sarcasm and humor.  He soon returned to tell me that he had taken the three bites and as you can see, he wrote I AM A DUCK on his forehead.  It's backwards because he did it in the mirror.  Oh Nate!