Merry Christmas

I've gotten some complaints about this plan, but I'd like to explain a little more.

This year I'm not sending out Christmas cards. I know. I know. I know.
But I'm so stressed. Trying to keep this house ready for showings is really wearing on me. I'm surviving, but when I try to add anything to my life I start running, screaming through the house.

I'm going to be sending out "we moved!" announcements when that happens, and you'll have CharlaArts-quality photos in that announcement that you can put on your fridge and smile about. But the Christmas card I made over a month ago isn't getting printed and addressed.

So now, without further ado, here is the 2012 Virkler Family Christmas Card.

(linked to the template to make Christmas cards like this ;) )

Carols

I love Christmas music.
Yes, this is the same person who, when I first met Josh, couldn't handle listening to any of it. Years of working retail and hearing the same few songs sung 18 different ways soured me for awhile. I could only handle "White Christmas" and "Do you hear what I hear" so many times before I snapped.

But now that memories of slicing rye bread until 10 p.m. are dim, I play Christmas music nonstop from Thanksgiving to Christmas day. But it's MY music, not the radio.

We're now up to 290 songs and 17 hours of music in the Christmas playlist. I split it in half: one half for the computer, the other half on my iPod. That way I make sure the variety keeps going.

But it still doesn't guarantee anything. I did a little looking last night and discovered a fun almost-countdown:



There are 10 versions of What Child Is This/Greensleeves.
8 versions of O Come All Ye Faithful (one is in Latin)
6 songs mentioning the word "night"
5 recordings on Joy to the world
Two versions of  O Come, O Come Emmanuel
3 (The) Christmas Songs
The Halls are Decked twice
and ONE "Hippopotamus"

*photos are from last year. I haven't taken fun ones yet. They'll be coming.

Gingerbread Houses

I took Jasmine grocery shopping with me last week. She's fun to shop with!
We saw a display of Wilton Gingerbread Houses. They're already put together, which at first felt like cheating, until I remembered who I'd be working with. It was a good decision to buy it pre-made! They hardly had the patience to wait for me to mix up the frosting!
We had a great time, though, but now they're anxious to eat it. I'm trying to warn them that it might not be edible, but they are hopeful.

(linked to the template in my store)

Christmas Tree Time

We celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend, so we did the same thing as last year and headed out to get our tree on Thanksgiving Day. This year we went with Josh's mom, since his dad is in Texas (which is why we celebrated early).

The only problem was, we assumed the tree farm we went to last T-day would be open this year. Apparently they weren't hosting dinner this year, so they weren't there. Which we found out after driving 50 minutes.

We headed back home, and on the way saw a sign for another place that was open!
He was friendly and the farm was huge. We picked a perfect tree and Josh cut it himself (tip: use new blades on the saw when cutting a tree. It takes 5 minutes instead of 30!)

We were more careful not to go nuts this year size-wise. It's still tall, but not as insanely so as last year's.
I didn't take my camera, choosing to play with the iPad's capabilities instead. I overdid the actions a bit but it was fun anyhow!

Hudson found a tree just his size!

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas weekend (and it's not even done yet!)

Just a glimpse:

Hudson proved that boys are, indeed, different than girls. He likes to brush my hair...but today used his plastic saw to do so.
His favorite toy is definitely the "bammer" that came with aforementioned saw.

Jasmine finally has a Kewpie Doll so she knows what her nickname means.

Bekah's loving her tutu made by a friend of mine.

Josh is enjoying my Tetris game ;) Not as much as I am, though!!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas

Josh is upstairs right now, wrapping my presents.

This is the one time of year when being oblivious pays off. I love that I can tune out things (um, though for once I can pretend I do it on purpose!) so Christmas morning is a surprise.
I guess I took mom's story about sneaking in early to see her presents, and being so disappointed the next day, stuck with me. I never wanted that disappointment.

Of course then things happen, like the receipt from Pacific Chai shows up in our mailbox, after Josh tries so hard to keep it all under wraps (having it shipped to the office so I wouldn't see it, ordering it online when I wasn't nearby).
But those just make for good "do you remember" stories years later!

Merry Christmas!!

From Josh, Charla, Jasmine, Bekah (Boo) and Hudson!

Dear Santa

Conversation yesterday morning:

Me: Bekah, what will you ask Santa for when you see him today?
Bekah: um.....
Me: Last year we talked about this. You can ask him for something you're hoping we'll give you on Christmas. What are you hoping you'll get this year?
Bekah: Last year we asked for a Leapster cartridge. Will he have any this year?
Me: No, that's not the point. He won't give you any of these things today. He's just asking so your parents hear what you really want for Christmas. So what would you like to ask for?
Bekah: um...
Me: What did you ask Auntie Charity for last week?? You could ask him for that.
Bekah: Oh! An Ariel doll!
Me: There you go!

Who had any idea this was such a complex concept??

So...off we went.

See all that lovely sunshine?? It was gorgeous, until it started to hurt. Today is day two of having to avoid the sun, and all noise, in hopes of avoiding a full-blown migraine. I lost the battle yesterday and am nervous that I'm not doing so well today, either.

...but it makes for cool pictures.

(I really wonder. if I ever live in Florida, will I be nearly so obsessed with sun flare? is it just because I live in a place that sees so little sunshine...54 days of sunshine, 103 days of partial sunshine. That's 157 days seeing any sun at all. And 209 days with overcast days. According to this site)

Wow. I'm seriously all over the map today.

So back to our Santa trip.

It was bitter cold, like it always is when we go see Santa.

 The line wasn't terribly long, but it's slow-moving.

Almost as slow-moving as a caboose on a track barely longer than the train car.

Do you ever feel guilty when you're letting your child do something, another child tries to join them, and his mom yells at him to come back?

I do, ever-so-slightly. But then I knew my kids weren't doing anything unsafe, and it made for good pictures, so I just felt bad for that kid.

Closer to inside the caboose...

And finally inside, where it was a bit warmer, and thankfully out of the wind and intense sun.

(those little Christmas lights are lanterns. How cool is that in a caboose??)

(Have I ever said I love cabooses?? Ever since I can remember, I loved seeing cabooses on the back of Dad's model trains. They just look so happy and cute, and they say someone was paying attention to the fact that it was the end of the train. I love them.)

Then on to Santa's lap. Our kids are some of the only ones who dress up, so every year he and his elf/photographer ask if we're going to a party! They close the door so the kids don't freeze for the picture, since we take off their coats for the picture.

Jasmine and Bekah did tell him they wanted the dolls they asked Auntie Charity for. But then he threw a curve ball...what else did they want?? They weren't ready for that question, so he asked if they wanted to be surprised. They thought that sounded good.

Are we the only family in the world who doesn't have their kids write long "wish lists" every year??? Between not watching any TV, not getting catalogs, and just not shopping unless we actually need something, none of us knows what's available out there. It's lovely!

Anyways.

Last night, we went to the County Fairgrounds to see the light show/activities there. Last time we went, Hudson was still in my belly and Bekah rode in a stroller. And probably slept.

This year, they all loved it.

They had a chance to write a letter to Santa. Again, the normal thing to do is write out the list of what they wanted. Here's what Bekah narrated (she wanted to write it but didn't want to take the time, so she finally let me do it)

I love it!!

Hudson insisted on writing his own...

...but eventually let me add a note. If you add their address, they'll get a letter back at some point, so I didn't want him to be the only one not to get one.

Bekah was quite concerned that it didn't come back out the bottom of the mailbox. It took awhile to get her to realize that this is the only way Santa will be able to see it!

Totally unrelated to Santa at all, I promised Charity that I'd add this picture to the blog so she could see it. Learning more techniques with Christmas lights :)

25 days of pictures

The girls and I are working on taking a picture a day that's at least somehow Christmas-related each day of December. We're using Debbie Hodge's list  to keep the ideas fresh :)

Yesterday, December 1st, was "red."
Here's my take:

And Jasmine's:

Bekah did one too:

(Jasmine said this was too pink, but I said it was cool enough to call it red :) )


Today is "list." I'm the only one to do one, at least at this point!

And it's the perfect segue into our fun project from yesterday:
We came up with a new version of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

I won't write out the whole song...you know how it goes.
But here's the list:

12 marching penguins
11 Pookie answers
10 children sailing
9 veggies bailing
8 tweedle beetles
7 silly eaters
6 sweet princesses
5 Chompo bars
4 signs from Aslan
3 hungry bunnies
2 bad mice
...and a pigeon who must not drive the bus!!

Christmas Tree, Part II

We celebrated Thanksgiving early with Josh's family, and a day late with my family. So the day of, we decided to go look for our tree.

And can I just tell you how glad I am that we didn't choose one of the less-than-ideal ones we saw last weekend??
Because it was perfect. A tad chilly, and more than a little muddy, but a huge selection of beautiful trees.

We ended up with a Concolor Fir, we think. It looks pretty green in the house, but compared to the other ones at the fam, it's much more blue-gray. And it smells like citrus!! It's gorgeous!

(picture taken by Charity with my camera)
And, um, huge.

(picture taken by Charity)

We found out when the farm owner helped us get it on the house: he had a chainsaw. Josh didn't need to cut it down by hand. We just look at it as his exercise for the weekend!

(picture taken by Charity)

 ****

And now, a brief commercial break 

I've decided to join in on the "Small Business Saturday/CyberMonday" sales going on, and put my entire etsy store on sale! Everything is 20% off. Feel free to tell your friends!! And if you're not already, you can like my Facebook page and hear about new products, since I rarely think to mention them here!!

****

We are now all decked out. I haven't found a place for the beautiful nativity from Josh's grandma, but everything else is out!

The tree grew when we got home.
The angel has less than an inch of head room. The tree takes over the entire section of the room. It's HUGE!! You really lose perspective when you're outside among so many trees, even though we tried to compare it against Josh's height.
But it fits, and it's beautiful. And the house smells GOOOOOOD!!

So now to find new owners for our old artificial trees!!

Searching for a Tree...Part One

We've decided to get a real tree this year.
I'm excited. I've never had a real tree. We've always been an artificial tree family.
Josh grew up with real ones, but we always had pre-lit artificial trees since we got married (he's not a fan of dealing with strings of lights. Needless to say, we don't put lights on the house, either).
But the tree we had last year was, well, missing some lights.

So we decided to try a real one this year!

All the nurseries in our county don't open until the day after Thanksgiving. Which would normally be fine, but we're celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday, so that puts it one day later. And since it was warm this weekend, it seemed like a good time to get out and look for a tree. So we found a place online that was out of the county but not too far away, and decided to give them a try. Cheap, easy-going, and they had free-range eggs and some vegetables advertised as well.

We invited Charity to come with us on our adventure and headed out. Off to find a tree...

....and make friends with a "meow"...

Hudson found a cute one. It will be a nice Charlie Brown tree in about 5 years!


So we kept walking.

And we walked.

And walked. And walked.

We went through their whole property. There were some lovely trees that would have put Clark Griswald's to shame. Wisely, we kept looking.

(Look at that sunflower, Mommy! It's the biggest flower I've ever seen! It looks like it's showering on me!)

Tired, hat-haired, and out of luck, we all decided we would be better off waiting and going to a more official nursery next weekend.

so...like all good "part one"s...this is...

To Be Continued

Christmas Realizations

1. The Goodberry family just isn't normal, and that's all there is to it.

(Goodberry being the family I (Charla) grew up in)
Other families leave it as "Love, Joy, Peace." Not us. This is the annual display on the mantle.

2.  Kids can get completely overwhelmed with gift-opening. Especially 20-month-olds.

3. I'm wondering how long until I can find my floor and any table space again.

4. Cookbooks are fun. Especially Pioneer Woman's. I've already made one recipe...twice...YUMMMM!

5. This is my first Christmas since 2003 that I haven't been either pregnant or nursing (Hudson led the weaning process 1 1/2 weeks ago).
Side note: I averaged 24 months a child (in how long they nursed). I'm very excited!

6. It's time to get back to cleaning and finding a patch of floor...

7. After I upload our Christmas song on YouTube. Want to hear what the Salutation Carol sounds like? Click here!

Jasmine's time to shine!

Tonight we took the kids out driving to see the Christmas lights. On the way, Jasmine mentioned something about the Christmas story, so I asked her to tell me the story.
She did.
I melted.
So when we got home, I had her tell it again.
She told it two ways.

A Little People pageant:



and told using words she might have heard once or twice:


(if you're reading this in Feedblitz, you may need to click through to watch the videos. I'm not sure if it ever lets videos come directly in.)

santa

Last week we met Santa. We had to talk to the girls about what they were supposed to do when they met him. When I told them he'd ask what they wanted for Christmas, they remembered that last year he'd given them a candy cane and a pencil, so they told me that's what they'd tell him.
So I tried to explain that he's asking what they'd like to get on Christmas day...something like a Leapster cartridge??
They thought that sounded like a good idea, but then they thought it meant they'd be walking home with their requested gifts.
So more discussion was needed.
We stood out in the cold and wind for about 20 minutes, plus another 15-20 inside the caboose where Santa sits. My camera didn't enjoy it any more than the kids did, and I'm having a little problem with it, though nothing horrendous.
But they enjoyed the visit!

When we were walking out, Bekah said, "that wasn't scary at all!"


...so I didn't take many pictures this week, because I was nervous I'd find out something was actually physically wrong with my camera. (the focal point won't move from the spot on the right, so I'm having a tough time setting up shots).
But I decided it was time to give it a try today, so after the kids had their bath, I got them all dressed up in matching clothes and set up my little 'studio.'

 

(I loved this last one. I asked the kids to go get their three dolls. The girls obliged, but Hudson decided to leave his Abby upstairs and instead bring in this noisy toy. I love the girls' body language in the shot!)