Christmas Threads

Every year we are running out the door for church and remember at the last minute that we better snap a few pics of the kids in their Christmas outfits. Is it awful that I always think the crying ones are hilarious?

Dancing Girl

Avery's dance class does a performance for the Veteran's Nursing Home instead of a recital. Luckily two or three of the vets were lucid enough to actually enjoy the performance. We had a great time visiting the nursing home and the girls did such a cute job dancing to songs from the Nutcracker.

Gingerman Cookies

We made gingerbread men decorating kits for some of our friends for Christmas this year. I saved a cookie for each of the kids to decorate. Avery thought it was a waste to decorate it and just ate for cookie and candy, but Aidan had such a great time decorating that he didn't want to eat his new little friend.

Mommy Dream

I got to go with Avery to Ballet West's Nutcracker for the first time ever on December 15. This was seriously one of my dreams coming true. I have always wanted to have a little girl to take to the Nutcracker. The production was AMAZING and Avery decided it was nothing less than magical. I wanted to have a picture of us to document the event. As you can see, we didn't get a winner.

"Sing a song, Sing a song"

Lucy climbs up to the computer over and over every day and asks for "sing a song" which is the Veggie Tales Christmas CD. She stands on the chair and sings along for sometimes as long as 30 minutes. One day I turned it on and nothing happened. Before I could do anything, she leaned forward and turned up the speaker. Seriously, these kids and their technology!

Gingerbread Houses 2010

Even Lucy got in on the action this year (well, if you count eating all of the candy as helping).

Tinker Twinners

Christmas Traditions

So many Christmas traditions, less than a month to fit them all in.

On Tuesday night, we headed out to find a Christmas tree. I grew up having a live tree every year. Mikey is a strong convert who probably supports the tradition more than I do. After driving around for over 30 minutes, we still had not come across a tree lot. Sure we could have gone to Home Depot or Lowes, but that just seems wrong. I wanted the lot with the white lights strung around and the fire burning in the barrel. Lucy was not happy to be a part of the search and we decided to give up for the night when alas, a little tree lot out our car window. No pictures were taken of the actual lot experience. The fire wasn't burning because they were out of wood and it was very dimly lit. In the dark, I chased Lucy between trees and we found the "perfect" tree for our cinder block castle. We negotiated the price, ran to the ATM after realizing neither one of us had cash, and watched the man give the tree a nice, fresh cut. The man then told us he had no change and wouldn't drop the price further. SO, off the Harmon's we went (I needed milk anyway) to break a $20. Finally, we had our tree.





These pictures were taken in the car as the tree was being tied to the car. Aidan thought the flash was too bright to handle.

Wednesday night, after I had put on the lights and ribbon, the kids and I decorated the tree. Lucy again was not very excited - I think she might have another ear infection and she is cutting her 2 year old molars. I forgot how excited the kids are to pull out all of the decorations every year. So many memories with each ornament (and this coming from a very unsentimental person).



Poor Lucy had been hit in the head with a seat belt in the car earlier in the day - hence the nice cut/bruise/welt on her forehead.



After the tree was decorated, we began our first night of advent activities. We completed the three calendars, unwrapped the nightly Christmas book to read from under the tree, read the corresponding nightly Christmas scripture, and sang the nightly Christmas song. Mikey was at a study group for all of this. By the time he got home, I was so exhausted from manning the ship I told him it was a miracle so many Christmas traditions are passed down. This is definitely not a lazy man's holiday - but what wonderful memories we create each year because of them!

And the result (despite the fact our tree isn't drinking water and will probably be dead in a week):







Loving the season.

Thanksgiving

I forgot my camera...again...for the second year in a row. Pictures will be posted here when I get them from everyone else.