Christmas 2013

Here it is the last day of 2013.

Jack is deep into a new book.
Kayla is working quite independently on her sewing machine.
Sammy is scrubbing the marker off his face that served to camouflage him for a while.
Lucy has been playing peacefully with her dollhouse.
I love moments like this.
Before we hit the New Year, I want to be sure to remember this Christmas.  It was a little different because we stayed here for Christmas morning. 
A snapshot of Christmas Eve:  caroling with friends in the morning, delivering baked treats, playing games, a cold bike ride for the kids, enjoying the company of a friend for our Christmas Eve dinner, and a Christmas Eve service at our "old" church.
Christmas  Day:  an early start (of course!), kids playing with new toys for several hours (!!), a car ride to Mimi and Papa's.
Overall, enjoyable time with family, my side and Brian's.  Good food everywhere.  Fun cousin time.  Sweet memories.

One of my most favorite moments of the season

Favorite Christmas Recipes

To our kids-
It's Christmas baking day!  (again!)
I don't know what you'll remember about Christmas in our home.
Maybe the smell of sweet treats baking?
There are some things that you want to make every year- gingerbread and pretzel treats and our birthday cake for Jesus.
And some things that I want to make- lemon cranberry bread and Christmas cookies.  Just in case you are looking at a blog book twenty years from now and wishing for some recipes, here they are!

 
Pretzel Treats

Warm your oven to around 200 degrees.

Lay out pretzels on a baking sheet.

Unwrap Hershey Hugs and put one on each pretzel.

Bake in the oven for 2-3 minutes or until the chocolate is beginning to melt.

Remove from oven and immediately press an M&M (or two) on top of the melting chocolate.

Let them sit until the chocolate has hardened, usually several hours.

Mom's (Mimi's) Christmas Cookies

1 pound chopped dates

1/2 jar chopped cherries

1/4 pound walnuts/pecans

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 sticks butter

2 1/2 cup flour

1 t. baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs. Mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients and mix in a little at a time to the sugar/butter mixture.

Stir in the dates, cherries, and nuts.

Bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes.

*We have a nut allergy in our house so no nuts at all in our cookies.

 

Cranberry Lemon Loaf

 Beat until well blended:

1 8oz. block of cream cheese

1/3 cup softened butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla (we used 2)

Add three eggs, one at a time.

Stir in 2 Tblsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon peel

Toss together:

1 1/2 cup chopped cranberries

2 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Add cream cheese mixture to flour/cranberry mixture until moistened.

Pour into greased and floured bread pan.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour, 15 minutes.

                             (We used mini-loaf pans and baked at 350 for around 30 minutes.)

Finally is our Christmas morning birthday cake for Jesus.  I don't have a picture but we make this each year.  Delicious!

Grandma's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup oil (scant)

1/4 tsp salt

3 rounded tsps brown sugar

2 rounded tsps cinnamon

4 eggs

Grease and flour tube pan.

Mix first seven ingredients with the blender well.

Add eggs one at a time.  Beat well after each one.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes in tube pan. 

Glaze while still hot with 1/2 cup sifted confectioner sugar and 1 tablespoon warm water.

Preschool Christmas

Preschoolers dressed as shepherds, wise men, farm animals, angels, an innkeeper, Mary, Joseph.

It would be hard to find anything much sweeter.

Songs and a tiny bit of hectic

and a whole lot of cuteness.

Christmas Books

One of my favorite ways to slow down and enjoy the Christmas season is by reading good books with our kids.  It is too easy to get carried away in "doing" that we forget why we're doing it.   It's also too easy to get so busy that we don't just come together as a family. I want to share a few we've enjoyed, some old, some new.  I love hearing things like, "Oh yeah!  I remember that story!" or "Read this one, Mom!"

*Most mornings, the kids and I read Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie.  There's a short devotion on advent for every day leading up to Christmas.  It's written for families- simple enough for kids yet full of truth.
*The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson was new to me this year and I loved it!  I got teary at the end of this chapter book.  Imagine children who have never heard the real Christmas story, throw in a lot of humor, and you've got a wonderful read-aloud.  (There were a couple of places I chose to skip- benefit of reading aloud!)
*The Peterkin's Christmas was also new this year.  The Peterkins, from The Peterkin Papers are silly and funny as they get their "you-know-what" ready for Christmas in this picture book.  Sammy and Lucy especially like this one.
*Something else we enjoy is reading a Christmas chapter out of most of our Little House books.  Most (if not all) of the books have one.  Today we read "Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus" from Little House on the Prairie.  It was a cozy read that gave us an idea about what a frontier Christmas could have been like.
*Some others, though not all, that we like this time of year:
Snowmen At Christmas by Caralyn Buehner
Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant
The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown

Dancing

These two get their own wedding post.
Sammy might be a regular Fred Astaire.  He loves to dance, especially when Lucy will dance with him.  I think he just likes to twirl her.  I love it.

Wedding with the Cousins

Two weeks ago, the "Ohio cousins" spent the week with Granny and Grandpa while their parents took off for a Tennessee getaway.  I think the kids had a great time- going to the movies, doing some school together, playing...
At the end of the week, we all went to a wedding. 

Is all the red making Sam cross-eyed??

Love this.

And this.  (Brian with his mom)

The rock candy favors were a hit with all the kids.

I have no idea what these two were up to but it looks suspicious!

Washington, DC Trip

We waited out a snow/ice storm and headed to Washington, DC earlier this week with my parents.  The word for the week was:  COLD.  We layered up and walked a lot and had a pretty good time doing it.  I asked everyone for one word to describe the trip.  Here's some of what I heard:  supercalifragalistic, awesome, fun, exciting.  We hit three museums:  Natural History, American History, and Air and Space. 

On the mall with the Capitol behind them

Overall, it seems like the Air and Space Museum was the most fun for the kids.  There were so many interactive things for them to do.   Jack really enjoyed the military display at the American History Museum.

In a plane that real pilots use when they are learning

We found out that Sammy would weigh 8 pounds on the moon.

Kayla had fun at the American History Museum the presidential section.  You could choose an inaugural address from a short list and read it on the teleprompter.

Her favorite display was the one about Gabby Douglas, the Olympic gymnast.

The girls and I on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  The Reflection Pool and Washington Monument are behind us.

 
All of us in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  What an impressive tribute.

Jack and my Dad walking around the memorial.

We made the long hike from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House.  As we walked through the Vietnam War Memorial a fox walked in front of us.  Seeing a fox in the middle of a big city seemed odd.  On the way we saw the World War II Memorial, too.

The National Christmas Tree behind us

 
Mom and Dad

I think Sammy's favorite thing was riding the subway.  It was pretty fun!

 
It felt soooo good to get to the hotel and get warm. 

Lucy is 4!

There's so much to catch up on!  Especially when I remember that this blog serves as our photo book and our family journal.  I'm missing a lot! 
Let's start with Lucy's birthday.  She turned 4 on December 10!  It really does seem like we were just bringing her home from the hospital and settling in for a cold, snowy winter.  She sure has turned out to be a spunky one!  She has a quick smile and a wonderful ability to play all on her own or to keep up with the big kids.  She's good with "girly" things or trucks and nerf guns.  She sings a lot and keeps us all laughing. 
As is usually the case, her birthday was "extended."  She had ice cream sundaes with her Ohio cousins and went to the movies.  Then she had a little party at my parents' house before heading to Washington, DC for a mini-vacation.  Her birthday cereal of choice was just like everyone else's has been- Lucky Charms.
Happy Birthday, sweet Lucy!  We love you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whatever your traditions are for today, I hope you enjoy them.

And I hope all of our hearts are turned a little more towards the Lord and filled with thankfulness for all He has done.

This year we will spend Thanksgiving with Brian's family.  I am thankful for that, and I am thankful that I will miss my family today.  Wouldn't it be kind of sad to not want to be with them?  It's a good thing to want to be in two places at one time and even though I can't, I am grateful for both!

Here are a few more pictures from the preschool Thanksgiving program, which was really cute and really funny!

She made this face a lot.  Nerves? 

There were little pilgrims, too, on the other side.

Notice the Mayflower and Plymouth in the background.

I loved that all the kids could be there.  A definite benefit to homeschooling!

A "Now I Get It" Thank You

When I was a kid, I struggled with asthma.  Mostly in fall and winter.  We spent a good bit of time in the ER with an occasional overnight stay in the hospital.  I remember that feeling of trying really hard to get a good breath.  I remember the sound of the wheezing.  I remember my mom driving me to the hospital on nearly empty roads in the middle of the night.  I even remember her driving me from house to house on Halloween so that I could trick-or-treat even when the doctor said I needed to be inside. 
Now that I'm older, November/December are getting to be minorly tricky for me again when it comes to asthma- nothing like it was when I was little but enough to remind me.
And now that I'm a mom, I wonder what it was like for my mom.  I know the mental ping-pong that goes on in my own head when my kids are sick:
Do they need some medicine?
Should I call the doctor?
Is this going to get worse?
Should I let them outside?
The thing that sticks out most about my mom during those asthma moments is that she always seemed calm.  If she was rattled, she didn't let it show.   I just kind of knew that she (or you, too, Dad) would take care of things.
I realize 30-some years later that keeping calm when your kids are struggling is no easy feat.  And so I really want to say
"Thank You"
from one mom to another
for keeping it together, at least on the outside, and doing what you had to do.
What a wonderful example for me.

Getting Stirred Up

"Do you think he'll like a baseball?"
Would you, if you had never had one, ever?
Our baseball lover smiled slightly and said, "Yeah, I would."
I don't know why that got to me.
Maybe it was Sam thinking about a boy somewhere in the world.  A boy who doesn't have much by the world's standards.  A boy who in some ways is very different from Sam and in many more, so much like him.
Maybe it was knowing that my children want for nothing.
Maybe it was the thought hope that Sammy's own heart was being stirred up.
And not just his, but all of ours.
"Help us to get enough money so that we can give it away," one prayed.
"Help the little kids know Jesus," another prayed.
And I just got choked up and listened.
All from putting together a couple of Christmas shoe boxes.

Latest Sewing Projects

Brian and Jack have left for Jack's first Boy Scout camping trip. 
It's raining. 
I'm really hoping it turns out to be a great trip and dry in the morning.
The rest of us are home, cozy and warm.  While I made spaghetti for dinner, the kids watched Andy Griffith.  That is one show our whole family loves.  It was a good evening here.  We took some pictures of some of Kayla's latest sewing projects:

She made this little bear last week.  It even has a cute little tail.

She made Lucy this little rabbit.  Lucy's holding up it's floppy ears.

Here are all the pillows she's made.  I already posted the first one, made from a t-shirt.  The other two were for Sam and  Jack.

Now this one.  

Isn't it said that when you can teach something, you really know it?

Kayla and Sam spent the better part of two hours one afternoon working on this little thing.  She taught him a few things and he did it all himself.  Love it!

Cranberry-Apple-Oatmeal Goodness

I'm guessing there were more than 20 people at that Christmas dinner.
I don't remember if there was snow outside but inside Brian's grandparents' kitchen it was warm and there was a low hum of conversation among cousins, great-uncles, siblings, and probably more.

 

That's where I had this cozy, wintery dish.

A perfect blend of cranberries, apples, and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves

Add some oatmeal, sugar, and butter

Then eat it while it's hot.

I always think of the Waters' clan when I make this but I also think of elementary school.  Strange combination, huh?  I think it's the cloves.  In our school, parents would do all sort of crafts and put them in a little Christmas store so that children could buy little gifts for their families.  It must have smelled of cloves in that room in Dutrow Elementary because I am immediately taken back each time I make something with cloves.

Anyway, Brian's great-aunt Helen gave me her recipe.

And here it is for you.  Enjoy!

Cranberry-Apple-Oatmeal Goodness

1 bag of cranberries

2 granny smith apples, pealed and diced

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

1 T each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves

1 cup oatmeal

1 stick melted butter

Mix all the ingredients and bake in a covered dish at 350 for one hour

*I used 3/4 cup of each sugar and think I'll try a little less next time.

*I also don't include the pecans, since we have a nut allergy in the family.

Solar Eclipse

I heard about this morning's solar eclipse last week.  We are studying astronomy this year- how could we not take advantage of this opportunity?  I woke the kids up at 6:30- which really wasn't so bad since we "fell back" over night.  It was really 7:30, right?

We drove to a church parking lot just outside of our neighborhood where there is a pretty good view of the sunrise.  Yep, I'm in my robe and Jack is wrapped up in a blanket wondering why he is in the van and not in his bed.  I think Sam must have taken this picture.

It was fairly cloudy which made for a pretty sunrise but difficult eclipse viewing.

When the sun peaked over the horizon, it came up fast.

I snapped a picture then got out our "pin hole viewing box."  No staring at the sun!

The eclipse didn't seem too grand but we could see a slight shadow on the sun's image in our box.  It didn't take long for the sun to rise up behind the clouds but it was fun to get out and at least try to experience the eclipse.

Wonder what they'll remember about this?