Christmas 2009

A few highlights:

Went to Christmas Eve mass at 4:00 on Thursday. All the children were invited to the altar to listen to a story. It was pretty much chaos, but we could still hear Father over the mic. I could see Sam up there, but only a sliver of Grace's head was visible to me. I saw his signature mad look start to appear across Sam's face. I was able to make eye contact with him before he could haul off and smack his sister. I waved my finger to say "NO" to whatever he was about to do. That's when he stood up on the altar amongst a sea of children and yelled, "But Mommy! Grace is pushing me!" Even though they weren't the only children causing a scene, it sure felt like that was the case at that moment. I also found myself quickly praying the head of admissions wasn't in attendance and revoking their acceptance letters to the school right then and there!

After mass, we enjoyed a lovely meal at home and quiet evening exchanging gifts from each other. It made me so happy to see the kids as excited to give gifts as they were to receive them. Then, we tracked Santa online, left reindeer food on the lawn and cookies by the fireplace and hustled off to bed.

sprinkling reindeer food on the lawn

Christmas morning was a whirlwind, then the rest of the day was spent playing with toys...and eating goodies.

the only day of the year they are allowed to eat chocolate for breakfast :)

the castles were a big hit!

baby's first Christmas...she thoroughly enjoyed herself

We're excited for our Christmas celebrations with our families over the next few days. Merry Christmas everyone! And if I don't have a chance to update in the next week, Happy New Year!

Christmas traditions -- part 4

Aunt Sarah, Uncle Nate, Caleb and Graham sent Sam and Grace an early Christmas present this year. They received their very own Advent Calendar in the mail near the end of November. It's become a new tradition in our house.

On December 1, after Kris got home from work, he asked who got to open the first door on the calendar. I told him that Grace did and that Grace would open the odd numbers and Sam would open the even. That's when Sam inquired about even and odd numbers. And that's when I started to fumble through explaining mathematical properties to a 4-year-old. Grace saw that I was struggling, looked at the calendar and then back at her dad and said, "I'm going to open the blue doors and Sam's going to open the brown." And I felt a little stupid. :)

The kids are loving this new tradition and it has been a great way to reinforce the meaning of Christmas amidst all the chaos and goodies.

Christmas traditions -- part 3

My whole family knows what I'm referring to when I say "the Village". No, it's not Greenwich. I'm talking about the Christmas village that Grandma began collecting in her teens (?) or twenties (?).

When we were kids, we always had to line up on the floor in front of it and get our picture taken. Back then, it was on a large, plywood quarter circle just a few inches off the floor sticking out from the corner of Grandma's living room.

When I got into middle school and high school, we were allowed to help her set it up every year. This continued on into college. Then, when I was a junior in college and Grandma had started to consider moving to a retirement community, I drove up to her house to help her pack all the Christmas decorations up. When I was done, she said, "Okay, now load it into your car. It's yours."

I'm so thankful to have had one more year to set it up with her after that...my senior year in college when we set it up at Mom and Dad's. That year, we transitioned it to include artificial greenery instead of the fresh cut cedar that Grandma always cut and placed in jars of water lining the outskirts of the village. We also elevated it to a smaller table rather than the giant floor platform.

These days, it gets set up on top of the piano at our house. One day, I'll get the platform back out, but for the safety of those memories I hold so dear, I've had to keep it up away from tiny hands the past few years and now, the dog. It is slightly smaller than it was at Grandma's, so we have to pick and choose what to include from year to year due to the smaller space.

This is not the traditional Christmas village you see in the store with all buildings the same style and scale. This village is comprised of little items my Grandma made or found or was given over the years. Some things match in style and size, some don't. We don't care, though, because each piece holds a memory. And we loved joking about the "giants" on the church steps who towered over the town and the enormous deer who resided in the woods who were several times larger than the people of the village. There are a few staple items that get included every year, regardless of space.

There's the painting that my uncle came home crying about as a child because he said it was ugly...Grandma quickly made it into a feature in the village...the waterfall. There is also the set of toothpick fences made by another of her sons.

There are the little metal skaters that were shipped to my great-aunt, I think as a gift for my grandma, I'm pretty sure long before my dad was even a thought.

We use the box from the skaters to prop up the church in the middle of town. I can't tell you the year it was shipped because there is no postmarked date on it, but, if you look closely, you'll see it was before zip codes were required for shipping. It was also before Dad's family moved to the Thumb from Detroit, which took place in the late 60s.

Then there's the frosted house that always holds Santa Claus (at least in my book...Sam likes to move him from house to house any chance he gets!):

And we also pick and choose at least a few of the Hallmark ornaments that my great-aunt's German Shepherd, Keisha, gave to Grandma every Christmas for several years.

Every year, I put this up while cherishing the memories of my Grandma and also feeling a little guilty that I was the lucky grandchild that ended up with it. No matter what, this will always, always be a special part of our holiday traditions.

SNOW!!

This is rare for here...we usually just get a dusting. So, the kids were thrilled to be able to go out and play in the snow this morning.

Testing out the sled we bought to take to MI over the holidays:

Sam making a snow ball and Grace digging for dog poo (we told her to stay out of the back corner where Molly likes to take care of her business!):

Molly even participated...she was thrilled to run around in the snow this morning for an hour and a half, refusing to come in. Here she is, passed out while the kids played outside:

Christmas traditions -- part 2

Today was cookie day!! We did this growing up with Mom and Grandma every year. We worked on sugar cookies for the better part of a weekend day and Grandpa and Dad would usually hang out for lunch. This year, some of our friends came over to help us with our tradition. So cliche, I know, but the girls (including Grace) worked in the kitchen while the boys that attended (including Sam) watched football in the family room and we all shared pizza for lunch. Grace was a trooper...she actually helped with the cookies for 4+ hours! It was a fun day! Thanks for joining in, ladies!

They're in!!

Remember the panic surrounding the school situation for next year? (You know, prayers to saints and all?) Well, I'm thrilled to announce that Sam and Grace have made the cut! They will both be attending Catholic school in the fall! And now, exhale... :)

preschool Christmas program

My kids had been bouncing around here, singing the same Christmas carols over and over again for a couple of weeks when it finally came time to get them dressed in some festive outfits and watch them perform onstage for all to see.

Here they are, ready for the big show!

I'm uploading four videos of each, although I have way more footage than that! I apologize for my Blair Witch-style filming...it's hard to watch your kid AND keep your camera steady at the same time!

Grace (and all the rest of the "3s") went first. They sang five songs and Grace knew EVERY word! Here they are starting out:

And here's where she spotted us:

Showing off a few moves:

And apparently, wishing you a Merry Christmas actually involves elbowing your friend while swinging your sleigh bells:

Sam was up next. He and the rest of the "4s" also sang five songs and one of them involved sign language! Starting out, you'll see he was really feeling the soul of the music:

And here's where he spotted us:

Who knew he could sign?:

And, then there was the most talked about song of the two weeks leading up to this event. You'll notice Sam's innovative method to keep his hat up when they get to that point in the song:

It was a fun day! Now they just have Christmas parties at school on Thursday, then Christmas vacation! And I'm off after this Friday for two whole weeks...can't wait!

the Southern Lights are on...

Okay, barely any of my readers will get the reference in the title of this post, but it is the annoying jingle I keep hearing on the radio for the Southern Lights at the Kentucky Horse Park. Friday night, we stepped away from our never-ending holiday to-do list and took the kids to see the light display at the Horse Park. It was amazing! I never knew about it last year and was so happy to discover it this year. We saw light displays that made Kris start perusing real estate again with dreams of a giant yard so our house could be the biggest attraction at the holidays every year. Here's just a taste:

This was the coolest display, I think...and very fitting for the Horse Park:

The whole drive through the lights ends when you park and walk through the petting zoo, visit the model train and dollhouse exhibits, get some yummy snacks and, of course, visit with Santa! We ended up with a great picture of the kids with Santa. If I ever get a minute to scan it, I'll post it.

This was such a fun event...pretty sure as long as we're in KY, it will be part of our Christmas traditions.

Christmas traditions - part 1

Growing up, every year at Christmas time, we would go to my great-aunt's house and marvel at her shining, twinkling tree consisting mainly of gold...24K, that is. She and my grandma both subscribed to the Danbury Mint, but, as I remember it (not sure how accurate this is), Bebe received more over the course of the year than Grandma did. Some they kept, and some they gave away as gifts. But, after several years of collecting, Bebe had quite a show tree. When she passed away, somehow the ornaments were split up between family members. And, Dad passed some of his on to us girls. The best part is that he and Mom decided to continue the subscription, so, for the past few years, we have continued to receive additions to our own collections.

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Just over eight and a half years ago, I decided that a fun element to our wedding would be origami cranes. So, in between looking for a job and taking care of the other wedding plans, I spent much of that summer folding squares of gold paper into 300-400 birds. When the wedding came, they were a big hit and looked great on the tables. I never anticipated keeping any of them. As the evening came to a close, our friend and seasonal neighbor, Mary, noticed that there were still some cranes scattered on several of the tables and that the hotel staff was starting to clean them up. She quickly halted them, asked for a box and collected around 100 cranes. We never knew she did this.

Fast forward just over a year. Mary and Tom and the kids arrived at my parents' house for a Labor Day picnic carrying an unmarked brown box. She handed it to me and said, "Happy Anniversary!" I was thrilled to open it up and see a box full of little gold cranes!

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Our house in Ohio was tight. After we added the second kid, there wasn't much room to get around or store things so a second Christmas tree was totally out of the question. Growing up, we always had two...one in the living room for the fancy ornaments and one in the family room for all the kids' non-fancy ornaments (some of ours were still worthy and breakable enough to hang in the living room away from the dog and out of the main foot traffic through the house). Last year, I finally added the second Christmas tree to our own traditions. We now have the room to store it off season and I found a nice one on sale right before Christmas last year.

The second tree in our house has brought together the gold ornaments from my childhood (and fond memories of Bebe and Grandma) and the gold cranes from our wedding (and memories from the day as well as fun times with Mary and family over the past 20 years). This year, I moved the tree out of the living room and into the dining room to clear a spot for the village in the living room (another post...coming soon).


I love it in that room...it almost looks like it should be there all year long. Almost. And I like that it is moved just to the side of the major household traffic. Although, I usually find a little of this every time Molly decides she needs to take a look out the front window:

I guess that's the benefit of paper ornaments!

More on our Christmas traditions to come.

The big debut!

Today was the big day! While I was tying red ribbons in Grace's hair and helping her put a tiny bit of stage makeup on (yes, she was thrilled!), her daddy arrived home with a bouquet of giant pink gerber daisies to wish her luck. She insisted the flowers go in her own bedroom. Then, we all headed downtown for Grace's very first dance recital.

While all the hoopla with getting ready was very exciting, I was a little nervous that she might decide to do what she did in class this past Wednesday which was stand in one spot with her arms folded across her chest and a scowl on her face. Thankfully, though, she seemed to like the stage...and the excitement of the curtain opening. And she danced more of the dance than I have seen her dance all at once in class all these weeks. We were thrilled. Except with the tad bit of nose picking you'll notice in the video. Oh well...it was a stage full of 3- to 5-year-olds...can we really expect to get through a 2-minute routine without a couple of boogers? :)

And, the grand finale...

Since her class was first to go, and I, not entirely knowing what I was getting myself into, signed up to be one of the stage moms for her class, we then got to sit together on the floor in front of the stage with one other mom and her class of 11 to watch the rest of the show. I was happy to get to tell her right away how great she had done and how proud of her I was. Our mother/daughter moment was short-lived, though, as I had to crawl across the floor to go after two pig-tailed escape artists who were ready to LEAVE. Not sure I'll sign up to be a stage mom for the spring recital!

So proud of our little girl! Can't wait for the spring recital...and the elaborate costumes. We may have to post a preview pic here, since the costumes came in this past week!

somebody's feeling a little depressed about the rainy weather today