Monday, December 24, 2012

Getting ready for Christmas

The whole month of December, we have been getting ready for Christmas!  On December first, we set up the tree and started decorating:
 
 

The boys have always loved the tree, and every year they are so excited to see it.  Brian tells me that Santa will think we have the most beautiful tree in the whole world!  I love to see our tree through his eyes, beacuse it's really not very fancy, but obviously to them it's the best tree ever. 

One day I busted out the guitar and we sang (OK, I sang) Christmas carols.  They don't know the words yet but I'm hoping they'll learn, and how else but by singing them!  I still have a stocking dilemma; I made fancy stockings when Brian was born but couldn't find a matching one when Eli came along... so this year the Dollar store came to the rescue.  2 stockings and a pack of glitter glue: $3.  Personalized stockings: priceless. 
 

The old Santa hats came out of storage, and little boys could be seen sporting them at random times: 

This year, Eli is old enough to play games (more or less), and it has been such a joy to see them playing together. 

We brought out all the cars to see how many they had... I think it was a little over 100.  A lot of cars! 

Then we decorated gingerbread cookies, cutouts of Christmas trees, houses, and people.  This is my new tradition, as an alternative to gingerbread houses that are for display only, these little houses are a treat to eat!
 

The boys with the finished cookies:
 

This weekend we went to see the Parade of Christmas Ships, which I thought was pretty cool but apparently I was in the minority. 

The stockings are hung by the chimeny with care...

In hopes that grandma and grandpa soon would be there!

And we decorated more cookies!
 
 

I love how much candy this little boy crammed onto one tiny cookie. 

And now we wait for Santa...tomorrow's the big day!  Merry Christmas everyone!
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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Christmas in Narnia

Today our church had a Christmas party after the service and it was amazing! You walked into the coat closet...



And emerged in Narnia!


It was an amazing snowy forest and the kids loved it.








The beaver family was there, as was a talking Aslan, and the 4 kids (as kings and queens).


Best of all, there were trains, trains, and more trains!











Plus cookies, popcorn, hot cocoa, Turkish delight, and lots of more grown-up goodies too. What a fun morning; no wonder the kids are so happy with this church!

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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

This year for thanksgiving was the first time we were alone, just the 4 of us.  I thought about ordering dinner but decided cooking it didn't seem that hard.  It wasn't too bad, but we kept it pretty simple--soup, turkey, potatoes and gravy, cranberry relish, rolls, green beans, and then pumpkin pie for dessert.  We invited a colleague of Calvin's to dinner, Roberto, a Chilean surgeon who is visiting Seattle.  Having company made the meal more of an event, and we all had a great time.

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!  I am thankful to have found a way to keep the blog going!

Welcome to the new blog!

Well, here is my solution to my blog limit problem...a new blog!  Welcome!