This will be long, we had a lot going on.
They have been making slow but steady progress on the house in spite of the weather.
I took this picture after an acquaintance posted her sewing room... that is professionally decorated and everything is behind closed doors and if you didn't know, would think it was a sitting room in a magazine. Yeah. This is mine. Half of the mess is the girls' projects, but the rest is all mine. 😏 Christmas tree shopping!
They all have opinions on what constitutes a perfect tree.
Driving up to this house just makes me smile.
Less than ideal weather meant there was time for stairs!! Hooray for no more ladders!!
I took a wreath out just for fun and discovered that the studs weren't centered... they added some blocking later so I can hang whatever I want over the fireplace and not need an anchor.
Some of us went to the hometown Christmas.
It was fun, and COLD.
The tree finally got decorated. I felt like I was running a few days behind with Christmas things this year.
We borrowed Bob's Dad's truck and also borrowed Rustin and Sharon and went and picked up another shower. It took them forever to find it at the store, and then we took the long way home driving really slowly.
The four of us got it unloaded and into the house in the dark and bitter cold. 🥶
They finished framing up the garage roof! Somehow our simple old house has a couple of complex roofs.
There were fun frozen puddles around the geothermal wells.And Dan was pushing snow off the roof onto Cadence, which she thought was great. (In the hopes that the roofers would come start if it was snow free.)
Program and Concert season. Woot. I was very unenthusiastic about all of these this year. ha. The road construction in front of the HS made it even harder to get in and out and I just get tired of getting kids dressed up and out the door to sit there for 1.5 hours to listen to them sing for 10 minutes. The middle school concert was only marginally better.One perk of interesting stick framed roofs is unexpected storage! Perrin says this is his hiding spot. :) Have I mentioned that these guys make me nervous? Bob and Trent's Sunday school class did Gifts of Love for their service project. We took them to Pizza Ranch and then shopping. Emily and I shopped with the girls. They were being hilariously practical about everything, i.e., suggesting a dark colored throw blanket in case in got spilled on and stained. Quite the crew. 😊Wrapping gifts was interesting, but it all got done and there was only one minor injury. Things thawed out and all that snow turned to mud. The guys got the lift stuck. They had an excavator come pull them out... much joking about how they should add 'Towing and Recovery' to their excavating business. 😛Perrin went to his first program practice. He didn't sing. He was much too interested in something on the ceiling. At the actual program he did sing... ish. He was loudly emphasizing random words and made everyone laugh. woot. If I wasn't so over programs, I might have been embarrassed. Bob and Perrin and I went to visit Grandma Beutel on her birthday. Perrin enjoyed her balloons and fluffy the teddy bear. 😊Cadence's friend had a birthday party at the school- both parents are teachers so they had a movie night with the big projector screen in the cafetorium. So fun.So our church hosted a funeral for a distant relative-in-law. They needed singers for the choir so I went... in a snow storm. *sigh* We were all glad we didn't have to go to the cemetery, we sang the cemetery song in the foyer. But, stinking snow storm, the girls and I had tickets to the Nutcracker that afternoon. The village hadn't plowed at all, and the weather reports and traffic cams online didn't look like it was clear in Peoria either, so we didn't go. I was pretty bummed. A couple of the girls dressed up and did a short ballet to cheer me up... Miriel got sick the Sunday Morning of the Christmas Program, and Perrin did not like that I stayed home from church with her and was wreck for Bob... huzzah. So we switched for the evening (even though Bob's a teacher). I despise sickness season.
We take turns cutting out gingerbread cookies... Mr. Buster is very enthusiastic.
The threenager did not like the color of bowl his ice cream was in. Well, too bad, and I put it back on the counter while he threw a fit about it. A little while later he quietly pulled the stool over and was quietly eating it.... 🙄There is less obvious outside progress right now, but I think they were just getting the porch posts up and roof framed out.
One side of the garage roof got shingled! There was great rejoicing!
I'm excited about the front porch.
And we got attic stairs! So I got to go up and see it for the first time. eeeeeeekkkk. It's so authentic and I love it. 😁
They all got Story Orchestra books, whether they wanted them or not. Perrin likes the Fossils page from Carnival of the Animals. *sigh* Merry Christmas! We were supposed to go out to Bob's parents' house, but they were ill. So we did our own family Christmas instead. Tomato soup and grilled cheese after church on my second best dishes. Presents!Cheese!
Much racing.I thought I was going to go to the grocery store again before we celebrated so supper was a bit of a scramble, but I had pork tenderloin and corn in the freezer, and potatoes, and pudding mix so it was sort of elevated. We ate on china so that made it fancy.
Christmas at the farm day 1: lunch, then presents!
Perrin really, really wanted tanks for Christmas and he told everyone he was going to open tanks. Thankfully, he did get tanks.
Hehe. When you want to find landscape paintings at thrift stores/varagesale/marketplace they are scarce... I managed to find one eventually and had some fun with perler beads. Good memories playing duck hunt with cousins long ago. 😆 Many battles were fought. Sometimes he informed me that I was on a team and then gave me 1/3 of the troops. Somehow he always won. We made a Wyss family Guess Who? game. And threw together a nativity play.This is the part where all the baby angels were poking each other with their wings...
What a bunch of characters.Christmas at the farm day 2: the cousins descend on Firefly Woods. The roofers were there- I'm not sure what they thought of all the running and shrieking coming from inside the house. Then there was a doll tea party.
Plus Perrin, because he really wanted the snacks. 😂Miri made me play her new Gabby's Dollhouse game. You have to wear a headband with kitty ears. 😆
Sunday morning started out dramatically. We could see the storm rolling in, so we were rushing kids out to the van so we could get to church before it hit. Except the power went out so the garage door opener didn't work and we all went back inside to wait until the worst of the storm went past. It hailed. Which filled up and blocked the gutters, and then poured so we had water seeping into the basement from the bilco doors and along the west side of the house. Anyway, as soon as it seemed to clear up we headed to church a little bit late (certain of the children wondered why we couldn't just stay home... well, because somebody has lunch all ready, and we can at least go eat it for them! If nothing else. 🙄). There was no power at church either and no Sunday School, so we had church in the dark. They had the cemetery mic and amp hooked up, and phone flashlights, and battery powered work lights... such an adventure. :P The power came back on halfway through lunch so the kids went to Sunday School in the afternoon. You know how holiday weeks are so disorienting and you don't know what day it is? Try doing church backwards! Good times. And then we went home and mopped up the little bit of water in the basement. Woot.
That evening was the rescheduled Koch Christmas, even though Bob's mom still wasn't feeling well enough to join us.
Cadence invited us over to the Beutel's on Monday evening. Ha. We got to see Greg and Tirzah's New Zealand pictures, which were very cool.
Emmy got sick the next night. And Cadence got to spend time at a friend's house. I stayed home from New Years Eve church with Emmy and Perrin. Bob took the healthy ones to his parents for the evening. Cadence got to go to another friends house, and we got a short break from social things.
I bought gingerbread house kits before Christmas and told Perrin we had to wait to do them until break. He kept asking to 'take a break' to make the house. Finally, we had time to decorate them and he was so excited.
The girls got preserved oysters with cultured pearls inside them for Christmas so we smashed them open with a hammer. 😊They found eight pearls in interesting colors- pink, gray, purple, blue, and only one white.
Garage attic stairs to nowhere... Last up was the big Wyss Christmas. Starting with breakfast, of course. And then Cadence got sick so Bob took her home. *sigh* Many games of air hockey...... and whatever this game is were played. And presents!
More games.Someone wanted to go outside, and it was a beautiful day.Mr. Contrary insisted that I put apple sauce on his bun.Oh hello Goose!Thus ended Christmas.
The problem with getting so behind on posting is that I forget all the funny things that happened... and my updates turn into bullet points. Oh well.
Blessings.
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