A Glimpse of Christmas, 2012

Christmas Eve was spent with some extended family members at Aunt Dode and Uncle Roger's house. Uncle Jon, Aunt Suzie, and Uncle Eric were there, while Mike, Paula, Claire, Chloe, and Chris spent Christmas Eve at Nonie's house. Christmas morning, Uncle Jon, Papa and I spent a few hours with the grandchildren and watched them open and enjoy their gifts.  After Mike read the Christmas story from Luke 2, the long awaited present opening began. Mike told the children that it would be one present at a time and that each would have to wait until the person was finished before taking on the next present. They did very well. For the second year in a row our family decided to skip all adult presents and just get a few things for the children. It worked out so well that I think we may adopt that as our permanent family plan. What a time saver and stress saver overall! We are all vacationing together soon (in January) and the $$ saved on Christmas gifts will certainly be used up in travel costs. Below are a few pictures from Christmas morning.....

A headlamp....important for those dark nights.....

Chris patiently waits for Daddy to unhook the toy from the box.....

Yep, this car not only has working lights it has lots of authentic LOUD sounds to it as well.....

All three of the children got these stuffed animals that have lights that put stars on the ceiling in a dark room. Pretty nifty!

A couple of days later we enjoyed some time with the three C's again. Chloe and Claire decided to brush each other's hair and they had such a great time laughing and giggling.

At some point they decided to get as many of their dolls and stuffed creatures in the wagon as they could. They worked at it for quite a while all the time jabbering about some 'story sceanerio' they were playing.

Chris and Papa played with some of Chris' toys but at this moment he is trying out one of the girl's kaleidoscopes that Uncle Jon got for them. What a neat toy it is. Hopefully Chris will soon learn to move his hand and get the full view that is possible. :)

We had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a new year, soon to arrive. Happy New Year to you and may you be blessed with good health and much happiness!

Christmas Cookie Baking Day!

We had our annual family Christmas cookie day on Saturday. It is always fun but also a busy day. We usually focus the most on the Santa face cookies that Papa Norm's family has always had as one of their Christmas traditional items. Papa Norm, Aunt Suzie, Paula, Chloe, Claire, Chris, and myself were involved with the baking and decorating. (Mike did a "fix-it" job for me while we were busy in the kitchen).  I believe Claire and Chloe decorated a few last year but hadn't actually baked with us. Aunt Suzie is a whiz in the kitchen when it comes to baking, so she pretty much led the troops on what needed to be done. We also made some other regulars including ginger crinkles, peanut blossoms, and a variation of peanut blossoms that was supposed to look like a reindeer but turned out to be a disappointment. That recipe went into the garbage.

Papa and Chris take out some time to play Legos and have a cheese stick.

Aunt Suzie and Claire work on the cutouts of the sugar cookies.

Chloe had the first turn at doing cutouts and I didn't get a picture of her because I was working with her. She is taking a break and enjoying her new manicure set. Aunt Suzie and Uncle Eric will be with Eric's family on Christmas Day so the three C's got to open some gifts early. Aunt Suzie really knows how to pick gifts, they loved everything!

Chris gets a turn at doing sugar cookie cutouts, his turn was short but he enjoyed it.

Below are the finished Santa faces. Lots more than we usually make, but that seemed to be the one they all wanted to do. We have plenty to share, that is for sure.

We are looking forward to the celebration of Christ's birth and special time with family and friends for the next couple of days. Also, on Wednesday, Papa and I will be celebrating our 48th anniversary. Doesn't seem possible!

Merry Christmas!

Preludes to Christmas

The three C's got their own Christmas tree up this week, and they were so proud of it. The hours I happened to be there, the ornaments were rearranged quite a few times but always with gentleness and awareness of how fragile the ornaments can be. :)

The girls were also very concerned that they needed to practice for their upcoming Christmas Program later in the week. One of the songs that they sang and sang, was about an angel band on Christmas morning. If you would like to see them 'practicing' you can click here. I must say it was a cute song and on the night of the program all of the children in the class really got into the moment when singing it.

Claire and Chloe are ready to head out to school in the picture below. It was an interesting morning finding just the right shirt and pants for each girl, both of whom certainly like to be in charge of what they wear and how their hair is fixed.

The chairs that you can see placed together in the pictures below were a castle. Just before the castle was completely 'constructed' Chris took over this chair.

This play/story of the castle went on for at least an hour. Claire was the queen and Chloe was the princess. The conversations between them were very funny. The queen wanted cotton candy for her breakfast and the princess was very interested in pleasing the queen. Eventually there were blankets galore spread over the tops of the chairs. They worked to hard to make it just perfect. The girls are so good about letting Chris join in whatever they are doing. Sometimes they ignore him and he just plays in the middle of their activity, and sometimes they try and bring him into the scenario.

The next activity was coloring and drawing. Once again, you see Chris watching them. He usually wants to color at the same time but on this day he was more interested in what they were making.

Finally the night for the Christmas Program arrived. All of the children had such a great time and performed so well. I wish I could have been in the front row and taken a video of most of it. I did get a very few pictures but from half-way back and dodging heads in front of us. Claire and Chloe sang their
hearts out on the 4-5 songs their class presented.

At the end of the program, as a surprise to the children, Santa arrived. The looks of awe and wonder  on the children's faces were so cute.  Chris loved Santa much to our surprise, and made his way over to him several times, but never when I had the camera ready :(. Claire and Chloe and one of their friends take a moment to pose with Santa.

Our family has plans this upcoming week to celebrate Paula's birthday, spend time together, and next weekend bake Christmas cookies. I thought today how much we take for granted when we make plans. So many heartbroken families will not be able to complete their plans of celebrating Christ's birth together as a complete family following the unspeakable tragedy yesterday in Connecticut. I am praying that the God of all comfort will just wrap His arms around those grieving parents, grandparents, and family members. I just can't imagine.....

Christmas Tree and the Singing Sisters

Chris was full of fun, spunk, and energy, when we visited on Monday. The girls were in school so we had a few hours with him alone. He played in his train and jabbered and snacked with Papa.

When the girls got home from school we surprised them with an invitation to come home with us for a short overnight stay in order to decorate our tree. They had been concerned that we had our tree and they hadn't been there to decorate it yet, and given schedules of the week it seemed like a great idea to just do it! 

As usual, they were very inspired by the sparkling and fragile decorations. The drama and oohing and ahhing were over the top as they each selected ornaments to add to the tree. It doesn't take much to keep them entertained.

After the tree decorating and BEFORE dinner, (shame on us) we made hot chocolate. Papa was way too generous with the whipped cream, but they loved it.

When they had visited a couple of weeks ago and we had hot chocolate they had composed a song while they were cooling their drink. This visit, the song came back to them and they sang it over and over. At the end, it may be an attempt at some sisterly harmony. :)

Looking forward to quite a few hours with the kiddos this week as Mommy and Daddy both have very busy work schedules. Enjoy your week!

Snapshots of Thursday

Our time with the Grandchildren on Thursday went very fast. Norm read, talked, and played with Chris.

Claire and Chloe wanted to do their "school work" so we worked on that for a bit. Chloe disappeared after doing one worksheet and came back dressed as a fairy. I thought she looked like she was absolutely freezing, but she claimed she wasn't.

Claire was so excited to show us the Nativity set that Paula gets out every year. It is one that the children can play with, and it is fun to tell bits and pieces of the story of Jesus' birth as we put things in place. Claire would get it set up just like she wanted it and along would come Chris and start taking all the animals away. Claire had her patience tested more than once. Mike happened along at one point and told Chris that Claire always shares nicely with him but that this time, he needed to let her play with the Nativity scene alone for a while. He wasn't too happy, but quickly got over it. We have noticed that almost 99% of the time the girls do share with him when they are playing. Nice big sisters!

Soon Chloe, the fairy, went back to her regular clothes and we decided to go out for lunch. All three of the C's enjoy going out. This time we went to one of our favorite little 'dives' that features Mexican food. We gave Chris a bit of everything, except salsa, thinking it was too spicy for him. He insisted on dipping his chips in it so Papa carefully gave him a little. We sat amazed as he not only dipped and double-dipped his chips in it, but scooped it up and ate it off his fingers! He LOVED the salsa and ate, and ate, and ate! Hopefully, it didn't bother his stomach later...if so....we didn't hear about it. Their manners were just about perfect and we told them how much we enjoy taking them out.

Tonight we are going to spend the night with the three C's because Daddy has to be at work extra early tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing them in their nightly routine at home.

Enjoy this wonderful season of Christmas!