Christmas in Stories and Pictures

First, a few precious morsels:

Talking to Jasmine, after church
Me: Did you sing?
Jasmine: No, I was being a little bit cute.

And a few minutes later
Jasmine: can we listen to more songs?
Me: I'm sorry, we're done singing now.
Jasmine: NO! I want to listen to more songs!


Christmas day, after lunch
Jasmine met Josh coming downstairs
Jasmine: Fank you, LORD.
Josh: for what?
Jasmine: for you!


Can you recognize this song?
dat day de Christmas
long time de me
pantry de de pantry

Posing for whoever had the camera at that moment (my brothers all wanted to give it a spin!)


Enjoying the church service:


My Christmas Dress (a splurge):

Josh in his Christmas Finery (a washable leather shirt!!)


Christmas Breakfast (scrambled eggs and bacon, mom's delicious breakfast bread):

Opening her present from Jasmine (a Veggie Tales memory-type game):

Helping daddy open his present:

In theory, our new Christmas jammies are a Christmas Eve present. But Bekah fell asleep before the church service ended, so we waited 'til Christmas evening instead.


(answer to the song Jasmine's been singing: The Twelve Days of Christmas (she only sings the first day, though))

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

Pictures coming in a day or two...


Here is my family on Christmas Eve:

Blizzard 2008

My friend in South Carolina invited us to come spend Christmas with her. At this point it's very tempting.

You'd really think I was used to this nasty, cold white stuff...but no.

I have a few pictures of what I can see from inside the house. I haven't been out since Thursday and wouldn't mind staying indoors until we leave for my midwife's appointment and then Christmas Eve celebration with my family on Wednesday. This is some of what I've seen or now see:
Like the angle of the snow? It was even more horizontal Sunday morning!!


The wind created a ramp on both sides of the fence to "jump" over its hurdle. It's a good 4 feet deep at its peak. There are piles by the side of the driveway that are close to Josh's height (i.e. 6 feet).

Yup, all the windows looked like this. On all sides of the house.

He did actually get out late this morning. I don't know how long it took him to shovel his car out, though!

And here's me today, at 23 weeks. Mom says I'm carrying differently this time around...I just know that I'm still out front, the way I always am!

Christmas, Part One (in pictures)

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with Josh's family. We all had a wonderful time and a delicious feast after all the gift-giving!
Here are a few pictures of the day:

My gift:



"Twinkies":

The poofy skirts from Josh's Grandma:

"I'm not a princess. I'm ballerina!"

And cheating...these are from a few days ago!

Advent Calendar and Trees

I made the girls an advent calendar! we bought one years ago that Jasmine's finally old enough to enjoy, but I thought it would be cool to make one that would be even more personal.



They love it!! It's also a great way to "refresh" their memories on out-of-state family members, since they only see my brothers and sisters-in-law a couple times a year (*sniff*)

And...I think I'm going to make a statement I likely won't turn away from next year.
We're going to take a year or two off of putting up the Christmas tree. When we put it up this year, we made sure the fragile ornaments were on the top or on a different tree (I have a tiny tree on the armoire with ornaments from Josh's grandma that are beautiful and very thin glass...I don't even want to THINK about them breaking!) But I hadn't thought it all the way through, and the girls have been pulling off ornaments daily and playing with the hooks that hold them on the tree. No thank you!!! That, and butchering the garland. So I moved everything to the top half of the tree. Talk about ridiculous-looking!



The only reason there are lights all the way down is because this is a pre-lit tree!

So I want to put this picture up for all to see, and so that I can look at it next November and realize that we don't want to go through that again next year. Yes, I know I could spend the whole month taking them back from the girls and punishing them for disobeying, but it's so incredibly stressful. And they know that, when I'm in my shower or making dinner, I can't stop them. So it's just not worth it. I can't enjoy the tree at all this year!

(edit: there's no way I could go without a tree at Christmastime. I know we'll just find a way to blockade it like we did when the girls were little. It's just overwhelming to think of right now. Hormones are running rampant this pregnancy and my emotions are INSANE!)

Done grumbling. I'm loving the music and the joy in the girls' eyes when we turn another door on their advent calendars, and listening to Jasmine talk about Jesus being born in a barn. And that's what it's about!

If you're still doing your shopping...

Sears is a good place to go!

Not only are they a store that actually recognizes Christmas, but I got this from an email and it definitely makes me want to shop there (though it's not usually my favorite store)

(verified by Snopes)I know I needed this reminder since Sears isn't always my first choice. Amazing when you think of how long the war has lasted and they haven't withdrawn from their commitment. Could we each buy at least one thing at Sears this year?

How does Sears treat its employees who are called up for military duty? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up.

Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus pro grams, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years.

I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution. I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.

A non-scrapping project: finished!

I learned how to crochet back when I was working at JoAnn's. I figured it would help me answer questions about yarn and hooks better if I had some clue what they were. I've made a handful of simple things (I have never taken the time to do the whole gauge-thing, so I only do things that don't matter in exact size, like afghans and potholders!) but it's a fun, calming project.

Well, calming before I had kids. The girls think the yarn is too cool to pass up, so Jasmine spent time pulling yarn out of the skein to "help" me. I think I'll put away my hooks again for a few years. Someday I can crochet again. And do jigsaw puzzles, too. Ahhh, what a lovely thought.

Anyways, I wanted to show off the finished product.


If anyone is curious about the pattern, it can be found here. I used three strands at the same time and a Q hook, which made it come together much more quickly. It also looks nothing at all like the pattern. I may try with the leftover scraps and a small hook, just to see if it's my crocheting or the fact that it's 3 strands (or is it both?) that changes the way it looks. But I Love it! It's heavy(in a good way; I do live in the Northeast!) and matches our living room well!!