Game Time

I've got a game you all can play!

It's called, Guess What the Picture Is?

Here's how you play.

1. You view the close-up pictures I post
2. I slowly zoom out
3. You try to guess what in the world they are

Simple, really.  Here goes.

Close-up #1.

Close-up #2.  Guess it yet?

Close-up #3.

 

The real deal!

 

This would be the LARGEST pile of laundry EVER seen in our house!

 

This was 15 loads of clean laundry, waiting to be folded and put away.  I've never been this far behind on laundry before.  A true sign of motherhood to 3, I guess.

Sleepy Head

Christmas 2011

This was the best Christmas, by far.  Ever.

Not because of what I received, but because of how excited I was to give gifts to my family.  Months were spent planning out who would like what, budgeting, setting up childcare to get the shopping done, hiding presents, wrapping them all and watching little eyes light up when they were ready to pick out gifts for others.  I even happily encouraged my husband to spend some of his time off helping with our church's nativity.  So much so, I think he even thought I was trying to get rid of him.  I wasn't.  Just trying to encourage him to do the stuff he considers fun.

Last year was a really tough Christmas.  Pregnant, hormonal, broke and being overwhelmed made for a toxic pre-Christmas combination.  Both Jim and I were determined to not have a meltdown like occurred last year.  And thankfully, it was avoided.

Lesson learned.  File that one away in the never-do-that-again drawer.

Our Christmas lasted 2 days.  Christmas Eve we had our massive breakfast here with my side of the family.  All of my side showed, including Aunt N and the grandparents.  What a treat!

There were insane amounts of food and we even got to have a family cooking day preparing for it the day before the crew showed up. The kids got to help me pick oranges for the ambrosia.  K helped me roll the sausage cheese biscuits into balls.  N helped stir the cracked eggs for the casserole and both of them helped Daddy with the Monkey bread.

These pictures are precious to me.  Grandpa is 89 years old, less than 3 months away from his 90th, and Brandon is 7 months old.  Brandon has more of a crotchety old man face than the almost-90-year-old.  Two generations are sandwiched between these two men.  Boy the changes that have happened in this world in that time span.  sigh

We even had time to make it to Cousin N's house for her annual Christmas Eve supper before heading off to the Candlelight Service.

So here's my story about the Candlelight Service:  Our boys were in the nursery for the majority of the sermon.  Towards the end, I got them out and brought them into the service.  I love watching the warm glow of the candlelight on their faces while singing Christmas hymns and soaking in all that Christmas is and means.  Tears me up every time.  This year was no exception.  Except this time, we as parents were out-numbered, and none of them are old enough to hold a candle correctly.

So as we're singing Silent Night, I'm watching our children's faces stare at the candle's small flicker of light, smelling the tops of their heads, feeling their warmth, and I manage to hold back the embarrassing sob-fest it could easily turn into and squeak out a couple of tiny tears.  Not even enough to need a hanky (although I'm sure Jim was prepared).  I'm successfully holding back the tide of emotion by swallowing the lumps in my throat and willing it away.  Our sweet little family of 5 is sitting in a half huddle, just enjoying the moment and then I hear Jim say quite loudly, "Ouch hold the candle up straight, that hurts!  It's burning me, hold it up straight.  Don't tip it, Nathan!"

It was loud enough for people in the next 2 aisles to turn around and snicker.  In Nathan's defense, he has no idea how fire or hot wax behaves because WE DO NOT LET HIM PLAY WITH FIRE!  So he kept dripping it on Jim through the low-grade screaming.  Jim couldn't protect himself because he was holding his own candle, was steering Katherine's candle in the right direction and helping Nathan hold his.  He was stuck, unable to protect his own body.  It took me a while to assist him because my tears quickly turned to laughter and my hands were full anyway holding a candle and a baby who wanted to constantly reach for the beautiful flame.  Finally, Uncle R stepped in and rescued the waywardly tilted candle from leaving anymore Christmas marks on Jim's hands.

A fun time was had by all.  That's how I measure a good time: tears to laughter in a split second.

 

When we got home that night, we scattered some reindeer food on the sidewalk and left some cookies and eggnog for Santa.

This year was a neat milestone: Katherine wrote her own note to Santa.
It says: To Satu I love you

She's learning how to sound out and spell new words and no way was I going to correct her.  You go girl for trying.  Santa knew what you were saying.

Christmas day arrived and Brandon woke me up at 6.  I patiently waited around until 6:45 when the rest of the crew got up and the excitement began.  They were so excited, surprised, thankful and interested in every single one of their presents.  It was so much fun.  I loved every second of it.  They are at such a sweet age for Christmas.  The entire time, I kept chanting in my mind, "Remember this.  Remember this.  Remember this."  Kind of like, "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:19.

Here are our Christmas morning pictures.

 

 

And here are the few I took prepping for the family placement and testing the self-timer function.  They were too cute to delete.

 

Sister love with the dollhouse bigger than her.

Ultimately, this Christmas will be hard to beat.  I've learned a very important lesson though: my sanity is directly proportional to the amount of preparation I put into it.  A friend of ours refers to Christmas as the Mother-Killer and I can see why.  Thankfully this year was a beautiful, quiet and precious time to reflect on our most beloved and valuable gift.

Sweet Siblings

These two make my heart melt.

When they play together, they're both so happy and genuinely excited to see each other.

Sometimes, I ask her to play with him so I can have just 5 minutes to finish up something I'm doing, and she is AWESOME.

She's figured out that he likes to watch her do cartwheels and handstands.  So she does them over and over again, and he giggles and giggles.

I hope and pray their relationship stays so precious.

   

They've got a good track record in the sweet sibling department.

Christmas lights

Thought I'd share the hard work I spent on our Christmas lights this year... :)

Boys and eating - Chapter 2

Somebody is liking him some solid foods.

Jim seems to think he's the best eater out of the three.

 

I KNOW he's the best sleeper out of the three.

Thanksgiving weekends

Our Thanksgiving weekends consisted of 3 very different, but enjoyable events. We truly are blessed to have our family close by so we can spend time with them not only regularly, but also during the holidays.

The first round was the weekend before Thanksgiving with the Boyers.  It was at Nanny's old place, which I have affectionately nicknamed the Pedro Party Pad, and it started out with some sweet wheels.  Uncle R brought a dunebuggy for us to play with for the weekend.

The boys were heartbroken.  NOT.

Even the big boys were heartbroken. NOT. Again.

 

  

  

 

Trying to keep mom half-way in the cool status.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Then, that evening was when I was introduced to a foreign language.  Commonly referred to 'Cooking by the Campfire.'  Wow, talk about throwing a wrench in the spokes of my learning-how-to-cook tricycle.  It was very cool, don't get me wrong.  Just a little much for my non-cooking brain to process all at once.  Cooking a turkey in the oven is something I'm still venturing out to try all by my big girl self, then this: cooking a turkey in a dutch oven over hot coals.  Don't hold your breath.

Turkey deliciousness.

Some cute Thanksgiving decorations.

 

Nathan and J enjoying the hammock that was hung a little low.  Twas a great opportunity to raz Papa.

Ample opportunity and space to run.

 

 Aunt Kelle heard a neat decorating tip on the radio while driving out there, so all the kids got involved.  Their first assignment was to collect as many acorns as they could stand.

And boy were they good at it.

Their next assignment was to collect interesting branches, leaves, fruits from around the yard.  Then, assemble them all together for one-of-a-kind table centerpieces for our outdoor Thanksgiving meal.

Some of the handiwork and the marvelous artists.

 

 

Somebody was pouting because of no nap and the only way I got him to look up was to claim I saw a bulldozer.  Turkey.

Did I happen to mention this was a camping trip also?  Well, it was.  Kind of.  For some of us.  The 2 moms and the 2 youngest Boyers, 6 month old Brandon and 17 month old H, got the luxury of "camping out" inside Nanny's old house.  With beds.

Here are the experts at work.  They don't even need daylight to erect an 8-person tent.

Bamah asked me to take pictures of this so we had documentation of her sleeping in a tent.  Well, it doesn't quite show that, but she was helping to assemble their sleeping quarters and from what I hear, she did make it the whole night in the tent and according to her, "slept like a log."  Good stuff.

The next day was fun to wake up and hear the stories from the tent-sleepers and the tent-gigglers and the bathroom-frequenters and the slept-like-a-loggers.

 

 

  

Our next outing was on Thanksgiving day.  We drove to my parent's former homeland and went to go visit my Aunt N with Mom, G-ma and G-pa.  Aunt N's two kids are in California and Colorado.  Major bummer, I say.  Major bummer.  But never fear, we brought enough children and high-maintenance demands to make sure Aunt N got a good dose of children to hold her over for a while.

The next outing was with my Dad, brother M and his family the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  We ventured over to the coast for some R&R on the water.  Dad brought his boat and we hung out with the crew for a good Thanksgiving feast at the local pub.  Ha!  Just kidding!  It was a restaurant.

Dad took the serious fishermen out the next morning and by the time he came back, the high-maintenance crew was able to take a short ride.  It had to be short because within 5 minutes of being on the boat and having to wear a life vest, Nathan was asking when we would be there and he was hungry and he wanted to go fast and where's daddy and M was hungry and Katherine's hair kept sticking in her eyes and she was thirsty and little M was tired of wearing her life vest and OH MY!  No, CowPapa, I'm pretty sure we're not going to make it all the way out of the river to get to the open water (1-hr round trip) before someone has a coronary.  And it looks like it's going to be me.

We did manage to get some pictures of the crew on our really quick trip. :)

M, a very good and die-hard fisherman.

Behold the crew of the S.S. High Maintenance.

This guy wasn't too happy with his life vest either.

(My oh my, who is that ruggedly handsome man in the background?  Oh that's right, he's my husband.  Lucky me. :)

So there you go.  Pictures and documentation from our 3 Thanksgiving festivities in 7 days.

A little late, I know.  I just hope I get Christmas pictures posted before Valentine's day.