Christmas Day & Beyond

This year we had the kids wait til 7 for the Christmas morning festivities to begin. (We made the mistake of saying 5 last year, but since it was on a Sunday, it was handy to be finished up in plenty of time for church.)

Can you tell Eleonora is excited?  She danced all day long!

The boys got a HUGE Lego set from the Virginia grandparents. They loved building it together.

Eleonora got some great hand-made goodness from her Grandma.

Eleo’s haul. 

Eleonora’s new ballet costume - her old one was getting pretty grungy from being worn almost daily for a year!

Her daddy was pretty proud of this sequiny bow he picked for her. She loves it!

And as for Caleb, he is pretty excited to have a Kindle to read books on in the dark with Josiah.  He’s already read 3 books.  Josiah’s big gift was a huge Transformer, that he has played with for hours.

We never got around to a Christmas Day hike, so we went on one with my dad on the 26th. It was fun!

On the 27th, we went to hang out with the Habermas ladies for the morning to play on their new swing set. Anna Kate and Lydia had colored their noses with markers to look like Rudolph, then during naptime, Anna Kate added a little more color. Ha!

Christmas Eve

The children and I began our Christmas Eve by loading the church mailboxes with bags of Altoids. 

This is the tag we stuck on all of them. Well, the first hundred anyways. (Chris has been working on his photography skills.)

Chris started out his Christmas Eve by leading music at church. Lots of Christmas carols and one song about the loaves and the fishes to go along with the sermon. It was a good morning for singing along. 

Christmas cousins!

Caleb loves these little ladies!

After church, Caleb turned on ‘The Grinch’ for Eleonora and I caught them like this. 

So sweet!

Here are the kids all washed up and ready for visions of sugar plums. 

Then Chris and I had a great evening wrapping the last of the gifts, arranging them under the tree, and playing with a little app that lets you add Santa to your pictures!

Merry Christmas!

New ‘Fancy-Pants’

Eleonora received some new fancy-pants in the mail yesterday from her sweet aunt, so she simply had to wear them today!

See Rock City

12 Years

Happy 12 years to us!

Caleb is 8!

Our sweet Caleb turned 8 over a month ago, and I never shared pictures from our celebration!

I will interview Caleb as we go along.

I like being 8.  I like getting to do other things like stay up...no, I don't get to stay up later.  Sometimes I get to stay up and read.  I'll read any chapter book that has a good cover.  A good cover is something that isn't weird.  I've forgotten the best book I've read this year.

 The theme of my birthday party was Scorpi.  

He is my favorite Mixel because he's cute, like a tiny scorpion with 5 or 4 legs on each side.  

I have to be careful with what I say, Mom.

 At this party, I got 200 Nerf gun darts, 3 Mixels, and two Lego sets.  Or 3 Lego sets.  Two or three.  When we go back through this, I'm just going to delete, delete.

 Kindergarten has been my favorite grade so far because I never had to walk a single lap.  

I think I was the best kid in there.  I had a nice teacher.  Her name's Mrs. Ailey.

 I forgot to make a wish when I blew out these candles.  I've always forgotten.  

Or maybe I've wished for Legos.  Maybe.

 As a 1 year-old, I liked chewing on baby toys.  Now I like to play computer.  

When I was a baby, I didn't even know how to play on it.  Apostrophe T.

 You know my favorite color.  Orange, for no reason.  

Legos are my favorite toys.  Sorry, people who gave me other things, but it's true.  

Monkeys are my favorite animal.  No, not monkey, lemur.  

Lemur's a type of monkey.  It's different.  Trust me, Mom.

 I don't know my favorite t.v. show because I never get to do technology.  

There are no games that I happen to like on the computer.  

And that computer that you are typing on is slow.  

 For lunch, I would like to eat Egg-in-a-Holes.  

For breakfast - Egg-in-a-Hole.  

For supper - Egg-in-a-Hole.  

If I had to eat something else - eggs, Sunny Side Up!  

Let me think, Sweetie!

Soccer is my favorite sport.  I think I scored at least 8 goals this fall.  

I had one friend on my team - Giovanni.   

Now when I see him at school, I say, "Teeeeeam-mate!" in a creepy voice.  

It's just my life, Mom.

Reading is my favorite subject at school.  

I have 81.4 AR (Accelerated Reader) points.  I started with Magic Treehouse Books.  

I read all of the books completely in my classroom, now I go to the 3rd grade class to find books.  

That's all, Fred.

Well, I'm glad Caleb was feeling froggy for you fine folks this evening.  

Tomorrow is the last day of school before Christmas break, and you can tell!

Hope to be back writing here again soon!

Lillian Turns 1!

Recently my mom, the kids, and I headed up to Oak Ridge to celebrate this sweet baby's first birthday.

But first, we had to go to Caleb's last soccer game of the season.

This was his second season playing soccer and he really loved it.

He scored 1-3 goals in almost every game.  

Except that last one, as you can see.  Ha!

(He had also just got hit in the ear and thrown up on the turf - he's not really such a bad sport.)

The kids enjoyed the rare treat of having coins to stick in the vending machines, thanks to their generous Grandma.

And then we partied!

Here are some girl cousins having fun.

A grand time was had by all!

Happy birthday, Lillian!

Caleb on the Piano

Easter Shoes

Good morning!  I was trying to figure out how to share some videos on here this morning.   It isn't working out, but I saw these pictures in my Draft section, so I thought I'd share them, even though I've probably shared them before.

This is from a few Easters back when I decided to just rummage around in my crafting materials and make some little Easter shoes for Eleonora.

A few pearls from my bridesmaid's necklace from Jennifer's wedding were sacrificed.  

(I used a few more for Eleonora's ballerina crown this Halloween!)

I loved how they turned out, but as you may imagine, they were not too sturdy, so I believe they only were worn the one day.

Ta-daa!

September Books

Happy November!  In honor of the new month, I will share with you the books that I read in September.  If you are looking for some book recommendations, and you happen to like the same sort of books that I do, then you are in luck, because I read some great ones this month!

This was my favorite book of the month.  I couldn't put it down.  It's set in Ireland in the 1800's, and it is all about a nurse who is hired to watch a girl that is supposedly living without eating.

I couldn't put this one down either!  It's the story of this lady, Lillian, told from the perspective of her 85-year-old-self on the last day of 1984.  It flashes back and forth between the present and her younger days.  Another page-turner for me.

I read Heidi to the boys this month.  So very sweet.  I am really enjoying re-reading so many of the books I loved as a kid.

Our library had a little contest going to read books from around the world this month.  I read this book from their little around-the-world display, it's set in Australia, and I was entered into a contest to win an Outback Steakhouse gift card - and I won!  So this book was definitely worth the read, if only for the bloomin' onion.  It was pretty entertaining, but I would say not to read the back cover first, because it spoils the most interesting twist in the whole book.  This was good, but couldn't quite measure up to the first two I read in September.

My sisters and I used to listen to 'The Sugar Creek Gang' on Moody Radio regularly as kids.  Actually, I happened to leave school at the right time to listen to these stories when I taught 5th grade in Knoxville.  With all that history, I thought I would love reading this to the boys, but to be honest, it didn't do much for me.

Ooh, this book was wonderful, too!  I think this month that I found a list of great historical fiction recommendations on Pinterest and then checked them out from the library digitally to read on my phone.  I need to find that list again!   This story flashes back and forth between the present and the past and is all tied together by an elaborately embroidered silk sleeve.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  My only problem with this book is sort of hard to describe.  But if you read historical fiction, you know how afterwards, you sometimes look up the historical parts of the book to see if the events described really happened?  Well, I love it when the craziest, hard-to-believe parts turn out to be real.  This book was the opposite of that.  The part of history that it described never even happened (at least  not anywhere close to that scale), and it could have been just as compelling of a story if they had used what actually happened, instead of re-writing history, in my humble opinion.  (Ha.)

I listened to Anne's House of Dreams on cd in the car.  L.M. Montgomery is always a favorite, for sure, but this series that my library has, uses a different narrator for each book, and (also, in my humblest of opinions) they all stink.  Not really, but they read them much differently than I've always read them in my head.  Also, I don't read so slowly in my head, so it's fun to hear the details at a slower pace than I'm used to.

I read this book because it popped up in my library app and we used to go to church with the author.  

I read an abridged version of 'Treasure Island' to the boys (perhaps to balance out all the Heidi and Anne - ha!).  We enjoyed it - I think my previous experience with this story was limited to 'Muppet Treasure Island.'

Mildly amusing.

I think the boys and I listened to this one being read aloud on my phone, and it's a good thing, because some of these old kids' books sure do have a lot of words!  I guess the main thing I can say about this book is that the kids in it are very conscientious - think it will rub off on my boys?

I feel like I had heard that this book was great.  I felt that it was fine.

Nevertheless, September was a wonderful month of reading around here!