Christmas Fun

We've been having such a grand Christmas break!  I don't ever want to start back to homeschooling, LOL.

Saturday and Sunday we made and decorated cut-out cookies.  Both days we did this while Micah was napping because, you know, I'm not completely crazy.  What a mess!  But it's fun.  Like I told the kids--just another thing they can think back on when they are old, to know that I loved them!  Otherwise, there is no way I would bother with it!

Sunday and Monday we did all our wrapping.  Monday it actually snowed big wet, sloppy flakes--the kind that don't stick around--but it looked festive, and at elast the trees out the window were white!We also ate a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Christmas Eve, before we went to the candlelight service at church!  Our good friend Ed smoked a turkey for us as a gift, and we certainly enjoyed it!

On Christmas we got up and the kids opened their stockings first.  Then we ate a yummy breakfast--a crockpot hashbrown/egg/sausage casserole that I started the night before, as well as cinnamon rolls that I made Christmas Eve as well so I just had to bake and frost them.  I was glad I wasn't checking my blood sugar numbers, LOL!

Then we spent the rest of the morning opening Christmas presents.  We don't get the kids many things, but still--with 13 of us here, including my parents, we had a lot of presents to get through!  We have all been enjoying greatly all the gifts we received.  I love how occupied the kids have been--playing Settlers of Catan witht he new expansion pack Nathan bought as a gift for everyone, doing a murder mystery jigsaw puzzle on the schoolroom table, playing with paper dolls and activity books, reading new books, etc.  So wonderful! 

Then everyone ate leftovers from our turkey dinner for lunch, and Micah took his regular nap.  We ate our big meal at our regular dinner time, which was nice because it gave my mom and me a chance to rest in the afternoon for a little while before we had to start preparing food.  We had a glazed ham, sweet potato casserole, and sweet potato biscuits, as well as some other sides.  Yum!  Then after we cleaned all that up, we had our birthday party for Jesus, with cake and ice cream.

Micah is at such a cute age for Christmas.  He was so excited by the day--candy in the stocking!  New toys!  Delicious food and plenty of it!  Birthday cake and ice cream!  What's not to love?!

I have to say that Drew gave me my favorite gift--he's started going longer periods at night!  I'll feed him around 10:00 or so, and then he'll go until 5:00 some nights, and then up again after 8:00!  Yay, Drew!  It's so nice to have a little bit more sleep.  It makes me think that maybe, possibly, I'll be able to start school up again in a little over a week, LOL.

Yesterday Bob stayed home, and it even snowed a little bit!  There only being a little bit of snow did not deter anyone from going out, however.  Now I am happy to say that everyone has found the appropriately-sized snowsuit, boots, gloves, and so on, so we are ready for a BIG snowstorm . . . please?!?  We never got any real snow last year, and the kids were so disappointed, as was I, I must admit!

I hope all of you are having lovely, relaxing Christmas breaks as well, and most importantly, remembering Jesus, the real reason for this special season!

Merry Christmas!

"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons." Galatians 4:4

Merry Christmas!!

Cousins!

So my brother Dan and his family also drove to Ohio for Christmas. They have 2 girls--Emily, who is almost 5, and Elia, who turned 2 back in September. These ages dovetail in quite nicely with our girls, who are 5 1/2, 4 1/2, and almost 3! The girls always have SUCH a grand time whent hey are all together!

Anna, Grace, Faith, and Emily all slept in one room. The first night we were there, the girls got pretty much no sleep at all! I kept hearing giggling, so I went down to check on them around 11:00. The lights were on, and they were all chattering and reading books! I told them to get in bed and go to sleep, but when Bob got up around 2:30 to go to the bathroom, he heard giggling and told them to settle down. When Micah got up to nurse around 6:00--more giggling! I again told them to settle down and go back to sleep, but they were all upstairs a little after 7:00! We were expecting them to all be very crabby, but surprisingly they were not.

I put the fear of God in them the next night, telling them that if there was any trouble, Emily would have to sleep on a mattress in her parents' room. I told them they needed stay in their beds, close their mouths and eyes, and go to sleep! I was very firm, LOL. So firm that Emily was scared to get up at all, even though she needed to go to the bathroom! Anna didn't feel that same fear, so she got up, and Emily was amazed at her bold disregard for the clear law that had been laid down. I was actually directing my comments to Faith, who is one of the main troublemakers, so the next night I had to be careful to clarify!

Emily is just a lot like me, in terms of taking things literally. When I was 4 or 5, I was in this day camp for a week through our church, back when we were stationed in Los Angelos. One little field trip we had was on some pirate boat out in some bay. The pirates were being all fierce (and completely over-the-top, as I can clearly see now when looking back on it), and they threatened to throw any kid overboard who did anything wrong. I. was. PETRIFIED. I sat in one spot and didn't move the entire trip. I kept wondering when they were going to come around and get all of our names and addresses, because without those, how would they let our parents know that we had been thrown overboard?! LOL!

Aunt Melinda was a very patient reader of stories for everyone! Grace has obviously been in her stocking stash of chocolate, LOL.

Even though Emily's birthday isn't until tomorrow, we celebrated in Ohio early. We went bowling at the base. They have this little dragon thing that the younger kids can roll the ball down, so you don't have to wait an approximate year for the ball to get down to the pins. Also, they have the nice bumper things in the gutters, and you can lift them up and down, depending on who's bowling, which makes it nice for Jonathan and Caleb. The boys were really helpful with the girls, helping them carry their balls over to the dragon, making sure it was centered and all.

Elia had the absolute most fun. As soon as she gave the ball a push, she would start jumping up and down, clapping and cheering, as she watched her ball roll down the lane! A very enthusiastic bowler indeed!

She was not an enthusiastic eater of green beans however, LOL. We had those at our Christmas day leftover dinner, and while she would have eaten as much of the cranberry sauce as possible, she wanted nothing to do with the beans, so Dan had to lay down the law--eat this green bean, which was cut into 3 pieces, or no more cranberry sauce. And with that, the battle was on! She refused the green bean the rest of that day, and on until Monday evening. Bob and I went out for pizza with Dan and Melinda, and while we were gone, Luke somehow convinced Elia to eat the bean--all 3 pieces! Yay!

So now we are all missing Emily and Elia, and wishing they lived closer!

Christmas Downtime

It was so nice to have some downtime during this break! We all got a lot of games for Christmas, so much time was spent playing them! The boys got Settlers of Catan, plus the expansion pack so a total of 6 people could play. That is proving to be a very popular game! They also got a card game called Quidler, plus a game called "Sort It Out", where you're given a weird collection of things which you have to organize in some given order. Here's an example: Sort these things by length, from longest to shortest: average female sea lion, anaconda, giant salamander, a yardstick, and a bootlace worm. You have to get each item in the right position, so you can basically have them all but one in the correct order, but you put that one wrong one in the first place, so it pushed all the rest off a place, and then you get credit for none of them being right. The good thing about this game is you pretty much have as much a chance of getting things right by randomly guessing than if you have some idea of what is right. So Jonathan never won, but he hung out in the middle of the pack, when he had no idea about pretty much all the cards!

The girls got some fun games too, which were played by all. A big favorite was a charades game Dan and Melinda gave to Emily. All the younger kids thought that was great fun. The Princess Memory game was also a favorite.

One thing I really love to do is work jigsaw puzzles. One day when I was in Barnes and Noble I saw this 1000 piece puzzle, which I just loved. I hope you can see the picture clearly, but it's a grandma and grandpa sitting in their huge library--but then as you look down the hallways, you see that the books stretch out in every direction! My dream house! So we gave that to Mom and Dad as a Christmas present, and then we brought up the old card table and actually started it Tuesday. It was a fun puzzle to work because there were lots of separate areas you could do. Luke finished it up Friday morning!

I was also able to spend some time just reading, which was so relaxing. I read the second book in the new 39 Clues series, which was a quick read. I also read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about the woman whose cancer cells became the hela line. Absolutely fascinating!! I am going to have the boys read that book next summer before we start biology at Rivendell. Christine has recommended the book after her book club read it, and I was so glad I read it! I also finally got started on the 3rd Harry Potter book. I read the first 2 in August, but then Rivendell started, and I have pretty much had no time for pleasure reading. I need to finish that up tomorrow so I can take it back to the library! We also listened to about half to The Lightning Thief on CD on our long trip home. We have the book, so right now Jonathan is finishing it up, then Caleb is in line, and then me.

Wow--puzzles, reading--what a lovely break! We don't start back at Rivendell until Jan. 10, so I technically have some more break time. But now I really need to do more prep work for science and Latin, plus I still have goals for cleaning and decluttering, so I think my break is more or less over. Wah. It was good while it lasted, and it was so nice being at my mom's house, where I wasn't constantly reminded off all the stuff in the house I need to clean and organize!

Christmas Weekend

We had our big Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, in the afternoon, and then we went on to the candlelight service at the base chapel. I think I am going to make this our new tradition, because it was so nice on Christmas to just be able to heat up leftovers, and not have to worry about cooking stuff while trying to watch people open presents!

Look at all those beautiful girls in their Christmas dresses! We went to church Christmas morning at the chapel, then we came home and ate a quick meal of leftovers before opening our presents.

We all got some really neat presents (and the best part is that they all fit in the van for the drive back!). Lots of games, legos, and other fun things.

Nathan has been talking about how he would like a hatchet, so my dad gave him his old Boy Scout hatchet!

Then we had our birthday party for Jesus. After we ate our cake, we looked through catalogs to decide what our birthday gift to Jesus was going to be. After much discussion, we settled on a goat and 2 chickens, plus a share in a deepwater well. I think we ended up going with the World Vision catalog. Looking through those catalogs makes us wish we could give a thousand times more--so many needs!

Early Christmas in PA

Friday afternoon we left to drive up to PA to visit Bob's family. We didn't leave until 3:30 because I just couldn't get it together any sooner. When it took us an hour to get to the outskirts of town, we remembered why we prefer to drive up Saturday mornings, LOL. A big blizzard was forecast (how often are they right about those things?!), so I guess there were a lot of other people trying to get out of D.C. before it. We made it to Bob's parents' house jsut a little while before his sister Rose and her 2 girls, who were coming from NE PA, and his brother Paul and his son Brandon who live nearby. The cousins had a wonderful time together--and only part of it was that Brandon shared his PSP and Maddie and Amanda shared their (pink) DSs with the boys!

We all got to bed at the hotel late Friday night, so we just relaxed Saturday morning. We all went swimming in the hotel pool, which was nice. This was Faith's first time in a pool, and she loved it! She also looked adorably cute in her little pink swimsuit with a ruffle. I think she is one of the few of our kids who have loved the pool the first time. Most take until they are about 3 to enjoy it, LOL.

Then we headed back over to Bob's parents' house. It snowed in PA too, so Bob had to get the big van brushed off. We have snow scrapers in both minivans, but nothing in the big van. I guess we really weren't expecting any snow! The other cousins had gone sledding at Paul's house, and the boys were so disappointed that I had not thought to pile all of their snow stuff in the van! Oh well. Meanwhile we watched the Weather Channel and saw how VA was getting walloped with snow. Luke especially felt we should be at home, watching it all come down! He could not believe that so far VA has had 2 snow storms, and we have been out of town for both of them! They had to console themselves with more video games on their cousins' machines.

Faith enjoyed the attention of everyone. Here she is with Bob's mom and sister. Bob's brother-in-law Terry and sister Jane came over Saturday afternoon, along with their son Franklin. We had hoped that Jane and Terry would be able to convince Faith to walk, since they have worked their magic on some of our other kids, like Jonathan, but no such luck. She is really standing steadily on her own, but she will absolutely NOT move her feet one tiny bit.

Maddie and Amanda were so sweet in playing with Anna and Grace. The girls had a great time! Nathan played a rousing game of pinochle with Bob's other relatives, which he won. This was the point where Bob's parents got a little fiesty and tired of all the commotion, so we all beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel.

Grace was sleeping in a sleeping bag, but she is still too wiggly, I think. The first night she wiggled under a chair a few times, and I had to keep rescuing her. She didn't wiggle as much the second night, so maybe she was getting used to it, but she was very stuffed up, so she still didn't sleep very well.

Sunday morning the kids swam again with Bob, while Faith took a nap and I showered. Then we loaded up and headed back over to the house. There we loaded up the amazing haul of presents we received from all of Bob's family. We really had to shoehorn it all in there, but we managed to make it fit! We left around 1:15 because we were concerned about the roads. They were really pretty good, especially the big ones like the turnpike. But I-70 was already backing up, so we got off and went some back way. It was really pretty, with a lot of neat old houses. We got back around 5:30. Once we had learned how much snow VA got, my big question the whole weekend was how we were going to get into our driveway and house. It turned out I was right to be concerned, but I hadn't taken into account our wonderful neighbors! One of them had obviously snowblowed our driveway for us! What an incredible blessing, because I can't imagine shoveling out a driveway full of 2 feet of snow with tired kids waiting in the van! All we had to do was shovel a path through the great mound of snow plow snow in front of the driveway, and that took long enough! SO we had a good weekend, but we were really thankful to get home safely.

A bonus picture: Faith was enamoured with the cute baby on the other side if this glass all weekend long.

Limping Home

Well, we made it safely back to VA last night, but we have had it rough, healthwise! I thought Grace was getting better on Saturday, because she was sleeping better and wasn't quite as fussy as she had been. But Saturday night was bad again, and Sunday was awful. Since the other kids were still coughing and hacking, Mom volunteered to stay home and watch the kids while Bob and I went to church. So we said goodbye to Dan, Melinda, and Emily, who left to drive back home Sunday, and then Bob and I had a nice date to church and out to Panera Bread for lunch. We tried a new church, a church that identifies itself as a 9 Marks church, like our one here is VA. It was good, but we are just so spoiled by our pastor here. His sermons are sooo good!

When we got home, it was obvious that Grace was not doing so well again. She was fussy the rest of the day, and the night was once again terrible. She really only slept if I was holding her, which meant not much sleep for me. Plus, she was running a fever again, and bothering with her ear, so we decided that I would take her to the ER at Wright-Pat Monday morning. When we got there, I was prepared for the long haul, based on how many people were there, and how long they had been waiting. Thankfully, however, we were seen fairly quickly. As it turned out, the doctor said that her ears did not look infected right then, but that there was tons of stuff oozing out of her right ear, so it must have ruptured. I had actually noticed this weird lava-like flow of stuff in her ear that morning, so that made sense. The doctor said the hole would most likely mend itself, and that she would probably feel better, now that all the pressure wasn't there anymore. We're just supposed to keep an eye on her, and if she starts running a fever again, then take her back in because it probably got reinfected. So, poor baby, she really was not doing well on Sunday! I should have taken her in then! Oh well, she is doing better now, and the ride home was not too bad with her.

Nathan, who you may remember started off this whole plague 2 weeks ago, started complaining about his upper jaw hurting on Monday, and he also started running a fever again. I'm wondering if he doesn't have a sinus infection, so I have an appointment for his this afternoon. Jonathan and Anna are still coughing away, but they've been sleeping fine, so I'm not too worried. I think they are on the mend.

We also generously passed this bug off to my mom (tis the season for sharing, you know), so she has also been coughing and all stuffed up. Hopefully now that our germ-laden presence is out oft he house, she will start getting better!

The last few days I have had a very hard time with my blood glucose levels. I guess it's just the stress of everyone being sick and again me not sleeping, but it is so discouraging. Sigh. My next appointment in on Jan. 6, so I am hoping that things improve before then. With that in mind, I am off to the treadmill. I am thrilled to say goodbye to the old exercise bike at my parents' house! My poor pelvis is eternally thankful not to have to get back on that thing!

New Christmas Tradition

Every year we have a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas, complete with cake, the song, etc. Last year the kids asked why we didn't give Jesus any presents, and this year my mom had a great idea to remedy that in a tangible way. She asked our family, my brother's family, and my aunt and uncle to all donate some money, and then we would look through the Samaritan's Purse gift catalogue and pick out something to give that would help a needy family somewhere. The gifts are things like shares of livestock, shares in a well for a village, stocking a fish pond for a village, food and medicine for a new mom and baby for a month, and so on. The stories are so touching, and the needs are so great, that soon you find you wish you could just give all your money! The boys really took a lot of time looking through the catalogue, with Nathan even marking the things he was interested in. We decided we would give a flock of chickens, as well as a share of a livestock animal, with our money. The boys decided to donate the dollars that the stranger had given them in Wendys on our trip out here, and they are excited to save up this next year so we will have more money to give! So it was definitely a good idea, and one we will continue to practice.

Merry Christmas!

I know I'm a day late, but I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did. It is so great to be here with my family. The only problem is that we have brought with us some terrible coughing ailment, which is passing through the family, and I'm sure we are sharing it with Dan's family, as well as Mom and Dad. Nathan started coughing the day before we left VA, and since then Jonathan, Caleb, Grace, and Anna have also been coughing up a storm. We went to the Chrsitmas Eve service at the chapel, and Jonathan sounded like he was going to hack up a lung. I should have kept him home!

Grace really had a hard time sleeping for several nights with her coughing and snuffling. She also ran a fever, so she really wasn't feeling well. We borrowed a vaporizer from Amy, but that didn't work any miracles. I discovered that when I am feeling puny and also not getting any sleep, my blood sugar numbers are not good. It was really amazing. No matter what I ate, even a salad and turkey/lettuce/cheese sandwich, which I ate for dinner one night instead of pizza, my numbers were higher than 120. Oh well. Today I am finally feeling better and a little more well-rested, so my numbers are back down where they normally are.

The boys have really been enjoying 2 new games they received--electronic Battleship, which Amy got them, and Star Wars Monopoly, which Dan and Melinda got. I would say Anna's favorite gift was a pair of pink dress up high heels that Melinda got her. She wears them all the time! We got Grace a doll of her own, since Anna is rather bossy about the dolls at home, all of which are technically hers. But so far Grace has not been able to establish complete control over this new doll either, LOL. Anna is just a bit too bossy.

Bob's parents give us money each year to buy something, and this year Bob went out early Sunday morning and bought a surprise for us, which I opened on Christmas--a laptop! With that and the mp3 player we bought before leaving VA, this has been a very technological Christmas for us. I guess we finally decided those were 2 "fads" that were staying, so we better jump on the bandwagon at this late date, LOL.

Dan and Melinda and Bob and I got to go on a double date Tuesday night. We went to a local restaurant, and it was very nice! I had pecan-crusted chicken, which was absolutely delicious. We had a fun time with Dan and Melinda. Mom and Dad held down the fort back at their house with all 7 kids. We'll be sad when Dan, Melinda, and Emily leave on Sunday to drive back to TX. And then we will leave on Tuesday! Back to the old routine . . .

Here in Ohio!

We made it safely here on Thursday, about 20 minutes before Dan and Melinda drove in! We had a nice drive with good weather, and we got halfway through The Bronze Bow, our book on CD. I have fond memories of the middle school librarian reading that book aloud to us during library time. It's really good.

We did have an interesting experience when we stopped for lunch. We stopped at a Wendys in West Virginia, and the people were very friendly. A nice elderly man talked to us in line, and later he told us that he had 8 children, and it was nice to see a big family, since you just don't see that much anymore. As we were eating, a man came up and started talking to the boys, who were sitting at a table behind me. He asked the boys if they were excited for Christmas, and they all said yes. I sort of turned around and told him we were on our way to Grandma's house. Then he handed each boy a dollar bill and told them to have a merry Christmas! They were thrilled, and as I turned around to remind them to say thank you, he put a twenty dollar bill in front of me! He was a younger man, around Bob's age I would say, but he told me he was all alone for Christmas--his parents were dead, and he didn't have any siblings, aunts, uncles, anyone. So he wanted us to have a merry Christmas. It was so sad, and I didn't really know what to say, other than how sorry I was and thank you! No one has ever come up and given us money before, though. That was a first!

We are having a great time here with everyone! The 3 little girls are so cute playing together with their dolls! They really have done a good job sharing, so we haven't had many incidents! It helps that there are plenty of dolls to go around.

I have been doing well with my glucose numbers, surprisingly. Of course, I have been exercising like a mad woman. We even went to Young's last night. I only had half of a turkey bacon club sandwich, and half a scoop of ice cream, and then I went home and rode the bike for 30 minutes. But my number was 103!!

I must go help with dinner!

Merry Christmas From Our Family to Yours!!!!

We had a beautiful candlelight service last night at church, followed by a night of wrapping presents and frosting our birthday cake for Jesus for Bob and me.

In the morning, we woke up, had breakfast, and then we opened stockings. After a quick nursing break, we opened presents. We all got such wonderful things! We ate our big meal at 1:00, and after another nursing break, we all went on a walk to the playground/football playing field. The weather was beautiful today! When we were in Colorado, we liked to go on Christmas hikes with our neighbors, Bill and Pam. I want to start that tradition up again! The boys are playing happily and quietly downstairs. Bob and Anna are napping. It's so nice and quiet! After we eat leftovers or something, we will have our birthday party for Jesus. After all, his birth is the reason we have anything to celebrate on this day or any day!

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! II Cor. 9:15

One last thing--we are also celebrating a new member being added to our family! My cousin James got engaged to Sarah yesterday!! Congratulations! What a wonderful time of year to become engaged, and we are so excited for you!!

Christmas Preparations Wrap-Up

We cut out sugar cookies on Thursday. Nathan made the dough in our big mixer, and it turned out great (and a little puffy because he added a little too much baking powder due to a doubling miscalculation, LOL). We used our regular Christmas cookie cutters, but we also opened a box that I had bought many, many years ago while we were still in Colorado. It was a set of cutters to make a Nativity scene. Those cookies we decided to decorate before baking with an egg glaze that I had read about on The Pioneer Woman Cooks. We painted the glaze on, and it was really easy. Unfortunately, the cookies puffed up a lot, and so you can't really tell what was supposed to be colored on the final product, so it was not a rousing success.

We decorated the other cookies on Friday afternoon with our regular powdered sugar glaze. In the decorating process, you can really tell that all my older kids are boys, not girls. The frosting technique is "pile it on and add tons of every kind of sprinkles"--no detail work, LOL. Finally I finished whatever it was I was doing in the kitchen and decorated a few cookies myself. I did a teddy bear first, and I carefully spread yellow frosting on the head, arms, and legs before putting red frosting on the tummy and adding eyes and a mouth. "Hey! You made Winnie the Pooh!" was the surprised cry of the boys. Using more than one color had not really occured to them. Then Jonathan asked if he could put sprinkles on my cookies. I told him no because I really don't like sprinkles. "WHAT?! You don't like sprinkles?!" Everyone was astounded, LOL. AFter that, the boys were a little more artistic, but when we pick out cookies to eat, I noticed that people like to pick Jonathan's. And why not? Pound for pound, he is the king of putting the most frosting and sprinkles on! Artistry only goes so far, LOL.


Sunday afternoon Bob's sister Ann, her husband Wally, and their daughter Christi came up to visit from Richmond for the night. We had such a fun time with them. Ann and Wally played cards with the older boys, while Christi read lots of books to the little ones. Ann, Christi, and I stayed up too late talking, but it was such a nice break to just sit around and chat. Christi is getting married soon, so she was full of wedding plans to talk about, and I was full of marriage advice, LOL. This morning, Nathan made pancakes for breakfast, and then we sat around and sang boisterous Christmas carols, such as in the picture. We sure were loud! I mean, festive!

Christmas Party Weekend

We had the most social weekend I think we have ever had! It started off Friday night, where we had a Christmas party at Bible study. The kids (there are 15 kids for 4 families) acted out the Christmas story,complete with costumes. A few years ago, for AWANA at Halloween, the kids all had to be Bible characters. So I cut up an ugly brown sheet into tunic things that the kids wear over Dad's t-shirts, along with belts and headscarves (also out of the sheet). Voila! Your generic Bible character costume! These 4 costumes stood us in good stead once again. Nathan was Joseph, Luke was a shepherd and a wise man, and Caleb and JOnathan were shepherds. In a surprise casting move, I was the Angel of the Lord (sans costume, LOL). It was a lot of fun. Then we socialized over snacks for a long time, not leaving until after 10:00.

Saturday we had our first party at 3:00. The German family down the street had a neighborhood German Christmas tea, with all sorts of German foods and drinks. Some of the food I really liked, and some, well, not so much. It was fun though, and I drank 2 cups of tea, as well as a few tiny sips of some sort of mulled wine that is "the smell of Christmas" to Oliver and Ellie. Everyone thought it was really great stuff, but boy, I do not have any sort of taste for wine, because I really didn't like it. I guess that's a good thing, as you're not really supposed to drink while nursing, eh?

I left about 4:30 and rushed home to finish tidying it up. Saturday night my ladies' Bible study was having a Christmas progressive dinner, and the kids were all going to be at our house, eating pizza! They started coming at 6:00, and of course I was nowhere ready for them. I still had to make my spinach strawberry salad, and as we were getting ready to leave, I remembered that I had also said I would take tacquitoes. Whoops! So I took the box of them frozen to heat there. How classy!

We went to Jenny's house for the appetizers/main course, and that was a great time. After we ate, we did the white elephant gift exchange game, where you can take presents away from people. I kept opening the "good" presents, which were promptly stolen, so I ended up opening 3 presents (out of only 12). After the presents, we all came and retrieved our kids before heading to the L's house for dessert. While at the L's house, we played a fun Mad-Libs version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and we also sang Christmas carols around the piano. Once again, we didn't leave until after 10:00. Hmmm. I wonder if these late nights might have any impact on children? Oh, I'm sure not, LOL.

Sunday we went to church, and then rushed home to have a quick sandwich and nurse Grace before heading over to another neighbor's house for yet another Christmas party. This neighbor, Doctor Joe, is an older man, and each year he invites all the neighborhood kids to listen to him tell Christmas stories that he has made up. They are nice fairy-tale like stories, each one centered around a Christmas tree of a different color. It's a good time for the kids, and afterwards he and Stella always put on a huge spread of food.

After stuffing ourselves again, we went home and again straightened up because at 6:00 our care group from church was meeting at our house. We only meet every third Sunday, but this was the lucky weekend! So once again I nursed quickly, whipped up a quick pan of gingerbread for dessert, and then welcomed people here. And once again I was nowhere near ready for them when they came! We had a good study, but after everyone left and we got the kids down, I was so very glad to be done with all our socializing. Our calendar for this next week is blessedly completely blank! Ahhhhhhhhhh.

An Early Christmas Present

This time of year there are always discussions in the paper, on message boards and so on about what kind of gifts women hate to get. The general thought seems to be that women don't like practical gifts; however, this is NOT me. Bring on the practical gifts!!

I have wanted for a long time a collapsible rolling file cart from Office Depot. You may wonder why that particular item has caused such yearning in me. I wanted it for the library. We check out many, many books at a time, and I have always carried them in a big Land's End tote bag. Recently we have also had to branch out into 2 small auxiliary tote bags that the boys carry because we were just plum out of room in the big bag, and my arm was about to fall off from hauling it around. A long time ago I read a thread on the Well Trained Mind board where many people recommended this rolling crate thing, and it sounded like a great idea to me.

So last night Nathan and I prepared to go to the library when he called me out to the garage to "look at something". There, in the front seat and with a red bow on, was this cart! I was so excited! Bob decided he should go ahead and give it to me so that I could actually use it, instead of just waiting for Christmas. It was so nice! I just wheeled my heavy load right in! I know everyone was looking jealously at it--or looking at it anyways, LOL. They were probably thinking, "Why does any lady need to get out so many books?!"

Now we can move on to other parts of Christmas. . .

The chocolates are all done! Yay! Every year I am always a little surprised when I reach the point that I am sick of chocolate, and yet every year, that point is reached, LOL. Last night I made a peppermint bark to use up the rest of the dark chocolate, and I still haven't even tasted it. I am just not interested. Blech.

We bought 10 pounds of milk chocolate, 5 pounds of dark chocolate, and 2 pounds of white chocolate. We used it all except for about 1 pound of the milk chocolate. We'll have to make something yummy with it--in February maybe, LOL.

The biggest difference this year was that Nathan was really my partner, not just my helper. He did some of everything--painting the molds, filling them, rolling out other fillings, etc. It was really fun to work with him, and it was so nice not to have to do it all! I guess this is why people have children! LOL! And of course we had some really great discussions while working about Pearl Harbor, current events, etc.

The thing about not doing it all myself was that I had to let go of some of my anal perfectionism. This was really hard to do. I can still remember the lady at Marway's Cake and Candy Supply Store in Colorado Springs, where I took the candy-making classes, talking about how you want people to realize your gifts were "hand-crafted, not home-made" or something to that effect, because of their great quality. And let's face it--a 10 year old boy who doesn't normally pay tons of attention to detail is going to be sloppier and less careful than someone like, well, me, who always got charater qualities such as "neatness" and "diligence" at award banquets in school. (Yes, I went to a Christian school obviously, LOL). But I managed to let it go fairly gracefully and not rush back to correct everything I thought wasn't quite good enough. So the bottoms of the chocolates aren't quite as smooth as they should be, and sometimes they are a bit swirled because the chocolate started to set before the mat got put in the freezer. They still taste great! And I think things like this will help Nathan pay more attention to details. He did greatly improve over the course of the week.

By the time the boys are all in high school, I'll just sit back and let them make tons of chocolates. Then I'll rake in the money. I knew there was a reason we had so many kids! LOL!