car storage

So my car door has a compartment. I think most people store CDs or other important things in their door. In my case, it's usually full of chocolate wrappers. Lately, it's bursting with the golden wrappers of Ferrero Rocher.

What's so wonderful about these Christmas candies is I can buy them ALL YEAR LONG at Target. And they're handy as they're right in the check out aisle!

What's weird is I generally don't enjoy chocolate (or any dessert) when it is mixed with nuts. I just feel like it's mixing two ingredients that are much better enjoyed separately. Like we're forcing them to be friends and really, they can't stand each other. But these little delights are the perfect amount of smooth chocolate, hazlenut flavoring, and a slight nutty crust.

I also like these because they're individually wrapped. If I exercise restraint (occasionally, but not often), I can eat one and save two for another day.

Usually, I eat three and save none. My overstuffed car door attests.

daddy's little girl

Most often, people say she looks like me. And sometimes when she smiles or lifts her eyes, I see myself. It's a strange feeling, watching yourself in a tiny body. When she was born, I asked my mom if it was a little surreal to see her baby all over again.

But as she gets bigger, I see her daddy in her more and more.

Especially in the eyes. We may mirror each other in many ways, but in her eyes, she is her daddy's little girl.

And, oh those eyes.

super sophie

So some people have a beach home or their mountain cabin. I have a second home at Amazon.com. You think I jest? Oh, how you wish. This started with my parents - they use Amazon for everything. And at Christmas time, we all make Amazon Wish Lists, which makes Christmas shopping really easy. And quite honestly, you can find almost anything on Amazon.com.

I did almost all of my Christmas shopping on Amazon. I bought a few things for Annabelle, and while shopping in the baby department, I noticed that Amazon kept recommending I check out Sophie the Giraffe (she's rated the number one teething toy). Of course I did (I always follow Amazon's advice), however, when I saw her price tag - THIRTEEN DOLLARS - I decided I'd pass her by. After all, who pays THIRTEEN DOLLARS for a rubber teething toy?

Oh, I'll tell you who. Grandma does. When my mom received the same recommendation, she too checked out Sophie. And as she fulfilled her duty as grandma (to spoil one's grandchildren ridiculously), she bought up a little Sophie for Annabelle. Christmas day arrived, and when I saw Sophie, as I did with many of Belle's presents, I went nuts. After all, she's so cute, and she's THIRTEEN DOLLARS I don't have to spend!

Little did we know, Belle would love Sophie just as much. She toted that rubber giraffe everywhere. I even witnessed her tucking Sophie in next to her in the exersaucer, as if to say, "You sit right here Sophe. I'm just going to play with a few toys here."

So although Sophie the Giraffe is indeed a rubber teether that costs THIRTEEN DOLLARS, I am actually going to go ahead and recommend her.

As her story goes, she was the first rubber toy made for children (in France in 1961), and her popularity since has never decreased. (For those that value a little history, her appearance and manufacturing process haven't changed either.) Sophie is the perfect size for little hands, and her soft (baby safe) rubber is the perfect texture for tender gums or new teeth to gnaw on. I think that the bumps in her mane, and then all her parts - horns, ears, legs, neck, etc. - feel good on teething gums. She does squeak - both from her tummy and her head - but she has to be coerced to do so, so she isn't a very noisy toy.

There is one potential downside to Sophie: because she's made of rubber, well, she smells like rubber. And "the singular scent of natural rubber" (as her promotional materials read) drives Jess (and others) nuts. I actually don't mind at all. And it seems that Annabelle couldn't care less.

We love Sophie so much, in fact, when she went missing (that is, got kicked out of the shopping cart at Target), I went ahead and spent the THIRTEEN DOLLARS to replace her. And it was totally worth it to see Belle's face recognize her favorite toy when we returned to Durham.

Now, however, Sophie does not accompany us on shopping trips.

NOTE: If you are indeed interested in purchasing Sophie, Amazon may be your cheapest route. I've noticed she costs a few more dollars elsewhere. And if you're shipping her, those few dollars might be worth the savings. Although if you happen to be an Amazon Prime member, that shipping is free. (Pretty sure I didn't live before Amazon.com existed.)

do you ever wish?

Do you ever wish you

could remember how amazing the world

must have been when everything was new, when

everything was a curiosity just waiting to be discovered?

I do.

dear coach sloan:

a thousand words

A picture is worth a thousand words. That's what they say. But truthfully, it's not often that I feel a photo really can capture a thousand words. I mean, I find photos beautiful, striking, memorable. The photos I take of Belle are priceless to me. Jess' photos of Tokyo are so dear to me I cry if I look long enough. But still - a thousand words? Maybe it's my subconscious counting of syllables, as though editing has trained my brain to value word count way more than I should.

However, when we stopped by Jess' grandparents house so they could visit their first great-grandbaby, Jess grabbed his camera (if you can simply "grab" what has become his camera and its entourage of equipment). And these photos. Oh, these photos. The words are dripping by the thousands.

There's something about the beauty in their wisdom-filled faces contrasted with her baby face. The juxtoposition of old and new in the most beautiful way. There's something about the love they've developed for decades that radiates from them. Their faces frame their smiles in a way that only experience can. I swear their eyes twinkle. There's something about the furniture, the lighting, the way their home is frozen in time, a more simple time, when life was easier, right? Because we always assume life was easier "back then." But in these photos, I swear life is easier.

And the cliche, the thousand words, it's in every one of these photos. Every picture has a thousand words trapped in their eyes, their expressions, their love.

half year

Dear Annabelle:

Six months ago today, I met you for the first time. But it didn't feel like I was meeting you for the first time. You didn't feel like a stranger at all. No, you actually felt more like a finally. Finally I had you in my arms.

I remember noticing your tiny, perfect features, particularly your nose. I remember thinking you looked something like your Great Grandpa Christensen, which is funny now, but I think it had something to do with your features being all squishy and swollen, something that our faces do as we age, and ironically, often how they begin. I remember feeling overwhelming love, undeniable peace. I remember that even then, you turned your face into your blanket, something you do every night and every nap. In fact, I don't know that you could sleep without something to snuggle. I remember waiting for your first cry, the relief I felt when it came. And I remember when I finally got to hold you.

I never wanted to put you down. Indeed, I requested that you stay in my room that night so I could watch you, watch your chest rise and fall, memorize your face. You grunted a lot in your sleep, so I didn't sleep much more than a few winks, but I fell in love with you that night. And although that was the first of many sleepless nights, I never could get enough of you. And still, six months later, I can't get enough. It seems like just yesterday you made your entrance. It seems like just yesterday I held your tiny infant body, still purple in the fingers and toes, and felt a blanket of love wrap us both up so tight.

The other night I went and saw a movie. It's the first movie I've seen since your birth. And while it may have had something to do with how slow the movie was, the entire time I sat in my cushy theater seat, I wished for nothing more than to be home with you, sitting on the floor, playing with your toys, watching your face light up with recognition, your lips pucker with concentration, your hands very deliberately grab everything in reach, your smile turn up at me.

Thank you for coming to me six months ago. You make life new and beautiful. You make the simple things incredible. You bring more happiness to a person than I knew possible.

I love you my sweet Belle.

Love,
Mommy

on new moon

Sometimes I'm a holdout just for the sake of being a holdout. When I received an invite to Facebook from a friend and saw that my grandmother's sister is on, I realized that possibly I am the last and only living holdout when it comes to Facebook. But my postponed viewing of New Moon wasn't so much because I was being an obnoxious holdout so much as it was because Twilight was so UNDERWHELMING and didn't give me much of a reason to get excited about its sequel.

But I finally saw it. And here's what I have to say:

1. The vampires look so much better than they did in Twilight. As in not totally lame. Thank you big budget for allowing Carlisle to look almost like my imagination made the vampires look. Their lipstick wasn't half bad, and their eyes were rad. R-A-D.

2. Jacob's long hair. Come on. Why bother with that ratty, nasty thing?

3. The first time a werewolf emerged from the brush, I laughed outloud. It was pretty good CGI, but still, I laughed. I also snickered a few other times when the rest of the audience was swooning.

4. Why are these movies so dang slllloooowwww? Arg. More than once, I wished I'd brought my pillow so I could take a snooze while the always moody characters worked through their angst, always averting their eyes as they spoke so emotionally. (Seriously - why can't they talk and look at each other at the same time?)

5. The moment that Bella runs to save Edward and flies into his arms, that moment? That is the reason that pre-pubescent girls, stay at home moms, and grandmas alike, plus some of your husbands, love Twilight. It's that moment that we all want - we're searching for it, longing for it, hoping for it. We all want to feel that love, both from someone and for someone. That all consuming, overwhelming, can't-see-straight kind of love. And I think that some of us have it, or more correctly, have had moments of that love. Some of us are still looking, and some of us are trying to find it again.

Whatever the case, that is why even if you're in the Taylor Lautner camp (yes, he's wayyyy hot), there is something in you that longs for an Edward of your own. Not a vampire, not someone who secretly wants to eat you, but someone who loves you, every single ounce of you.

But still. I wish I'd had a pillow.

the four dresses

As many of you will recall, we didn't find out if we were having a boy or girl when I was pregnant with Belle. (Remember - "Ha! It's a girl!") Due to this lack of information, my mom basically crocheted an entire layette for either a boy or girl, including sweaters, burp cloths, blankets, and booties. Included in the pretty little pieces were blessing (christening) ensembles. The beautiful dress that she had crocheted for Annabelle was tiny. Too tiny for her projected baby blessing date at the end of the summer.

So Grandma and her flying fingers had another dress made before the sun rose the next day - still beautiful, just a little bigger.

Then, we decided that we'd do the blessing at the end of the year, at Christmas, when more family members could assemble.

So Grandma's flying fingers went to work again and created a dress for a six month old. Of course it was still exquisite, and Annabelle considered herself lucky to be worthy of yet another dress.

And then Annabelle decided that being average was way over-rated. And the "big" dress was soon obsolete.

Grandma went to work once again, this time making a dress for a one year old baby, adding length for Belle's new height. She added a new (bigger) sweater, with beautiful matching pink trim and rose buttons, and then created a new bootie pattern that would accommodate her bigger feet.

And finally, after four dresses, our baby Belle was blessed in a dress made (four times) by her Grandma.

She was exquisite, the blessing was tender, and the fourth dress was the most beautiful one yet.

Thank you Grandma.

we wish you

a merry christmas!