December

We have been celebrating with each other for several weeks, doing special things each day, going on special adventures, and i have even been finding a little elf (emma) leaving me presents on my pillow! Some of the things we enjoyed together this year in no particular order: going to see the minature display at the train depot with peg and we got to ride the trolley while we were there, building 'cairns' with the kids on the table using the kid's rock collections, we hope to visit a large outdoor cairn one day, anyone know where one is in north america?, the kids all made sun crowns for the bonfire night on solstice, they even made inde one!, with daddy we made and iced GF sugar cookies, made one day, baked one day, iced one day....,we moved all the couches off the windows and sunbathed inside several days wishing this cold away and yet enjoying it's importance, we made a centerpiece on the table and each person brought something to represent themselves, some mornings the kids found a fun activity on the table to do, we made beeswax candles, create your own mugs for our tea times, we made a cedar smudge stick (the precursor to incense) it smelled lovely burning, decorated a tree in the house, strung cranberries, made some sand art and wished for the beach, made pinecones with birdseed and hung them in the trees and the treehouse for the birds, played some new card games, alex and i made some handmade cards one evening, took some naps, went and found a special ornament with gram and gramps, got several new books to read, enjoyed some new wii games, went to see lights at the botanical gardens and the luminaries downtown......celebrated on solstice, had a one for all day on christmas, had yummy soups and company at the elams on christmas eve......it was a wonderful month, see some here! And it contained a surprise, that my sister maggie and michael are going to let us all celebrate for them officially as they are going to get married, will inde be walking by then folks or is this a soon event? :)

Bowling

Had a blast bowling before everyone that was in town for the holidays left town. Here are some highlights here....Again, libby and maggie, i do not appreciate the butt shots.......I will get you back, promise. Alex did really quite well from the last time we bowled, he seemed to enjoy it. It is scary that even when you are bowling with bumpers, you barely are beating the people 25 years younger than you!

Christmas Day

We celebrated on Christmas Day this year when our stores were closed and folks were home to visit by doing a "ONE FOR ALL" day in lieu of gifting like we have in years past. Everyone gathered for the day and brought or planned something for us all to do or enjoy together. The only "rules" were that everyone had to enjoy it and it had to all happen by the end of the day. We started off making gingerbread houses with gram at her house, maggie made a brunch for all of us, i took everyone to a movie, kurt made us dinner, peg had an ice cream of our choosing for dessert that night, alex made and flew paper airplanes with everyone, emma had made everyone a candle, owen wanted to play a wii game with everyone, gramps prepared a dancing cd and we all had a dance party, and libby and ben taped the events of the day to give us all a hard copy of the memory. It was a wonderful day together away from the commericalism that loves to creep into the holidays......I really enjoyed the day, the whole month actually was surprisingly stress free for mommy, just full of enjoying and being...........We should have done some of these relaxed ways of celebrating long ago in our lives. Thank you to all for the day and may all the rest of you have a happy holiday this year yourselves! gingerbread houses at the bottom: Photos

Eggs!!!

The morning after solstice morning, when i checked we had eggs! They are gorgeous.....each one slightly different. Of course all eight of these were not there on one morning, but they seem to be laying every day or day and a half right off the bat! We were saving the eggs for the first few days to have a batch that was just our chickens eggs. Then when kurt and i weren't home one afternoon and our neighbor that was watching them was over, she cooked alex and owen some eggs. I realized that they cooked the chickens eggs, because when i got home alex kept going on and on about how good the eggs were that emily made, could i find out how she had fixed them? He said all she did was put some water in them before she scrambled them and the water must have made them yummy. I checked the fridge and the brown eggs were missing, so we now have a blind taste challenge a la alex that the chicken eggs are better tasting!

Solstice

We decided to greet the sun on the morning after solstice this year. We had a bonfire with some friends last night and then kurt and i stayed up all night together visiting and getting some surprises ready for the kids. It was full to do an "allnighter" again like we used to when we were young and wild! We are going to celebrate with them today to have time for them to enjoy the gift we give them so we can then all enjoy our day visiting with everyone on Christmas Day when we gather with family. Gram, Gramps, and Peg came over this morning to watch the sun come up with us. It was bitterly cold, but we did do some viewing from the treehouse, the kids were awoken at their request and watched from the couch, it was a beautiful sunrise. I think Kurt won the bet on exactly where the first ray was going to break the horizon. We have enjoyed the winter, but are ready to be over the hump and enoy the days getting warmer. Here is us enjoying this day....

Ornaments

the kids were taken this year two days on an adventure with my parents to hunt for a special ornament. they went all over town choosing their favorite in each store, taking photos to remember. they then looked all the photos over again and made a choice. gram and gramps are helping them build an ornament collection to have of their own one day...it was a special adventure, in a few years we might have to find something to hand tem on besides the tree---four ornaments times four years gets you to sixteen, see how the math grows?!? thank you for this special time i enjoyed going out for this and i usually hate shopping and stores!

Flying Monkey

A & E sold some ornaments today at the flying monkey art center at lowe mill, they had a day that kid's could sell their wares. E also sold some of her window art as well as some origami snack cups with either raisins or trail mix. The kids made the ornaments out of ornaments and some lovely yarn emma found in the laundry room. We enjoyed being at the monkey for the day and seeing the other artists wares, the most creative were some of the jewelry made out of dominos......Creating is infectious!