This photo, taken Christmas morning,
is the one and only photo I took
during our visit! If anybody took
pictures with my crew in them, please
send them my way!

Merry Christmas Again!

We celebrated our second Christmas with some of Mommy's family (only about half the clan was there; we'll see all but Aunt E during another visit mid-January). Even with such a small crowd, the traditions continued! In fact, we restarted a tradition that hadn't happened in years. Granddad led his kids and grandkids throughout the hospital where he works to pass out boxes of petite fours and wish all the departments a merry Christmas. Some of the staff even remembered the original rounds with Uncle N (now a college student) being pushed around in a stroller!

The girls even got help Grandma decorate the Christmas tree (a first, I think, usually it's up by the time we get there). They were very enthusiastic helpers who were equally careful with the more breakable items. Of course, decorating the tree had to be followed by a round of Christmas cookies!

In fact, the next day the girls helped make even more Christmas cookies. The aunts and uncles went out for a round of last minute shopping, and the girls stayed home to help Grandma put the chocolate layer on the double dip cookies. Yum! I'm pretty sure the girls with the assistance of Uncle N were also in charge of putting out the platters of cookies that appeared after every meal. (Ok, not after breakfast, but I'm pretty sure the girls went for the candy sitting out in pretty Christmas bowls after that meal instead.)

So, not really a Christmassy activity, but we took advantage of Grandma and Granddad's close proximity to a gun club to bring a few firearms with us and take most of the family shooting. Daddy reviewed safety rules and the how-tos of aiming at home, then everyone but Grandma and Lion went to try them out. (Grandma and Lion opted to go for a walk instead.) Monkey and Bug fired both the 22 pistol and 22 rifle a number of times before Monkey couldn't take the noise anymore. The girls and I and Aunt A headed home while the boys kept firing.

One evening we went to see the Christmas lights at the city park. At least a couple dozen local businesses and organizations sponsors displays throughout the park. We cranked up the Christmas music and got to vote on our favorite display at the end. Inside the rec center, we got to enjoy hot cocoa, see a holiday display set up by the local model train association, and color a few Christmas coloring sheets. Good times!

Christmas Eve involved a traditional family dinner, the opportunity to open one Christmas present, more Christmas cookies, viewing another VeggieTales Christmas special, and attending the midnight candle light service at the church I grew up in. Lion was excited about staying up late, but she definitely slept through a good portion of the service.

As a result of those late-night escapades, we actually had to wake up the girls at 8 a.m. the next morning, so we'd have time to dig into stockings and eat Jesus' birthday cake before going to Grandma and Granddad's church. The rest of the presents had to wait until after lunch got cleaned up. For three excited little girls that's an agonizing wait, but well worth it!

They're already excited about Christmas 2.5 in January with the cousins!

Merry Christmas 1!

We celebrated  our first Christmas Daddy's family this year. The clan gathered at Aunt S and Uncle J's house, and we loved getting to see everybody! As usual the girls had a blast in the basement. I know that sounds weird, but it's a big, finished space with plenty of room for them to spread out and do their own thing while the grown ups chit chat upstairs. On this visit the grown ups spent a lot of time looking through several boxes of ancestral memorabilia. We found some really neat information and other things (the girls' great-grandfather's diaries, military ribbons, and such from his Army days in WWII, for example). Of course, none of this was of much interest to three little girls, although they did have fun getting to each choose a quilt to take home from a pile of quilts made by their great-great grandmother (if I remember that correctly). For additional around the house entertainments, the girls got in lots of snuggle time with Nana and Papa Bear, watched the BFG (while Mommy and Daddy went to see Rogue One), introduced Daddy's family to the hilarity of Home, and went for a walk on a lovely wooded trail through the neighborhood.

As usual Lion's birthday was part of the festivities!
She got her requested chocolate cupcakes and opened a few presents. The celebration continued the next day by satisfying her current Edgar Degas obsession and visiting the National Gallery to see his sculptures, including the "Little Dancer," on display. We perused a few more of the Impressionist and sculpture galleries, then headed across the Mall to the Air and Space museum, where the girls wanted to see the space ships and learn about the planets.

This wasn't a Degas work, but it was still a favorite.

One evening during out stay we all went out for a night of fine dining. The girls were very excited about getting dressed up and going to a fancy restaurant. Afterwards we took a turn through a Christmas market across the street. This year we also added to the family tradition of eating tamales on Christmas Eve by making our own. The assembly didn't take long with so many hands rolling, and they were delicious!

Tamale makers hard at work

It's officially Christmas Eve with new Christmas PJs and a
Christmas storybook!

Christmas morning itself was full of presents and lots of fun! This year the combination of our kids not believing in Santa Claus and Nana being a gift-giving person led to their referring to her as "Nana Claus." At some point Christmas night, Bug told me, "I'm glad we have a Nana Claus instead of Santa Claus, because she actually knows us and loves us. Santa only knows if you've been bad or good." Then Lion piped up, "And Santa can only get you what you ask him for. Nana can get you ANYTHING!"

One of the things "Nana Claus" brought: WhomBatz!
(AKA: "Foam things to hit people with!")

Our trip back home involved a pit stop at the Richmond capitol building and grounds. Thanks to our digging through the family history over Christmas we discovered we're related to one of the gentlemen memorialized with a statue on the grounds. We even had time for a self-guided tour of the building itself before hitting the road again.

Happy Advent!

At home we continued our Jesse Tree devotions and even acquired some Jesse tree ornaments courtesy of Monkey and Bug's Sunday school teacher. The girls finished several Advent calendars: one involved adding stickers to a paper tree, another opening little flaps to see illustrations of the names of Christ, and a third was a computer program that had a video, game, or activity for each day. We also baked and decorated gingerbread cookies, listened to lots of Christmas music, played with nativity sets, and watched several VeggieTales Christmas specials.

The big girls got into the giving part of Christmas this year! We've never made the girls buy for each other or anyone else, but during this season we've always talked about celebrating God's generosity to us by being generous to others, and we've always gotten them involved in choosing alternative gifts for Daddy's family and giving through programs like Operation Christmas Child. This year Monkey and Bug decided they wanted to give gifts to each other, Lion, and Daddy and I too. They had so much fun choosing gifts, and they did a great job!

Guess which runner doesn't want to be here anymore?

Even the girls running club got in on the merriment. Instead of the usual activities one week, they did a Jingle Bell Run 5k. They were pretty excited about getting jingle bells to tie onto their shoes! Bug was highly motivated by the competition and finished in about 40 minutes, Lion pushed herself too hard at the beginning of the race and had to take a break partway through (this was her first time racing without an adult running partner to pace her for the first part of the race), and Monkey remembered shortly after leaving the starting line that actually she hated running long distances (she walked most of the way, but she did finish).

The Advent fun continued at church as well. We all enjoyed a potluck Advent breakfast one Sunday, the girls and I attended a potluck Women's Circle luncheon (so much good food!), and the church hosted an Advent festival one afternoon. It involved lots of crafts stations for the girls to choose from (we came home with some cute ornaments for the tree), a pizza dinner and Christmas cookies, and a mostly impromptu children's Christmas pageant (the kids chose their parts & costumes that afternoon, and a middle

Monkey, Lion, and a friend doing
Christmas crafts

schooler read Luke 2 punctuated with everyone singing appropriate Christmas carols). Our family was also asked to like the Advent wreath for the third Sunday. Bug even read the scripture verses, and each of the girls got to light a candle (with a boost from Daddy--that wreath is really tall!)

We had three little angels in the pageant!

Advent Begins!
Prepping for Advent began the weekend before this year:

We dropped off our fully-stuffed Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes on Saturday. Then on Sunday our church sponsored an Advent wreath-making workshop in lieu of Sunday school. We came home with a beautiful wreath decorated in greenery cut from the church grounds. After the worship service, the girls and I stayed to help a few other families put up Christmas decorations around the church. They were so excited to decorate our church's Chrismon tree!

Then on the first Sunday of Advent, we turned up the Christmas tunes and pulled out our own Christmas decorations: two trees (one Chrismon tree and one tree the girls can put anything they want on), candles in windows, white lights on the front stoop, wreathes on doors, garland on the banister, an assortment of other fun decorations, and (at last count) 17 nativity scenes!

The girls have a couple of little Advent calendars going that they brought home from church, and we've begun reading the Jesse Tree Advent devotional. We actually do a Chrismon tree, not a Jesse tree, but the devotional, which follows the story of redemption from creation to the nativity, has been good so far.

Friday night we attended Lion's Christmas piano recital and a Christmas party. There was a good little crowd at the recital, and Lion did a great job! No hesitation, and no mistakes! The party was actually Daddy's office party. Kids weren't invited to the party itself, but childcare was provided. The girls had a blast making crafts and some new friends. At some point after dinner, when the dance floor remained empty of adults, a few families fetched our kids and let them get some wiggles out. They loved it!

We're all looking forward to the many festivities yet to come!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Academically, we prepped for the holiday this year by reading a chapter book that followed the Hopkins family's journey from England through to the first Thanksgiving. We also read a great little book about how Thanksgiving came to be a federal holiday through the efforts of Sarah Hale.

For the holiday itself, we were thrilled to be living close enough to go to Grandma and Granddad's house this year! We were able to join in on some family traditions and create a new one or two. The feast itself was delicious, of course, and thoroughly enjoyed by all. We went on our usual walk through the woods afterwards (to make room for the pie), and the girls even got to stay up a bit late to play board games after their little cousin was safely tucked away in bed. This year Grandma decided we needed a new tradition: a thankful tree. I'll confess we were all a little skeptical of the bare stick in a bucket, but once we added leaves for things we were thankful for, it looked great!

Board game with Granddad!

The final Thanksgiving tradition is actually the first taste of Christmas. Everyone got involved in making and decorating gingerbread cookies. I even got to open an early Christmas present: a set of ninja-bread men cookie cutters! They're awesome!

Making cookies!

Decorating cookies!

Other highlights from the weekend: cousin playtime in the basement (it's a huge, mostly finished space full of toys), going for a run on a rec trail along the river (Lion plus her personal entourage of four grown ups), playing at a great local playground, shooting air rifles in the backyard (Bug in particular proved herself a good little marksman), and picking through Mommy's stacks of old books to find ones at Monkey and Bug's reading to take home with us. Good times!

Standardized Testing
The week after Thanksgiving involved an event for which the girls are not so thankful: standardized testing. Since our state doesn't specify when during the year they have to take them, we decided to test midway through. Now if they pass with flying colors, we're done, and we no longer have this hanging over our heads. If they don't do so well, then we have tons of time to work on our weak areas and retest later. This year at least they knew what they were in for, and I'm feeling pretty good about how they did. Now we await results!