Happy Christmas To All!

And to all, a Good Night.

Frosted Sugar Cutout Cookies.

Frosted Sugar Cutout Cookies...the finished product. Clare, Theresa, Noelle, Natalie, Regina and I worked on it this morning. I accidentally added twice the amount of butter to the frosting recipe but ohhhh, is it good.

  I was too busy supervising and refereeing to take any pictures of the decorating, but here's a slightly wider shot of the proceedings.

Sock Babies

I found this craft idea and couldn't resist - making a Baby Jesus out of a sock.  You can read more about the tradition here.

As an added bonus, all the socks were matched from the sock-matcher basket while we were looking for stray white socks to use for the craft!

Halloween.

 Noelle as a sailor girl, in honor of her brother Brian joining the U. S. Navy.

Natalie as a cheetah, and Regina as a Rose Fairy Princess.

Theresa was a Ninja, but she took off her hood for the picture.

Philip as Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Our Circle Picture Through the Years.

2009 - Sarah, 18; Scott, 16; Brian, 13; Conor, 11; Clare, 8; Theresa, 6; twins, 3.

2010 - Sarah, 19; Scott, 17; Brian, 14; Conor, 12; Clare, 9; Theresa, 7; twins, 4; Regina, newborn.

2011 - Sarah, 20; Scott, 18; Brian, 15; Conor, 13; Clare, 10; Theresa, 8; twins, 5; Regina, 1.

2012 - Sarah, 21; Scott, 19; Brian, 16; Conor, 14; Clare, 11; Theresa, 9; twins, 6; Regina, 2.

Gaude! Gaude!

It's Gaudete Sunday!  That means the third Sunday of Advent, and it's time to rejoice!  The Catholic Church uses the color violet - not purple - for the first, second and fourth Sundays, the color symbolizing penitential seasons, and rose (not pink) for third Sunday.  Rose is a "brightening" of the color purple - oops, violet - and symbolic of joy as our Savior's birth draws ever nearer.

This year we decided to put our tree up on the first Sunday of Advent, but not to decorate it with anything but white lights until Christmas Eve.  However, this proved too drab.  My son Brian had the idea to decorate it as an Advent Tree, using only purple violet decorations, and adding rose on the third Sunday.

I am happy to say that it has turned out beautifully, in our opinion anyway.  It's simple, to be sure, but we are very happy with it and I think it will be our tradition from now on.

Violet only, the first two weeks of Advent.

Today we added rose ribbons and ornaments.  I also had the idea to display the cards we received on the tree.

We will most likely keep it like this, and add white ornaments on Christmas.  This year we are also doing another tree up in the rec room, and that one will have the family ornaments we've amassed throughout the years.  Or maybe we'll strip this one on Christmas Day and redecorate it.  I don't know yet.

 Orna-Man!

O Advent Tree.

We decided to do something a little differently this year.  We usually wait a little longer to put up a Christmas tree, but this year we did it the first week of Advent.    It was my son Brian's idea to decorate it only in purple until the third week of Advent, then add some pink decorations the third week, and wait until Christmas to add the rest of the family ornaments.

October/November Stuff.

This year's Halloween costumes - which, incidentally, will probably be the last year they dress up for the "holiday" under our watch.  We are completely sick with how this holy day has been hijacked and satanized.  I only ever did it for the free candy, anyway.  Mini-rant over.

Natalie was an adorable and demure Mrs. Claus.

Clare, as zee French maid.

Ma belle Noelle.  Sort of a cross between a princess and Belle.

Regina was a clown, and Theresa was awesome as an ogre.  Her brothers dressed her up with tunic, green face, stout club.  It was great, but I didn't get pictures of either of them.  :(

Homeschooling.  Most days my school table is a sinkhole with no room for anything.  Um, guys?  The bookshelves are, like, three feet away.  

Another variation of the sinkhole, taken just moments ago.  They say a messy desk is a sign of creativity.  I hope a messy table is a sign of learning in progress. 

I can spy with my little eye several math worksheets, one vocabulary book, one grammar book, one reader, and one math workbook, plus a pile of stuff that has to be taken upstairs.  Oh, and THERE'S my purse.  Sigh.  I'll clean it off tomorrow.

I am perpetually cleaning off the school table, and refilling my poor, forgotten pencil apple.  

These kids think that pencils just magically appear there.

Here is a shot of a random school day.  Judging from the clothes, this must have been Halloween day.  Clare's doing math.

Noelle's playing with mosiac pieces, and Natalie's doing tangram puzzle cards.

Fun, but I also find cards and pieces on the floor for two days.

Brian, playing the Best. Logic. Game. Ever.

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis/

On to November.  I spent a scant few hours this evening preparing my living room for Advent.  I promised the kids I'd bring out/put up one decoration per day for each day of Advent, starting this Sunday.  That way our house will slowly be getting ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, just like we will be.  

But decorating my house always means cleaning and rearranging, since I have to make room for a Christmas tree in an already crowded room.  We moved two chairs and a couch, relocated a shoe organizer, raised a shelf, eliminated some toys, dusted, and vacuumed every square inch.  It's such a pleasant place now.  I hope it lasts for longer than just overnight.  :-/

The Christmas tree will be placed in front of the windows that face the street.

We don't have nice furniture, or even matching furniture.  The green couch is breaking.  The wood couch and chair have cushion covers that are fraying.  But it's all comfortable (enough), and I can't see the use of buying nice furniture now, while the kids are so destructive young.  This means you, Brian.

The mirrors are mostly clean, at least for a few minutes.  What on earth was that woman thinking, putting in floor-to-ceiling mirrors AND light blue carpet?????  And there's that beastly wood stove that keeps me up so many nights.

We enjoy sitting in front of the wood stove and look for shapes and figures in the dancing embers.  Kind of like a winter version of "that cloud looks like a ...."  Plus, that couch is the toastiest place to sleep in the whole world house.

It's such a good feeling, though, when it's all cleaned up and put away.  I love to rearrange furniture.  The seating/lighting setup is better now, and we all sat downstairs to pray night prayers, then played a game where two kids were "it" and sat in the middle of the floor, blindfolded, listening for footsteps and reaching their arms out around them.  The rest had to try to sneak past them without being touched, until everybody was caught, and then two different kids had to sit in the middle.  It was hilarious, nobody got hurt, and it lasted at least half an hour.

It's amazing how they'll run and play in a clean room, but do their darndest to junk it up again as soon as possible.  One of the Great Mysteries of Life.

And A Good Time Was Had By All.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Father's Day, Hon.

Thank you, Lord, for the steady, hard-working husband and father with which we've been blessed.

Picture Parade: Noelf.

Sing it with me:  Dum, da, dum... Link, he come to town, come to save the Princess Zelda.

Noelle loves Link almost as much as Conor.

My living room isn't untidy, it's lived-in.  If I stopped to clean up the mess before I snapped a picture, I probably wouldn't take another picture until 2022.

Christmas Highlights

Christmas Eve was spent at Pap & Mam's house, and we didn't get home until 10:30. Of course, everybody was so hopped up on sugar, excitement, and new toys, so bedtime was extra challenging.

We told them it wasn't going to snow on Christmas, but probably rain instead. This is Clare & Theresa pretending to make mud angels. They kind of look like chalk outlines instead...

This is a short video of Noelle playing with a new toy. It has a revving engine sound, so I put it up on the table to put masking tape over the speaker, so it wouldn't drive us quite so crazy. I left it on the table, and I found her there a few minutes later.

Every time I tried to get her upstairs, she'd frantically cry "No! No! No! Pwaying! Pwaying!"

Once everybody was nestled snug in their beds, I got the stockings stuffed. If we hung them on the wood stove, they'd incinerate, and they don't have hanging loops anyway, so we settle for the couch.

Some of us wouldn't be opening our stockings until later in the day, so those stockings were placed safely out of reach.

The peaceful house on Christmas Eve.


Clare was the first one up on Christmas Day...
Yes, she's wearing the same dress as Christmas Eve. She slept in it. In fact, she's been wearing it for the past three days. The girl's got some Christmas spirit.

Let's see what I got...

Didja get anything good?

Ahhh...nothing like a ring pop first thing in the morning.
Somebody found the candy dish, too.

Guess who was up a little too late and a little too early?
Brian & Conor received mad awesome nerf dart guns. This is all I saw of them for most of the day... I can't tell you how many times I was ambushed by the little creeps.

Of course, no holiday would be complete without this treasured family tradition...

Yes, he really DOES chase them around the house with a naked, dead turkey. See? He's not a Big Mean Daddy ALL of the time!