This 'n That

Long story short: My dad's ancestors were potters in England.  When he and my mom went to England on a family history trip in 2007, they learned that Dad has a fourth cousin, Mark Hewitt, with a kiln right here in North Carolina.  I got to thinking that it would be fun to get them a piece of Mark's pottery for Christmas.  His kiln is only open to the public three times a year, so when I saw he'd have an opening the first two weekends in December, I invited my folks to come up and check it out.  I enlisted my siblings to all pitch in and then contacted Mark about doing a custom piece for Mom and Dad to reflect our Hewitt Pottery heritage together.  We ended up having a private appointment to go see Mark the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so that we could really talk about family connections, etc, without the pressure of other customers around.  It was a lovely afternoon!  He has a delightful family and I'm so glad to have met them.  Here's the pot he made for Mom and Dad:

My paternal grandmother is a Hewitt.

NC SC on the reverse side "for balance" and to reflect our current geographic status, I guess

The sides have these pretty blue drips

JaNice, Dennis, Mark, Natalie

That weekend Mom and Dad also painted David's room for us, so the monster truck mural is all gone!  David's very excited.  We topped it off by rearranging the furniture in his room too, and he thinks it's pretty swell.  (Thanks so much Mom and Dad for your help!)

We set up our Christmas tree for Family Home Evening that Monday, and the boys were absolutely delighted that they got to put all the ornaments on.  After we got it up, Daniel declared, "It's so bootiful!"  He loves all the lights, and he asks me several times a day if it's time to open presents yet.  We have an advent calendar that my sister made where you move Mary and Joseph towards the stable, and on Christmas day you take out a baby Jesus to put in the manger.  Last week I overheard David explaining it to Daniel, telling him that at the end we'd get to open presents, and later that morning, after David was at school, Daniel called me over and showed me that he had moved Mary and Joseph to the end and pulled out baby Jesus.  "See Mommy?  It's time to open presents now!"  Bless his little heart.

David is excited too, but I love how he keeps reminding all of us that we need to remember that Christmas is about baby Jesus.  My brother sent us a replica of a tradition we had growing up, with a small manger and some straw.  Every time you do service for someone else, you put a piece of straw into the manger to make Jesus' bed softer.  I haven't had it out the past couple years, but David has been very enthusiastic about being a "Secret Service Agent" (kudos to whomever came up with that Primary lesson!  He's doing little acts of service all over the place), so I got it out and showed him.  He has embraced it wholeheartedly and is excited for opportunities to make the bed softer for Baby Jesus.

I took each of the boys individually to the Dollar Store to pick out a present for each other.  They both picked exactly the same thing.  How sweet is that?  I took David second and was actually rather relieved that he picked the same gift, because Daniel REALLY liked it and I had a hard time getting him to let go of it so I could wrap it up.  :)

Last weekend I took David to the Knightdale Christmas Parade.  He was very excited about seeing Santa in the parade and all the candy that would get distributed.  He was not disappointed!  He got loads of candy (good thing we brought a goody bag!), our town has a Miracle-on-34th-Street-quality Santa (real beard, real belly, beautiful costume), and it started snowing as the parade started.  I think winter is David's favorite season, because he loves the snow.  He did NOT get that from me.  By the time we were walking back to the car, there was about half an inch on the ground.  David was a real trooper, but a stones-throw away from the car he broke down bawling about how cold he was.  Poor fella.  Of course, by the time we got home all he wanted to do was go play in the snow in the back yard.

David waiting for the parade to start

This week we got official notice that Nathan's company will be transferring him to the San Jose, CA office.  We've been planning in this direction since August, but it's nice to know it will actually happen.  Now we're just waiting for the official "when."  After talking to the COO for an hour, Nathan said it sounds like we'll have a good deal of say in that matter, but there's going to be a big meeting in January with more details, so hopefully after that we'll know better what's going on.  If it's entirely up to us, I think we'll stick around here until July so David can finish out the school year.  Who'd want to be the new kid with only two months left of school?

I made a DVD of my visit to Hewitt Pottery to share with my siblings, so they could learn about this family connection too, and also to see Mom and Dad's faces when we surprised them with the pottery.  As I was working on it I thought, "I'd love to have a small piece of Hewitt family history, too," so I talked Nathan into coming out with me and the boys to the last weekend of Mark's kiln opening (today), since I don't know if we'll be around for the next one.  I made a batch of Great-Grandma Hewitt's Lemon Cheese (our family calls it "lemon cheese" but the rest of the British Empire calls it "lemon curd") and took some to share with Mark.  I thought he'd appreciate it.  :)  He was delighted and opened it right there in the yard and stuck his finger in for a taste.  Fortunately, it was the best batch I've made in years.  I even made it in Great-Grandma Hewitt's double boiler.

The pottery I selected is on the right.  Mark gave me the mug as a thank-you for the lemon cheese.

After I'd selected my pottery we went into his workshop to check out and also enjoy hot cider and cookies.  Mark's 26-ish-y/o daughter Emma came in and when she saw the boys, she immediately asked them, "Have you seen our swings?  Come with me, I'm your cousin!  Let's go play!"  "Okay!" they both chimed and as simple as that she wooed my thus-far bashful, hide-behind-parental-legs children immediately into following her out the door without even looking back at us.  (A little scary, actually, how easily they were convinced.  Pied piper comes to mind...)  They had so much fun with her, though, and asked me the rest of the afternoon where Emma had gone.  I pulled up the Hewitt DVD project on the computer and Daniel immediately said, "We went there!"

After we got home, Nathan pulled out a big box of his old toys that he's saved.  Out came the original MicroMachines and Transformers.  Grand Slam!  The boys sat upstairs and played with them all afternoon.  I told Nathan we should have wrapped them up and put them under the tree, but he just grinned and said "They're enjoying them now."

Pregnancy is going well, aside from feeling a lot more uncomfortable than I recall feeling with the first two.  We've decided to call the baby Isaac.  Still some discussion on the rest of his name. 

I decided it's probably time to start taking profile pics for posterity.  It's not a particularly flattering angle, or time of night for that matter, but here I am.  I must be quite a sight, though, because my burgeoning belly elicits comments every time I leave the house.  The public at large is convinced I'm due any day now, even though I'm only 32 weeks.  Last time I went to the grocery store, I had four employees eye me and ask how far along I was.  I think the best (and worst) reaction I've gotten so far was today as I was checking out at Michael's.  The cashier was a young man, probably mid-twenties.

Him: When are you due?
Me: Eight weeks.
Him: Are you having twins?
Me: Nope, just one.
Him: Man, you're SO BIG!

Quite the charmer, wasn't he?