Life. Crazy, Chaotic, Ours!

End of Year Blessings...

As 2008 comes to an end, just a quick post to wish you the Happiest of New Years!  Hopefully, 2008 was good to you and 2009 will be also.

We had an awesome Christmas ... too many photos to really post, but once again we were blessed and filled with magic, awe and happiness.  By the time we headed home on Christmas Day, the back of our car [a Jeep Commander] looked like this:

Scary, huh???  And -- the boys were holding Ben's guitar, Caroline was holding a baby and something else (that I don't remember) and I had my camera, bag of food and a pogo stick on my lap.  So crazy what visting grandparents can do! :)

Now we head into the New Year ready to celebrate LinaBean's birthday this weekend and a host of resolutions just a few hours away!  Enjoy your Eve and Happy New Year, too!  We're off to have some bbq ribs & shrimp with my parents followed by an evening of wii bowling and skiing!

The Details of our Christmas...

Just a few of the sights and sounds that made up our holiday preparation and decoration:

  Our nativity and the reason we celebrate this special day.  I received the basic nativity as a high school graduation gift from my Mom & Dad.  Additional pieces have been added over the years.  My Pop Pop made the stable for me and even included the "heavenly light" with a switch to be turned on and off.  Our wise men normally arrive at Epiphany, but Ben was tired of looking at them in their journey from the bathroom, so he moved them to the stable today! :)

    Our stockings were hung 3 days before Christmas on the railing as normal.  We tie them up with red velvet ribbon each year. From left to right:  Scott's, mine, Andrew's, Benjamin's, Caroline's, and the reindeer stocking belongs to Lola!

Our gingerbread house for the first year ever!  I have wanted to make one with the kids for awhile now, but I felt Caroline was finally old enough to participate.  Everyone had a helping hand:  Ben told us how to put it together (he made one in school earlier in the week); Andrew held the sides while our "glue" dried; Caroline watched our "decorations" in the bowls without eating all fo them and each of them decorated a specific part of the house.  It was fun and they can't wait to eat the house!

The Christmas Mantel is probably my favorite thing to decorate.  I don't feel like it's Christmas until my mantel is finished.  This year we added some hanging snowflakes above our mantel and dining room table.  A few years ago, Scott and I made over the entire first floor of our house.  This included switching out a bunch of rooms.  The original family room became our dining room, so we gained a fireplace there.  It's very cozy to have a fire while you are eating!

 Sharing Christmas Stories is something we do each year during Advent.  This year we made it a point to read a book a night so we didn't have to cram all of them in at the last minute.  Ben's favorite this year was Twas the Night Before Christmas and I read it him almost every night.  He enjoyed reading it to himself and his little sister sometimes, too!

Holiday Baking!  So much to bake and so little time.  Fortunately, I had a helper this year.  Caroline was way into the baking this year.  Check out her little apron - too cute, eh?  We made macadamia nuts, chocolate chips, saltine bark, peppermint crunch (lots for gifts), peppermint chocolate, some sugar cookies for Santa, and Andrew's favorite - "stand-em up cookies":

  Most people call them Peanut Blossoms, but Andrew has called them stand-em up cookies since he began talking, so that's what we call them.  (He can also polish off a plate of them in 10 minutes or less, so we usually end up hiding the cookies!) 

Andrew & I experimented a bit and made some new peanut butter-chocolate cookie sandwiches with Ritz crackers.  They were delicious, but messy to make and they melt super fast!

Our Santa Boot & Santa Key!  The Santa key goes on the front of door before we go to bed on Christmas Eve so he doesn't have to slide down our chimney.  We bought it when we first got married because our old home did not have a chimney!  Now we figure it is just earier.  The Santa boot gets filled with candy canes on December 23 and the dreidels (courtesy of Mrs. Schatz) will come out of the boot and sit on the table to remind us of our friends who are celebrating Hanukkah.  The white snowflakes are a  new addition this year - a little pricey, but I couldn't go without them another year!  Scrappers will recognize my Becky  Higgins creation from her blog last year!

This post is getting rather long, so I'll continue it tomorrow.  By the time we're done, you'll feel like you've been in my home for the holidays!

Ketchup!

Yeah, it's been awhile.  Life happened.  Again. 

Computer issues.  Again.  In fact, I really just don't like internet service providers at all.  Can't figure out why they make it so hard to talk to someone when you're having dificulty using the internet.  In fact, for the last month that they've been "working on my connection problem", they leave phone messages that they want to check on my service but they never leave a return phone number.  When I complained about this once I finally talked to someone, she told me "oh, it's easy - it's on our website".  I replied, "Yeah, easy for you - I can't connect to the internet regularly, remember?  That's why I called you!"

So holidays and family events happened.  Again. 

So here it is, my attempt to "ketchup"on our happenings:

Andrew turned 10 and we had lots of celebrations.  Double Digit boy celebrated in Disney World, cake w/grandparents, aunts & uncles, and laser tag party with friends.

Halloween has come and gone.  Lots of fun.  Tons of candy - seriously, I mean tons.  Costumes were good.  We had to trade out Andrew's at the very last minute (as in 3 hours before trick-or-treating) because he had already outgrown the Scorpion Ninja we bought early in September.

What a SCREAM - literally, right?  He really enjoyed this costume, voice changer and all, and it totally confirmed my sense that my little boy is growing up - too fast for me! 

Benjamin enjoyed his costume and trick-or-treating as a Clone Trooper.  He preferred his costume sans the mask since he had problems seeing with it on!

 

And of course, we can't forget Ms. Munchie.  My mother-in-law found a beautiful costume for Lina-Bean and it was truly perfect.  Caroline had originally decided on being Ariel, then Belle, then a ballerina and then G.G. sent out this costume and she emerged on Halloween as a beautiful butterfly princess.

 

So let's see, after Halloween, we had the girl's PA holiday weekend shopping trip. It's an annual tradition for my Mom, me, Aunt Ginny, cousin Michelle, Michelle's bff, Kristi, my bff, Ruth, and Ruth's sister, Kathy to go shopping in PA - we hit Ephrata, Reading & Lancaster (and little shops in between here and there) Friday early a.m. through Saturday late night.  It's always fun and we manage to squeeze a little shopping in for ourselves in addition to holiday gift purchases!

My good friends from work - Christina and Allan got married the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I was lucky enough to help out Christina with the details of the wedding.  Cheryl & I helped coordinate things the day of the event and I took some candid photos for Christina because the photographer wasn't able to be at the church before the ceremony to capture photos of Al and his guys.  The wedding was phenomenal - beautiful and elegant - no detail left undone.  Christina was beautiful.  Allan was happy and adorable.  And we partied all night long at the reception!  My photos can be found on my shutterfly page if you want to peak at some candids.  Nothing super great, though I did manage to catch some things that the professional guy didn't.  http://julsdesigns.shutterfly.com

Thanksgiving left us feeling stuffed and thankful for a loving, fantastic family, good health and great friends.  The boys each ate some turkey and a couple green beans.  Of course, we did find Andrew attempting to leave the green beans on the floor for my parents' dog, but eventually he ate 5 - huge accomplishment there!  I did not get up at 4:00 a.m. on Black Friday and head out shopping before Scott left for work.  This is unusual for me, but I did a lot of on-line shopping the day before Thanksgiving and just had a few more things to pick up after.  The kids, my Mom and I met my cousin, Michelle and Aunt Ginny on the Avenue for lunch as has been the tradition for many years now.  Michelle & Aunt Ginny shop Black Friday; my Mom, Caroline & I head out on Saturday.

  And now here we are in December.  Finished just about all my shopping - have a couple of gift cards yet to buy, some wrapping to finish up and lots of creative projects to get moving on.  I'll post on the festivities, creative juices and holiday decorating soon - promise!  I love the details and decorations of this Season and am trying to share and capture everything with the kids!

Happy Advent Season!