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.