Monday, January 6, 2014

Nativity Play

Our homeschooling group organized an Epiphany Party this year complete with a Nativity Play.  It was great to all come together and celebrate Christmas together, especially for the dads who never get to see any of these people!  All of the moms laughed and joked about what a disaster the play was sure to be, owing to the fact that we had only practiced it twice and well, it's a bunch of four and five year olds!  But it actually turned out to be quite a success.  I had a small part to play (innkeeper-- No room here!), but after that I managed to get some pictures and video.

Lucy was the archangel Gabriel, and she is so excited to start that she can't even look at me.

The angel appearing to Mary.


Mary and Joseph taking that long trip to Bethlehem

Charlie was a shepherd

Here he is with the other shepherds, guarding their flocks by night






 Videos:










Christmas

In which I try my best to get a Christmas picture of my children at 11:30pm after opening presents.  Not bad considering the circumstances!








 Our Charlie-proofed Christmas tree.


We opened Christmas presents Christmas Eve before Midnight Mass, Christmas morning, and Christmas evening.  Thanks to all for your generosity!










Here are some videos of the kids open presents for the grandparents:
A globe!
Peekaboo boxes-- Open!


 Charlie can reach up and into drawers now... oh my.  He was very very quiet and I came back find out why.

 Here is Peter enjoying one of his Christmas gifts-- a mirror!



It snowed again!!




 Lucy drew a picture of me and her eating cereal with poinsettias on the table.  I just love it.  We don't have any poinsettias so maybe this is a hint?

All in all, we had a great Christmas.  We miss all of our family and friends "back home," and so enjoyed getting cards and packages.  We've been celebrating the Christmas season with many little fun nights at home.  We even went to a New Years Eve Party and actually stayed up until midnight!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!


December


Apparently November was uneventful, or perhaps too eventful (Charlie had pneumonia) and so here we are in December.  As early as November, Lucy started sighing and saying, "It just HAS to snow."  After a lot of waiting, it finally did. 


 Poor Charlie was that little boy from the movie the Christmas story who can't move his arms because he was so tightly bundled.  Except in Charlie's case, he couldn't sit up.

 Charlie got very excited when our friend the rooster came to visit.  Someone in our neighborhood has an illegal rooster, and for several weeks he really liked hanging out near our house.  He came to visit on this snowy day.  After he came, Charlie was only interested in getting closer and closer to the rooster.


Despite her Wisconsin heritage, Lucy made it all the way until four years old before her first snowman.

 Charlie enjoys playing a game we call blind man's bluff.  He puts Lucy's hat on which covers his eyes and then walks around running into things and laughing.

 This year, we decided to celebrate St. Lucy's day by having a little party that Lucy helped me organize.  She chose the people she wanted to invite (within reason), wrote and delivered invitations, helped decide what to serve, helped me bake, cleaned the house, and then served guests drinks.  Here is a picture she made of St. Lucy with her mother and father.

Kneading the dough for braided Lucia bread.


Lucy wearing her "Lucia crown" which we made out of paper with the finished Lucia bread.  It was a great night, and a friend of ours even made her a beautiful St. Lucy doll.
 

While James worked on finishing his final papers, Lucy and I worked on a few Christmas presents for friends.  As we started to make granola for Lucy's atrium teacher, Lucy announced "I am going to be really good at this!"


Just reading.




 Playing in a box :-)


September October

 All it takes is for at least five people to ask me why I haven't updated the blog in forever to actually do it!

In late September, we finally made it to one of our favorite places: Butler's Orchard.  Though we missed berry season, we made up for it with apples.









Charlie was much happier that he looks in the pictures.  He loves apples! 


Lucy took her very first ballet class this fall.  A mom in our homeschooling co-op offered a six-week course, and Lucy had a blast.

She was so very very very happy on the first day, and I caught this little video of her after she came home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjXGE7GMQQk&feature=youtu.be 




 On Halloween morning we made it out to a pumpkin patch, complete with corn maze and animals.
 



 Meeting the chickens


 Charlie hates socks and shoes.  It was a rather warm day (Lucy just likes wearing hoods, it wasn't really cold enough to warrant it), so I pick my battles.






 Lucy was sad that we couldn't take a hay ride (there were hay rides, but only for school groups-- lame), so we improvised!



Lucy wanted to be a flower for Halloween.  Rather tricky to make a flower costume, so we turned it into a pot of flowers.  Charlie liked buzzing for bees in books, so it seemed a natural fit!

 And Peter was a pumpkin.


 We trick-or-treated with a few families on our street.  The kids had a great time despite a little rain, and the candy lasted until December!