Festival of the Nativity

The advent calendar.

This year I made an advent calendar with the little box for each day. I've never had one of these before and I wasn't sure how to squeeze a treat for 4 or 5 kids into each little box. I decided that sometimes it will be an activity instead of a treat and yesterday was the first one. We headed to the Festival of the Nativity for the first time. It's one of those things that I've always meant to go to, but I miss it every year. It was great, although my camera promptly died so we're left with lovely cell phone pics...

Oh Christmas Tree

I thought I'd go ahead and post pictures of the tree. The kids decorated and I managed to only yell about ornament placement a wee bit. I figure it's going to be messy anyway, so why stress about it. Also, I got some pictures of miss Avery enjoying the window seat. 

Oh Christmas Tree

I thought it'd go ahead and post pictures of the tree. The kids decorated and I managed to only yell about ornament placement a wee bit. I figure it's going to be messy anyway, so why stress about it. Also, I got some pictures of miss Avery enjoying the window seat. 

Somebody misses her sissy

Let the decorating begin!

Kaila led the kids in making snowflakes for the windows.

I made the advent calendar. I made the trees out of paper cones and scrapbook paper. 

I made the glass block a few years ago and Kaila wrote the poem in the frame that

I decorated to match the trees.

I also took the tin star that was formerly in Grant's cowboy room

and covered it with scrapbook paper

to make it more festive.

The mirror is a Goodwill find covered with

a coat of red spray paint for the time being.

I'm super proud of my frugal pillows. I used our existing throw pillows,

 bought a few cheap-o cloth napkins and used an old fleece blanket in a Christmasy print.

I made all of those except for the santa and the gingerbread dude.

FOR ALMOST NO MONEY!!!

After the holidays I'll just take those covers

back off and store them for next year.

Santa on my fantastic Goodwill Outlet vintage suitcases.

Grant's got moves

My little dude is actually turning into a smooth little operator. Within our immediate family, that is. He has made huge steps in looking at people and responding to questions from other humans, but in the house he's got us all figured out. Like yesterday. He hopped off the bus and walked into to see Avery playing the Wii. He very sweetly and sincerely said "Avery, I've missed you all day. Can I have a hug?" The kid could have asked me for the keys to the car right then and I would have given them right over. Tonight he left a yogurt wrapper on the couch and just as Chris was ready to jump on him about it he says "I'm SO sorry Dad. Let me get that right now. I'll grab a paper towel while I'm in the kitchen to wipe any off of the couch. I'm SO sorry." And he looks you right in the eye with the most amazing look of sincerity that I've ever seen and follows through speedy quick on fixing his error. It's just way too precious. I don't know how we are ever suppose to discipline around that kind of adorable. I guess we don't really need to, right? He's seeing the problem and fixing it and apologizing. Isn't that what we're trying to teach them? I should probably be more concerned about the way that he asks sweetly for something and if I say yes he'll gently put him hand on my leg and give it little pat, look right up into my eyes, and say "Thank you SO much, Mom. You are the best mom in the whole world and I love you. I'm so glad you're my mommy." It seems like a little much when I've only said that he can have some pretzels or watch another cartoon. Better work on avoiding the over-selling.

This is what we've always wanted...right? RIGHT?!

http://bergcircus.blogspot.com/2008/09/flashback-friday.html

Here's a linky to a blog post in which I posted pictures of Mackenzie's first day of Kindergarten. Now, as I attempt to post about DROPPING HER OFF AT FRICKIN COLLEGE, I start to cry all over again. Mostly, the last few weeks have been good. Exciting. Beneficial to my habit of vicarious living. Pride inducing. Jealousy of that fantastic time of life inducing. But on occasion I fully lose it. Occasions like right this minute. I'm gonna be okay though. And I'm going to start posting about our trip to drop her off at college. I can do this. Even though I feel JUST like the lady that wrote this column : http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2010/08/22/bittersweet_song_of_september/?fb_ref=art&fb_source=home_oneline And even though sometimes it feels like they're all going to be gone in about 5 minutes and I'm going to miss them forever. Even though we still accidentally call her to come down to dinner sometimes.  And even though my family will never be the same and my children will never ALL live under my roof again. Even with the missing and sadness, it's still all greatly outweighed by the extreme joy that has come with watching her succeed and excel and grow into an amazing adult. I look forward to many more moments of pride and excitement as she keeps taking these big steps. Even as I watch the rest of my kids following much to quickly in her footsteps and I start crying all over again.

Grant thoughts

Grant: Is it the dad's job to ask the mom to get married? Or does the mom ask the dad?

Me: Well, dad asked me to marry him, if that's what you're asking.

Grant: But...at some point you do have the choice to say yes or no?

Me: Right. I could say yes or no.

Grant: And you said yes...because he was skinny then.

Celebrate every success

My dear son came to me SO PROUD today and said that he wanted to show me something he'd been working on. I felt a bit of trepidation when he directed me to the bathroom, but since he's never shown any interest in sharing bowel movement accomplishments, I was pretty sure it wasn't excrement related. As it turned out, it could have been so much worse. 

No punishment was administered. He worked really hard at making this bubble mountain and who was I to take that glory away from him?

The gutting of the house

 We know that our time in this house is limited, but that's all we know at this point. Actually, we do know what we've got several months left here...okay, that's really all. The overwhelming challenge of packing up this place that has housed 7 pack rats is seriously freaking me out, SO in a preemptive strike type action I've decided to first purge and organize as much as I can. Hopefully this will help.
 First step has been my office/craft room/playroom/dump. Here's the first reveal. Lookin' good!

  

I grabbed a broken old cabinet and used the base for the ribbon hanger. Neato, huh? I decorated an old box of Costco greeting cards to hold craft paper and I LOVE it. The FAITH banner is from a church activity. I'm not loving it there, so it might come down. It's a little cluttery I'm thinkin. 

Have I cleaned under my desk you ask? You can see the floor, but that's as far as it's gotten.

I totally made this necklace. Really, I did. Mackenzie has a similiar one that I LOVE and I copied. 

Save the last dance....

I know that these are totally out of order and a big mess, but I couldn't wait to post the ones that we have. I can't wait to get more from the other moms. These two just looked so adorable together, and I'm still SO happy that she went with one of her great friends and a very fun kid. I really can't get over how cute they were. Except for the fact that they look like siblings (that's a little freaky)...other than that, a wonderful Senior Prom to wrap up her amazing 4 years in High School. Not to mention being on the Prom Court...that was SO EXCITING. What a great year!!!