burning down the house and other christmasy stuff

I'm pretty much falling asleep on the sofa while I write this, but I'm just feeling like a better get to posting!  Maybe I'll be more interesting when I'm half asleep.  Actually, maybe you'd think I'd be more interesting if you were half asleep.....

First some cell phone fun.  Lucy really really likes to take pictures.  Especially with my *new* phone.  Yes, we finally got phones.... cell phones that is.  The iphone 4, to be exact.   Who needs a stinkin' iphone 5 for a lot of cash when you can get a 4 for freeeeee.  Those US residers are probably baffled by this statement as you most likely can get a 5 for free with a plan, but Canada doesn't quite work the same way..... read, they charge you through the nose for everything.  It is expensive to live here - ridiculous!  Anyway....

You know.... I'm changing my mind.  I'm stopping right here (fyi, it is Dec. 13 at 11:54 p.m.).  I'm not stopping because I can hardly move my fingers on the keys anymore, but looking at the photo below, I realized that it won't make any sense unless I finish my "Thanksmas" post first.  So I'm done for today. By the time you read this you will possibly already have read Thanksmas and then you'll get what I was about to tell you.  Actually, really you might not.  If you are anything like me, you go to your friends' blogs only once every few weeks to catch up and then you end up reading things in reverse because you slacked off and are several posts behind.... the bad thing about posting "most recent first".  Still stopping though.... because now my bed is luring me.  'night.

I'm baaaaack!  Just a month and a half later.  That was one long break.  Well, Christmas is only 11 months away so maybe this will get you in the spirit.  Nothing like planning ahead, I always say.  Way ahead.
So we always celebrate St. Nicholas Day at our house.  Dec. 6; seis de diciembre.  It is also Quito Day, but we didn't do much celebrating in that regard this year.
The kids did their usual putting their shoes outside their doors and a certain representative of St. Nick, filled the shoes with lovely things.  Since the basement, where three of the kids sleep, is very dark, I had to equip myself.  Charming.

Mia and Cade's

Lucy's (Maddy's were in the even deeper bowls of the basement, so no picture of hers).

One evening in December, Glenda and I took Brooklyn and Mia to a local nursery that also has a beautiful coffee shop and gift store.  They have many, many amazingly decorated trees.  All kinds of different themes and gorgeous to fun to whimsical ornaments.  We had a lot of fun looking around.  The girls had a lot of fun chasing around the store's cat.  Brook especially.

One of may favorite things was seeing that they were selling giant sugar pine cones for $9 a piece, and I had brought a pile from Hume Lake for free.  I should have brought a bunch more, sold them and made a small fortune!

This next photo doesn't have much to do with Christmas but it has a lot of do with hilarity!  It is Cade's monthly reading record.  They are strongly encouraged to read more than just one type of literature.  Different genres of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, newspapers, etc. are all suggested.  Cade spent some time reading the bible for his reading time.  In the column labelled "genre" for the bible he wrote "totally non-fiction".  We pretty much now always refer to the bible as totally non-fiction.

Maddy was very cold so naturally she warmed her hands over her pot of potstickers.

I was pretty excited way back when, when I found two veggie tales Christmas snow globes at the thrift store.  Both Cade and Lucy wanted snow globes and these were very cute.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice in the store the reason that they were at the thrift store.  Don't get too grossed out at the pictures.

Some extremely gross floaty goop in these bad boys.  Disgusting.

There seems to be something with us and real Christmas trees.  We have issues.  And it never helps my side of the argument when I want to get a fresh one instead of fake.  This year it was a broken tree stand.  Yes, another thrift store purchase.  In spite of this blog post, I have found many, many good things there!

We had the tree in it already when we noticed a bunch of water on the carpet.  Turns out it had a crack in a spot that was pretty tough to see.  With some jimmying, Eric managed to make it work for the season, but it got tossed when we were done.

We also had an "incident" back in December.  My mom gave us a candle that Mia had made for her many years ago when she was in 4H.  We figured we may as well use it for our Christmas decor.  Unfortunately we left it burning.  The middle burned down pretty far so we didn't see the flame with the sides still so high.  Fortunately Eric noticed it before it caused a serious house fire.

This is what he captured with his iPhone:

Not good.  We are pretty thankful that God spared us in that one!

And the picture below is simply one of my most important and favored bits of Christmas decor.  Made for me by Eric when we were first dating... he burned the words in drift wood with a magnifying glass. Ah.... young love!

random christmasness

Can you believe I still have to write a bunch about Christmas?  Ya, I can believe it too.  I'm still going to though - for posterity sake.  If I don't do it now, I'm still going to need to do it when it comes time to print it all out for the book, so I may as well get at it one month later rather than several.  I won't be sad or hurt if you just skip right over this nonsense.  In fact, I won't even know....

The first gift under our tree this past Christmas was actually a birthday gift for Maddy, from Lucy.  She's sweet and thoughtful like that. 

One of the most entertaining and smile-worthy moments this December was watching Lucy watch videos that her and her friend Sierra made with photobooth back in Ecuador.  Lucy was just cracking up over and over as she watched herself and her best buddy being goofy.  It was so sweet too seeing her miss her friend.  It was actually pretty telling as well.... partly about her personality and partly about her life experience thus-far.  While Lucy has missed her friends, she doesn't really lament them as the rest of us might.  I think she is so used to having friends leave or her leaving friends that this is just part of how life is.

A common sight that we are trying to overcome.  It may look like the rapture, but no, it is just Lucy's usual method of removing her ski pants.

Common sights in our home.  Lots of "selfies" (I'm cool like that - I know the lingo!).

 

I just finished telling my boss at work today that I have no problem posting ugly pictures of myself (was a conversation about the fantasy land we put ourselves and others in when we only post the best of ourselves on all the social media).

Shortly after Christmas we received a very wonderful Trader-Joes delight of a package from Oma and Opa.  Oh, the wonderful things that package contained.  We were all beyond delighted!!

 

 

 

And some more new Christmas ornaments that I haven't shown yet.  This one Lucy bought for me.

This is Lucy's thrift store ornament that I talked about earlier.  She has no love for it.  I do.

And a little art work that hung out at our house over the holidays.

The fireplace giant coloring page from caravanshoppe.com (I think I mentioned them earlier).

A little more Christmas to come and then we'll move on to a little more current affairs.  Patience.

christmasy stuff

Christmas is, among many things, the season of glitter at our house.  This year was no exception although it was a mild one compared to most.

One of the best ideas I had this year was to put out a basket of nuts, some little pails and nutcrackers.  Well, at least I thought it was a great idea.  There were several times of just sitting around with one or two of the kids or with Eric, cracking and eating nuts together, chatting and just hanging out.  Plus it was a great healthy filler.  It just kind of made a good place to gather and be.

Later I got smart and put some cheery green and white polka-dot fabric at the bottom of the basket to stop the mess of little bits of nuts and shell making its was out of the basket.  The little pails were to put in the shells to keep the place a little neater - it worked well.

Cade decided that not only were the nuts good to eat but the whole "display" could turn into a nice structure to build a cardboard ramp on for his hot wheels cars that he got from his secret santa.

It is hard to see from this picture, but one day before Christmas it was snowing beautifully - my favorite - when there are big flakes that fall slowly down.  I had Christmas music on and I was setting up a little hot cocoa and tea bar/station.  It felt like the perfect, picturesque Christmasy day.  So peaceful, beautiful and fan.  Top that off with a little Andy Stanley sermon and felt I was set for the season.