December Volume I

Usually December is so full of events that I don't have any trouble keeping track of what day it is, but this year the calendar is so empty I'm never sure.  The only thing I'm really missing is Christmas Caroling.

It hasn't been super cold yet, so we've still gotten to play outside much to the littlest one's delight.

Oh dear.  :)  Bob is still working from home, and probably will be for at least 4 more months. There are a lot of perks:  on this particular day he was a tree because Cadence wanted to climb.  

Miri goes along with whatever, so long as she's getting attention.

"Mom, come look!"  They got Miriel up on the counter by themselves somehow and I had a heart attack.  

They were dying to get a Christmas tree and begged to go for over a week- it was finally time and they took their time picking out the perfect tree.

"Cheese!"

So pretty!  

We were given time slots for Kirk and Lexi's IL reception and we had about 10 minutes of overlap at the farm to try and get a picture of all of us for my parents.... the group picture turned out, the grandkid picture did not. haha.   

I think, perhaps, someone needs her diaper changed.  :P

Cecily came home from school completely over the moon- she lost a tooth at school, so she got to go to the office and they gave her a cool (amazing, wonderful, every superlative you can think of) tooth necklace!  

When life gives you packing peanuts, stuff them in all of your toys.

We spent an evening driving through the festival of lights.

When you are super Hangry you let sister have all of your babies to hold while you eat a cheese stick.

The older three helped decorate Christmas cookies and they were actually really helpful.

Emmy stuck with it the longest, of course. 

We had just finished reading "Snow Treasure," a possibly true story of Norwegian children who helped smuggle gold past the Germans on their sleds during WWII; Cadence and Miri were reenacting it.   

My birthday ended up being just one of those days. :P  They HATED breakfast, I blew a fuse making lunch, let them pick smoothie flavors for a treat that they decided they didn't like and didn't drink, Bob and I had to clean up an overflowing toilet right before sitting down to supper, then had to clean up after an impatient child who spilled an entire glass of pop all over her clothes, the table, and the floor whilst I was cleaning the bathroom....

On the plus side, I made myself this amazing brownie with a layer of peanut butter mousse and chocolate mousse on top again.  And I got this antique copy of The Harvester, my favorite Gene Stratton Porter book. Also, the one who needs help on the toilet remembered to call Dad for help all day (yay for working from home!).

Cecily wrapped up this cross stitched cardinal towel she'd made and tried so hard to not let me know who it was for.  :D  

They came home from their school Christmas parties with so much stuff, but I didn't even care because WE MADE IT TO CHRISTMAS BREAK IN PERSON!!  I felt like I had been holding my breath and could finally exhale.  Praise the Lord and pass the hand sanitizer! 

Wyss Christmas was the next day.  

The girls were pretty excited for presents.

I tried to anonymously gift all the Aunts a copy of "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning"... their reactions were classic.  So worth it. Uncle Paul's response... hehe.

We do brunch and an earlyish supper so I brought lunchables for my kids.  Although, my brother informed me that they were basically Charcuterie for kids so I may just start calling them that.  It would make me sound like a good mom who tries. :)  

I like food!

It was chilly but we took the kids outside to the playground for a while.

I'm sure all of the world's problems are being solved.

Sunday the girls had a modified program at church so we did get to wear the Christmas dresses! Woot woot!

Cheeeeese!  They were disappointed that they didn't get to stand on the risers, and that two of their songs got condensed out of the final list.  Cadence was excited that they got lots of snacks... and a present.  :P  

We spent the rest of the day with my family at the farm.

She likes presents too!

Cadence asked me if she could get a new tractor shirt "to match Grandpa," so of course we obliged.

Michelle had been scheming with us siblings about getting Dad a new recliner from my cousins store for a few weeks.  On Saturday she told me she just realized that she hadn't mentioned anything to Mom.  hahaha.  So they were both very surprised.

Oh Dad.... 😂

Matt got his very own copy of the new Koch book to enjoy.  ha.  #geneologynerd

Cousins are for wrestling, and check out how nice that chair looks in situ!  

Kids table. :)

We spent Monday being lazy and building lego sets. 

Oh, hey, there's Jupiter and Saturn!

Cadence got Orbeez (water beads) for Christmas and was very patient-ish while they soaked. 

Craft time: making super hero masks.

Can we do a craft every day of break?!  um... no!

We used buttons and ribbons for embellishments and worked on our sewing skills.  :) 

She's a goof!

Blessings. 

November

These two mostly get along when the big girls are at school.

Last year I found cute matching cardigan sweaters on clearance for the girls; I figured I could make some simple skirts and they could all match for Christmas.  Except that then I would need to find tank tops or something for them to wear under the cardigan. So I might as well just make simple shift dresses.  But I also already have this slip dress pattern that is a little more complicated but it would work.  And then I bought pleated chiffon (because that is the obvious choice for quick, simple dresses. Ha!).  So.  Simple skirts turned into not so simple lined dresses made with super fiddly pleated chiffon and slippery polyester lining.  :P  And you won't even see the top, because they will have sweaters on.  Actually, there's a good chance they won't even get to wear them in public for quite a while because of COVID.  *sigh*  I'm a masochist.  Cadence was always glad to try it on quick to check the fit and length.  

We have more indoor time to fill in the winter so I decided I should try a little harder to teach them useful skills rather than letting them have tons of screen time.  This week we worked on simple embroidery.  

Such a comfortable seat...

Cadence did pretty well following the line I'd traced, but her attention span is not quite as long as the older girls yet.  But there's no way I could have left her out of this activity; that would not have been ok with her. :)

Sunday afternoons are much longer these days, so we spent a rainy one crafting and painting.

Each of the girls has a "treasure box" to keep in the garage- all of the pinecones and rocks and feathers stay out there.  Every once in a while they have to get them out and look at it all again.  :)

Some days they are best buddies.  

Cecily's teacher sent me this picture of her reading under her desk- it was a square on their 'reading bingo' cards that they turned in for a prize drawing.  She was pretty excited when she won.  

The floor is a minefield as usual, but they were very sweetly taking care of their baby dolls.

I have a sucker!

Dug out this gem the week before this cute little boy got married.  *sigh* they grow up so fast... 

Also, this picture cracks me up- Grandma's face! Clayton must have been being squirrely.  

Trying their sweaters on, with the dress.  

It took us longer than expected to get these new shower doors installed because there is about an 1.5 inch difference in the opening at the top of the shower stall and the bottom.  I ordered the size they recommended based on our measurements, but when we took out the old doors we realized it wasn't going to work as is.  I spent faaar to many hours scouring the internet trying to figure out what kind of C channel/U channel we needed to make the new jambs fit correctly.  Turns out, if you call the customer service number on the instruction booklet they can ship you the correct 'sill and jamb leveler' part that you need. Bob took them out to his Dad's shop to cut the correct angle with his band saw, so it was a few more days later that we finally got to install the frame. It fit!  

My eager helpers.  

Mom!  I want to take a picture of you in the shower!  And the other girls!  Um... ok?

Two rounds of caulk later (don't ask, I'm bad at caulk) we have brought the bathroom out of the 80's and into whatever it is now.  Also it's weird to shower with such clear doors; "Obscure" is still much more translucent than 30 year old etched, limescaled glass.  This probably means I actually should clean the shower regularly, woot.  

We listened to the Magic Flute while eating lunch one Saturday morning, as one does.  Hehe. Such Culture.  

And then I live streamed Kirk and Lexi's wedding while I did the dishes.  The only perk of not being able to go to Georgia was that I could get all choked up and teary in the privacy of my own kitchen.  :P  

"Get a picture of us next to Lexi!  haha.  Such a crazy time we live in.

Since we had our fireplace cleaned and inspected we decided to try it out.

So pretty....

What a homey scene.

Just working on embroidery and playing with Paw Patrol by the fire.

We even roasted marshmallows over the coals.  ha.

It was our first fire and it may also be our last: we had the flue wide open and the whole house still smelled like campfire for 3 days.  Even with windows open and fans going to air it out.  Poor Bob is allergic and his eyes were itching... 

Cecily had a classmate in her 1st grade class with multiple health problems.  He has been isolated since January due to all of the craziness, so they had a drive by birthday parade for him last Sunday.  I figured it would be a nice thing for the girls to do for somebody else so we made a quick sign and got out the party hats and noisemakers.  (Also, someday they can look back at all of the strange things they did during Covid and check that off the list.) 

Double trouble.

Oh Emmy... first graders are funny.  She is thankful for Titanic Disaster books.

And Ham.

I feel almost guilty admitting that we spent time with people on Thanksgiving.  But the Indiana contingent were in town and they've already had the virus sooo... Uncle Nathan is really good at reading out loud.

Dad smoked a turkey and we had lots of good food and we were treated to a costume parade. 

And a snake charmer showed up.  Ha.

We sang the good old Thanksgiving standards and life felt almost normal for a few hours.  

Today we cleaned the house and got out the Christmas decorations!  Well, started to clean the house.  There's a box of food pantry donation items in the living room that I put there so that the girls wouldn't mess with them.  Yeah.  Miri grabbed a bottle of dish soap and somehow the whole cap came off and we had a half bottle of blue dawn on the living room carpet (It had to have been loose already).  This is after I had started trying to scoop it up.  So. Much. Soap.  So. Many. Suds.

In the meantime, Bob had taken Miriel out of the room and she was mad, crying, and rubbing her eyes.  And then Bob noticed soap suds on her face.  Poor little girl!  She had so much soap in her eyes that Bob rinsed her face in the shower, which just made her madder.  Owwie! Owwie!

I spent over an hour getting soap out of the carpet.  Rinsing, scooping up the lather, blotting, repeat.  Cecily told me her Sunday school teacher taught her a way to clean up messes with salt; lo and behold Google agreed that it would help with the soap.  So a couple of liberal applications of salt and a roll of paper towels later it was mostly cleaned up.  It still smells very clean over there.  Alas, poor soap, you started out full...

We did eventually get the house cleaned and decorated.  So. On to Christmas!

Blessings.