On Any Sunday Night*

The Superhero Ballerina Princess is playing soccer when she hears a call for help! Someone needs rescuing!













"It's my cousin Batman! I have to save him!"

*As narrated by Gwen herself

Three!: The Birthday Party

My little party-planner-in-training came into her own this year. She was very excited about her party, from her theme (Princesses, naturally, and we picked her dress out weeks in advance.) She loves the dollar store, and picked out her plates and decorations and the all-important party hats. And her own tiara. We are big on tiaras in our house.

We needed chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles for our guests. I made the cupcakes, but Gwen was all about the sprinkles. Pink and purple sparkle sugar, and pink sugar balls that crunched in everyone's teeth. She even let Adessa help, which meant that the sprinkle distribution was ... a little uneven, shall we say? But the cupcakes were still pretty.

The kids had a great time playing around and wearing their hats. No, really, Ryan's having a blast.

And Elvi got to play with Baby Eliana. You know she was happy.

Then we sang the song (see the end of the last post) and ate the cupcakes and then, oh yeah, there were presents. Lots and lots of presents. (I should be writing thank-you notes right now, actually.)
And then the party was over, pretty much. Until this happened:

This is the new princess dress that the Brauns gave her for Christmas, complete with matching gown for our cross-dressing lion. He's a very good sport, you know.

And then this happened:

Those are the lacing beads from Adessa. Rutherford is helping.

And this:

Which pretty much summed up how Gwen felt about the whole day.

Where We Dance Around

JIM HAS A JOB!

The news went out on Facebook and email and teary telephone calls, but I need to write about it here, too. It's a fantastic job for him. He's working in wireless, dealing with radio frequency waves. (My husband is a geek who lurves himself some frequency waves. I've spent hours watching him spin things to show me the wave patterns. I really, really love him. Just saying.) He's out of computer security, he's making good money, and he gave them a really solid sales lead on his second day.

He's going to kick ass at this job.

And we're going to be ok, after all. I mean, I knew we would be. But I was getting very worried that it wouldn't be in this house, maybe not in this county. And I love it here.

This happened too:

And this too:

More on those later.

If you're reading this - well, thank you. It's been an incredibly difficult year, one in which we've relied on all of you more than you will ever know. It is your love and support that has pulled us through.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at my Uncle Rick's house. He has a beautiful property in the Gold Country, and the weather was fantastic. We sat out on the deck, looking at the pine trees,the autumn leaves, the horses in the pasture, fending off Aussie shepherds, laughing, talking politics (politely, even!) and watching Gwennie chase her Papa around. Uncle Rick said, "Well, gosh, she's just a regular kid, but she's awfully darn cute, isn't she?"

Then we ate fabulous food, and drove home. We had been planning to stay longer, but all three of us had been sick, and Jim felt like we should come home. Gwen cried about missing her Great Grandma (that'll wrench a mama's heart) but I was so grateful when we finally got home and I crawled into my own bed. It was great to show my daughter and my belly off (I was too sick to travel at all with Gwen, so this was new) but I am home for the duration now.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I think these two say a lot:

Where We Stand

So I haven't written much about our situation, because really, what do you say? Living in the Land of Economic Downturns is stressful and it sucks, and the best thing we've figured out to do is just soldier on. And so far, that's worked. We are raising a beautiful, happy, compassionate little girl, and growing a second one, and concentrating on the joy that they bring.

But the last few weeks have been hard. We've all been sick, particularly Jim and I, which makes always makes things more difficult. But Jim's been working towards a job that would be perfect for him, and that he'd be perfect for. It would even lets him use his physics background to a greater extent than he ever has before. The hiring process started in early October and was going great guns, everybody loved him, he was champing at the bit, and then things. just. ground. to. a. halt. while the VP reconsidered the position and his organization.

From the VP's perspective, I'm sure it looks as if he's doing the right thing, being responsible to his company, all that. From ours, it's as if he threw a giant brick wall in the middle of our freeway lane, and we keep crashing right into it. It's hard to see around it, hard to know where we go from here. Because it's the holidays again, and we've no other prospects, nothing new is going to break open before the New Year, and there's a baby waiting to be born.

But here's the ray of sunshine. The recruiter called Jim yesterday, and the VP wants to meet with Jim on Monday, to discuss salary histories among other things. So maybe, just maybe, things are going to start moving again. And I'm asking anyone who can to throw some energy behind that idea, because we need need need this job.

In the meantime, Gwen has rediscovered her gorilla puppet, who has morphed into Baby G'illa, and she brings him to her daddy several times a day, asking him to put his hand inside her baby "so he can play with his mama." He was more than a little disturbed when that play involved nursing her ape-baby. This morning was a little easier, because she just wanted Baby G'illa to brush his mama's hair.

There will be a Thanksgiving post soon, but here are a couple of shots to tide you over.

Gwennie and Adessa (her Dora-friend. Dunno what that is, exactly, but Adessa is it) at the pumpkin patch.

Up Up and Away!