Loving Life

Yesterday, Ana had to get two of four teeth pulled.  The other two get pulled next week.  She does not have enough room in her mouth for all of her teeth and some are growing in sideways.  So pulling baby teeth is in order to make room for her grown-up teeth.  Ana was very scared about the procedure.  She was very sad afterwards as well.  She said it hurt.  So now she is completely dreading next week's appointment even more than the one yesterday.  We will have to make the best of the situation and try to deal with it.  But to add insult to injury, the stupid tooth fairy didn't show up last night to claim the freshly pulled teeth.  We've heard that she gives a bonus for loosing two teeth in one day - at least that's what happened when David lost both front teeth in one night.  And the last time the tooth fairy didn't show up for one of Ana's teeth, she got a bonus for having to wait an extra night.  So I'm thinking she's going to make out pretty good ton

Here's a recap of my Christmas week by the numbers: 10 - mini loaves of bread that I made for Christmas dinner 3 - kinds of pies for Christmas dinner (apple, french silk chocolate, peanut butter) 9 - packages of cinnamon rolls (of various sizes) to give out as gifts to the neighbors 78 - grins and giggles from Abby over receiving more princess junk 10 - number of girl cousins David has 3 - friends we invited over to share Christmas dinner with us. 86,158 - grams of sugar I consumed over the last 5 days - give or take a few 26 - hours I spent in the kitchen on Friday (or so it felt) 215 - dishes I've washed 128 - more dishes to go 6-8 - inches of snow we got 10 - minutes the kids lasted during sledding (they gave up too soon during the course preparations) 45 - minutes Aaron and I had alone together sledding once the kids copped out.  It felt like a mini-date! 3 - cookies left out for the Christmas mouse on Christmas Eve 0 - cookies left from the Christmas mouse the next mornin

I love Christmas Eve!  It's so exciting.  All sorts of special things are getting ready to happen or just starting to happen as we celebrate the birth of Jesus!  Today is cooking day for me.  We are having some friends over for Christmas lunch to help us celebrate.  So I want to get the food mostly ready today so I don't have to do much on Christmas morning other than heat things up.  We're also making cinnamon rolls for our breakfast tomorrow and to give out to neighbors this afternoon.  I had planned on taking the kids sledding later on this afternoon (courtesy of the beautiful freshly fallen snow we are receiving at the moment).  However, Aaron and I are both battling a cold and don't feel quite at 100%.   So perhaps sledding will have to wait until Christmas Day after our lunch.  I love going sledding!  This morning, we allowed the kids to open up their Christmas Books from Great Grandma.  That is the only present they can open today.  The rest will wait until

Santa does not visit our house.  We have a Christmas Mouse.  The Christmas Mouse has been visiting our house for the past five years.  It started off as an innocent comment when Ana (then age 2) asked me how the presents showed up under our tree on Christmas morning.  I made some sort of comment that perhaps a mouse brought them.  I thought nothing more of it until about six months later Ana started talking about the mouse that brought her presents.  The present bringing mouse became the Christmas Mouse.  That following November, Ana and I were home alone and we saw a mouse skitter across our dining room floor and hide behind a basket of toys in the corner.  I took off after it with one of the kid's wooden swords and tried to bonk it, but it was too quick.  It then ran into the livingroom and under the couch.  Ana was intently watching this whole scene without comment.  Once the mouse was safely tucked away under the couch, Ana asked, "Was that the Christmas Mouse?"  I

I love listening in on my children as they play.  It's so fun and creative.  Last night as I was making supper, I was listening to Ana and Abby as they raced around the house playing together.  They were pretending to be angels on a mission.  They were searching for the wisemen so they could help them find baby Jesus and bring him gifts.  They stopped to ask various shepherds, sheep, Mary & Joseph if they knew where to find a wiseman or two.  However, their search was not at all tranquil.  They were pressed on every side by all sorts of dangers.  They had to elude the dinosaurs that were chasing them, watch out for poison packs, disarm traps, and carry swords so they could fight any other danger they might encounter.  They ran all over the house as they played their game.  It was great! We prefer our kids to play with their imaginations rather than being entertained by things.  We limit TV time to maybe an hour a week, allow a movie about once a week, and try to keep computer

We've been enjoying our week.  It's actually slowing down the closer we get to Christmas, if you can believe that!  All the extracurriculars the kids (mainly David) are involved with are taking a nice long Christmas break.  So we don't have to go anywhere unless we want to.  Yea!  What a treat for the next few weeks. Christmas shopping was finished last night.  Now I just need to wrap some things and then impatiently wait for Christmas along with the kids.  I love watching them open things up.  They are so easy to please and get so excited over the simplest things.  We had a picnic lunch on our livingroom floor yesterday.  Aaron was home for the morning, so we decided to celebrate with something a little different.  Just a change of scenery seems to make things feel more special.  This morning, hot cocoa with marshmallows was allowed for breakfast.  Another simple pleasure.  I'm looking forward to spending time with extended family this week/weekend.  The kids are

Well, our Christmas play went off very well.  The kids did a wonderful job.  They had a lot of lines to memorize and all the kids worked hard to get it all down.  Our dress rehearsal went better than it has in other years.  I came to it extremely prepared after learning the hard way the last few years.  Plus it helps that the kids are all a year older too - it's becoming a little easier to keep track of their own hands and feet and mouths as they get older.  : )  We had a fair number of guests there to enjoy the kids' performance and cheer them on.  That's always great fun for everyone!  Here are a few pictures for the weekend: David here is playing Ebenezer Scrooge.  His nephew and Bob Crachit are also in this scene. Scrooge is here with the Ghost of Christmas Past (in red) watching himself as a younger man as his fiance (Ana) breaks off their engagement because he loves money more than her. The following scene as Scrooge watches his former fiance with her new husband and

We slept in today.  It was lovely.  The kids came in and snuggled in bed with us later on in the morning.  I always like family snuggle time.  Aaron somewhat jokingly told the children to go and make breakfast for us.  And so they did!  Ana made us toast and brought us juice.  She brought it to us in bed.  So we had breakfast in bed, courtesy of Ana!  David made us a pot of coffee.  We told him how to do it.  The only thing we failed to specify was the size of the spoon to use when scooping out the coffee grounds.  He used a very large serving spoon instead of the small spoon we usually use.  So our coffee was a bit strong this morning.  : )  It was still good and very sweet of him.  That was a great start to our day.  Today is a busy day for me.  The kids at church are putting on a Christmas play tomorrow.  I am in charge of getting that done.  This year, we are doing an adaptation of the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  It should be cute.  We have dress rehearsal tonight, so I

I don't normally eat like this, but this was my breakfast this morning.  The last slice of my lemon-raspberry cheesecake.  Also not pictured, a cup a coffee.  Normally I try hard at making my breakfasts a good start to my day, but not today.  Cheesecake gets its special day.  It was so very yummy!  This isn't the best picture.  I think I should have put it on a prettier plate (these plates are the girls' favorite plates), but I was too impatient to eat my cheesecake to make it look nice.  : ) We woke up this morning to a beautiful fresh snow - about three inches worth.  The kids were super excited to get out and play in it.  We had a LONG recess in the midst of our school day today.  I didn't feel like going out, so I enjoyed the quiet inside while they happily played outside.  I took a few pictures from the window, so they aren't the best quality.  David and Ana practiced sledding down our tiny little slope while standing up. I hope you all have enjoyed your da

Yesterday's advent box activity was Christmas cookie making.  We all had fun decorating the cookies we made.  I made a small batch so we wouldn't have to eat them all.  We each had a plateful to decorate and keep as our own.  I've learned that I usually don't want to eat the children's cookies that they decorate as they are either heavily laden with sprinkles or been handled with fingers that are licked every three seconds. Here are some pictures from our cookie decorating night.  Everyone is hard at work. Even Aaron got in on the decoration fun. Today is Aaron's birthday, so we took him a raspberry cheesecake today at work to help him celebrate.  His boss' family was very excited about the cheesecake.  I sure do like my husband a lot.  He's awesome.  We had an interesting experience this morning before leaving to go see Aaron.  David was huddled over the vent this morning as is his custom every day in the winter when he wakes up and gets warmed up

Yesterday was finally the day to set up our Christmas tree. I struggle with wanting to have our tree up every year since we really don't have space in our house for it. But, it wouldn't feel like Christmas without a tree. When I got this tree, I didn't realize how huge it would look in our house and just how much space it would take up. I guess a huge store environment is much different than a small home. Here are some fun pictures from the day's decorating. Abby: Here is David very serious in his decorating endeavors. Ana took delight in all ornaments. Ana, the human fly. And the finished product.  I did not help much with decorating.  David could mostly reach everything and they wanted to do it all themselves. Today is Christmas cookie day!  Yum!  Tomorrow is Aaron's birthday.  So I will make some treats for him to share at work tomorrow.  We might even take them in for him so we can see him during the day on his birthday. 

It was cold out this morning. 3 degrees. And windy. Windchill readings were down to -15 degrees. This is how I looked this morning when I went out for my run.  Kind of scary. 3 layers of pants, 5 layers on my top, plus a hat, scarf, and gloves. The skin you see in this picture was the only skin exposed. When the wind was to my back, I actually felt almost a little too warm. Nice. I got a good weight workout in too with all the layers I was wearing. We definitely didn't run very fast, but we stayed outside and shuffled around for 31 minutes. :)  It's the season where your eyelashes get frozen together from your breath as you run.  My running partner Julie and I always enjoy laughing at each other as the "eyesicles" form on our lashes and eyebrows and any exposed hair on our heads. I also have decided to rework my daily schedule as I've been getting lax/frustrated/discouraged.  Mainly I've been trying to multi-task too much and instead of doing many things at

Abby has about 15 of these little dolls.  She plays with them at least 3 hours a day, if not more.  She loves them.  But sometimes they fall apart.  So this lady and her man had to go to the "doll hospital" as Abby calls it to get fixed.  Yea for glue!  She is happy to have them back in her doll family.  Breakfast this morning was Christmas tree pancakes with various flavored chips for ornaments.  The kids liked them.  They didn't look quite as nice once they were flipped to the other side to finish cooking.  Oh well.  Until David was about 5, we kept our big tub of blocks downstairs in the dining room.  They got moved up to his room when we inherited a pile of dress-up clothes from Aaron's step-grandma when she passed away.  They weren't really dress-up clothes per se, but they were so flamboyant and fun that we kept the greatest outfits for the kids to play dress-up with.  We've gotten some good use out of the dress-ups and even have times when various adu

Sometimes I wonder why I bothered to get beds for my children.  They prefer to sleep anywhere but their beds.  Here is Abby on her crib mattress sleeping near her bed.  She has been sleeping on this mattress since last summer when I stopped babysitting and it became available to her.  It's in terrible condition and seems like it would be very uncomfortable.  I've warned Abby that it will soon be time to get rid of it and start sleeping on her real bed.  But she loves her mattress. Ana enjoys sleeping at the foot of her bed on the floor in the small space between her bed and wall.  Can you find her tucked away in there?  Sometimes she ends up mostly under her bed.  She's been sleeping there for the last three months. David is currently sleeping on his bed, though he goes through spurts of sleeping on the floor beside his bed.  In the summer time, the kids all camp out on the back porch since the upstairs gets so very hot.  So they spend the summer months sleeping on the ha

We made some "Christmas Playdough" yesterday.  What is Christmas playdough?  We made some regular homemade playdough, added green and red food coloring to each half, added glitter, and also some peppermint oil to make it smell yummy.  They kids liked it.  Here they are being their normal goofball selves with it. Later in the day, I found David reading a book to his sisters.  What a great brother he is.  They look very intense.  Notice Abby's crown and sequined shirt?  I think she was a king at this point in the day. I had to make treats for the community-wide youth group Aaron is helping with.  I decided to make cookies for the 25-30 kids who would be there.  But I couldn't decide which of my most favorite four kinds to make.  So, in a flash of brilliance, I decided to make all four kinds.  Each makes a small (2 - 2 1/2 dozen) batch, so I "only" made about 9 1/2 dozen cookies yesterday.  A fair amount got eaten by the youth last.  I kept out some for us, b

Yesterday was a full day.  We spent the morning on a field trip.  We visited a nearby museum that featured a display called "Springs, Sprockets, & Pulleys".  It was so cool.  The artist, Steve Gerberich, takes old discarded stuff and repurposes it all into art.  He then attaches motors that that drive a little pulley system he has rigged up to make all his things move.  It's kind of like a giant I-Spy game as you see how he's made various things.  Here is Abby looking at a band playing music.  My pictures really do not do it justice at all.  Way better in real life. Here's another partial display.  The kids really liked it and had fun seeing how everything worked.  It was actually quite interactive art.  I'm glad we went.  After the museum, we had one final lunch out with Grandma before taking her to the airport - it feels like I've made that trip a little too often this past week.  Here's our final hugs good-bye.  We sure did enjoy having Grandm

Here are a few pictures I took while we were home before and after our trip.  These are activities from the advent box .  The first day was a tea party with Grandma.  Since it was lunch time, we went all out with a high tea, complete with little sandwiches.  It was fun.  The kids enjoyed themselves greatly at their tea party. Yesterday, we made easy "gingerbread" houses with graham crackers.  I got this idea from another homeschooling mom/friend of mine.  She did this a couple of years ago with our homeschooling group and my kids LOVED it!  So, here are the engineers busy at work constructing the home of their dreams. And once the house is built, comes the fun part!  Decorating!  They spent several hours on this project, very happy and content as they built and decorated their houses.  Ana's finished product: David's "hotel" complete with a rooftop garden: Grandma helped with the design and Abby did all the decorating work herself.  On the agenda for

Did you miss me?  I had a wonderful time in Texas this past weekend.  It was busy, but almost all fun!  Here are some brief highlights of the good and bad. The Bad: Feeling Sick on Thursday Travel - I had been feeling vaguely yucky several days prior to travelling.  I felt very yucky all day Thursday travelling.  I made sure I had a puke bag close by on all airplanes - thankfully, I never needed them, but I was worried a couple of times I would.  I did have to stop at all airports before and after flights to visit the bathroom.  Blech.  I did not eat much at all that day.  But I felt mostly back to normal by Friday. Snoring Man - last leg of the airplane journey last night.  Snoring Man fell asleep immediately upon sitting down in his seat.  Our plane was delayed for about 20 minutes.  Snoring Man snored very loudly - without any airplane noise to cover up his very loud snorts and snores.  It was irritating.  I was amazed that he did not wake up during take off.  Thankfully engine

Yeah!  I got my picture issue resolved!  So here are some random pictures of my life the last week or two.  Abby has grown out of her shoes, so we went shoe shopping last week.  Despite my desires to stay strong against commercial hype, I have such a weak spot for Abby and her princess stuff.  Buying into the whole commericialism of various products has always irritated me and I've never done it (possibly a reason why I wasn't considered super cool in school - not that I wanted to be super cool, I could care less if I had all the stuff), until now.  So Abby saw these shoes and immediately fell in love with them.  I decided to indulge her shoe love after seeing the look of infatuation on her face with them.  Only once I got them home, did I realize mistake number two.  They light up.  Can I just say now how much I despise light up shoes?  This fact made these shoes all the more glorious in Abby's sight.  I must admit that seeing her delight in them as she stomps around makin