December Twenty-Fifth

Christmas Day! Well, I couldn't choose just one picture for today. I wish you all a blessed and belated Merry Christmas! I hope it was a wonderful day, surrounded by those you love. May God bless you in 2009!

December Twenty-Fourth

I was hoping to take a picture of Emily singing in the Christmas Eve program at our church, but we weren't supposed to use flash and I didn't get any good ones. She did a wonderful job singing her little heart out. This was one of the most hectic Christmas Eves I can remember. Usually we stay home and spend lots of time with family, but Emily REALLY wanted to participate in the Christmas Eve service, so we worked it in. Somehow there were a hundred little things to get done during the day. In the evening my in-laws came over and sung carols together while I made dinner. It wasn't quite the traditional Italian feast I grew up eating, but it was still Italian. Then we dashed out the door for church, enjoyed the service and came back to our house for dessert.

We have a Christmas Eve tradition of opening one present before bed. I loved this tradition when I was a kid, so I've carried it on with my own kids. The presents from mom and dad aren't under the tree until Christmas morning, but there a still ones from kind friends and relatives to choose from. It gives a little foretaste of the next day's delights. I love this picture of Emily. You can see the anticipation and excitement filling her eyes.

December Twentieth

We have a full house. Family is here for the holidays, which leads to much chaos. Happy chaos at times, but still. Today I played Trivial Pursuit while baking cookies and cleaning the kitchen simultaneously. Moms are the queens of multitasking. Now another game is in full swing, but since I was putting the kids to bed, I had to sit this one out. It gave me a chance to catch up on my daily photos. =)

December Nineteenth

Today we decorated our Gingerbread house. The girls have been chomping at the bit to get it done, but we've been too busy until now. I think they had fun choosing which candies went where. Of course there was plenty of sampling. =) Usually we get our gingerbread house kit at Costco, but this year I decided to try the smaller and more local one available at the grocery store. I must say I like the Costco one better. The frosting that came with this one just wasn't thick enough, the candies kept sliding off. I seriously can't believe that Christmas is in six days. I felt a bit like we weren't going to get around to very many of our traditions, but we seem to be keeping most of them firmly in place.

December Eighteenth

Katrina's Christmas program was rescheduled for tonight. This was her expression pretty much the entire program. She didn't sing a single word. I was all prepared to cry, but I couldn't stop laughing at her stunned face. That was probably for the best, I hate crying in public. She knew all the songs and would sing them with all the motions at home, but she got a major case of stage fright when the big moment came.

December Sixteenth

All dressed up with nowhere to go. Today was supposed to be Katrina's Christmas program at school. It got canceled because of the snow. We were sad to miss it. Maybe next year!
I video taped her singing some of the songs. Here is my favorite. Please to enjoy: Katrina Singing

Also, in case you were wondering, my house is clean! Yea! There's one thing the snow didn't stop. I feel pretty ready for our company coming tomorrow. Pray for a safe drive from the airport.

December Thirteenth

I think someone's trying to tell me something.

I rather intentionally didn't buy candy canes for the tree this year. It seems like every year only a couple of them get eaten, then the rest just sit around until I get disgusted and throw them out, usually sometime around July. I found these scattered around our tree this evening. It would seem my five year old feels our tree is lacking. I must admit I'm a little astounded by her creativity and motivation to get some "candy" canes on the tree, even if she has to do it herself. I guess there's one more thing I need to add to this week's shopping list. =)

December Twelfth

Ok, so twelfth is a really funny word. I keep thinking it's spelled wrong, but it's not. One of the things I did today was bake some pumpkin bread as gifts for the girl's teachers. I just need to make some cream cheese glaze, wrap them up and that'll be one more thing I can cross off my list.

Christmas gifts for teachers are always one of those things that stump me. I want to show them I appreciate all the work they put into teaching my child, but I never feel like I know them well enough to choose something they'll really love. I got some little bath sets too, because who doesn't like to pamper themselves once in awhile? Anyway, I hope they'll feel appreciated.

December Tenth

More Christmas. Finished decorating the tree today and got out all the rest of the Christmas stuff. Our house is feeling quite festive. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to the cleaning part of getting ready for Christmas. Then again, maybe I'll make cookies and wrap presents. So many choices!

December Eighth

I set Micah down in front of the tree this morning and couldn't resist snapping a picture of his amazed face. He'd glance at me and grin and then look back up at the tree and get this look on his face. Just wait until it's finished little guy!

December Seventh

Remembering the real reason for all this craziness.

We got the tree up today. So far it only has lights on it. The Nativity is up on the mantle. I like having that reminder there for me to look at every time things start to loose perspective.

December Sixth

Today is St Nicholas Day. The tradition of leaving your shoe outside your door to be filed with treats was passed down from my husband's German family. When I got home from work at 12:30am they were waiting for me to fill them.

Christoph had an interesting conversation with Emily when they were putting the shoes out. He told the girls the story of St. Nicholas. When he was done, Emily wanted to know who would leave the treats in the shoes. "St Nicholas?" she asked. "No" Christoph responded, "It's someone who loves you very much." Is it God?" was Emily's next guess. The correct guess of Mommy came third. She was rather disappointed to hear that St. Nicholas died a long time ago and wouldn't be doing the job himself.

December Fifth

Umm...the yummy smell of pine and my first bit of Christmas cheer this year. Our friends the Hoffmans send us a wreath every year for Christmas. It's a great gift. Perfect this year for starting off the decorating. Hopefully this weekend I can kick things into high gear. By this weekend, I mean Sunday afternoon, because I have to work Friday and Saturday. "Can we do it? Yes, we can!"

This is Halloween

Wow, I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I last posted anything. I was really hoping for some cool Fall posts this month. After all, we started off October by going to Deetering Orchards as a family, Katrina had a field trip to the pumpkin patch, and we went to the pumpkin patch as a family with our church group. The leaves are changing colors all around us and of course we end up the month with Halloween. So much potential blogging material! However, my theme for this month seems to be, "things are never what I'm expecting" or hoping. Basically when I look at the pictures from all these events they just leave me feeling flat and uninspired. Hey, at least the kids had fun. Now, October is over and I'm starting off November super sleep deprived from being up all night with Micah. Here's hoping the rest of the month is up from here and I can do a better job of nabbing those photo opportunities that arise.

For Halloween we did the typical trick-r-treating thing. The kids seemed to love their costumes and have fun, which is my main goal. They got to see friends and get some candy. For some reason the whole day felt a bit hectic and rushed to me. I'm sure this will improve when I no longer have to work the day around nap times. Emily had complete say over her costume this year. Katrina absolutely loves her shirt with the skunk on it, so she thought it was pretty cool to suddenly become that picture. Micah was his usual happy-go-lucky little self. With that I bid goodbye to another October and hello to November.

Easter Follow-up

We had a joyous Easter celebrating Christ's resurrection and the blessing of family. We went to church and then came home and prepared lunch. I made lamb, asparagus, fingerling potatoes, salad, peas and biscuits. It was a meal made with love for my husband since I don't like lamb or asparagus. Everything turned out well, except the lamb took an hour longer to cook then it was supposed to, so lunch was rather late. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out. It was a very rainy day, so I didn't get to do much of a photo shoot of the girls in their dresses. Maybe we'll have to go to the park all dressed up on the next sunny day. We hope you all had a happy Easter too!

Here Comes Easter

It's been a busy, but mostly fun week. I love doing traditional things with my kids, even though I don't always feel like I'm very good at it. I am not the most patient person in the world, especially when the whining starts and small children don't listen when I tell them to sit in their seats. (note: I included a picture of our permanently dyed table after Katrina dumped the container of red coloring.) It was nice to do something fun amongst the busyness. I've always loved the colors and patterns of dyed eggs. I tried baking the Easter bread that my Grandma always used to make us. I think it came out pretty well. It brought back lots of good memories. Then today we had a get-together with people from church which included an Easter egg hunt. It was fun watching Emily look for the eggs. (Katrina was too scared by the loud motorcycles from the neighbors to do much hunting.) Emily spent the rest of the day re-hiding the eggs and making Katrina find them. It was nice to watch Emily get into the Easter story told to the kids at the get-together. She excitedly shouted "He was risen" at the right point in the story. It's good to know she doesn't just think it's all about candy. Tomorrow my in-laws will come over for lunch after church. Let's hope the food comes out well!

Easter Parade at Preschool

 

Dying Eggs

 

Dyed Table

  

Italian Easter Bread Dolls

 Easter Egg Hunt

Happy Halloween

Trick or Treat!

or as Katrina puts it "Candy"!

Happy Easter

We Wish You a Happy and Blessed Day!

More will be coming someday...

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful day, with ample opportunity to relax and enjoy your families.

May God give you a blessed New Year!

Christmas is Coming

I wanted to write some posts in anticipation of Christmas, but it just didn't happen. Things have been busy and I am left with this strange feeling that somehow Christmas already happened, but at the same time I can't believe it will be here in three short days. It doesn't make sense, but hey, it's how I feel.

Too alleviate this feeling a little I'm trying to just stop, look back and see what we've done during the "Christmas Season" to lead up to the big day.

We got our Christmas tree. Emily could actually help decorate it this year. That was fun, although she really likes things to be clumped together. This year between school and church she has added three homemade ornaments to our collection. She is such a little perfectionist. She brought home two ornaments from school yesterday. After searching the whole tree she couldn't find a spot that met her requirements, so she just decided to leave them off. Even Katrina got into the action a little.

We made a gingerbread house. Emily says this is her favorite thing about Christmas. She is her Father's daughter, since she had to make it look exactly like the picture on the packaging. (No, it wasn't homemade gingerbread, so sue me) She was a little sad Grandpa wasn't here to help her this year.

We made Christmas cookies. According to Christoph it's not Christmas without iced sugar cookies. Emily had a ball cutting out shapes and then choosing colors of icing and applying them ever so carefully with a butter knife. She also got flour down her entire front making them.

We took Emily shopping and let her pick out presents for some of her friends and one for Katrina. This was a little overwhelming for her (too many choices) but she did like helping to wrap them and deliver them.

Emily got to go see the Nutcracker for the first time, along with Christoph and I. It was fun to watch her watch it. I think she liked the dance of the snowflakes the best, although I would say the Waltz of Flowers was a close second. Of course she is three, so there were some interesting moments toward the end, but overall it was positive.

We have also been doing advent. We missed a Sunday and it hasn't been real structured, but we have done way better then before since this year we actually got the candles and pulled something together. It's nice to have a very specific time to focus of Christ, even though I try to be conscious of why we are celebrating all the time.

Hmm, I do feel better. We have done a lot! I'm also sensing a theme. Emily is WAY more involved this year. She has an idea of what's going on, wants to help with everything, and seems really excited. She is such a little sweetheart. I know this is Katrina's first Christmas, and I am happy for that, but really at her age, she could care less. She's happy just getting some wrapping paper to shred.

Even more fun things are to come. Tomorrow we get to go see the Nativity movie, Sunday is Italian dinner at our house and then Christmas day of course. We are also going to go to Zoolights in Portland with Christoph's cousin and her husband next weekend. So, even though our days are full and life is feeling a little hectic, Christmas is so fun!