Christmas

Merry Christmas from our home to yours -

                                 

                                                                                         Jenny

Christmas Eve

 I feel like I've been living in the kitchen. My sister has made pear bread and pumpkin bread daily to take to the Afghan immigrants she visits.

The kids and I attempted Christmas sugar cookies yesterday, but they did not roll out nearly as well as normal. I ended up having to take over most of the operation.

The kids were freed up to begin their gingerbread houses; we did teams of one older and one younger child per team.

I'm really amazed how well they all turned out!

The big kids worked nicely with the little guys and there wasn't any conflict; which is often not the case.

James and Elijah's underway -

Tori and Selah's -

The giant behind the house -

We are eating Christmas dinner earlier than usual tomorrow, so we did all our salads and desserts today; we also make Amish soup for tonight after our church Christmas Eve service. It's pretty impressive how helpful the children are in the kitchen now; Elijah chopped all the carrots and Julia the potatoes.

After church tonight, we will finish our Advent reading and hang our last ornament on our Jesse tree.
 

Then we will tuck the little darlings into bed, hopefully before they fall asleep on the couches.



Selah and Hunter

The Last Few Days

Last Thursday was the long awaited arrival of Gabriel on the USS George Washington, which pulled into Norfolk, VA. The plan was Alayna, Alei and JD were going to make the trip, while Nathan and I stayed at home and tried out a bottle which he had not had in months. The reality is that he eats everything and would not go hungry, just might not be happy taking a nap. That plan quickly fell apart when Alayna and I ended up in the ER most of the night with a baby with the croup. We made it home with the sick baby in time to wish JD and Alei well on their trip down. Gabriel was delivered home that afternoon and here is a quick picture taken right away. I felt badly for Gabriel arriving to a fussy baby that was so out of character for Nathan.


The lighting looks like Nathan has a red toupee, but it's some weird reflection from the Christmas lights.

Nathan was pretty miserable that day and the next, but was back to his happy self by Saturday. On Friday, we made Christmas cookies and went to our home group fellowship.

On Saturday, JD and Gabriel took most of the crew to Star Wars. Here is the picture I took before they were ready with the good light.

I have one child who chose to freeze over put on a jacket and shoes for the picture.

Here's the one that they posed for with the poor light; posing didn't seem to make a difference for Ben.

While they were all gone to Star Wars, I pulled out and organized Christmas presents while Alayna wrapped them. Nathan enjoyed all the mess.

At one point when Nathan was being a little too helpful, I gifted him with a home-made playpen. He was pretty impressed with it and wanted to go back in when Aunt Deb pulled him out.  

In between all the activity, Gabriel has played countless games of checkers with several children. My favorite was when I walked by a game between Selah and Bella and Selah jumped four checkers with no space between them side to side. She informed me that they were playing by "Bella's rules".

We are thankful to be all under the same roof this Christmas. (Nathan agrees as he applauds.) It is a very special Christmas as we reflect back to last year when Gabriel and Alayna were in CA and Nathan wasn't born yet!

Hunter, the cat, has no respect for my sister's cat allergies.

Surrounding Thanksgiving

 I'll start by saying that we had a lovely Thanksgiving; Alyssa had a friend come from college a few hours away for the weekend, since we are much closer than her NY family. We also spent the evening with friends we are blessed to have in our lives.

There are just so many crazy events in our lives with all the kids and pets that we often cruise through things that I think may stop most "normal" people's day. The day before Thanksgiving, JD took our two indoor/outdoor cats to the vet. We suspected that Lucy was unhealthy and that one of them may have had ring-worm. After finding out that Lucy had a few medical issues and was approaching 10 years old, we elected to put her to sleep over the alternative treatment ideas. It was a bit too sudden, and the children really didn't have any preparation time. The next morning we buried her in our animal cemetery.

JD digs nice deep holes for animal burial sites

 The kids elected to fill in her grave by hand; it just helps us feel like we are respecting her life I think. I will buy a cement square that we paint the animal's name and dates on. 

JD helped finish; little Bella gave it all she had.

Since I only intended to do online Black Friday shopping, I announced that we could put our tree up on Friday. JD and the boys got it out of the box in the barn loft and brought it in to discover that Gus, our problem-barn-peeing cat, had peed on the tree. JD loaded it right back up and took it to the dump trailer. Moriah and I then headed into the crowd of shopping to snatch up a tree on half price special. It wasn't as good as 75% off after Christmas, but it was the best we could do. I decided on a 9 foot tree over the regular 7.5 foot of the past. We are going to donate our star to Alei for her new little tree and just get a big bow to put on the branch touching the ceiling.

The wise men followed the star, but Jesus was the gift to the world, so I think a bow will work nicely.



At least I like it better than our old tree since I was forced to buy one

Today we loaded the youngest seven in the van at 8:00 for a trip to pick up our newest surprise. More on that later.

Don't they look like 8 is too early to be on the road?

Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving as well!

Seems Like the Best Plan

 So, what should a mother do when the evidence of Christmas is still everywhere? The living room is still home to new toys that haven't been assigned a home; my idea of cleaning them at this point is putting them back around the tree, but they keep sneaking back out.

  
The school room also doubles as Playmobil land. Christmas yielded a nice big Playmobil dollhouse that is currently living on the school table; I think I'm going to have to buy it it's own little table. 

Since I keep cleaning the same thing over and over with little progress, I thought the reasonable thing to do is to accomplish something. The retreat area in our master bedroom is the very last room of the house that hasn't been painted since we moved in. The patio door was recently fixed from leaking and the trim around it repaired, so it's time to whip out the paint that I bought two years ago. 

  
Today I unloaded the bookcase, moved the furniture and taped. Tomorrow I'll paint...and pick up Christmas toys again.

We are a sick household, but no flu. Alei now has pneumonia, which was diagnosed on her second trip to the doctor on Christmas night. Alyssa made her second trip today and finally got antibiotics for a sinus infection - she has run a fever for six days now.

Christmas Presents

The kids draw names and buy one present for one sibling; we exchange just those presents on Christmas Eve after the service. It allows it to be a special time without distraction of any other gifts.

Alyssa wrapped a candle for Tori as a joke, who was sweet and thankful in spite of having no desire for her own candle. 
 

  
She then got her actual gift - a sweater and lots of candy.

  
Elijah had James and only accidentally mentioned what his present was a few times...

  
We received these gorgeous Christmas cookies from a friend at church; they made me so happy because I only made sugar cookies since I had been sick. (I even bought Costco apple and pumpkin pies this year - I've never, ever bought pies before!)

 After the kids were in bed, we bring up the wrapped gifts. I do not keep them under the tree as we wrap them because I don't like them to be able to focus on them. 

  
Christmas morning starts at 7:00 at our house - no earlier.

 

 

 This is the part when the room gets so messy that they start migrating through the house with toys in tow. 

 And Mom and Dad get to clean up a bit. 

We are a blessed, blessed family!