Sunday, December 28, 2008

Early morning quiet

I am enjoying a quiet morning moment. I have my warm, cuddly boy in my arms, wrapped in his favorite blanket. Pippa is sitting at the table with a dot-to-dot and enjoying some hot cocoa. I'm letting Phil sleep - we are enjoying the luxury of vacation. 

Soon the house will be busy with life - kids clamoring for breakfast, Phil and Dad wanting their coffee. We will be getting ready to go out into the cold world, but for the moment the whole house is wrapped in quiet, like a big fuzzy blanket. 

Friday, December 26, 2008

Christmas Revelries

Pippa gets her favorite Christmas beverage. Johann and his very patient Best Friend, Thaddeus. 
Juliet and Glady play their new Bakugan game. It's a cross between marbles and math and looks like fun! The hotwheels launcher is Johann's.
Juliet with her new ukelele! She was so excited. 
The girls opening presents. 
This was earlier - Stocking time!

So it's Boxing day... Where does that name come from, anyway? The kids keep asking us and we don't know either! Glady's dancing to her iPod tunes, Juliet is in the living room trying out her Ukelele (who she has named Fruity), and Johann and Pippa are chasing each other thru the house. Phil has run out on an errand or two and I think Dad is hibernating in his room - he got a copper bedwarmer from Nana and he came out this morning to fill it up and I haven't heard from him since. 
Christmas Eve we had a Family get together at our house. Nana and BoPop came here for a change, and we had munchies and chatted and opened a present each. It was very nice to have them over, I think it may be the first time I have entertained them here. The kids certainly enjoyed having them to cuddle up to and talk to. After they went home we looked at the icy rain and scratched the trip to church we had planned. Glady in particular was very disappointed, but the weather has been atrocious and we weren't going to take any chances. We all got into our pj's and cuddled on the couch and Papa read the story of Jesus's birth aloud and answered all the questions the kids had. I think we answer the same questions every year, but they always ask. 

Christmas morning Johann danced around singing "Sinta came! Sinta came!" when he saw the stockings. I must say the jolly old elf outdid himself this years - the girls each got watches and Barbies in theirs, and Johann got hotwheels and lots of playdough. The adults got Lindt chocolate. MMMMMM!

After breakfast (egg-nog french toast) We started to open the gifts under the tree. This year we carefully did one at a time, the girls taking turns playing elf to deliver the gifts. The girls got clothes, and books, and lots of other fun things. Their big gifts from us were an iPod shuffle for Glady, a Ukelele for Juliet, and a CD player for Pippa. It was a musical Christmas! This year we had given the three girls each a budget for one adult each and it was a riot to see waht they got us. Pippa gave me a Fondue pot. Juliet gave Grampa a watch, and a bee that buzzes Jingle Bells, and a hankie. Glady gave her Papa a Nerf N-Strike Tactical Unit - six guns that shoot nerf darts. Oh, boy, was our afternoon interesting!

Dad went up to his folks house in the afternoon, and we all played and napped back here at the house. I started cooking relatively early, as we had missed out on our Thanksgiving Feast and I wanted to make Christmas good. We had stuffed pork roast, yorkshire pudding, Colonial corn pudding, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash with marshmallows on top... it was very yummy! Oh, and Wassail punch from a colonial recipe for "Weaker Wassail" that was suitable for the kids to drink. 

Monday, December 22, 2008

What a morning!

everyone was trying to get out the door at once, Phil to his delayed show, the girls to school (also on delay) and Dad to work. Oh, and before they left, we had to dig 18 inches of snow out of the driveway! So it was a little nuts. Yesterday was quite a snowy day, with lots of very cold wind - a couple of pipes froze on the east side of the house, but they are ok this morning since the wind changed. It's just Johann and I now - I have a ton of work to do so I can't stay on the computer long. I need to clean the house since I've invited Nana and BoPop over on Christmas Eve. We already wrapped most of the gifts, thank goodness. I have some baking to do - not a lot, since I'm not doing a lot this year. And Office stuff, as always - especially since we've lost five shows to the weather this year. I can reschedule most of them to January, so they aren't a total loss... Sigh.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Christmastime is here again


we decorated the tree finally last night! The tree is a colorado spruce Grampa planted in the garden a while back and it had gotten too big - we had to cut it in half to get it in the house! We had planned on having it up last friday but with the ice storm it got frozen to the driveway and it took a couple of days to thaw it out and get it ready! LOL oh, well. The kids had a blast decorating it. We've had small trees for a couple of years now, because of the baby. But he is finally old enough to leave it alone (mostly) and even helped put ornaments on it. The girls love doing this, and we watched Charlie Brown's Christmas while we put them on, and drank egg-nog.