The Spirit of our Christmas Season

• The ornament tradition.... this years' ornament(s) were personalized blocks & wooden initials painted by the kids. I also found a nativity to add to the tree.

See if you can find the army men that Thomas and Wesley added just because...

• Gingerbread cookies. Wesley squealed with delight cutting the dough with the Christmas cookie cutters. We ate dough, shaped cookies, ate dough, shaped cookies, made a mess, burned a batch, & had a BALL. (While we baked cookies, Christina was at her friend's house baking cookies and Wayne took them to deliver the cookies to a new girl in their church class who had moved in that day).

• The nativity. We were the recipients of a nativity 12 Days of Christmas. I just wonder if they heard the brawls that took place as the kids tackled each other, each wanting to discover the next piece of the nativity...and discover WHO was behind this act of kindness. The givers always got away! This nativity will always remind us of the joys of giving anonymously and receiving acts of kindness.

• Gifts from the heart....

To: Grace

Love, Wesley (& mom)

A Mod Podge'ed sketch book cover

To: Dad

Love, Christina

A drawer organizer filled with some of dad's favorite goodies

To: Mom

Love, Caroline

A Caroline-made soft red scarf (I opened this 1st thing and wore it ALL day long)

At our church Christmas party 10 days before Christmas, Grace told Santa she wanted a dollhouse. Wayne got to work and made a 5' unfinished dollhouse for the girls to decorate and enjoy. Such a good daddy! Lots of pictures to come....

To: the whole family

Love, mom

A published version of the 2008 blog posts on our family blog. LOVED this.

To: Grace & Caroline

Love, mom & dad

Custom made hand stamped charm necklaces to match Christina's (made by Angela Henrie)....I told Angela our girls nicknames, favorite colors, the kind of necklace I had in mind, and she came up with these darling necklaces....

The COUSINS gift exchange!

Thomas is going to wear his Hawaiian shirt from cousin Christian on his first day back to school. Christina shared her CTR ring making kit with her sisters. They turned out cute! The Moody cousin gifts were a hoot.

Wesley loves his "I Spy" book & we all loved fun things from the PNW Menzies.

A large canvas from Macy Robison Photography featuring our family at the lovely Camp Joseph in Sharon, Vermont.

With all of the commotion and craziness we seem to create on a regular basis, I love the peaceful feeling of this photograph. It brings to mind our family reading challenge from last summer, my quilting projects (we're sitting on one), lots of great family memories at Camp Joseph, and above all our underlying love for one another. Thanks so much, Macy!

To: Grace & Caroline

Love, mom

Pencil rolls for Grace & Caroline for their new church bags & a crayon roll for Wesley for church. The multi-colored pieced fabric behind the pencils has iron-on vinyl found in the fusible web section at Jo-Ann's (you just iron it on--so easy). Wesley's crayon roll was made for chunky crayons and has lots of iron-on vinyl.

To: Christina

Love, Thomas

A movie ticket to see the upcoming Percy Jackson movie with him since they both read & loved the Percy Jackson books last summer.

A play mat/quilt for Wesley and his cars, featuring Fenway Park, the Boston Temple, Modern Pastry, and lots of local favorite sites. Here's a sneak peak (I'm still adding finishing touches)....

With love, mom

• Christmas evening I was laying in bed surrounded by 4 of our children and Thomas said, "This was a great Christmas. I can't believe how good it was. I feel like I have so much (& that's not due to present overload) and that I'm just going to tell Santa to give to other kids next Christmas." Grace chimed in, "Me too! I want to give all of my presents to someone my age who is poor." We talked about refining our focus next Christmas season to help those in need and give to one another. I can't believe that our children, as young as they are, really are feeling the Spirit of the season & coming up with meaningful ways to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ. This Christmas was wonderful, and I have a feeling we've got many more beautiful Christmas seasons to come.

"The best part about Christmas is being with family." - Caroline 12/09

STUFF from the heart

Every year we have a gift exchange with each side of the family. This year for Wayne's brother's family we made a "STUFF" bucket. Can you ever have enough bins/buckets/storage containers? Wayne says, "Yes." I say, "No." You could use any container, but ours is a #10 can with scrapbook paper decoupaged over the entire outside. I added large font stickers to spell "STUFF," and we filled the can with all sorts of fun stuff, including.....

some rocks from Grace's rock collection

handmade ornaments (next blog post)

the kids made chocolate covered pretzels w/ sprinkles on top

personalized keychains for the kiddos

Christmas PEZ

Wesley's favorite....candy canes

The STUFF can was an "open right away" gift, and the kids will have a little personalized gift for Christmas too.

Simple, personal, {partially handmade}, and lots of fun to GIVE.

Not Your Average Gingerbread Creations

The Christmas TOP 4 is back- where the kids each pick one thing they absolutely want to do during the Christmas season. Wesley doesn't get the choice thing quite yet, but next year I'm sure we'll up this to a Christmas Top 5 or 7 (w/ Wayne & I).

Last night we put a check mark by Christina's choice (with the help of our friends, the Balmforths). The B's invited us over to make gingerbread houses which is what Christina wanted to do. We split up into four groups and were told to build whatever we wanted.....

Christina, Caroline, Wesley (the candy tester) & I built a Candy Store with snow on top & trimmed with Christmas lights. We added holly bushes and pretty pink trees. I love Christina's sign on top. Wesley made sure we always had candy on hand.

Thomas' friend, Michael built a house with a shed & had probably half of the available candy sitting on the roof. I've never seen such a speedy gingerbread house builder as M. He's a pro.

Thomas & his pal, Ben helped Wayne and Ben's dad build a Camaro. Some serious engineering and design went into that car!

Grace & her pals built FENWAY PARK....Can you spot the CITGO sign, the green monster, & red sox?

Merry Christmas celebrating....

I helped Caroline put her thoughts on paper today for a talk she gave in primary. Normally Caroline has the talk in her mind and if she needs help, a word prompt does the trick. This time as she practiced her talk she wanted to read it by herself. I didn't know she could read AT ALL. I told Wayne that Caroline read her talk and Wayne was just as surprised as I was...."Caroline's reading?! When did this happen?!" Seeing how much the older kids love to read, Caroline is excited to read as well, & Wesley is already "fake" reading.

Tonight we finished reading the Book of Mormon as a family. Caroline read part of a verse by herself & thought that was "really nice." We talked about how it felt reading together and how it felt to finish....Peaceful,Happy, Really good

Meanwhile, Wesley was nearby audibly zooming his cars among the onions in the pantry, but we let him be, and honestly wondered aloud why we ever let this scripture reading experience slip by.

We start from the beginning tomorrow; recommitted to making scripture time meaningful individually and as a family. We sealed the deal with an all-hands-in cheer (inspired by the Konchar crew), although ours was nonsensical and had to be repeated 7 times because Wesley thought it was such fun.

Such a great day.

Remembering back when....

Don't you love it when your kids "reminisce" about "back when" which was about a year ago in their minds? I'm ancient in their eyes. Ancient!

Dear Thomas,

I'm thinking of our conversation yesterday:

You: I miss the days back when I could be friends with girls and no one made fun of me.

Me: Who's making fun of you?

You: Just a guy named [Bill] and all of his friends; and he has A LOT of friends.

Me: How's he making fun of you?

You: Well, if [Bill] sees me talking to a girl, like my FRIEND, [Mary], he'll say I'm "hitting on her." And I'M NOT, mom.

Me: So, how do you respond to that?

You: I call him a "cake sniffer."

Me: What's a cake sniffer? And how does [Bill] respond to this?

You: I don't know what it means and neither does [Bill]. He just walks away confused. It's perfect because he leaves me alone, but I don't offend him either, I just confuse him.

......I just miss the days when I could be friends with a girl without someone making fun of me.

Your dad and I had a good laugh at this conversation, Thomas. Sooner than you know it, the good old days of girl "friends" will be back. When that time comes, hopefully you'll be as comfortable talking with them as you are now.

By the way, [Mary] is a cute girl. I'll bet [Bob] is jealous. It's similar to the situation where a girl gives you a punch in the arm, but she really has a crush on you; things are not always as they seem. [Bob] probably makes fun of you, but wishes he was in your shoes. Seriously, I know a thing or two about this stuff.

Hugs,

Thanksgiving '09

I've got to give a Thanksgiving report real quick. I'm such a scatter brain since coming home. I couldn't find my camera, then couldn't find the card reader, and now can't find the memory card, so I'll add pictures from our camera soon, but will start with pictures my siblings shared. (found. pictures added.)

Thanksgiving '09 Highlights:

• Everyone agrees that the company was what made it so great. The kids were thrilled to be with their cousins. Christina had some older cousins to hang out with. We got to meet the Davis kids for the first time. Jim & Allison were amazing hosts---& our kids love them to pieces. We really enjoyed meeting and getting to know Allison's parents & her brother, Kevin. I hope we get to spend more time with them in the future. They are a neat family.
• Breaking in Jim & Allison's "cabin" which Jim and Allison designed from the ground up. Nestled in the Catskills, Jim & Allison designed the great room with huge windows to take advantage of the gorgeous scenery. We stayed in the guest house above the garage. There's a long storage bench against one wall, deep enough to serve as a bed. Three of our kids slept head to tow along the bench. We took a dip in the woodburning hot tub on the deck just outside the Master...heavenly. The orange window sills on the exterior of the home look super cool. I loved the rolling barn door hardware they used for the pantry doors & the chestnut wood flooring.... there's just so much more to love about the house. It should be in Architectural Digest.
• The kids loved exploring outside. You can hear the stream around the property & Thomas was constantly asking me if he could play outside. It was so peaceful and beautiful.
• Embarrasing moment #101 for me.....We drove up in the evening, so it was pitch black outside & it had been a few years since we've been to Jim's cabin (the old cabin was burned down this year). Anyhow, there's a fork in the driveway and we drove straight up to the house with the lights on. Can you guess where this is going? I saw a couple in the kitchen. Knowing Allison's parents would be there, whom I'd never met, I assumed this couple was Allison's parents. Grace & Christina excitedly followed me in (no knock needed when it's family, right?) & I instructed them to take their shoes off and leave them on the rug in the entry. I proceeded to the kitchen to introduce myself to "Allison's parents," "Now, who are you?" (sounds lame, but I said it in a nice way:)) I can't recall their names, but no, they were not Allison's parents. Thankfully Jim had let them know they were having lots of company for the weekend, so this nice couple introduced themselves, chatted for a few minutes, I profusely apologized, and excused myself to the RIGHT address. I can say that Jim and Allison have very nice neighbors. Funny thing, when I turned around to leave, Grace & Christina had already darted back to the car, leaving me in my embarrassment.
• Thanksgiving dinner was delish....it's our favorite meal of the year. Allison's dad, David, took charge of the turkey. He's a surgeon and I swear he had a twinkle in his eye when I said I had quilting thread in the car that he could use to sew up the bird. He also tried using a safety pin. At one point his wife, Mary was holding a flashlight to help him see. It was like being in the OR, only we were covered in food prep crumbs & wearing aprons.
• Sherry gave a great tutorial of grandma's rolls. I'm realizing that no one follows the recipe...NO ONE. Why did I ever get discouraged when my rolls didn't turn out? I'm ready to give them another shot.
• Speaking of shots, the guys went pheasant hunting & have stories to tell. Like the time Adam and Wayne shot the same bird and obliterated the poor thing, leaving nothing to bring home for dinner. On that same outing, Wayne survived riding in the same car Allison's dad was driving. No small miracle:)
• Lots of rockin' out to Beatles Rock Band
• The make shift art room- an unfinished room in the basement. We used blue tape to hang the kids' art work on the walls. It's a gallery for sure!
• The Inn. Jim and Allison are members of the Inn or club, or whatever it's called, and we spent most of Friday there....fishing, Ninja training and combat in the padded area of the play room, track ball, eating ice-cream, play, play, playing.

This next picture makes me laugh because Caroline would run up to Jonathan with her "weapon," run right into him and then fall backward....not a threat at all & Jonathan would just laugh. All I can say is this set up would be so great in our basement. FYI, the mats are attached to the wall and each other with Velcro. I kid you not, this had the kids (and big kids) laughing and playing for an hour, and when they're done, there's no mess. Genius.

• Hiking to the waterfall (a moment or two of trespassing was involved)
• Bingo, cardmaking, & t-shirts to decorate, and puzzles to solve for the kids (big people too). Our kids loved the little extra fun things Allison planned that made the weekend that much more fun. Thomas is still raving over the Slinky he won. And Grace had a ball during magic trick lessons from Uncle Jim. We lost track of how many quarters she pulled from our ears and were in awe of her magic tricks that defied all explanation.
• The cousins sported t-shirts I made for them. Caroline forgot hers, but her green t-shirt reads, "JOY"... and Arlo & Jack are actually 4 & 6 yrs old, but we agreed that 3 & 5 are cool numbers too. Kathryn's shirt has a "k", Ceseley's says, "elf," Des' says, "SANTA!" (think the movie Elf), Grace is "merry," & Wesley is "jolly."

When Wesley woke up on Sunday morning in his own bed, he sleepily asked, "Where's Des?" Cousin time was wonderful. We certainly missed those in our family who weren't there & wish it were easier for us all to get together more often.

Thanks again for everything, Jim & Allison! We love you!