Nativity set

We got a new Nativity set this year, I like my old one, but it is not really kid friendly. This one is perfect and the kids love it, and so do I. The kids love to play with it, and I have to limit how much time they play with it. I know they will probably lose pieces, but it is worth it to hear them telling each other parts of the Christmas story. Though I did find them pretending the Shepherd was a pirate.

Roses

One of the benefits of living in Virginia, Roses that bloom this beautifully in November.

Christmas

The Christmas season is here and I love taking the time to spend time with the kids and sharing experiences with them. We started by cutting our Christmas tree and setting it up. It is a little bigger than we planned, but after moving some furniture we were able to put it in the house. It is kind of Charlie Brown looking but everyone who has walked into the house has said it looks beautiful. I'll take it.

I am going to attempt something new this year and post something about some of my favorite Christmas decorations every day of December, kind of like my own Advent Calendar. So my first post for the 1st of December is about the tree itself.

Daddy loves live Christmas trees and has convinced the kids that they love to go hiking through a cold field to cut one down. They loved going this year again, it was slightly damp and really muddy. We got a great ten foot, slightly prickly, leaning blue spruce.

Back to the blog

Despite my lack of posts lately, things have been very busy around here and now I get to finally post about all of our activities.... First, this is one of my new favorite pictures. Princess loves reading and now it is great to see her reading to her brother and sister.

Good looking kids

Somedays Princess gets dressed first and puts on a pretty dress, of course then the rest of the family has to match her... of course when I try to take a picture, it doesn't turn out like I would like. Maybe I will have to try again another sunday.

Gymnast

This big kid found a new way to play with plastic bins. Unfortunately his little sister tried it later with some challenging results.

Clean up

After all the rain, we had to clean up the yard and pick up all the sticks, the kids thought it was cool to climb up on the shed roof to help mom clean off all the sticks.

Child Labor

We believe in child labor around the house... actually the kids really wanted to help daddy scrub the floor. I need them to do this more often.

Dress up with friends

I love the fact that Munchkin is standing on top of Buddy under the bin. He wanted her to do that too. I don't know why.

Play doh

Coloring

The problem was it only took up about 45 minutes.

Baking

We spent time in the house baking, the kids and I made cookies, and banana bread. They love both and were excited to have banana bread for breakfast.

Days at home

This week brought new meaning to staying at home, everyone was home for veterans day and then the storm came and school was cancelled for the rest of the week. It was a crazy week. Now I get to write about all our adventures.

Princess got to sing with her class for chapel at school and each of the grades was assigned and armed services to learn their song. This was the 1st grade contribution.... (sorry it is a little dark)

The tooth

It took a week, but the tooth finally came out. We spent the day in Williamsburg being tourists and had a great time. I wanted to check out some non-child friendly toys and so Daddy took them to the candy store and got each of them a candy. Princess's tooth came out mid-bite of a chocolate. She was very excited. Now she has the tooth in the little pillow on her bed. Hopefully the tooth fairy will come tonight.

Halloween

These are for my sister, she keeps asking me where the Halloween pictures of the kids are, so here they are. We have a pixie Fairie, and but then she got a got her first loose tooth while we were eating pizza for dinner, so she became the tooth fairy. This was our knight in shining armor, he was not a very cheerful knight and would not smile for the camera. We had a very cheerful Duck, so LOVED the candy and I have had to move her candy several times because she will climb things to get her candy.