For Unto us a Child is Born

One of our Christmas traditions is to act out the Nativity Story on Christmas Eve. While planning the Christmas menu, I got stuck as to what to cook for Christmas Eve and since we have friends who do the Bethlehem dinner thing, I thought we'd give it a try this year and see how we liked it. This is our dinner array. Grapes, fish, shrimp, hummus, olives, pita bread, and fig newtons. I'm not sure how authentic it is, but we enjoyed putting on costumes, trying new foods and eating with our hands.

Here are the kids all dressed up for the Nativity Story.

The family in Bethlem gear. I think this will be more fun and meaningful as the kids get a little older and we don't have to deal with tired little girls who although we finally got them to smile for the picture, were having a hard time.

P.S. - These pictures were taken with my new camera that I got for my birthday, a Canon Rebel XSi. I love the difference in color!

Snow Wars

Friday afternoon it started snowing. We were at the homeschool Christmas party, so we packed up and headed home. We slid a lot on the roads, especially trying to get up our hill. With a couple inches of snow on the ground already we put on our gear and went in the backyard to sled. One nice thing about all the hills in Virginia is that we don't have to go very far for sledding. When we went to bed Friday night there was 11 inches on snow. Saturday morning we woke up to find our car looking like this.

I measured 13 1/2 inches in our backyard. This is one of our cedar trees. Chris can usually fit under the tree while on the riding lawn mower.

Amber is licking the snow off of our patio table.

Diesel acting like a puppy again. He loves the snow.

We found that it was pretty hard to walk in the snow, it was up to the girl's knees. So we decided to stay close to the house to play. Here the girls are painting in the snow with colored water in water bottles.

Jared made several sledding tracks going down the hill by our driveway. Later we made a big long one in the backyard.

Krystal actually got too warm and decided to take her coat off.

We also made snow cones. The snow was powdery soft and yummy!

Amber's ankles kept getting snow on them so I pulled out a chair for her to sit on. She sat and ate her snowcone while watching the others sled.

As the day got a little warmer the snow finally started packing. We made a Princess Leia snowwoman.

And a Darth Vader snowman, he's huge! We started on Luke, but got tired and cold so we went in the house for some hot chocolate. There's still plenty more snow out there to be enjoyed and although we got the Suburban out of the driveway, we can't get it back up, so it's parked at the bottom of our drive. Oh well, it's worth it, it's so pretty outside and I'm sure the kids will be busy sledding every day until it's gone.

On the Road Again...

Three weeks after our last road trip, we loaded up again. This time, we headed for Florida to visit my brother Shane and his family. We stopped at a nature center in Chatanooga, Tennessee. This is Amber posing with a red wolf statue. After driving through Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, we made it to Panama City, Florida late Saturday night. We stayed in a hotel, so the kids didn't get to see their cousins until we met them for church on Sunday, they were all so excited.

On Monday after school the kids played until dinner while Chris and Shane went golfing. After a lesson about the true meaning of Christmas, we made graham cracker nativity scenes. Here are Andrew, Clarissa, and Emily working on theirs.

Jared loved that aside from Emily, the Hansens have all boys. He spent all his time playing with Alex.

Although the weather wasn't warm and sunny, it was still much warmer than it had been in Virginia so we took every opportunity to go to the beach and just walk, play wave tag, collect seashells or play in the sand. Amber usually chose playing in the sand or chasing seagulls.

Clarissa, Krystal and Me playing wave tag. It's a very fun game when you're fully clothed. The somewhat stormy weather made for some great waves!

Clarissa loves babies, she especially loves to make them laugh and Jaden was always smiling and laughing. I held him often and enjoyed every minute of it, he's just delightful.

We discovered that it was pretty crazy and loud with eight kids running around the house all the time, but that if we gave them a creative task to do, they quieted down and usually stayed put. Thursday night we dipped pretzels in chocolate and butterscotch and decorated them with sprinkles. Unlike the nativity scenes, we made sure the ants didn't get these so that we could eat them. Yummy!

Another creative task was decorating the Christmas tree. Everyone helped. Here are Krystal, Andrew, Clarissa, and Emily watching Shane put on the finishing touch.

Thursday was cooler but sunny so we went to the beach again. This time we went to St. Andrew's State Park. It was beautiful. It was even warm enough to take our shoes off for this walk on the beach.

Andrew, Krystal, Clarissa, and Jared playing wave tag. They got soaked!

We didn't see any alligators at the alligator lake, but Chris found this really cool star fish on the beach.

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures from Friday, we were all in the hotel room sick with a stomach bug, NOT FUN! We still managed to have the Hansens over on Friday evening for swimming in the "hot pool" and pizza at the hotel. After sad goodbyes, we tried to get some sleep and headed back home on Saturday, still feeling a little under the weather.

On the way home we stopped in Columbus, Georgia at an art museum that had an awesome children's center. The girls put on dress up and did a little show for us on the stage. So, in spite of getting sick, we still had a great vacation, enjoyed a break from the cold, but mostly we are really glad that we got to spend some time with Shane and Brooke and their wonderful kids. We love you guys!

Little changes

Since Chris' "promotion" at work, he's been there A LOT. In the past when he has had to travel, I have always worked on and completed a small project around the house to keep myself busy until he returned. I figured that this might also be a good way to keep myself busy while he's gone for 6 days a week from 6am to 7pm at work, until things slow down.

My first little project was to reupholster our dining room chairs. With the help of my friend, thanks Heather, we transformed this-

into this! I love paisley and love bright colors so I was so excited when I found this red and green paisley fabric on sale and am thrilled that it is now adorning our dining room chairs.

My next little project was inspired by the drab gray weather we've been having. With the help of another friend, thanks Vicki, we painted the kids' bathroom a bright aqua color. I don't have all the accessories and pictures that I want to make it complete yet, but the color already adds a lot of happiness to my life, especially since this is the bathroom where I take my long, warm, winter baths.

This is the view looking from the living room (yellow) through the closet/dog room (green) into the bathroom. In this photo I've added the red valance as there will be other red accessories to tie in all the bright colors.

Forget the Turkey, Bring on the Pie!

We spent Thanksgiving with our friends, the Smiths, as we've done for the past two years as well. We always divide up the food assignments into what I like to think of as colored and non-colored. Meaning I bring the colorful foods like the cranberry sauce, the green bean casserole, the sweet potato casserole, the pumpkin pie, and the lime jell-o. I remember my assignment like this: one red, two oranges, two greens. (I'm a color person, what can I say?) My friend on the other hand does the non-colors: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and apple pie. So, Wednesday as I was getting ready to start the pie, Jared asked if he could make a pie this year. Now I have always had visions of the kids helping me with the pies for the holidays, but never thought them old enough to help just yet, so when I saw his interest, I jumped at the opportunity. I said, "Sure, you could make something easy like a blackberry pie, we have plenty of frozen blackberries." And he promptly got out the recipe book to find his own idea and settled on a vanilla cream pie. I explained that it would take a lot of time and stirring to make it from scratch, but that is what he wanted to do. Here he is stirring the pudding for his pie. He did a great job and stuck with it.

Here is the finished product on Thanksgiving day.

Krystal may not be ready for rolling out pie crust and stirring pudding, but she did help me scoop out the pumpkin puree for the pumpkin pie.

We had a good day complete with turkey and pie, colors and non-colors, good friends and fun. After dinner the girls enjoyed playing with the thirteen year old's dollhouse and Polly Pockets.

Amber showing off a Polly Pocket.

And the boys enjoyed learning a computer car racing game. We do miss our families during the holidays, but are greatful for good friends to share the fun with.

A Trip Back in Time

On Friday, November 6th, we packed up the Suburban for another family road trip. With snacks, toys and coloring pages of each state we were to travel through, the kids loaded up full of anticipation. We left in the early evening and made our first stop in Culpeper, Virginia to visit some friends from Radford that had moved. We had a great time seeing our friends again, but had to be on our way Saturday morning as we still had another 11 hours to drive and we hadn't even left Virginia yet. On we drove to Maryland and made our first stop back in time. Fort McHenry in Baltimore Maryland is the fort from the War of 1812 where Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner". We enjoyed the nice walk by the sea and were amazed at the size of the canon. This one that the kids are posing in front of is not even the biggest one. We continued on our journey passing through Delaware, New Jersey and into New York. We were all so excited to see the Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The World Trade Center Site and Yankee Stadium. What we didn't enjoy was the traffic jams and confusing road signs that resulted in a four hour drive through Manhattan. Thank goodness it was night and there were lights everywhere, Amber summed up the view with her repeated "It's soo butiful!" Most everyone slept through Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts and woke up when we rolled into the resort on Cape Cod a little past midnight.

On Sunday we went to church then spent the afternoon walking on the beach, collecting seashells and taking pictures of each other. The weather was pretty warm for November in Massachusetts and we were delighted to see that there was still beautiful fall foliage on all the trees.

Jared took this picture of Chris and I just as the sun was setting.

Monday morning we found ourselves back at the beach, a different one this time. Again, the weather was really nice and there were so many beaches to explore we just couldn't resist. Amber was quite interested in the noisy song these two seagulls were singing to each other. Around 11am we met up with a local Lawyer that we had met at church for a little tour. He took us to an old Quaker church and cemetery. The Quaker meetings had begun in 1659 and the building was built in 1809.

Next he took us to an old windmill that was originally built in 1791, but has since been restored. We then went to the Yacht club to see all the boats and finally ended at another beach where the kids really enjoyed feeding the huge seagulls.

After our friend returned to work, we decided to continue exploring Cape Cod on our own and headed over to Chatham to see a lighthouse and yet another beach. The highlight of the day was when we went to the fishing pier and watched the fishermen bringing in their catch. The seals and seagulls follow the boats to get their scraps, so we got to see several seals up close. It was pretty smelly and slimy watching the fish being loaded on the chute, but real interesting. Finally, we ended the day with swimming at the pool (the kids had been asking ALL day).

Tuesday morning we drove the almost 2 hours to Boston. As with New York, the traffic was crazy, but after a couple wrong turns we finally made our way to Boston Common which is a huge park in the middle of the city. From there we walked the Freedom Trail to visit many of Boston's historical sights from the days of the American Revolution. Above are Krystal and Amber at Paul Revere's grave site. We also saw some very old churches and the meeting houses where the Revolution was born.

As we continued on the trail we passed the Green Dragon Tavern. This tavern is mentioned in many books about the Revolution so I just had to get a picture of the kids in front of the British Soldier posted in front (Jared is trying to fight him - a true revolutionary). We continued on to find the spot in the street where the Boston Massacre took place, Paul Revere's home, and the Old North Church where two lanterns were hung to warn that the British were coming. After some warm New England Clam "Chowda" we crossed the river into the beautiful and much more quaint Charlestown to see the Battle of Bunker Hill monument and the USS Constitution as well as the WWII ship the Cassin Young. After touring the ship, we took a boat across Boston Harbor back to Boston.

We finished off our time in Boston at the City Garden where we found the statues of Mrs. Mallard and her eight ducklings from the children's book "Make Way for Ducklings". We couldn't resist this photo op as I often feel like a mother duck with my ducklings following behind.

Wednesday morning we headed back up North, this time to Plymouth. Our first stop in Plymouth was the Wampanog Natives village. It was really cold this day, so we enjoyed crawling under the little doors and entering into the native longhouses to get warm by their fires as they answered questions and talked about the way life would have been for the Wampanog before and after the settlers arrived in America. The kids were interested in the native toys that were on display, Krystal even found a doll. It might not be a Barbie, but she still liked it.

As the day grew colder we walked over to Plimoth Plantation. Very similar to Jamestown in Virginia, this reproduction of Plimoth was most interesting because each of the workers actually play period characters. I was excited to meet William Bradford and talk with him about his influence on the colony.

We finished off this day by going to Plimoth Rock and seeing the place where the Pilgrims first came to Massachusetts. We were interested to find out that this was not actually the first place where they came to land in America, but just where they settled. We also toured the Mayflower II, a working replica of the Mayflower.

On Thursday we found ourselves back at the beach. We decided to spend the day driving to the tip of the Cape. There was a tropical storm out at sea that brought in some great waves for playing wave tag (a game the kids think they made up). Apparently wave tag is even more fun when the water is freezing and you are bundled up in your winter gear, because we all had a blast! Only Krystal and Chris got caught and had wet feet the rest of the day, the rest of us stayed dry.

Part of our agenda for the day was to stop at as many lighthouses as we could find. We took this picture at the Highland lighthouse. President George Washington had 10 acres purchased to build this lighthouse in 1796. The lighthouse was originally 500 ft. away from the 125 ft. drop off cliffs. Due to erosion, in 1990 it was only 100 ft. away from the cliff and had to be moved back to where it now stands 450 ft. away from the cliff. This family picture is taken at the edge of the cliff. It was a pretty awesome sight. We continued to the tip of the Cape to Provincetown which is actually where the Mayflower first landed in America and bought a copy of The Mayflower Compact and some saltwater taffy. What a day!

On Friday, we headed in the other direction to finish off our tour of Cape Cod. Our first stop was a glass factory where we watched glass blowing. That was neat. Then we went down to Falmouth to an aquarium where the kids enjoyed seeing the big fish and touching starfish and horseshoe crabs. Finally we stopped at the Nobska lighthouse (pictured above). All in all, we saw five lighthouses, at least three windmills, hundreds of quaint little shops, several beaches and quite a few cranberry bogs. Compared to the bustle of the big cities we really enjoyed the nostalgia of Cape Cod.

Saturday morning we said our sad goodbyes to the beach and drove back through the big cities. We stopped in Edison, New Jersey to see the Thomas Edison Museum where we saw hundreds of Edisons patented inventions, not all 1093, but it was still cool. We spent the night at our friends house in Frederick, Maryland and after going to church with them we headed back home.

So, from the Mayflower in 1620 to Thomas Edison in 1931 we enjoyed our trip back in time. If I were to ever imagine time traveling I think it would end the way our trip did, with a huge dose of reality. We hadn't been home for 15 minutes when I had to start making phone calls for my calling at church. But when life gets a little hectic and too 21st century, at least I have these pictures (and many more) to look back at and remember the quiet calm of Cape Cod.