❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ merry & bright ❄❄ ❄ ❄ ❄

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama.

A Note From My Son

 

A Christmas Story is on constant background play, stray fragments of
wrapping paper are everywhere, and bellies are full.

An Assortment for St. Nick

We believe Santa deserves a very fresh cookie as a reward, and making cookies is a must-do Christmas Eve tradition in our home. Years and years ago I saw THIS method of decorating cookies, and it is *the* way we decorate “Santa” cookies. It’s amazing how long they can take decorating 6-8 cookies each when each is painted.

We nearly have all our little mice put to bed… nearly time for Santa to come. Ho ho ho.

2012’s Ornaments

Every year each child is allowed to choose their own ornament to add to our tree, with the intention they’ll have them to start out their own trees as adults. Presenting this year’s winners:

Bunny’s obsessed with Duck Dynasty, and this “duck hunter” was a no-brainer.

Carter chose a sweet knitted owl, which is funny because he really encouraged his brother to pick Darth Vader.

However, Cole opted for this cheerful sledding Spongebob.

Last year we had a flocked tree, but we missed the fragrance of a cut tree and stuck with “no frosting” this time around. We usually like to put up the tree the first weekend of December, but this year it poured for days and it was the 9th before the kids and I headed out to fetch a beautiful grand fir.

I always seem to buy a tree that’s too big in some way. Last year we couldn’t fit the topper on because Yeti was so tall. This year the trunk was so fat at the base Paul had to saw off a good 8”. “It’s funny, honey, normally you would say no to me using a saw in the living room,” he said as he lopped off branches and sawed away with a bow saw while sitting in the time out chair. Bunny drew a face on the amputated segment, named it Steve or Bob or something like that and placed “him” under his “mama.”

 

P.S. In November Carter came upon the idea of painting walnuts gold for holiday decorations. So, we have little piles of gold walnuts all over the place…

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama.

Kitty Claus

He really couldn’t care less if you’re naughty or nice.  Just keep that food bowl filled.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama.

Jack “o” Lanterns and Trick or Treat!

By the time I remembered about carving pumpkins, it was after 4:00 and I kept my realization to myself. I admit it: I was personally getting tired of the go-go-go of birthday party/birthday/Halloween and just wasn’t “feeling” like dealing with the mess of pumpkin carving.

Of course, the kids remembered, and of course I hauled out the little saws etc and we got a’carving.

This year Cole got to use the saws himself, and he chose the design. I helped with the harder bits but only a little.

Carter intensely dislikes the ‘gutting’ of the pumpkin, but he loves carving. It’s like life, kid – you sometimes you gotta get up to your elbows in something unpleasant to get the rewards. :)

Bunny carved hers to look like an owl of her own design.

All of a sudden, the verrrrry long afternoon was over and it was dusk. As I was hurrying to get kids in costumes (and remembering a little too late that it’s a pretty awful idea to spray colored hair spray indoors… still finding green in spots in the bathroom), the doorbell started ringing, and it was “go time.”

Paul covered the kids in glowing stuff, as is his yearly ritual (I swear he’d really like them to all be Tron one year so they can glow head to toe: Safety First!!) and we almost forgot a photo.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Day

This year since Halloween fell on a modified day, students were allowed to wear their costumes to school. Cole had to join in on the fun, of course.





The teachers always dress in theme, usually a whole school theme, then each grade chooses a subset of matching costumes. Last year was the ocean. Kinder teachers were jellyfish, others were in scuba suits, and so forth. This year many in our area were a little excited about a sporting event of some sort, so their costumes were very timely.



School dismissed early that day, so the long afternoon waiting for the Big Show felt all the longer for it.

Carter received a box of break-your-own geodes for his birthday just the day before and was anxious to get crackin’. We placed them in an old sock to help prevent shards from flying in our faces.


Somewhere between 70-80% are crystal-filled, and the rest are duds. Carter liked the rusty insides of the duds a lot, though. It’s a fun little activity with some educational merit. It’s a good way to amuse antsy kids and less than even a trip to the ‘cheap movie theater.’
By then we’d gotten to all of 2:30 with roughly 4 hours to burn before sundown. Thankfully, staying up late the night before made everyone a little more interested in chilling out than they usually are.
::to be continued::

Birthday, The Real Deal

Carter’s 7th birthday feels like it was ages ago, but it has been less than two weeks. Time does fly.

Back in September, or maybe even late August, Carter fell madly in love with an enormous teddy bear. I hid that sucker away in the storage room of a kindly neighbor for weeks, then sneaked it back into the house the night before.

I think he was really happy about it when he woke the next morning.

That day at school I brought in treats to share with his class: chocolate chip blondies.

He also helped me make sure the bowl and spatula were clean enough to be washed when I was making his cake later.

 

He had a day almost as great as he is. Happy Birthday to my goofy, sweet, cuddly, feisty guy. We love you very much.

Bouncy fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN

My kids all have birthdays pretty close to a major holiday, but of them all, Carter most associates his with Halloween. In fact, it’s only been in the past year that I have been able to convince him it would be good to be able to say the actual date when asked, “When’s your birthday?” instead of answering, “The day before Halloween.” Carter’s not one to fuss with unnecessary details, lest it occupy valuable memory space inhabited by facts about spiders, pirates, and Star Wars.
Every year, I ask him what theme he’d like for his party, and every year it’s Halloween. Thank goodness there is plenty to choose from to accomplish that! This year he decided he wanted his party at the “Bouncy” Pumpkin Patch, so we booked it for a week early, and an afternoon during the week, since that place would be NUTS on the weekend or the week of Halloween itself. (Plus, this time of the year is so FULL, it was kind of nice to not be trying to cram it in as an afterthought.
It figured the week of his party the weather would be unseasonably rainy. All day Tuesday I kept peering at the sky, willing the clouds to separate, lest we have to relocate to the still fun, but much less fun pizza place down the street. I’d have kept a smile on my face and acted like it was the best dang idea ever to have his party there a third time (he really likes the pizza place), but, as the day progressed, I started to become irrationally mad at the weather in case it turned. You better not give us sun all day and turn rainy at 3 to spoil this party, I’d silently think up at the sky, as if that were not at all insane.
Thankfully the weather was perfect, just a few clouds, a nice chill in the air that offset running and climbing—and it seemed to affect the numbers of kids at the patch, too, so our party guests had no real waiting in lines to play and slide. Perhaps thinking crazy thoughts at the sky all day does help! (or not)