Christmas!

Emily and Rachael in the Missionaries of Charity's Christmas pageant.

Sophie tries on Emily's home made apron.

All the kids helping Michael figure out how to shred paper.

Sophie and her favorite Santa gift.

All of us after Mass on Christmas eve.

We had a great Christmas here! The girls sang on Christmas eve; yes, I cried at "Ave Maria," and "O Holy night." Uncle Scotty spent the night in order to hear the morning squeals of kid-happiness. They were up at 5! Then, in the evening, our friends Melinda and Leo came over for dinner, and we had such a nice visit! The kids all played while we caught up. We missed my family, but thankfully we had the chance to "skype" everyone for a little while one afternoon. That rocks for keeping current! There are still remnants of gifts floating around here and there; mostly from Michael emptying new things to explore and play with. Now we're gearing up for tomorrow night's New Yrs. eve party!

Advent activity

Emily's nativity

St. Nicholas day

Our annual picture at the Christmas tree farm.

The girls singing at the Peabody with the children's choir

Getting ready for Christmas here! Of course December is completely packed with events, but it's been fun so far. The house is decorated, most of the crafty stuff is done (but not cleaned up yet..thus we're doing school at the kitchen table), Michael is doing the cutest stuff and we're all so enamored with him! AND, it is very hard to do school as we get closer to Christmas!!! The girls all want to be making something, wrapping something, or decorating something! Turns out my family won't be here after all for Christmas, but it's okay, they'll all be making their own family memories, as will we. As Bret gets older, I'm really embracing these holidays, because I know how fast things will be moving in the next several years. Happy Advent!

Start of the holidays

We celebrated Thanksgiving a week early this year. My sister, her family, and my parents came for about 2 days. We had the best time! The kids totally occupied each other, and they were happy and cute. We adults had lots of laughs and easy, effortless time spent together. Shannon and Fabrice even decided to come back for Christmas! Here at the house, we started making Jesse tree ornaments for the big Christmas countdown, and we've started making and buying gifts, so all is going well. Today we're putting together a baby Jesus cradle to fill with straw for each kind act during advent. We're going to focus this week on putting up one area of Christmas decorations each day, so the whole task isn't so overwhelming.

Getting ready

My parents and my siblings recently figured out how to video chat, all at the same time. This picture was taken off my screen 2 hours after working together to get the technical details down...and moments before we signed off from exhaustion! lol

Sophie, the "Girl Musketeer" and Michael the stubborn dalmation who would not wear the adorable ears..

Emily caught this moment in the car one day...so cute.

For extra credit in science, Bret had to create a pumpkin that looked like a famous scientist...do you recognize Stephen Hawking? This totally cracks me up.

Josie and the pussycats will be debuting this week here locally....

The kids are getting ready for Halloween. There are multiple costumes in the works, or finished. Emily is the mastermind for most all of the final products, so, she gets all the credit. Fall has been pretty nice here, and I think we're almost hitting peak color in the neighborhood. We went camping with the boy scouts one wknd, and the older girls just got back from camping with the girl scouts. They had fun and got lots of crafts done. Sophie and Michael and I went to the neigborhood halloween party while the others were gone, and she had a blast playing games; Michael had a blast dancing in the middle of the "cake walk" circle. He got lots of attention and loved it. Another performer is born... I am struggling with a transmission in my car that is failing day by day, but at least I'm not on the side of the road yet!

Rain, rain, rain

We are stuck in what seems like an Exodus-like weather pattern! Rain and more rain. It started out with spectacular storms and stormclouds, and is now just wet and falling nonstop. Our outside work-outs have come to a halt. It's tai-bo inside, or just doing the stairs repeatedly. But, although I have not breeched that 5 lbs. lost yet, I am fitting into lots more clothes! Shopping in the closet is always fun! I guess I'll be wearing some of those winter clothes that I threw back into the cedar chest with discouraged disgust the last couple of winters! Preliminary changes...tendons in hands more defined, chain is falling further and further south, underwear droopy. All encouraging. Man, if the pounds would just start melting away! Sundays I can eat whatever my heart desires, but come Sat. night, I'm trying to figure out what I want the most: Cheese? Giant greasy pizza? Huge cheeseburger with onion rings? An entire chocolate cake? lol. Kids are all good, making progress day by day. High school is a total natural for Bret. There's an annual enormous yard sale this wknd., where I'll be trying to outfit Michael and Emily for the winter. Crossing my fingers, and praying to St. Anthony to head me in the right direction!

School day

Lunch (I'm not sure why these added in the opposite order I had planned them). The smiling is mostly because school is done!

Rachael working out those tricky "ABC" ordered words.

Sophie successfully read her first "Bob" books.

Even in home school, much time is WASTED sharpening pencils!

Michael helps me to wake the girls up. Later, I'll get some pics of morning exercises.

So here's a little look at some of our school day experiences.

SCHOOL!

Yes, school has begun. We all started last week, including Bret, who started high school. How this is possible, I don't know. How do I have a kid in high school when I'm still mentally IN high school?? He's having a blast, loves his new school, has lots of old and new friends there, oh yeah, and there are classes too, btw. Even went to his first football game. The girls have plunged into school here, and are doing well. There's always that first week, where you go, "remember, these shapes are numbers, and these are letters!" I'm talking about all the ages here! Girl scouts are about to begin this week too, and I anticipate ballet soon as well. And, today was the first day of choir at SFA for the girls. The swirling schedule begins. It's been fun to get back into a routine though, truly, it's good for everyone. Michael gets cuter and cuter as the days go by. He's almost one and a half now. Amazing. I wish I had 3 more just like him! (well, all of them for that matter.) I'm sure there's lots more going on, but it's late, and I'm wiped. The weather has been exceptionally nice and cool this weekend, so we've played outside for most of it. (thus the newest fairy house pictured above) I think I have over-oxygenated myself. More later!

Vacation at my parent's

The front porch of my parent's place..and all the grandkids

Rachael, Maya, and Sophie

Shannon and me.

Michael looking over his shoulder at the raging river and thinking about how to get there. Later, of course, big brother Bret fell into said river-with the camera in his pocket!

We went to a "gem mining' place where the kids sift through a bucket of dirt to find lots of treasures. It's a huge hit.

We spent a really fun week at my mom and dad's place in N. Carolina. My sister, b-i-l, and their kids came as well. We swam, walked, shopped, fished, ate out, waded, cooked, laughed, entertained guests, argued, made smores, and even fit in a little sleeping-in late in the mornings. It was great. My sister and mom busied themselves in the kitchen mostly as I slacked off lounging around the house...thanks guys! The breakfasts and desserts were always great, and I am sporting the extra 5 lbs. to prove it. Now, it's back to the grind here, cleaning, cooking, washing and finishing the last details to be ready for school to begin.

Beautiful weather..

Sophie receiving Emily's gift: a home made pinata.

Yes, this is my hubby's butt. I couldn't resist.

Princess.

This is how germs are shared among families.

Here's my home-grown band, complete with 1-yr.-old drummer.

We are having some fabulous weather here. Clear air, sunbeams streaking down through the tree branches, cool mornings. You know, the kind of weather that makes you want to inhale deeply. I can feel the summer slipping away, and the demands of schedules and the business of fall coming. Oh well, time marches on. But life continues to cycle, as my good friend just found out she's expecting, unexpectedly! That drumbeat keeps on even though we get busy with other stuff doesn't it? Congratulations!!!! Sophie is about to turn 6, and we celebrated as a family last night. She is so cute. She wants me to start calling her "Zoishia" (the Polish version of her name, which I'm sure I've butchered). Yes Nancy, that's your fault! :-) Bret is off again to St. Louis for a boy scout trip. He had a great time at his Steubenville retreat last week. We're getting ready to go and visit Gramma and Grampa for a week as well as my sister and her family. It'll be great for the kids to play. The kids are most excited to fly somewhere! Anyway, laundry calls, so I'm off to fold the multiple baskets.

I smell smoke

I smell smoke, because I smell like smoke! I spent the better part of today clearing up debris in the yard and burning it in the firepit. The girls meandered in and out of my work, in-between finding lots of busy fun in the yard. Michael is the same way, except he likes to freak me out by filling his mouth with hickory nuts, then running. We had smores for lunch. That rocked. Rachael likes to point out that she ate a turkey sandwich previous to that, which was a healthier choice. She's right, of course. But let me say again, I had smores for lunch. We stopped briefly to head to confession this afternoon.

It was a sparkling summer day, nice and breezy; it felt more like early fall than July. It's supposed to be that way again tomorrow. I'm drinking it in. Things in my life feel a little clearer altogether too. It would be too much to write in here, but let's just leave it at that.

Michael was stung by a really evil-looking hornet yesterday. I think he tried to pick him up and got bitten on the thumb. Poor baby cried for an hour at least. He kept holding his thumb up like a hitch-hiker. He's fine today. Last night the girls had a handful of friends over for a slumber party. They played guitar hero, ran outside around a campfire playing "ghosts in the graveyard," and stayed up too late playing hide and seek and watching movies. It was a great success. Bret is away in St. Louis at a Steubenville youth retreat. I can't wait to hear how it went. Next weekend is TOTALLY packed with fun busy-ness for us. And once again, Bret will be in the St. Louis area, this time with the boy scouts for their annual summer adventure. Must be nice! :-) Things here are nice and calm. Maybe I'm just appreciating the good times more because one of our little leukemia friends passed away today. He had relapsed twice in 7 or 8 years, and just couldn't hang on after transplant. It was so sad, he had fought so hard. Anyway, not to end on a sad note, because it's not sad, he's totally content! But that's about all the update for tonight!