advent activities

Surprise, surprise.... we are behind on our advent activities.  It always seems to happen no matter how carefully I try to schedule what we do on what day.  I guess there are always other things that will come up.  Oh well, we are still having a good time with the ones we are getting done

December 1 was writing a letter to Alisson - our compassion child.  The kids drew pictures for her:

We also took some pictures to send to her.

December 2 was making Christmas bread.  Instead of something more traditional like stollen, I thought the kids would enjoy making monkey bread. 

 My intent was to add pecans and chopped dried cherries to make it more Christmasy but there were five people in the family who thought that was a dumb, yummy bread ruining thing to do, so we made it plain.  I forgot to take any after pictures.  The first batch was a little ugly, lets just say.  I baked it for what it said, and it looked done on top, put when I dumped it out of the pan to cool all the way, it obviously was not cooked through.  I plopped it back in the pan and put it back in the oven.  It still tasted great.  We made another batch the next day that turned out perfectly.

December 3 was shopping for and filling shoe-boxes - gifts for needy children.  The school does this each year, encouraging each student to bring in a box full of school supplies, a few toiletries, candy and a toy.... very much like Samaritans Purse.  So we all headed out to Megamaxi (yes, real store name, the Walmart of Quito) and picked up all we needed.

 December 4 we were supposed to pull names for the Casa G. gift exchange, but it was dictated that this was to happen at a later date.

 December 5 was putting shoes outside of the bedroom door in anticipation of St. Nicholas Day.

 After "St. Nicholas" stuffed the shoes with goodies, the household kitty started to play with the contents.  Therefore "St. Nicholas" had to wrap each pair of shoes up in a plastic bag to deter said kitty.

December 6 we started to make gifts for the kids' classmates.  We started to paint clothes pins in order to make rubber band shooters for all the boys.  In the end, 10 days later, we gave them other things as we ran out of time to finish the shooters.  It was just as well as a few friends mentioned that it might not be the best gift to give - some parents might frown.....

December 7 we were to write notes to cheer to our friends.  Another thing we didn't get done...

December 8 we made snowflakes and decorated the house.

I was started to feel very discouraged about the whole activities thing.  This is something we have done for I think 8 years now and each year there is just too much going on to accomplish what we set out to accomplish.  I considered the idea of not doing the advent chain activities next year but I think the kids would be too disappointed.  Half the time they seem more thrilled with the actual taking the next chain off and seeing what the activity is than doing the actual activity itself.  The big thing is the tradition anyway, and I'd rather not be too swamped with activities - stressing about not getting it all done.  

So we will continue.  If we can catch up on them later, great.  If we can't, no worries.  In the end it is fun anyway, and completing the list is not the point of a Merry Christmas.

quito day 2011

Quito Day was December 6 and a good portion of the school day was dedicated to its celebration.

The Spanish classes put on all the festivities and the kids all participated.  I was at the school almost the entire day since the festivities were broken up by grades and we have kids in each section.  A long day, but a good day.

First up was K - 3rd grade.

Before we explore this too deeply, let me take you back to the morning of, back at home, getting ready for school.  Actually, we need to go back further than that....

About two days prior (and let me just state that having two days notice for something is cause for celebration around here.... it more-often-than-not is about 2 hours notice) we received some emails stating that the kids needed to wear either a blue or red shirt and blue jeans.  So that morning I try to get Lucy to wear just that (it wasn't much of an issue with the others).  She told me that she was supposed to wear a blue or red shirt, jeans and a fancy dress.  

Huh?

I'm not sure how that would work....   But she insisted on the dress part.  Well, since I received said email, I was pretty insistent on the shirt and jeans part.  In the end, we both lost - we didn't have a red or blue top for her, so she wore one with purple and blue (blue and red do make purple, right?) and jeans.

Well, I walk her to her classroom and there are all her classmates dressed in their very finest.  Boys in white dress shirts and girls in their fanciest dresses.  Aurgh!  Lucy bursts into tears - joined quickly by the one other girl whose family also received the wrong email, who was also in jeans and a shirt.  I try to comfort both girls who are sobbing and sobbing.  All their friends are twirling around them in their sparkly dresses, completely oblivious to the pain of their classmates.  Swell.

The show did go on.

They sang "Yo Soy El Chullita Quiteño" and did a fabulous job.

Earlier - like just a few minutes ago - I lied.  I said "the kids all participated...."  Not true....

See that blond hair?  That would be Cade.  That would be Cade not participating while his class is performing their bit.

Cade is not one for the stage....  Lets just leave it at that.

After the kids performed, they had a puppet show that was really good.  

The kids were all busting up over whatever was going on.  My Spanish was a little too limited - although  this was also combined with me sitting further back and the sound was pretty quiet and muddled.  I still had a great time watching all the kids have a great time.

After this, all the kids went outside and had some activities.  With this too, I had no idea what was going on, although I didn't try to understand at all.  One look at the lady leading Lucy's group and my internal giggling (combined with a little "en serio?" "seriously?") took over.  The picture just doesn't do her costume justice.

Cade's group got to jump rope which he fully participated in.

Then it was Mia's turn.

Her group sang the same song that Lucy's did.  I didn't stay for a whole lot more though, since I needed an hour or so at home.  But they too, naturally, did a fabulous job.

Now the words to the song may not mean much to you, but I am going to put them in here anyway - lets just say its for posterity sake....

Yo Soy El Chullita Quiteño

Yo soy el chullita quiteño

La vida me apso encantado, 

Para mi todo es un sueño,

Bajo este, mi cielo amado.

Las lindas chiquillas quiteñas,

Son dueños de mi corazón,

No hay mujeres en el mundo

Como las de mi canción.

La Loma Grande y La Guarague

Son todos barrios tan queridos

De mi gran ciudad,

El Panecillo, La Plaza Grande

Ponen el sello inconfundible de su Majestad.

Chulla quiteño,

Tú eres el dueño

De este precioso

Patrimonio nacional

Chulla quiteño

Tú constituyes

También la joya

De este Quito Colonial.

In the afternoon there was a dog show for middle and high school.  It was done with military dogs.

The first good half hour was basically showing how the dogs could (or couldn't, in some cases) stay in various situations.  If I run away, the dog stays, if I walk away, the dog stays, if I make the dog lie down and then walk away, the dog stays and even if I make the dog smell something good and walk away with it, the dog will still stay.  Incredible.

Then they did a few drills of "see, my dog can pick out my hat and bring it back to me".  Fascinating.

Okay, but they did finally do some fun stuff....  Walking zig-zaggy through legs, jumping up on their masters' backs,

....head stands and jumping through legs...

rescuing someone tied up with a very thin rope/ribbon....

and jumping through hoops.

They even attacked the bad guy with the stick.

After the have-me-at-the-edge-of-my-seat dog show, it was time for the middle school/high school Spanish classes performances.

They had various classes go through the history of Ecuador/Quito.  I'm not going to explain this all right now though, I'm too tired and need to go to bed.  Maybe next year.....

I will say that there was a whole lot of some kind of wood burned (for incense) that day - like in this part of the drama.  Very very strong.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of this poor girl's face as she walked in with this pot burning and the smoke pouring into her face.

Maddy's part was dancing.  She was not delighted.  I only got this picture because I video taped most of it instead.  I'll have to try to get that on here at some point.  It mostly involved moving hips back and forth.

Some priests, which resemble the purple KKK were there as well.  I still haven't learned what the significance of the purple robes and cone-heads are.  I've asked a few times, but apparently I haven't asked the right people.

The show was complete with a bull fight - which they have several days of around Quito Day.  Have yet to see one of those, but I kind of want to even though it may be rather yucky.  I just want to experience some of the culture that way.

If I ever do, I promise I'll turn my head if anything gory happens.

the three trees

Mia's class was in charge of chapel the other day.  They did a Reader's Theater of The Three Trees.  Mia was tree number one..... the one who wanted to be made into a treasure chest.

 This tree ended up becoming a feeding trough for farm animals.... but ended up holding the greatest treasure the world as ever known (or needs to know!)..... holding baby Jesus after His birth.

third times a charm.....I hope

Wednesday, after I got home from the craft sale, this is what I saw when I walked in the door:

Our very deceased Christmas tree pulled off to the side and a shiny, healthy new tree standing where the dead one used to be.  During the day Eric went out and bought a new tree.  The first one lasted about three or four days before it started dying.  Not sure why, but it lived a short life in our home.  Deciding that having a large tinder box in our house wasn't the best idea, and we still had a while until Christmas (and because he loved me so very much), Eric decided to ditch the old and bring in the new.  

Our house was looking, and smelling, an awful lot like a forest.

 The third tree, in the back there, is our Jesse tree - I'll write about that later (everyone loves suspense.... do I have you on the edge of your seat?).

Apparently Eric had another doozy of a time putting the second tree up, but he still did it.  Is that love or what?

Now I like to put a lot of lights on the tree....a lot (see the difference there?  I underlined "lot" for emphasis.  I guess since I really like to use piles and piles of lights I should put a LOT (see that - I used bold, italics, all caps and underlined!).  These trees are pretty big, so they need a lot of lights.  With the first one I put the two strands of lights on that we had and I was going to get more  when I could.  Once the kids decorated it (for the second time), I realized it would be far too difficult to add more lights, so I left it.  Now that we were going to do it again, I was determined to get more lights.

Friday Eric had to go to the bank, so I went along and he dropped me off at the Christmas store.  Due to very very long lines at the bank, I ended up waiting at the Christmas store for an hour and a half.  Yes, I do love stores like these but that was a little much - and it is a highly fragranced store, so my sensitive nose was going nutty.... great for headaches.  I'm sure Eric's time standing in line was great for headaches too - poor guy.  Well, even an hour and a half in that small store didn't make them get any more colored lights (what we always have on our main tree - it makes it fun and happy), so I had to buy white.  And because they are ridiculously expensive here, I only got two strands of 150 lights - not anywhere close to enough in my books.  But those lights - just the old school mini lights, were a whopping $21.00!!

We finally get home, I remove the colored lights that I had already started putting on the tree and changed them to white.  Now, being the wise person that I am, I checked the lights first to make sure they worked.  Once I had the strands on, I plugged them in..... only to discover that 1/3 of a strand didn't work.  I realized that I plugged them in to check them but didn't look directly at them - in my peripheral vision I just saw them light up - ooops.  So once again, I took off the lights, wound them up, and convinced Eric to try to exchange them for me when he went to go and get pizza.  He wasn't super excited about it (who can blame him) but he did it.

So now we are back to decorating the tree.  For the third time.  Third time for the lights, third time for the kids putting on the ornaments.  Yikes.

I did change up the ribbon, since what we had didn't quite cover the tree and I made the easiest, most cutest garland ever.  I am quite in love with it.

All I did was string big pom poms on some green string.   So fast, so fun.  I am thrilled.  The kids love it too.  It is very happy.

I just got on here and discovered I never finished this post - from over a week ago.  Oops!
Well, it is a week and half later and this second tree is now getting rather crunchy....  apparently the "life" of these cypresses are not that long.  It sucked up lots and lots of water for a good week and then pretty much stopped.  By the time Christmas day is here, we should have ourselves another nice, dry tinder box tree.  I'm thinking that the Christmas decorations won't be lasting until well into the new year like they usually do around our house.

christmas bizarre 2

Wednesday was the Christmas bizarre.

 Nothing glamorous but we had lots of good stuff.

 I asked for the same location as last year - mainly because it was easy access for the kids to come and visit me.

(This was how the tree was at the beginning - obviously it looked horrible, so it got changed pretty quick - way too much stuff on it!  And I wasn't allowed to put lights on it - couldn't use electricity)

It was pretty slow.   Okay, it was really slow.  Last year wasn't really hopping either, but it was definitely more slow than last year.  I was a little concerned.  People loved what we had.  There were a lot of great comments.  But not a ton of actual purchases.  The biggest sellers were the candy cane (reindeer) once again - no shock there (Mom, can you buy more candy canes again for next year, pretty please?).   Marlo's almond roca and my hot chocolate on a stick and caramel chocolate pretzels sold fairly well also.  And the little letter ornaments.

But here's the thing.  While it didn't seem like there was a lot of buying, there was.  The total amount we made, after expenses (including Sunday's sale) was $675!  That is great!  I was thrilled.

I really feel like God multiplied our efforts.  It doesn't seem like it was possible, with the little that it felt like we sold, that it could have added up to that much, but it did.  Ya, $675 isn't dozens of dollars, but it certainly is nothing to sniff at.  To me, with all appearances, it felt like a little bit of a 5 loaves and 2 fish miracle.  And I am so grateful.

wanna be a dancing queen

OH MY WORD!

New wish list and this is at the top!!!

I bought myself wii "Just Dance 2" after trying it out at the Kumler's in Maryland.  The only wii game I play and love.

But ABBA?  Oh Santa, I've been a really good girl this year...... so "take a chance on me"!

(my family will hate; I will love)

a week ago

It all started with a simple desire.  The desire turned into a simple request.  The request turned into an easy breezy adventure to the park and it spiraled down around, up, back around and down and up over and over and over again.

The desire?  A real Christmas tree.

Simple enough desire, don't you think?

Well, that desire turned into this:

Lots of moving, chaos and mayhem. 

But lots and lots of smiles!

Allow me to take you on our journey....

Friday night the kids wanted to put up the tree.  I talked to them about wanting to get a real tree and how we would have to wait until the morning to get one.  The girls all agreed; Cade freaked out.  He, under no circumstances, wanted a real tree.  Now, isn't that the opposite of most people?  I, in past, under no circumstances wanted a fake tree.  Eventually, when I had to spend my own money and they dramatically improved the aesthetics, my frugality won out and we got a fake one (we'd still get real ones occasionally too).  Well, after his reaction, I saw oh-so-clearly how I have failed as a parent..... we had not had a real tree in several years - therefore not in his recent memory (or any memory, according to him).  Not only had he not experienced (or remembered the experience) the wonderful fragrance of a burly pine, he had not experienced (or remembered the experience) of going off on the romantic quest for THE tree.  Aghast, even though the fit was being thrown, I knew, beyond the shadow of any doubt, we had to, must, didn't have any choice, but to get a real, live Christmas tree.

So, after putting a furious boy to bed (and all the others, of course), we relaxed the evening away and waited in eager anticipation until Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we took a short drive to Carolina Park.  It was necessary, apparently, as part of the experience, for Lucy to wear the carrot nose from last year's snowman.

We arrived at the park and the grand beam of light shone over one tree almost instantly (think Christmas Vacation hike deep into the forest).  

Unfortunately all of the people selling trees either didn't see the beam or ignored it - they were all hounding us to buy their trees.  Because, naturally, their trees were so much better.  It put a minor damper on the whole romantic experience of the finding of the ONE..... something about having twelve people calling and nagging at you does that.

Remember the guy who didn't want any part in a real tree?  Remember him?  Well, he took almost no part in selecting our family tree.

He took almost no part because he was too busy trying to select a tree for his own.  He fell deeply in love.  He really wanted his own tree.  Lucy followed suit, but wasn't quite so head-over-heels.

The tree we liked was slightly too tall, so it got a trim....

and was then loaded onto the van.

While Eric paid the man and secured the tree, the kids and I looked around at the little stands set up filled with bajillions of nativity sets, and a few other things as well.

We also needed to buy a tree stand.

Now, the tree stands here are a little odd - only $15, but a little odd.  Perhaps you get what you pay for?  They look like they hold the tree fairly well but being three pronged instead of four, they are a little too lopsided.  Eric and I needed to hunt around for some stuff to stick in the stand to help secure it.  In our hunt, we happened to find....  two tree stands.  Sigh.  Yes, the people who lived here before us kindly left their tree stands for us.  Somehow we never connected it.... I don't think we had a clue what they were before this.

So now we have three interestingly designed tree stands.....we are not sure about the design in terms of watering the actual tannenbaum.  See the photo?

That is our rigging.  See, under that stump, there is a metal bar so that the stump sits on top of it.  The problem is that this bar is equal in height to those other horizontal bars attached to the legs.  That means that you can't put any water source to reach the bottom of the stump.

So we thought we'd wrap a few wet rags around the stump, put a shallow paint pan with water underneath and have the rags hanging down to soak up the water.  And it worked.  The tree sucked up lots of water for the first few days.  Fabulous.

But then something happened - don't know what - but now, a week later, the tree is pretty much dead.

A beautifully decorated tinder box.

Moving on....

So after a good (or not so good) hour of wrestling with the tree, the kids started decorating.

They were almost finished when we heard them simultaneously yell  "MOM!  DAD!!"  The tree was falling over and three of them were holding it up.  So poor Eric had to re-rig it.  Another lovely half an hour put into the tree he really didn't want in the first place.
After that there just wasn't enough time left to finish the tree before our movie marathon....so we set our minds to finishing later.  After the movies were done and the kids were in bed, we went to go hang out in our usual location - the aquarium.
The smell was overwhelming.  Yup, the very reason (or one of the biggies) for wanting the tree was now keeping us from enjoying it.  It was so strong.  With that room being the smallest, warmest and having the poorest circulation of all the rooms in the house, it provided a perfect atmosphere for "fresh pine" to become "killer-pungent, make you want to flee for your senses, overwhelming cypress".  It brought back memories of Eric's youth - hiding in the neighbors' cypress bushes so not to get caught from door-bell ditching the wrong person.....
In conversation trying to decide what on earth do we do now?, we thought we would bump up our January plan and turn the aquarium into a bedroom and make our living room THE room.

Sunday morning the kids wanted to finish decorating, so I laid the new plan on them.
Thrill
Elation
Over-enthusiasm
and all kinds of other adjectives that describe how happy they were ensued.  They would now all have their own rooms.  Divine.
They graciously and joyfully decided that Mia would have the aquarium and Cade would have the same room.  Then Maddy began her negotiations.....  You see, Cade and Mia's room has a bathroom attached to it.  She began to highlight to Cade all the benefits of her current room.  Somehow she managed to convince Cade to switch rooms.  She ended up with the previously-mentioned emotions as well.  Eric, on the other hand, ended up with some emotions including but not limited to
Grief
Resentment
Hostility
Okay, those may be a bit strong, but now he ends up with a whole heck of a lot of work.  Cade's bed is a monster.  It must have been assembled in the room that it is in (we bought it from the previous owners).  It is loft style, made crudely with very large bolts and stuff.  It will pretty much have to be completely disassembled, moved and then reassembled.  Good times for my darling husband.
Well, they patiently waited for Sunday afternoon to completely redecorate the tree.  Yes, that meant that Eric had to move and re-fuss with the tree, again.  He didn't quite feel the same emotions as the kids did in this either.

 After the tree was done, it was time to nag dad about moving everything to switch rooms.  There were many repeated conversations that went something like this:
"Mom, can we move the beds now?
"No kids, daddy has to do most of the work and he has already done a lot.  Let's give him some time."
"But mom, when is he going to do it?"
"I don't know, that is something you will have to ask him.  But give him a little time - don't bug him about it now."
"But mom, can't you move it?"
"No sweetheart (I'm speaking in a lilting, singsongy, ever-patient voice, by the way), I'm not strong enough to move that by myself.  We'll have to wait for daddy, okay?"
"But mom, can we move some stuff?"
"Yes, you can move the stuff that you can carry."
And then off they ran to work like they never have before..... for another 3 minutes until they needed to have that same conversation again.
Repeat 23 times.

Well, it is one week later and Mia is almost moved into the aquarium.  All that is needed is a dresser/chest of drawers.  Painting/decorating is suspended until January.
Cade and Maddy have not yet switched rooms.  Little too much going on for Eric to have gotten to that yet.  The living room is now fully our family room and we have only had two incidences of smashed faces as people have tried, out of habit, to go into the aquarium, only to find the glass door closed to what is now Mia's room.
We miss the coziness of the aquarium, but the family room has quickly become our new center of the home and the kids are loving having their own spaces.