Knoxville Christmas

 We celebrated with the Gibson clan on the 26th.

 It was great seeing everyone and with such a festive atmosphere to boot!

 Poppa & Anna Kate

 Brown paper packages tied up with string.

 More of Josiah and Caleb's AWANA store treasures made it to Knoxville.

I'm imagining that lovely piece on Dave's desk at school.

The middle schoolers will love it.

 It was a lovely day and the bigger cousins had a blast outside, 

as you can see by the boys' dirty knees.

It was so warm out that they stripped to their undies before too long.

That might have been a bit dramatic, but that's the kind of guys that they are.

 We stayed so long that Eleonora got to enjoy a great nap thanks to Lou and her pack-n-play.

 At the end, Jenn decided we should try a cousin photo shoot.

For the first time in the history of the cousinly photo shoot, 

my children were the most cooperative.

It was a proud day.  Ha!

 That's a lot of Christmas plaid!

I didn't get the perfect shot, but there were three other ladies trying harder than me.

The boys looked at this picture and said, 

"It's the Three Billy Goats Gruff!"

Right after this, we headed over for a slumber party with the local cousins.

We always have fun putting our 6 kids to sleep.

I think we are getting better than when we only had two kids total.

Thanks to my wonderful Aunt and Uncle for a fabulous time!

Christmas at The Winds

We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Adam and Christmas Eve with my parents and the gang.

Or, the Original 5, plus 7, as some would say.

 The boys have already enjoyed their cousin sleepover with Lydia and Anna.

 And they have encountered much more success in their basketball-playing endeavors with these new kid-sized balls.

 Chris hit two more home runs with his much-anticipated, always-appreciated sister gifts this year.

 Enjoying some Yuletide Cheez-its.

 The boys spent most of the day building new LEGO sets.

 Josiah managed to squeeze in a bit of time to start composing his first novel.

If he ever finishes it, I'll post it.

If it isn't too scary.

So far there are house fires (Sorry, Jenn).

 Eleonora is in love with her Lil' Woodzeez food truck and camper.

The boys are in love too.

Today I found their LEGO dragons snoozing in her Lil' Woodzeez tree house.

For the uninformed, Lil' Woodzeez are little fuzzy woodland creatures with adorable accessories.

We have a new nightly tradition where I read a few chapters of Little House to the boys 

while Chris and E play with her new toys.

Good times all around.

(Except for Pa.  Pesky grasshoppers have eaten the wheat crop.  

I don't remember the Little House books being so stressful.)

And don't worry, Chris still comes in after me and sends the boys straight to dreamland 

with a Proverb and a prayer.

And these might be my favorite LEGOs ever.

Three birds with their scientific name at their feet.

Too cool.

Thanks, folks, for the fun Christmas!

Christmas Day

We spent enjoyed spending Christmas Day at our own house.

 The kids were up at 6:30, ready to open their stockings.

 The boys went crazy shopping at the AWANA store this year with the 'money' they earned saying verses.  At every family gathering, one of their favorite parts has been watching people open the gifts they bought themselves  This doll and basket for Eleonora were from Josiah.

 An orange tennis racket for Caleb.

We will see how that goes.

 Eleonora loves jumping to the boys.

 Check out this cool gift from Grandma Corkie.

We all know Caleb loves monkeys and the color orange.

She combined the two by making this great monkey that sticks to this wall-hanging 'C' in any position you can imagine. 

And you can take the monkey down to play.

He loves it.

 Chris's sister gave E this beautiful Christmas dress.

She looks like she could be on 'White Christmas.'

And her Grandma Corkie made her this amazing quilt!

 Josiah, of course, was very happy with his LEGO set.

 And I was nearly as excited about my new vacuum cleaner. 

 To temper all that fun, we had a bit of a flood about the place.

The cellar had some water in it, and it was getting pretty deep in various places around the yard.

Chris said that he'd always wanted a cabin on the lake, but this was ridiculous.

The water has receded since then, but what do you know, it's raining again.

Musicals

I love having someone else in the house who appreciates a good musical!  Here is Eleonora enjoying 'White Christmas' last year. 

This year she loved dancing along with 'Mrs. Santa Claus' while I wrapped presents. 

Spinning is her speciality. 

Tonight we head up the my parents' to begin more Christmas celebrations!

Eleonora & Tree

Christmas Time is Here!

We kicked off the boys' break from school with a bang and celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family this weekend. My great-aunt continued on her decades-long tradition of dressing as Santa Claus and giving gifts to the kids. We all love it!

Josiah bravely went in for a hug, but Caleb is the one who has been the most excited. Someone dressed as Santa to visit the kindergarteners at school and Caleb told his friend that the guy at school was not the real Santa because he had the wrong boots - not like the real one he knows from our family festivities.

 We sang carols. This is Grandmother and me singing alto. I need to hang out with her and get some more practice. Fun times!

We did a hand-made gift exchange and Chris made some sort of stringed-instrument out of an old mineral spirits can - with a built-in amp. It was a hit!  I just asked him what he would call tat instrument. He said, "Sweet."

I made this - a copy of a gift I received a couple years back. It enjoyed it. 

Here we are singing along to a duet by a real guitar and Chris's 'sweet' invention. 

Here are Caleb and I enjoying ourselves. 

The time passed all too quickly, and the next thing we knew, all the kin-folk were gone and everyone else was napping, so the boys and I went for a little after-church running/playing adventure. They are just at the perfect level to be my running companions. One is a teeny bit slower and one a teeny bit speedier than me. 

And in case you forgot what this girl looked like, here is Eleonora modeling her Christmas buns. 

Field Trip

Josiah's class went to a Charlie Brown Christmas play last week, and I got to go along as a chaperone. 

The kids loved the play and then we ate at CiCi's Pizza. That was an adventure too. 

It was a wonderful day. These second graders were tons of fun. Being with them for the day reminded me of the way it felt to be a camp counselor. (Which is very different from the feeling of being a teacher, in my experience. Ha!)

Next time I'll have to bring along my new selfie stick I just won at a Christmas party!  (Joke!)