Merry Christmas!

This Christmas was a lovely one, and not just because there were no lice to be found!

 Nathan finally got home Wednesday, Dec.20,and on Thursday, Bob took Faith, Micah, and Drew to a production of Mr. Popper's Penguins at the Kennedy Center with a big homeschool group. We had read that book aloud a few months ago, so this was a perfect play for them!  Afterwards, they walked around the monuments for several hours with friends.  Everyone came home happy but exhausted, except Faith, even though she was the oldest of our kids out there, who was whiny.  Still, fun memories!

 That night we had Christmas at our house, where we opened presents from the kids to each other and also from us.  Micah and Drew were so happy with these sweatshirts I picked up on clearance at Walmart a few months ago.  They look like knights!  I was happy they were $3.00 each, lol.  We had a small Christmas, and I will admit I was worse than usual with gifts because I've just been so distracted, but we did get the kids 2 electric rip-sticks from Costco, which were a big hit.

But there was no time to really play with anything, because Friday morning we were off early to Ohio!

 We stopped in PA to visit Bob's parents.  We had a nice time with them, and Bob was able to help give his dad a bath.  It's been awhile since Nathan was able to be there, so that was really good. 

We made it to my parents' house about 7:30, where my brother and his family were eagerly awaiting us!  The kids were so happy to see Emily and Elia again!  Everyone really played so nicely together this time--they are growing up! 

 Even though we weren't there for as many days this time, we still made time to cut out and decorate cookies!  This time I made the dough before hand and brought it with us, so the kids could just do the fun stuff.  Once again we used kittencal's sugar cookie and frosting recipe, because it is hands down the easiest I've found to work with, especially for a bunch of squirrelly kids. 

 We went to the candelight service and had our traditional family picture taken.  The guy holding my phone was off to the side, so you can't see my mom very clearly, and I want to get a copy of the picture from my dad's phone!  When I was reading my blog post from last year, I noted that none of our kids had to get taken out of the service.  Alas, this year Bob had to take Verity out because she was being a little pill.  Also, I dripped wax on my good black pants, which I still haven't gotten all the way out, so we definitely regressed this year!

Everyone had fun playing with presents and toys.  It was really cold, so the kids didn't spend much time outside, BUT we had a white Christmas!  Not too much snow to cancel things, but just enough to look pretty and festive!

 This travel connect four game was not even a Christmas gift, but for some reason, it was the popular go-to game this year!  Every time I turned around, a different pair of people was playing!  Next year we will have to splurge and get a full-size one for Grandma's house, lol.

 Lots of books were read.  Elia was so sweet to read to Verity and Drew! 

 The girls spent a lot of time coloring each other's hair with chalk that Elia got for Christmas. A very festive look!  Verity is wearing a Minnie Mouse sweatshirt that she adores and wears over all her shirts now.  Elia picked that out, knowing the Verity loves Minnie Mouse!

 We were able to finish a Thomas Kincaid Christmas puzzle that was really difficult because a lot of different areas had the same dark shadows. But we were up to the challenge--with only one missing piece!

The five girls got matching shirts from Grandma that were so cute!

On  our last day there, I was able to go out to breakfast (if you can call staying at a restaurant talking from 9:30-1:15 "breakfast", lol) with Amy--we had a lot to catch up on!  Bob, Dan, Melinda, and my Dad took the kids bowling at the base, which is always eagerly anticipated.  We were able to fit in a Young's trip before Christmas, so we made the most of a short visit!

Bob had tried to get Grace and Jonathan new ID cards Tuesday morning, but pass and ID was closed for a family day.  As we were driving out Wednesday morning, we decided to stop by there again to see if it might be possible to get them, since it takes sooo long, and it so far away, to get them here.  It took 30 minutes, which is an amazingly short period of time for 2 walk-ins!  Jonathan's ID card has been expired since June, and Grace never got hers since her 10th birthday in May, so having that checked off was a big relief!  The other kids and I just stayed out in the van and listened to an old Veggie Tales Christmas album.  Wee called it "pre-sitting"--just a warm-up for the big drive to come!  We were all jammed in there with backpacks, jackets, duffel bags, etc. all around, so it was hard for everyone to get in and out.   

On our way back home, we stopped in to visit Bob's sister Jane before she had to leave for work.  Our time at pass & ID slowed us down, so we had to drive straight there with no stops so we didn't miss her!  She fixed us a delicious lunch, and we had a lovely visit to break up our trip.  She also gave us a big sack of presents!  When we got home, the kids eagerly dove into the bag and had a ball opening everything and playing with them.  It was the perfect thing after a long day of driving!  The kids have happily spent the past few days assembling erector set cars and other projects, and playing reading games and other things from her and Uncle Terry, so they picked out some excellent gifts!

Now that we're home, and we've *pretty much* found places for all the new stuff, I'm contemplating taking down the Christmas tree today.  I just get tired of it taking up so much room in the family room!  I love all our ornaments so much, but I definitely have a love/hate relationship with the actual tree itself, lol. 

I hope you all had a merry, lice-free Christmas this year as well!

Our Christmas Tree Comes Full Circle

 Wow, I haven't posted since November??  We decorated before Nathan and Luke went back after Thanksgiving, so it's felt Christmas-y around here.  This may be the last year for our tree, though.  I thought I would commemorate it here, in all it's glory!

When Bob and I got married in 1993, he brought this much smaller tree pictured above into the marriage.  When we were stationed in Colorado, before we had Nathan, we got permits and cut down our own trees for 2 years in the national forest, which was fun.  (But we decided dealing with a live tree really wasn't all that much fun, so we have never had a live one again, lol.)  So we kept putting up the same small tree.  (And isn't Luke adorable here in 2005, in his footie pajamas!  This was an actual printed off picture from an actual roll of film, which is why I couldn't tell I had cut him in half, lol.  I never was that great of a photographer, but at least now with digital cameras, I can try again!)

The small tree was really hard to assemble, the lights were a total hassle to string, and taking it all back down again was the absolute worst.  I grew to loathe that tree, although as I look at this picture, it doesn't seem as bad as it does in my memories, lol. 

Finally, in 2006, we bought a new tree!  It was so easy to assemble, and you just plugged the different cords in different places, and voila, lights!   That was great for quite a few years, but then about 4 years ago, we started noticing that one section just wasn't lighting up when everything got plugged in.  And the next year, another section . . . and another one.  When we plugged everything in this year, there were huge swaths of darkness all over, including the entire top 2 sections. 

So what else was there to do but string lights??  Now we not only have the hassle of stringing lights,but also we're working around the old, non-working ones!  It does look pretty again though.  I don't think it's going to make the trip back down to the basement again though.   Some of the branches have broken, so they just fall down, instead of sticking out, so if you really look closely, it looks pretty shabby.  I think an artificial tree lasting 12 Christmases is pretty good--although our original small tree lasted 18 years. 

Merry Christmas!!