Fourth Day of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas my children gave to me... an evening of complete chaos opening presents!

Yesterday we opened presents with my family. I was the only person sitting on the floor helping the girls with their gifts. After every gift I was left with wrapping paper and an empty box piled in front of me. They were also handing me the new toy and requesting "open please", which led to more trash surrounding me. I didn't have a trash can near me for awhile. Eventually I got one, but it got too hard to keep up with the girls. At one point I wondered if I could hide behind all of the mess and read my new book in peace and quiet.

What a chaotic, but fun time.

*Picture to be added after Mom gets home with the camera.

Third Day of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas my children gave to me... a semi-peaceful time at church and a peaceful 2 1/2 hour drive to my parents' house. Yay!

It's quite clear that Julia understands the concept of gift-giving now. Once we got into the living room she looked under the Christmas tree, gasped, and exclaimed "Presents!". Luckily she had no problem waiting to open them until the next day.

On the Second Day of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas my children gave to me... an extra hour or so of sleep. I awoke to find everybody cozy on the couch reading their new books.




They also gave me time alone in the house while they went to the bank, post office and video store. They braved the cold weather to take a walk there. I was offered the opportunity to take a walk too, but I decided to stay home and clean. Here is Julia all bundled for her trip. Yes, she's wearing three hats. She was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, her winter hat, and the coat's hood. Probably overkill, but I didn't do it. I don't think she could turn her head without turning her whole torso.

Doesn't it look like a lot of work to get Chloe ready for a walk?

You might not think it would be fun to clean the house while everybody is gone, but I loved it! I got done in 1/3 of the time I would have otherwise. And the toys stayed right where I put them because there weren't two little girls running around behind me taking them out again.

On the First Day of Christmas

Dressed up for Christmas Eve service:

Christmas morning service:

the meal: chicken cacciatore, peas, wine, and red velvet cake for dessert

the tree:

and not one picture of children opening presents!

On the first day of Christmas I asked for peaceful children during the church service. I received peaceful children during the opening hymn. What more should I have really expected during the third church service in three days? The service at the other church was cancelled on Christmas day due to inclement weather. So we got a couple extra hours to spend with Kevin.

On the first day of Christmas my children gave to me... a day filled with precious memories. Chloe seemed to understand every aspect of the day this year. Julia enjoyed opening presents. I had more fun watching them open gifts than I have in past years. We played games together later in the day. The day ended with French toast for supper and a phone call to Michigan. One more Christmas story read before bed, a movie after the kids went to bed, and the day was over. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable day.

God's blessings to you all during this Christmas season!

Plan for the Day

It's not feeling especially Christmas-y around here with all of the rain we're getting, but it's Christmas Eve nonetheless and we have a few special Christmas Eve activities planned here. Note: After Kevin reads this, he'll once again tell me that it's not Christmas Eve until the sun goes down. Another note: Sorry the paragraphs have no spaces between them at the bottom. For some reason blogger takes all of the spaces out after I add pictures. Grrr.

The girls are decked out in their light-up Christmas sweatshirts their grandma sent them last year.

My, my, isn't Julia looking very grown up in that picture?

Every day in Advent, we've let Chloe open a little envelope I've had hanging in the dining room. Inside each envelope is a special activity to do that day. Some of them have been quite simple -- drink hot chocolate with supper. Some of them have been a bit more time consuming -- help bake and decorate cookies. Today she will be helping me make a red velvet birthday cake for us to enjoy tomorrow.

Aside from that, we'll be having a pretty normal day until we head to church. We'll be going to 5:30 service. While Kevin is at the second service, we'll be making homemade pizza. We had homemade pizza last year on Christmas Eve. I liked the idea so much, it might become a tradition for us.

After supper we'll let the girls open two presents -- matching pajamas and their new ornament for the year. Then it will be time to head to bed; we don't want Santa to skip over our house because the children stayed up too late!

Our local video store is having a "rent two movies, get one free" special today. We will head up at some point to pick out two movies for the adults for tonight and tomorrow night and one for the children to enjoy tomorrow.

So there are our exciting plans for the day. Hope your day is relaxing and exciting as you await the time for the full-blown celebration of our Savior's birth!

Now What?

The presents are all wrapped.

The cards have been mailed.

The cookies are all baked.

Kevin's vestments are freshly laundered and a beautiful white again (sure, he technically washed those himself, but I pulled them out of the dryer in a timely fashion to make sure they didn't wrinkle).

The Christmas dresses have been retrieved from the attic.

The house is clean(ish). The floors haven't been vacuumed because the vacuum has yet another broken belt.

I'm caught up on thank you cards.

I think the only thing left to do is wash the dresses so they don't smell like cardboard boxes!

So... now what? Anybody have any last minute wrapping they'd like me to do? It really is my favorite thing to do! No? Guess I'll have to go read a book.

Christmas Firsts

We have had a weekend of firsts for the girls. Yesterday we made our Christmas cutout cookies. Kevin and Chloe helped me roll them out and bake them while Julia napped. Shhh... we also frosted a few while she napped. After supper, we let Julia help out with pouring the sprinkles on the tops of some of the cookies (because that's as complicated as I get -- white frosting with colored sprinkles dumped on the top). She was a bit hesitant at first:



But after watching Daddy, an "I can do that" look flashed briefly on her face:

Once he took the cookie away to get a new one, she felt it was her obligation to taste test the sprinkles:

Let's give that girl a clean spoon. Aha, I think we've got the idea now: (And if you're really bored, you can bounce back and forth between the next two pictures to see the decorating in action!)

Chloe wanted to show off her decorating skills also:

And what is Julia up to?

...apparently scraping all of the frosting that dripped off the cookie. Delicious!

Chloe had her "first" today. This was her first Christmas program at church! Doesn't she look like such a proud little angel?

She had three lines to say -- a total of 12 words. And if you know Chloe at all, you've probably already guessed that she didn't say even one of them. Not surprising, she didn't say them in practice either. You should have heard her saying them at home though!

Although she didn't talk, she was full of smiles throughout the songs and really sang her heart out. I could see her singing nearly every word. And for the phrases I heard her singing loudly and quite enthusiastically, well, I'm convinced that no heavenly chorus of angels could ever sound so sweet... but maybe I'm biased.

Cards

Just in case you were wondering...

why your Christmas card arrived with the address label just slightly crooked...



or why the sticker on the back of the envelope drifted a bit to the side...

You should probably feel lucky that the card even made it through this assembly line to get into the mail.

I signed, stuffed, added the return address and stamp, and sealed. Kevin helped Julia with the address labels. Chloe handled all of the stickers on the back. And don't worry, Julia only licked a couple of the envelopes after she added her label. Chances are, she didn't lick yours!

Christmas Letter

Every year we go through the same thing. Who's going to write the Christmas letter? This year Kevin drew the metaphorical short stick and was stuck writing it. Then I noticed at the bottom of the page that this blog was listed. Hmmm... haven't written there in over 6 months. So for those of you who are here checking to see what else has been going on in our lives, here's my version of the past year.

Julia has had the most changes this year (not surprising in the case of a one-year-old). She reached all those milestones that children her age should. Her vocabulary is pretty vast, but she doesn't always know when to use the appropriate words. For example, she will scream and keep saying please and me too without letting us know exactly what she wants. It sometimes takes quite a while before we can decipher what the want was. Julia enjoys reading a lot just like her big sister does, but she has also really taken to some math concepts (somebody had to have mommy's love of math). She loves to count. Okay, she loves to count in her own unique counting system: One, two, three, eight, nine, ten! She knows shapes very well. She is still quite the mommy's girl. She wants to be by my side constantly, but would rather be "up". She adores her big sister. And of course, nobody knows how to have fun quite like daddy. Despite her early "terrible two" attitude of late, it has been quite the pleasure watching her personality develop more and more.

Chloe has also grown a lot (again, what else would you expect in a young child). She adores her little sister and spends most afternoons bored while Julia is napping. Reading is still her favorite activity. Some stories she can "read" to us based on the pictures and her memory. Other stories she likes to read by trying out some rhyming words. Often stories go something like this: it, kit, hit, tit, rit, vit. Arch books are among her favorites. It's so much fun to hear her retelling the Bible stories. She has learned a lot this year during our family devotional time. She can recite much of the catechism and knows several hymns. If she's in the right mood, she can outsing part of the congregation on a Sunday morning. Chloe enjoys trying out all kinds of grown up activities. She likes to help me cook, sort and fold laundry, dust, vacuum and anything else I will let her do. I try to let her help me as much as possible; I know this stage of willing participation won't last forever.

As for me, well, there's a reason I don't like to write the Christmas letter. Nothing new has happened to me aside from all of the new stages my children are entering. While sometimes the daily routines are quite monotonous, there are other times I'm happy to lead a quiet life. As with any other vocation, motherhood has its ups and downs, but there is always something to bring a smile or something new to cherish in my heart. I'm blessed to have a wonderful family. Kevin mentioned my brother Andy who was diagnosed with leukemia in September. I have added a link at the top of the blog to Caring Bridge. My mom has been updating there, and you can look back to read the whole story.

And Kevin? He's just as hard to write about as I am! He's still enjoying being a pastor (again, aside from problems that arise). He's still a wonderful husband and father; the girls and I are blessed to have him. Doesn't sound like much has changed. He tried to take on a new hobby -- finishing our basement. Early in the year he spent one day working on it with his dad and brothers. Nothing much has happened down there since then. You'll have to ask Kevin about that new hobby of his sometimes.

So there's our year as best as I can remember at this point. No big events to report this year. Now that I've written this long summary, I can go tell Kevin that I wrote our Christmas letter too. He'll be so pleased to hear his work was not done in vain!