Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to us!

You know, Gregg and I have been married 7 years now and lately we've been finding that some of the stuff we got when we were first married is starting to get worn out and needs to be replaced.

So, this year for Christmas, we are going REAL practical... Merry Christmas Gregg - here's your new toaster! (thanks for the suggestion Jenn). And Gregg will be saying to me, Merry Christmas Kristie, here's your new knife set!

And you know what, that's okay 'cause practical can be a good thing - especially in economic times like these!!

Alyssa story

Okay, here's a story I just found written down from November that I had forgotten about...

The kids and I were at my parent's house in November and Alyssa had made a gift for me that she wanted to wrap as a surprise. So she was downstairs with my mom and Matthew wrapping this gift. She told my mom that Matt couldn't keep a secret so, according to my mom, she went up to Matt and said with a straight face, "If you tell mommy, I'm going to stick something up your nose & put tape over it!"

How nice - such sisterly love!

Josh's new words

Josh seems to have an ever-expanding vocabulary. It is sooo fun to get him to say no words and see what words HE begins to say on his own. Right now his new favorites are "no" (yeah) and "cookie" as we have been having sugar cookies around.

Cool Experiment

We have been studying water the last few days - talking about what it's like as a liquid, solid & gas. Today we were talking about it as a gas and we did the following experiment - it was totally cool! Of course, my kids kept leaving the room thinking it was going to explode or something but I thought I'd share it because it was easy and fun!

With a funnel, put 2 Tbspns baking soda in to a balloon. Then fill a 2 liter soda bottle 1/2 full of vinegar. Pull the opening of the balloon over the top of the bottle, stand the balloon upright so the baking soda falls into the bottle. When the 2 mix, a gas forms (carbon dioxine) and the balloon will inflate.

I ran out of vinegar but we're going to get more and try it again...

Christmas

We're 11 days from Christmas...

As we come into the last week or so before Christmas I've been thinking about what's been significant for us this Christmas season, what funny stories have there been, what have been some of our favorite moments, some of our maybe not so great moments. Actually a friend of mine blogged on a disappointing experience she had with Christmas lights a few weeks ago and that got me thinking, so here goes...

A couple of our most fun pre-Christmas times:

- Last night we took our annual family Christmas light tour/Live Nativity outing. It was fun. We took along some unfrosted sugar cookies (frosted ones would've meant much trouble in our van), the kids got in their jammies and we took off. We went to the live nativity we always go to in New Brighton. It's one of my favorite parts of our tour because the kids all crowd up in front with Gregg & I as we go through all the scenes and read the Bible story they have posted. It doesn't take long, but it's always fun to see the kids' faces. They love the live animals & seeing actual people portraying Mary & Joseph, the wisemen & shepherds & angels. One of the other places we always go is a place in Shoreview that has their lights blink to music on a certain radio station. This year we took a wrong turn so instead of taking 10 minutes it probably took closer to 25 minutes to get there (oops!) but it was fun - another time of everyone crowding up into the front to watch all the lights & listen to the music. We also saw plenty of gaudy lights, inflatables and so forth and one house completely decked out in LED blue lights - not gaudy in the least, actually very well done, but so BRIGHT I could hardly look at it!

-Another fun moment for us was joining our friends down at the Macy's 8th floor Christmas display. We always go on a weekday morning right at 10am so there is no waiting and we can cruise on through. This year's theme was A Day in the Life of an Elf and really, it was probably my favorite one I've ever seen. It seemed short because there were less individual displays but the detail that went into it was amazing and it was just fun! We ended up going through twice and at several places the kids just stood and looked and looked, noticing all the details.

- And of course, Alyssa and I enjoyed Christmas caroling at the nursing home and hope to do that again next year - we just hope to not repeat driving into the ditch next year!

A bit disappointing:

-You know, I have to say putting up the Christmas tree was disappointing this year. I think it's because I forget how long it takes. The kids were all ready to put up their ornaments but it takes FOREVER to put up our fake tree (it's huge and we literally have to unflatten every tree branch before putting it on). Then the top of the tree was broken so Gregg had to hot glue it. THEN we had to put the lights on and of course some of the strings didn't work (it didn't help that we were doing this during a Vikings game either - you know how focused Gregg was as he is the official light guy!) So anyway, literally 4 hours after we began getting the tree out it was time to put on the ornaments. Poor kids - they were still excited and gladly put their ornaments on but I didn't put mine on until they all went to bed! (by that time I needed a little peace & quiet!). So, next year, we've got to rethink how we put up the tree...

This year...

This year, Pre-Christmas has seemed a little different. I've been trying to figure out why... Has it been the unknown of where we were going to spend Christmas? The fact I purposely didn't do a lot of stuff before Thanksgiving like I have in the past? Is it because for some reason I haven't been feeling stressed about getting out Christmas cards, doing ALL our family traditions, getting goodies out to all our neighbors, making a ton of Christmas cookies? Has it been because a lot of my focus has been on our MOPS meeting & planning homeschooling, that I haven't had a lot of leftover energy to worry or plan Christmas stuff?

I'm not sure but it's been good. I've gotten my shopping done (still have a few projects to complete and of course all the wrapping), my Christmas letter is just about completely done and out, we've made a couple of kinds of cookies over the weekend but I did something else for my neighbors so there's been less stress about baking (and a lot less baking this year), and we've got about 3 more days of school school and then we're just focusing on Christmas - and then we're on break!!

Anyway, enough going on about my Christmas experience... While we are doing a lot of driving over Christmas this year, I hope that through it all my kids (and me too) are able to just enjoy the coming weeks and remember WHY we prepare and what the real focus of this time of year should be!

The toaster oven bit the dust!

Our toaster oven's been on its way out for a while but yesterday, it officially bit the dust! It started out on a good note in the morning when it actually toasted the toast for the first time in a couple of months. I thought, great, maybe it suddently fixed itself. Well, that evening I was making chicken nuggets (standard toaster oven fare) when I looked at the toaster oven and one of the pieces in the top of it was literally making sparks & looked about ready to start on fire!

So now, do we buy another toaster oven or do we buy a new toaster? Right now we are leaning towards toaster since about all we do in it is toast & chicken nuggets. Anyone have good suggestions for a good 4 slice toaster with maybe the capacity to do bagels? I'm hoping at this time of year we can get a good deal...

Did I really just do that?

Before I begin, I need to say that we are fine & Gregg says we're buying new tires for the van...

Now, to tell you about my morning. Alyssa & I went to a nursing home in Roseville to sing Christmas carols with our homeschool co-op. It was really fun. We got to sing a bunch of carols & many of the kids played the piano as well. Now Alyssa wants to take piano lessons some day. Anyway, while we were there it started snowing. Beautiful snow. The kind you love to look at out your window. Not the kind you want to drive home in though.

We were driving home and of course, I took the wrong turn so we went home a way we normally wouldn't have gone but no big deal. As I was turning onto 35W from 694 however, we began to fishtail... and I couldn't recover. Soon, we were taking a drive into the ditch and I was praying fervently that we wouldn't flip over. Thankfully we didn't but I also couldn't drive out. After a call to 911 who put me through to the highway patrol who put me through to a towing company, I was soon pulled out. Lost a hubcap & one of my tires didn't look so good but otherwise we were okay. We had to go up to another exit to fill out paper work (they wanted their money of course) and just as the tow truck was driving off, I looked at my instrument panel and saw this cute little symbol had turned on. Wondering what it was, I called Gregg & he told me it was the tire pressure gauge. I looked out my car door and sure enough, my tire that had looked a little iffy before was now half flat. Of course the tow truck was long gone!

Well, we decided I should try to make it to a gas station so I could fill it up with air and try to get home. I thought I was going to have to drive a ways to fine one but thankfully, just as I turned the corner, there was a gas station. I filled up with air & slowly drove home. Yeah, we made it!

From there, Gregg changed the tire & he has since decided we need all new tires so tomorrow he will take it in to get new tires & to have it looked over to make sure everything else is okay. So, guess what I'm getting for Christmas?? :-)

Through all this, if you know my daughter (who is VERY cautious and I'm finding a bit of a worry-wart), you know she was going somewhat hysterical on me - and deservedly so but she tends to be a little extreme. I tried to convince her this was an adventure, but I don't think she bought it. She was already a back seat driver but I have a feeling for the rest of the winter I will be hearing a lot of "Slow down mom."

Thanks God for safety & for helping us get safely home!