Not a REAL blog

So, I watched Julia/Julie last night, and realized, first, I'm not a gourmet cook, AND second, this apparently is not a real blog. It has no real purpose. I'll have to rethink that concept. New Years came and went for us; Bret and I went to his high school reunion's party. Kind of a disappointment in attendance, but we had fun on the dancefloor anyway. Emily turns 11 in a couple of days and had a giant sleepover this weekend. Lots of chatty girls, and some boys even came for the early part of the party, so that was fun for them. Michael is getting so smart; he puts lots of concepts together, and although he can't tell us what he's thinking, we all know. It's great to see the older kids getting excited about what he's doing or figuring out. A friend asked me why I don't put Michael in some kind of daycare during the day, so I can get school done more efficiently. After I had my surge of indignance, I thought to myself, "hmmm..apparently society feels that a whole room full of 1 yr. olds will have better luck teaching themselves about sharing and caring than their mom and older siblings." That's got to be it. Now, I know my friend was trying to suggest something to make my life easier (although she had no indication that I was having any trouble with him while doing school, which I'm not), but how un-thought-out the attitude of our society. I'm sad about the solutions that push out our kids on underpaid/undereducated girls to "watch" our kids while we get "work" done. I know my kids better than anyone. I know their strengths, weaknesses, what motivates them, and what distracts them. If I get stuck, I give it some time and figure it out. Then we move on, using that new found information to help better the situation. I like knowing my kids are on the edge of the bell curve in schooling, in social awareness, in kindness, in activities. It will give them that special edge in life. They will be endearing, kind, generous, industrious, and committed people. They will be able to empathize and also lead. Okay, I'm going to get off my soapbox. I love my kids and want the best for them. Later!

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!