decorations

This year we finally graduated to a full-sized tree. It's fake, but it is taller than 3 ft. I'm glad we went with the shatter-proof ornaments - I'll save the glass for a less exciting year.  The activity advent has moved to a home of it's own home. Highlights of some of our activities coming next . . .














The kids have really gotten into decorating their own rooms.  The boys opted for snowflakes and ornaments on their window - they had a little help with the tree - and peppermint lights.  The giant penguin snow globe complete with motion-detector-triggered music is a huge hit - thanks Oma.  Katie made each of the kids' rooms a Christmas countdown sheet, so they can cross of the days until Christmas.  She is also very particular about the other decorations in her room - she designed the 'HO HO HO' on her door, and has blue snowflake lighst and a miniature lighted Christmas tree in her room.

Also, she (well, I might have had some input there) decided that every door needed a wreath, so everybody picked out their ribbon and bows.  I may need a tutorial from a more accomplished bow maker, but these worked for the under 5 crowd this year.

the rest of december

Technically it's February, but it still FEELS like Christmas since we have a little snow and it's FREEZING (as in -6F outside today, or colder than it was most of the winter in Finland!) I figured we'd play catch up here.

Lots more craft projects to keep our friends off the streets - the boys actually liked making the reindeer.

Alex and Katie each had 'holiday' programs at preschool, but apparently I only took pictures at one. Alex was that kid in his own little world, doing the actions to his own rhythm. 'Jingle Bells' continues to be his song of the moment.

The train show pretty much sealed the deal for electric trains in the house this year. Roger tried to resist, but in the end the Circus Train was too much for him to say no: one car has an elephant that ducks down below a gate, another has two clowns that chase each other around a freight car, and the caboose is decorated with . . . TIGERS! The guy at the train store was pretty much horrified that the primary driver of this vintage train is 3.5 years old, but he hasn't seen this conductor in action. After the initial set up, the boys added a circus in one loop, Christmas tree decorations in the other, and Thomas in a loop around the outside. Train mania continues.

Katie made presents for her brothers again this year. The excavator shirt was Alex's favorite present. I have to admit that 4 is probably too early for doing a latchhook, but she pulled the hook for a number of rows by herself, and then read the graph and gave me the right colors to do for 50% of the tiger.

When Grandmother and Granddad were out visiting, the kids all picked out fabric for RV quilts. The are all completely in love with them!

I tried to make more useful presents this year, with limited success. Last year's quiet books get minimal use, although the hats and mittens were favorites. Alex's sweater -finished Christmas morning at 6 am - will probably fit him well next year. Max's sweater turned out cute and he will actually wear it - a win! I had grand plans to make Katie and Summer matching dresses, and luckily Oma had all her projects finished ahead of time because the pattern Katie picked out was RIDICULOUS. But at least it was also crazy cute. Next year maybe I'll start in August with my psycho plans!

the first half of december

The activities are underway! This year, I wanted the advent calendars to have more doo-dads than candy - except for mine, which is mainly Lindt, because I'm me. Some favorites: Max loves the dinosaur key chain that growls, the blue koosh ball and his Snoopy socks; Katie likes everything pretty much equally, but has YET to show any interest in the glitter glue!; Alex likes the cars and the croaking frog key chain. Now they aren't even interested in the candy. I might have created a problem for myself.

We went to the Christmas lights at the Botanical Gardens. FREEZING cold, but so fun! I love Christmas lights! The warming hut had a little craft for the kids and 3 live birds with their handlers to talk about them.

I loved the lights so much, the next night I went to the lights at the Botanical Gardens downtown with some friends. SO GORGEOUS!

AND I got the coolest glasses ever. These pictures don't do them justice, but they turn the lights into snowflakes, snowmen and reindeer. The snowflakes are my favorites. We keep them in the car for when we're driving around at night. Best $4.50 I ever spent.

We did gingerbread houses with some friends this year. They all had such different decorating styles. Most of the candy did actually make it onto the houses - well, at least 50%. Meringue powder is my new favorite cooking item - much tighter frosting than the batch I made with actual egg whites.
This past weekend we went to 'Santa's Workshop' one night and the parade of lights the next. Who knew Longmont actually had live reindeer running around? Katie wanted to visit Santa - the boys wanted mom to come along. There were tons of craft tables set up in the gym of the Memorial Building: Katie wanted to do them all, and the boys opted mainly for playing with the blocks. To each his own.

Lots of our activities so far from the ornament advent calender have been craft - making bead ornaments of various shapes, glitter snowflakes, and glue trees. The hot chocolate party has become a daily request. I found peppermint candy-cane straws on our trip to Hammond's Candies.

We finger painted some wrapping paper to cover our packaging needs.

Now, with any luck, this week I might get some dipping done!

a few christmas highlights

Lots of visitors. The kids had a hard time getting used to just mom after all the fun with Julie, Andrew, Tom, Liz, Mark and Grandma Dorothy. Mag, Kalle and Summer had a surprise layover on New Year's Day, but we were too busy playing to take any pictures.
New train stuff - there are those who might argue that this was really for mom.

Lots of trucks.










A Flamenco dancer outfit for the queen of pink.

Tie dying with Aunt Lizard.

Alex opened all of his presents with the help of Alfie the Excavator car. An excavator hasn't been far from his hands since.

christmas

Here are a few pictures from Christmas. Better late than never, eh?

Christmas Eve we opened presents from Grandmother and Grandpa Young. Katie LOVES her vest and has even slept in it a number of nights. This is particularly impressive, since I can rarely convince her to agree to wear something new. There's a fluffy pink poncho I finished knitting about two months ago that she still refuses to even try on! Max's quilt is adorable - it has little sheep stitched on the top.

Before we went to bed we put out 'reindeer food' that a friend gave us and Katie called 'reindeer, oh reindeer' to make sure that Santa's friends would know to come to Oma's house and have a treat when they got there.


The theme Christmas Day was mainly 'if Katie opened it, Alex wants to play with it' and vice versa. Alex really likes the doll house and enjoyed trying to sit on the picnic table, which believe me is not built to support his fine physique. Katie really likes Alex's Automoblix cars - we lost the rubber off one of the tires on Christmas day, but otherwise all the pieces are still intact over one whole week later!

These pjs really say it all: 'What Santa doesn't bring, grandma will!'

Max was blessed on Sunday, December 28th. The Reeses are trying to introduce some tall genes into the gene pool through the additions of Roger and Kalle, but I never really realize how short we are as a bunch until we're all together in a picture. Do I really only come up to Roger's shoulder?





Apparently, Alex is not quite ready to give up the plug. Let's put that on the top of his list of goals for 2009.

And here is Max carrying on a very important tradition . . .

'Tis the season . . .

The season for maximum torture for Alex has officially begun! We put up the tree downstairs at Oma's on Thanksgiving. Man did Alex's eyes light up when he saw those lights come out of the box!


The Christmas decorations went up at our house the day after Thanksgiving. Alex went down for a nap, and then woke up and saw tons of new things to explore. A tree with lights and sparkly glass objects, books with shiny covers, balls covered with glitter, an advent calendar with ornaments whose pockets are just within reach. All things that are accompanied by the word 'NO.'


Today I decided to complete the torture process: the candy advent calendars are now in play. Go figure - the concept of one candy each day might be a tad advanced for Captain Handsome. Luckily, his mother the genius left out a bowl with miniature Reese's peanut butter cups on the table that worked out just fine to satisfy his post-lunch chocolate craving. At least he put the wrappers back in the bowl instead of spreading them all over the table. The fun is just beginning! I haven't even tried to dip with him running around yet . . .

(In case you're wondering, the reindeer on the advent calendar does indeed poop out the candies - while singing, no less!)

thanksgiving is coming . . .

Thanksgiving is coming, so this naturally means . . . time to figure out the candy list for this year! The old standbys will be showing their faces - toffee, chews, dipped caramels - but I'm looking for some new truffle flavors. Or new candies to make in general. I really liked the raspberry truffles last year, so I think those ones make the cut again for this year. If you have any ideas for fun flavors - or new candies to try - hit me with them in the comments. Otherwise, let the voting begin!

image from Sweet Lu Cake Shop

time travel

picture from imageshack

Well, Mag was right once again.

While Mag was out here visiting us when Max hatched, she took a night off from ‘baby dancing’ to go down to Denver and hang out with some friends. When she got back she said they had spent a good amount of time playing Rock Band. I had the passing thought ‘What the? Are you guys 14-year-old boys or something?’

Mag, I ask your forgiveness.

Thursday mom came up and watched the kids, so Roger and I dined and then cruised Best Buy. Rog was looking for some boring computer thing for work, when my ears picked out the tones of Billy Idol’s White Wedding off in the distance. So I went a wandering. Rock Band, huh? Well, let’s just see what this is all about. I am no good on the drums. But the guitar? I’M A NATURAL! Roger and I played a few rounds, and would have probably closed the store down but we didn’t want to kill off mom entirely.

Friday night we headed up to Boulder to hang out with Oma and Opa – WRONG! We went up there to play Mark’s GUITAR HERO! When dad got home, he asked what we were up to. Katie’s response: ‘Mom and dad are rockin’ out.’That’s right, Katie. I can still rock.

Roger was going to put Guitar Hero on his wish list, until I KICKED HIS BUTT! Even on some ridiculous song by Poison. POISON! Seriously? Yeah, I nailed it. I just tried the ‘easy’ level, but did try medium on a little Pat Benetar ditty and STILL nailed it! All those years of violin lessons paid off after all. I guess it will have to go on my wish list – maybe when we draw names for the Reese family people will be feeling generous. Or just do a combined present for Roger and I. It’s just a suggestion . . .

NOW who’s the 14 year old boy?

end of christmas

Oh sadness. Today I put away the Christmas decorations. The table where the tree was looks so empty now. I already miss looking at the advent calendar over on the silly wall. At least we have some pictures, right?

We spent Christmas in Colorado with the Reeses. Katie decided to move in to Oma's house a few days earlier. When we were getting ready to go home Sunday night - Christmas Eve eve - we asked Katie if she wanted to come home with us or stay at Oma's, and she promptly replied 'bye bye Mama, bye Dad!' We could here the 'Don't let the door hit you on your way out' in the background. As you can see from the photo album, we now have a toy store for Katie and Alex to play with. Now where to put it all, so that Roger doesn't do a toy audit!

The day after Christmas we drove down to New Mexico to spend some time with Roger's folks. What a drive! The kids did great, in spite of their colds. It was nice to spend some time with Granddad and Grandmother. Hopefully we didn't infect them while we were there. I was up a couple of nights with each kiddo - separately at least - with the flu, but now that we're home everyone seems to be on the mend.

Now that we're getting things back to normal, I guess it's time to start thinking about 'areas for improvement' for the new year . . . but we'll think about that another day.

more getting into Christmas

We continue to ramp up the Christmas mood around here. Holiday movies are of course fun and festive. Making sugar cookies and candy with one of Kari's Christmas mixes playing in the background is essential, if not somewhat backbreaking.

Something I really look forward to every year is going to the Christmas concert of the Colorado Mormon Chorale. A huge part of that is going to see my father sing, but it really struck me this year how much the Chorale's concert really helps put me in the Christmas spirit. This year was extra fun because Katie got to come and share it. She loves music, but even more so when it's being sung by her Opa. I'm so happy that she could see him sing. This year was a nice mix of carols, primarily traditional but with a couple of wild cards thrown in as well. This year's African carol added some nice energy. It's so nice to go to a Christmas event where the focus of the activity is actually on the birth of the Savior.

I kept thinking throughout the concert that it was at one of dad's concerts that I first met the fellow who would eventually marry my sister. I remember coming up on them from the back, and thinking 'Wow! They already look like each other! Time is not going to make them morph into looking like the same person any more than they do right now.' What a great guy she found to be her partner.

If only she lived closer to help me wrap presents! And I mean wrap - I don't have enough pillow cases for all of the kiddos' goodies!

hooray for tivo

This morning I got to share another Christmas tradition with Katie, thanks to the magic of Tivo: we watched Uncle Dave reprise his role as Hermy in the classic claymation 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' Roger hates it, but it's one of my favorites, although I have to admit that the Heat Meizer does one of my favorite song and dance routines of all time.

Any favorite videos that won't be missed this year?

getting into Christmas

Here's where we see I am no photographer, and am also seriously lacking in the patience it would take to become such. Younce got me thinking about Christmas traditions, and so here we are. This year I was HOPING that Katie would be old enough to be excited about the ornament-a-day advent calendar, and I was right! At least so far. She likes to reach into the pockets, and is quite particular - SURPRISE! - about where she wants the ornaments to be hung on the tree. I like that this calendar is basically the same as the one we had when I was growing up, with just a few small changes to make it our own. Sewing sequins all over the place really did provide the effect I was looking for, although it took forever. I'd still like to do something more with the background to make it look like it's snowing, but I haven't come across any small snowflake-type sequins, and adding clear ones to make it sparkle just seemed like it would be more of what was already done on the tree. This was one of my favorite things growing up, and it's fun to be able to start this tradition with my own little family.

We found a good spot this year to put out part of the nativity set. It's fun to watch Katie check out the figurines and go over the Christmas story as we look at them all. It's also nice to have a visual reminder of the real reason for this season.

It's also fun to go out with Katie looking for 'Christmas Houses.' We took a meandering route home from the park the other evening - Captain Handsome had a long nap, so we were late making it outside. But it did provide a good excuse, albeit a bit nippy out, to go and check out some Christmas lights. I love that Katie gets excited to see Christmas lights, and all the kitschy stuff that people put in their yards. The cheesy gigantic blow-up deals are her absolute favorite!

I would like to copy Younce and make stockings that are unique and representative of each member of our family. Outside of Seven, however, I'm still just not certain what the theme of each stocking would be. Interests change. How do I figure out what Katie and Alexander will be into years from now? Or even myself and Roger for that matter. I'd probably be safe with ribs and a smoker on Roger's stocking. If I made a sock for Katie this minute, there would be dolls, trains, books, and M&Ms on hers. Alexander's would be covered in something drippy and gooey. Hopefully that will not always be the case! Harder still for me to do something that isn't just copied off of a pattern.

So, what are your favorite Christmas traditions? And . . . What would YOU put on a stocking for anyone in my family?!