And Another Thing...

Got yarn?

And for 2010...

My goals for 2009 ended up falling by the wayside and I really am okay with that, for the most part.  I'm going to go easy on myself for 2010.  I have some goals, but not quite so lofty this year.

-  Knit a pair of socks every month. I didn't quite meet this goal last year, but I am really going to make a better effort this year.  My family really prefers hand-knit socks and I can happily oblige them.

-  We're going to get our house ready to sell this year.  I don't know if we will actually be able to put it on the market yet, but we are going to make some big steps toward that end.  As the kids get bigger, this house gets smaller and we are running out of ways to make the space work.

-  I'm planning to make a bigger effort to "do" things with my kids.  We're going to go more places and experience more things this year. 

So, that's it.  Well, hopefully more things will actually happen, but these are the important things.  I am absolutely positive that 2010 is going to have great things for us and I can't wait to see what those are!

2009 in review

January: Olivia turns 6 and Anastasia turns 4

February: I finished my first pair of socks!!

March: Benny turns 11

April: Ruth joins our family as a birthday present for Braidon who also turned 11

May: I turned (gulp) 30!

June: Anna's first dance recital

July: Oliver turned 30!!

August: Saragh turns 3, it is finally warm enough to swim and then Saragh discovers her shadow.

September: We helped our friends start to put in their deck

October: Halloween, what else?

November: The month of the Thousand Eyed Turkey and we bid a grateful farewell to Olivia's tonsils and adenoids.

December: Merry wishes you a Merry Christmas!

2009 was a great year and I think we came through with flying colors.  We have a cozy house to live in, Oliver's job is secure (knock on wood) and we are all healthy and relatively happy.  I think everything else pales in comparison. 

We're looking forward to a great 2010 and I am anxious to see what the new decade has in store for us!

Where has the time gone?

This little girl is about to turn 7 and I am growing more and more introspective about my daughter-parenting as that day approaches.  I know that I have a heavy task ahead of me to help this girl grow into a woman, and there are two more girls right on her heals. 

In this day in age, the prospect of growing a girl is so complicated that it makes my head spin if I think too far ahead.  It's not enough to just see her through until she is 18, there are so many things that she needs to know and be aware of as she grows more fully into who she is. 

Right now she wants to be a chef when she grows up and I see this as a totally feasible option for her.  She has been cooking since she was three and loves to help in the kitchen.  We had to assign her the position of sous chef about a year ago because she was trying to totally take over the kitchen!  This will be okay when she has a bit more reading and math experience under her belt.

She also gets that she will be able to have it all, but probably not at the same time.  She hears me refer to "seasons" on a regular basis and realizes that some dreams and interests may need to be put on hold while she works on other dreams and goals.  I am really very happy that she gets this concept at such a young age.  I feel like I can check that one of my list of "Things Olivia should learn".

What I really want her to know is that she only has to be her.  She need never be anything more or less than Olivia.  There are so many people in this word that will want her to be something she is not in order to fit the mold that they have waiting.  I want her to stand firmly in the skin that she has and be the woman that she is meant to be.  I would like her to figure this out early on so that when she looks back at her life, she won't have very many regrets.  A lofty dream, I know.

For now, I'll settle on building my relationship with her, learning who she is and being there for all the things that will make her who she is.  My tiny little miracle is rapidly approaching 7 and my time to grow her is diminishing before my eyes.  I want to enjoy every minute and revel in the wonder of Olivia.

Tale of the Christmas Tree: Part 2

Oliver said he was waiting the whole time for a Clark Griswold moment of the tree mushrooming out and breaking the window as soon as the plastic was off!

I LOVE how big and fat it is.  The tree makes me incredibly happy, even if I did have to rearrange furniture to fit in my family room!

I did not actually put a single ornament on the tree this year.  I unwrapped and the kids put them on.

We have a disproportionate number of ornaments at the bottom of the tree.

Here, Oliver is trying to remedy that by convincing Saragh that he could pick her up so she can reach the top of the tree.  It didn't work.

So pretty!

As per our tradition, one of the last ornaments on the tree is the Grinch.  None of us can remember why this is, we just know that we have to do it that way.  I kinda like traditions like that.

Tale of the Christmas Tree

The searching...

The trudging...

The laughing...

The snowball scheming...

And walking,

walking,

and walking.  Until finally...

We found it!  The perfect tree, round and fat and full and beautiful!

Then there was cutting (and cursing, but we won't talk about that)

Little Christmas trees were found and absconded with.

Then we hauled that big tree outta there.

I loved this machine, big fat tree went in, nice compact package-o-tree came out!

After the tree was securely fastened to the top of our car, we carefully drove it home (I'll go into my issues with things strapped to the top of the car at a later date).

I'll post pictures of the decorated tree next.  You oughtta see this monster in our living room.  We had to move furniture to accommodate it!

Wordless Wednesday: Mama's view

St. Nicolas Feast Day

In our house, St. Nicholas' Feast Day is when "Santa" comes and fills the kids stockings with good stuff.  We do this for several reasons:

- It's a feast day that we all really like to celebrate and we have a lot of fun with.  It's fun to take an ordinary day and celebrate the life and good works of someone so great!

- Beginning the celebration season on this day let's us enjoy it all for that much longer.  We don't usually get to extend our Christmas season into January very far because Olivia and Anna's birthday's are right at the beginning of the month.

-We don't do "Santa" at our house because we choose to honor St. Nicholas as the person he actually was.  This is just a choice that we made a long time ago, we know it doesn't work for everyone.

-And for completely practical reasons, it's one less thing I have to remember to do on Christmas Eve :o)

***Disclaimer*** Benny and Braidon are not featured in this post because all the pictures I took of them were tainted with bed head and pajamas and they objected vehemently to the public airing of them.  Apparently now that some of us are almost 12, theses things matter.

The Trees of the Dancing Goats

I saw this activity on The Crafty Crow and thought that it looked like fun.  I happened to have the book from the library already, so I gathered the supplies.

And we got to work...





 

I really liked this craft because it was something that all five kids could do together.  The boys enjoyed it as much as the girls and it was simple enough that Saragh could fully do her own project.  The kids are talking about keeping their ornaments forever and ever, but since they are made of construction and tissue paper I think it's more likely that we'll just make them again next year.

On the fast track

A few days ago, we got to drive on the track at the Michigan International Speedway.  They had a special deal one day; if you brought an unwrapped toy or a bag of groceries to donate they would let you drive around the track once.  It was a very interesting experience, fun and a little scary too!  I didn't realize just how banked those turns are!

The Nutcracker, sweet

The girls playing ring-around-the-rosie with a whole gaggle of other girls during the Sugar Plum Tea before the performance.  It was so much fun to see so many girls having so much fun!

More fun pre-performance.

This was Saragh's first Nutcracker and she was thrilled with the whole thing!  Here she is anxiously awaiting the beginning of the ballet.  I remember two other little girls being just as excited for their first Nutcracker.

These two are old hats at this Nutcracker thing.  They were just as excited this year as they were last year and I think they loved it even more this time.

Very fuzzy picture, but it shows you how good our seats were.  We try to get the first row balcony so that the girls have an uninterrupted view of the ballet.  They can stand here and move around a bit more than they could on the main floor.