The Day After

Jeremy had to go home and work (yep, his company still ends their fiscal year on Dec. 31st and it's still as fun as always.)  but the rest of us continued the fun with more of my mom's side of the family.

Nicholas and my mom made fiddle sticks earlier this month when she came to stay with him while he was sick so I didn't have to get a sub.  They are fabric covered wire so you can shape it however you want.  Here are some creations.  We also had bingo and Thomas played with his groupies.

There was an ugly sweater cookie decorating contest.  Elias won but was insulted because he doesn't understand ugly sweater cookies.  Oops.

Side note:  You can see Nicholas wearing Augustine's clothes.  Turns out if you put your suitcase in the living room by where you're building Legos instead by the door where you were told to put it, it doesn't get packed in the van.

Julia had a friend's birthday that night and the big boys had wrestling practice the next morning so the four of us headed home and the little boys stayed one more day to play with cousins and G & G.  Sounds like they had a great time.

Christmas Day Festivities

We celebrated the afternoon of Christmas Day at my parents'.

Lynn brought a blast from the past- hot loops!  We spent more time than I care to admit making all the things.  Didn't get a picture of the hot pads.

We had a fun time opening gifts too.  I misplaced (or a kid walked off with?) my camera during adult presents so no documentation of that part.

The girls went buffalo plaid.  Julia started it.

Christmas Morning

Breakfast

Extra loving

Gifts

A lovely morning celebrating our Savior's birth!

As Ready As We're Going to Get

Merry Christmas!

We went to Christmas Eve Mass after visiting Jeremy's extended family at the farm.  Then we went home for our appetizer dinner and a movie.  We let the kids watch Home Alone.  None of them had seen it before. 
Interesting Nicholas note:  He hates watching people be naughty on TV.  So he wouldn't watch Kevin sled down the stairs but thought his antics fighting off the burglars were hilarious. 

My Favorite Hat

They make a lot of hats in 1st grade.  This one is my FAVORITE.  Samuel came home wearing it and it made him seem little again when I was feeling like he was getting so big.  Now I know, 7 is barely the beginning of letting go of them being little.  

Since Nicholas's hat was the last one that will come home I made all of them put it on.  It only sort of worked to make them seem little again.

Food Preparations

are my favorite part of Christmas

.

Julia helped with the cinnamon roll cookies to take to various celebrations.

 Nicholas made the fruit salad for Christmas morning.

Samuel made the Chex mix for snack with my family.

Philip made a new breakfast for us.  Egg and ham cups. 

 Thomas made crab rangoon dip for our Christmas Eve appetizer dinner.  It was a big hit- especially with him!

O Come O Come Emmanuel

Also Wrestling Season

Samuel and Thomas have been enjoying wrestling as usual.  Our team almost doubled this year but is still small.  Having a small team means they are both wrestling varsity.

These pictures are from a variety of meets but here's some highlights:

Samuel made it to the finals at Public this weekend.  You can see him walking across the mat in the middle because they turn off the lights and do spotlights and introduce all the competitors before the finals.  He had to wrestle the number 5 guy and ended up coming in 2nd.  

Public also has a JV tournament.  We don't so much have a JV team because our team is little but most of the freshmen wrestled JV in the tournament so they'd be more evenly matched experience-wise than when they wrestle varsity.  Thomas got 3rd in an 12 man bracket!  It was his best finish ever!

Slower than Usual Preparations

We got out most of our Advent things towards the beginning of Advent but the rest of the decorating just recently got done.

The big boys  got out all the tree parts...and (very helpfully?) made this fortress because we were still cleaning the spot upstairs where the tree goes.

 "It's my Christmas tree jet pack!"

 The proud of how tall he is boy put the tree together.

 Samuel did the lights which was great because someone had to make dinner.

 The littles caught up the Advent calendar.

I think anything that isn't up by now won't get put up this year!

Ho Ho Ho

We went to see Santa as usual.  They did all the things.  Frosty, Rudolph, The Night before Christmas, cookies and telling Santa what they were hoping for.  I left before they sat on Santa's lap to take Samuel to the doctor (bronchitis but he's better now).  Jeremy was in charge of the picture.

DARE Graduation

Julia now knows to say no to drugs.

Lego Fun

The little boys went to see some fun Lego displays with Daddy.

I don't remember what the rest of us were doing!

Lighted Parade

Our town brought back the freezing cold lighted parade.  There was a special elf driving the
John Deere float.

And it wasn't even that cold this year!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

The band concert was very beautiful.  We sat in the bleachers this year so we could see the high schoolers.  Every year Mr. K has each section make a Christmas ornament for his tree.  The clarinets won with their reed star.  All of us non-reed instrument players think it's a little gross but it did look cool.

The elementary program was nice too.  Samuel and Thomas remember doing the same program when they were little.  I didn't remember it but I probably was trying to keep tinys quiet during theirs so that impeded my memory!  We'll have to look through the old videos and see if we can find it!

Oh My Nicholas

Nicholas crawls in bed with me between when the "snuggle alarm" and "get up alarm" go off.  When he walked in one morning and said, "Mom, I feel taller."  I knew it would be a morning full of thoughts.
Nicholas also requires a back scratch every morning.  Jeremy was still in bed this morning, scratched Nick's back and then got up a little before Nick and I had to.  Once he left Nicholas rolled over and whispered to me, "and now for the good back scratch."  He says I have better fingernails.

M:  Everyone under the age of 39 needs to help set the table!
N:  Good thing I'm 60!

(Listening to Christmas carols)
N:  Mom? There is a place like home for the holidays...it's Heaven!

I like my teeth right now.  When I put my tongue through the holes it looks like a gun!

Big brother help with the homework.

Sometimes you have to jazz your homework up to get it done.

When you biggest brother has been super busy and not home much sometimes you get Samuel deprived.  Then you have to spend the better part of the day he is home touching him.  Samuel was a good sport about it.

Family Time

We hadn't seen my family in awhile due to sickness and busyness.  So we spent a weekend with them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Pumpkin and mulberry pies, horn rolls and turkey pumpkin.  All the Thanksgiving things.

Julia is becoming the official horn roll roller.

We spent Thanksgiving with Jeremy's family and I took no pictures but we had fun!

My Kind of Girl

Julia reports she had this conversation on the bus with a classmate:

C: You should download this game on your device, it's really fun!

J: I don't have a device.

C:  You don't?!  What do you do for fun?!

J:  I read.

C:  Reading?  That's so 18th century.

J:  I'm reading an 18th century book right now!

She was pretty proud of her comeback.  She brought home Little Women a couple days before this conversation and asked about reading it.  It was a thin copy plus the size of the print was big, so she said she thought maybe it was a shortened version.  I took one look and said, "Don't worry, I've got the real one."  My bookcase of girly reads did not fail me.  There was Little Women in all its fat with tiny print glory.  I'm interested to see how she likes it!

Just in Time

I managed to pull together coordinating outfits and pick the warmest day of the week the big boys have between football practice ending and wrestling practice starting to do pictures!  Woo hoo!  I think I got pretty good onestoo.  (And even remembered to turn off the date stamp.  It looks way better that way.)

Didn't quite get a real smile out of Julia but coerced the rest of them.  Actually, Thomas doesn't have to be coerced, just everyone else.

Here's the fence.

And the fence with the stair steps fixes

Yep, Sam loved it.

And there's one more good one I saved for Christmas. 

Happy Halloween!

The kids mostly handled pumpkin carving by themselves this year.  Just the way I like it!

 We had a snowman,

 a zebra unicorn,

 and a deer.

We had to make some adaptations for cold.  Nicholas wanted to be a policeman but that costume is hard to put over a coat so he wore it to his school party and the snowman costume to trick or treat.  Philip was easy to put a coat under his brown and Julia just wore a lot of layers.  She got to go around the neighbor hood with her posse of unicorn friends sans adults.  Then they watched a movie before she came home.
The big boys went to the All Saints day vigil Mass with the football team because they had a playoff game the next day.  Although I realized they always do that, play off game or not.  I'm thinking it's how Coach keeps them from trick or treating and pigging out on candy.  :) 

When the Saints Go Marching In

Fourth grade's special Mass is for All Saints' Day.  Philip was St. Francis Xavier.  His teacher had a chasuble (outer vestment a priest wears when celebrating Mass) for him to wear and Grandma Susan had a stole (the piece that looks like a scarf) she made for her play Mass kit.  He wore the stole over the chasuble even though that's not how it really goes because everyone needed to be able to see the stole of course.

They all looked good!