Christmas Meal

A late lunch. Everything a little overdone (a problem I have because I'm afraid the dish won't actually be "cooked"). But mashed potatoes (which is a favorite of my farm-boy husband), corn, baked chicken, sweet potatoe souffle, homemade crescent rolls, and raspberry gelatin with chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Gifts

Here are pictures of each child's gifts. So that Mimi and Papa and Nana and Aupa can see what they "got" the kids.

Elizabeth:


Jonathan:



Phoebe:

Christmas Morn

Nice clean floor.

Kids dressed (by Elizabeth).

Hair not combed.

No breakfast to be had.

Get ready.... get set.....Go!




Now here's what it looks like after the whirlwind.

It actually doesn't look too bad. Phillip makes the kids each open one gift at a time, so it does cut down on the mess.

Christmas Eve Peek

After the church's Christmas Eve service (in which Phillip did a wonderful communion meditation!), we came home and let the kids open one gift that we had gotten them.

Elizabeth opened a package of Bible stories/songs (this was really for all of them, but we didn't tell her that. She got fewer things this year, but they were more expensive.)



Phoebe opened a miniature Nativity that she can play with.




Jonathan opened a Bible heroes puzzle.

Merry Christmas!

A little bit of early Christmas...

.... from some friends that we won't get to see on Christmas Day. Thank you!

Conscientious or Tattle Tale?

Jonathan seems to be more rules-oriented than most young children. He likes to make sure everyone obeys the rules, and if they don't.... well, he makes sure an authority figure knows about it. His peers would say he's a tattle tale. I prefer to think he's conscientious.

Today Phoebe got another snack to go along with the one she already had which is "against the rules" (She had hot chocolate and grabbed a candy cane). Jonathan started to say something to me, and Elizabeth interrupted with a snotty, "What... are you gonna tattle tale, buddy?". Then Jonathan comes into the "parlor" where I was knitting and silently pointed to his candy cane and pointed to Phoebe. I said, "Did you want to tell me something?" with a smile on my face. He said, "No, I just.... well, Phoebe...." I stopped him to talk to him about not tattle telling (he needs to worry about his own business and not whether everyone else is doing what's right: a legalist in the making, Phillip says), and then waited a few minutes before I went into the kitchen to take the candy cane from Phoebe. I had to smile at his attempt Not to tattle tale though.


Above is a picture of Jonathan dancing. He loves to do these crazy dances to make us laugh.

Alphabet in the Shop!

I've always wanted a wooden magnetic alphabet set for our refrigerator. So I made one! And now I have two sets for sale in the etsy shop. (I wish I had you to take my pictures, Holly! My skills are lacking, I'm afraid. :-) Or maybe I can blame it on the camera.)

Christmas Trees

We decorated for Christmas last Friday. We went to see a Live Nativity that night, so we thought we'd make a Christmas Day of it and decorate the tree and have some hot cocoa and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and a Bible cartoon of Jesus' birth. We put all the Christmas stuff in a room Elizabeth dubbed "The Parlor". It's a room we hadn't used because we didn't have anything to put in it. But we have our Christmas tree, a love seat, two chairs and the curio cabinet in there now. And it's cozy and beautiful. I think we may move our couch and TV in there once the tree is down and use that for our living room. Then we'll have a huge room (our current living room) with wood floors that the kids can play in and "ice skate" in and just have fun in.



The kids have a tree in each room that they could decorate themselves without parental interference. Jonathan and Phoebe do not have theirs currently because they were playing with it last night when they should have been in bed sleeping. The first time I went into their room (a half hour after they had been put to bed), Phoebe had plugged in the tree lights and was sitting in front of it reading her Bible. Very cute, but not obedient. So I unplugged said tree and put her to bed again. Next Dad went in there about an hour later and Jonathan had put Phoebe's Bible under his pillow..... with 10 pages torn out. Phoebe had done it, and he had taken it away so as to stop her. An hour or so later Dad went in again to find them both out of bed and playing with the tree and some toys. So the tree got put up in their closet, and they won't be able to have it for a few days. They're usually so tired that they just fall right to sleep ~ perhaps it was the day at the zoo we had experienced.....


Elizabeth has not had any trouble leaving her tree alone. Although she was still lying in bed awake at 10:00 last night. How can she do that? I love getting to go to sleep no matter what time of day it is!

For a Friend

These are the hats and scarves I made for a friend's grandchildren. The cream and denim colors are bamboo yarn (have you ever heard of such a thing?) and the pink is mohair yarn which I believe comes from goats. I'm loving learning about all these new yarns and their textures.

Nutcracker

Elizabeth and I went to the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra's Nutcracker last night. Very sophisticated, I know. I remember seeing it for the first time when I was 14 or so. I was mesmerized. Elizabeth enjoyed it, though she did get a bit tired (we went to the 8 pm show which lasted till 10). She kept waiting for a certain piece of music which didn't end up playing until the end. The ballet was great and the music was superb and everyone was dressed up so nicely. A very enjoyable experience. I told her we'd have to go to an opera next. She didn't agree.

Today she goes to a friend's birthday party and then this busy week will be over!

Elizabeth is 7

Well, not yet. Tomorrow is her birthday, but we celebrated tonight because it was family night (therefore cheaper) at the skating rink and I have a little party to go to tomorrow night.

Elizabeth wanted a winter themed birthday. We just did family birthdays this year. It's hard to have all those kids over every year!


She designed the cake and helped me decorate it. It looks rather lovely, if I do say so myself! And very simple to do.


We went ice skating. Well, we tried. Jonathan made one round around the rink. Then he sat out with Daddy and Phoebe. They went to a different (warmer) room and watched some basketball. Elizabeth and I went around two more times and then we were ready to go. Ice skating looks so fun and romantic when you watch someone do it who has done it a while. We're just choppy. Oh well, we did what Elizabeth wanted to do, so it was fun.

First Christmas Card of the Year!

Our neighbor put this in our mailbox today. I've been wanting this picture that she took of the neighbor kids playing together, so I just took a picture of the picture on the card she made. We are blessed to live in this neighborhood even if only for a little while. The two families in this photo also homeschool and one of them goes to church with us, so it's been cool to talk to them. I often sit out in their lawn chairs and knit while I watch the kids play.

New Hat in my Etsy shop

This one is for a boy. I love the Fair Isle pattern!

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a wonderful day it was! We slept in (well, as much as could be slept when Phoebe wakes one up at 6:40 am). Then we had a brunch at 10:45 (should have been earlier given we were going to be eating a big Thanksgiving meal at 2:00, but live and learn) consisting of Pecan Sticky Buns, Fruit Cocktail and Omelets. The kids played on the computer and played board games while Phillip and I got ready for the day. I tried to get them to watch The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the computer (we opted not to get any kind of cable when we moved here, thus we only get one fuzzy channel that apparently does not air the Parade); but you couldn't hear anything from the web cam's vantage point, so they got a little bored with it. Friends from the church at Fleming Island had us over again like last year. It was so much fun! Jonathan had boys to play with. An older girl watched Phoebe most of the time. I was surrounded by teachers, so it was fun to talk to them about school stuff. I played one game of tag pool (not sure what the name is exactly) and Phillip and I won! (Amazingly since I only pocketed three balls and one of them was for the other team.) God has really blessed us. I was so sad that we wouldn't be with family this year, but I really had a good time with friends.


These are some pictures of us at home at the beginning of the day.

Elizabeth is trying to push Jonathan off of "her" chair in this picture.

See, I stuck in a picture of me, Amy!! And I have curlers in my hair. How redneck of me.

Jonathan being "cool" as he calls it.

Phoebe being dazed because she's so tired from not getting enough sleep last night. Sleep in, girl!

And again we end with Elizabeth trying to push Jonathan off of her chair.

Just living life...

It seems like it's been a while since I've blogged, but I haven't found much spectacular going on to blog about, I guess.
We're doing school (just finished Year 1 of Ambleside Online). We're preparing for holidays (a little. We aren't doing much this year ~ probably not even sending out Christmas cards!). We're doing church (I'm teaching a 3 year old class now). I'm knitting 3 hats and 2 scarves for a friend's grandchildren (yea! A project and I get to earn a little money!).

Just livin' life. Kind of nice!


Here is a rare moment when the kids are all sitting together and not fighting.

Food for thought

Elizabeth's been on a cooking binge lately. She's made chocolate chip cookies with Dad; Banana muffins on her own; Graham flour muffins with Mom; Sugar cookies on her own (a little too salty, but we each ate one); and this lovely rainbow jello which we got to share with the neighbors:


This was the kids' lunch today. I liked the contrast of the dark yellow cheddar with the dark green spinach.


No, my kids do not really eat spinach, but I always give them some fruit or vegetable to try. Elizabeth actually likes to wrap her cheddar in the spinach and eat it. So there's hope for them yet!

Bible Study

Here's an altered sign Elizabeth posted on a street lamp near our home. She really wants to start a Bible Study with some kids, so she's hoping some will come this Saturday. She has some pull tabs at the bottom of the sign that have our phone number on them for people to take. I think some of them are gone!

Trick or Treat

Cinderella.... Barbie and the Magic Castle (or so Jonathan tells me)...... and Batman!




Lots of fun with friends, lots of neighborhood decorations out, a few very scary costumes, too much candy, three adorable children who are all ours!