Something New

Silly, yes.

But I have the excitement of a child about to play with a new toy.

My new toy?

While I was out yesterday

all by myself

(it was a glorious two hours)

Paul designed and installed

an indoor clothesline

in our laundry room.

He's so sweet.

And strong.

And creative.

And thoughtful.

And,

handsome.

Let's find a picture of him...

See?  Handsome.

I've got laundry on the rinse cycle right now, just about ready to be clipped up.

You can sense the excitement, right?  Ooo, eeee!


Oh, the spin just stopped!

Happy laundering!


(Okay, it's 15 degrees and my world is covered in snow and ice.  It's a time of creative entertainment.  Like hanging up one's laundry.  May your day be much more thrilling.)

Snow Day

Were you fortunate enough to get the 6:36am weather report delivered to your bedside by a cutie cutie four year old this morning?

No?

You should come for a visit.



"Mom, it's a 'nowy day!"

     "Mmm."

"Is it enough 'now to go to the big hill?"

     "It's too early to go to the big hill now."



Then he disappeared for an hour and a half.  Maybe back to bed?  I don't know because I locked our bedroom door and went back to sleep.

Eight o'clock now...



"Unlock the door."  (Read that in your lowest four year old voice.)

     "No."

"Open sesame!"  (Say it like you believe it will work.)

      chuckle.  "No."



We did eventually get up and acknowledge, and fulfill even, our child's intense desire to be one with the snow.  Paul and the boys went out to inaugurate the third year of Peter's Snow Removal.  I dutifully went to the kitchen and whisked together hot cocoa.  Snow removal is a family business.

I was going to make homemade marshmallows as a hostess gift for our dinner outing this evening.  But, alas, the local market has not any plain gelatin.  Plan B will probably involve something else dipped in melted chocolate  Whatever it is, I'll have to test them before I give them, of course.

If you have light corn syrup and plain gelatin on hand, you could try making marshmallows.  Here's a video demo from a blog of a blog I know.




Click the link up there to watch it whole screen and to see the recipe.

If you make some, will you please dip them in chocolate and mail me some?  Yum.

As I am about to push the Publish button for this post, the boys are regearing and headed to the sledding hill.  It's barely ten o'clock.

We're Not Alone

Okay.

Doesn't it feel great when you meet someone new who thinks just like you do?  Maybe you have some crazy idea that no one else understands, but you are so sure of its rightness.  But occasionally you wonder why you're the only one who thinks that way?

Yes!

Meet... ha, I don't even know her name yet.  I just came across her blog from a link from someone else's blog.  Let me see...  It looks like her name is Shonni.

I was drawn to her blog because she's an adoptive mom with ten kids and two more waiting in China.  She has a lot to write about.

But the post that caught my eye and caused me to jump over here to This Small Life to share with you was called Advent and When We Stopped Celebrating Christmas. You can read it for yourself right here.

Here's a quote to give you an idea what she talks about:


 
"We do not give gifts to the children for Christmas...they get gifts for their birthdays.  We do not want to take away from the real GIFT of Christmas.  No competition for My LORD!!!  We want to remember, celebrate, honor, and give praises to Him and Him alone."





It felt good to read her words and realize there is another family out there who has gone against the grain of how an American Christmas must be, should be, is usually celebrated.


If some want to celebrate Santa's arrival, okay.

If some want to celebrate Christ's arrival, okay.  Right?

Yes.

And if we choose Christ, we are not alone.

Just Another Day

Before I was dressed and put together this morning, Reuben was outside playing in the snow.

I tried to get a pic of him making a snow angel

on the sidewalk in about 1/4 inch of snow.

It was cute,

his desperation to play in the snow.

 Peter soon joined him,

dutifully headed to clear our sidewalk.

Beach toy now snow toy.

 Reuben asked of me,

"Mom, you want to come outside with me?"

"Um... I am... going to make hot chocolate

so it's ready when you come in!"

Score.

Early morning coldness avoided.

 Here they are.

Round one of snow play completed.

So now onto our lunch adventure.

Yesterday I made pumpkin bread,

but it didn't get cooked all the way in the middle.

See...

 Gooey in the middle.

 So I tried an experiment.

What if I cooked it up like French Toast?

Would the middle get cooked?

I hate to throw it out,

especially since I personally turned a whole pumpkin into

pumpkin mash for most of the day on Monday.

And... it worked.

And made a delicious lunch.

Now, the afternoon Peter has been waiting for.

Peter has been planning for three days for this Big Event.

 He's been so giddy about the bunk beds

and wanting to do all his lessons up there

while I sit in a folding chair nearby.

Anyhoo,

on Monday he asked if we could go to the library

and pick out a stack of books

so he could read them on his bed for

"one to two hours."

Yesterday we trekked to the library for said stack of books.

TODAY he got his

"one to two hours" of reading bliss.

Books were stacked and prioritized before lunch,

ready to go.

Exciting, yes?

We did accomplish some formal learning in there too.

Promise.

Winter Prep

Preparation #1:  Move Reuben out of the toddler bed to a twin size bed.

 There he is giddily tucked in on the left,

not quite ready to give up his baby quilts,

thus the many layers of quilts.

We checked on him in the night

and found him all the way down here,

feeling the comfort of the footboard.

Preparation #2:  Try bunking the beds to make more space, like for a crib, say.

Reuben quickly climbed on the top,

then did his best to squeeze out some tears when we told him

he would be sleeping on the bottom,

Mr. I Fall Out of Bed Like Every Night.

Yes, this is how it shall be.

No guard rail up there.

We're counting on Peter's natural deep-sleepedness

and training him for college bunk beds.

And the bed didn't come with a railing.

He doesn't seem concerned.

 Preparation #3:  Put up the Christmas decorations.

Blah.

I so don't like clutter.

But my attitude very quickly changed
as I overheard Paul talking to the boys.

As they took items out of the boxes and
decided where to display them,

Paul explained the Christmas and Hannukah stories.

Decorating with a purpose.

I love it.

Peter is setting up the Playmobil nativity.

Being follow-the-directions Lego-minded,
we kind of had to give him permission
to set it up how he liked.
It doesn't have to look just like the box.

The boys did a beautiful job decorating.
What a great way to gear up for celebrating Christ's birth.

Preparation #4:  Process Peter and Reuben's fall pumpkins.

Our friend George scratched Peter and Reuben's names in

two of his homegrown pumpkins

and gave them to us for our front porch fall decor.

Today I finally cut them up,

baked them,

whirred them in the food processor,

drained them in cheesecloth,

and froze the golden pulp in one cup portions.

We enjoyed Pumpkin Sloppy Joes and Pumpkin Soup for dinner.

And now we're set for winter.  Hurrah.

Free Money

I got a fatty check in the mail this week.

Ten dollars and eighty cents.

Put it right in the Adoption Fund.

It came from the people at Ebates.com.

When I buy anything online, I go to Ebates.com first, find the store I want to buy from, then shop away as usual.  Ebates gives me a percentage of my purchase back in cash.

As in $10.80.

Sometimes it's 2% cash back.  Sometimes it's 14%.  It just depends on how the Ebates people are feeling that day.

Lands End is 6% cash back.
Target is 3%.
Barnes & Noble is 8%.

Anyway, I thought you might like to know about it in case you shop online.

Might as well get some free money for all that hard work.

If you are going to sign up, click through this link and we'll both get a $5 bonus.

Happy Shopping!

Yesterday Was Thanksgiving

If yesterday was Thanksgiving, then today is our Day After Christmas, wherein Paul and I sleep in and the boys get up early to play with their new toys.

  

At 2:00pm our curtains are still closed,

signaling to our town that we are not open for business today.

Please come back tomorrow.

 

 When Paul and I did get up,

we made these super tasty biscuit twists

with walnuts, cinnamon, and powdered sugar glaze.

I only make them once a year

because that wonderful crispy flakiness doesn't happen

without a couple sticks of butter.

Ugh, but so yum.

 

 And what's a special holiday brunch

without our newest Lego creations joining us at the table?

And wearing yesterday's clothes

because he fell asleep in the car last night.

Pete's still in pjs.

Just like Christmas, right?

We moved the traditional American ceremony of opening stocking gifts and wrapped presents to Thanksgiving Day instead of on Christmas Day.

{Excuse me, Reuben needs me to fold him an airplane...}

Four years ago we stopped doing presents of any kind for Christmas.  We really wanted to use Christmas as a time to honor and worship Christ.  We felt that the hoopla of presents at Christmas is so distracting from the celebration of Christ that we took that part out.  We use Peter and Reuben's birthdays to focus on celebrating them.

Then last year Peter read through the Little House on the Prairie books and learned about the tradition of hanging up a sock to be filled during the night.  He asked if we could do that.  So we talked about when a good time would be to do that.  Valentine's Day as a way to show love to each other?  Thanksgiving to show we are thankful for each other?  I think since Thanksgiving was coming first, he decided that was to be the day.

Yesterday morning the boys had a giddy time of exploring their stocking treats.

Then we headed south to feast with Paul's family:

his parents,

his brother and girlfriend,

and his sister's family.

We all met at a church to have some family pictures done.

We won't be making copies of this one,

thank you funny Peter.

Reuben with his cousin Samuel.

 The Secret Agents.

When Peter gets together with his cousins

Aidan and Benen

they put on their agent gear

and zip around Nana's house in stealth mode.

You probably can't even see them in this picture.

Just plants.

So we supped and enjoyed the day together.

 Then we drove home in the snow.

With about this much visibility.

Welcome Winter.

And that brings us back to today.

The Day after Christmas.

Snow on the ground.

Legos and K'nex scattered around.

Laziness and leisure.