it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Our Christmas tree is up, the lights are turned on and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care.
I do love this time of year. I love the anticipation of Christmas and the joy in the weeks leading up to it. I love the Christmas lights and insist on leaving ours on morning, noon and night. I love the way the lights of the tree make the living room feel warm and cozy. I love rearranging our furniture and love that having a tree in our house gives us a reason to do it. I love this year's arrangement; it feels cozy and snug. I want to leave it that way, but our corner will be so empty once the tree is down. What else can we put there? I digress.
This year we waffled back and forth between going to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our own tree and picking one out at a nursery {that still counts as fresh, right?} We decided on the nursery: it's closer, warmer (that being a huge deciding factor), and fresh enough. Plus at the nursery we lucked out and Santa was there. We were happy with our decision and that lucky bonus. The boys had fun there, too. I told myself that they had just as much fun there as they would have at a real tree farm.

Last year I learned to relax about the way our tree looked. The boys love helping decorate, and it's fun letting them help. With their help comes clusters. Lots of clusters. Lots of clusters near the bottom of the tree.

An ornament cluster and part of the paper garland Henry made to help decorate the tree.

I like to hang wreaths on every door. I love these green and gold wreaths in the dining room. This picture turned out so blurry that I made it black and white.





I love this nativity scene. We got this set as a gift for our wedding. Call me a mean mommy, but I have been putting this on top of our armoire since the boys were old enough to crawl. I love it and want it to be a meaningful part of our Christmas decorations, but I also don't want it to get broken. The boys get to admire it from afar.


I also love our ornaments. I'm so fortunate to have parents who collected them for me when I was young and saved them each year until I was grown and had a tree of my own. We are trying to do the same thing for our boys now and buy them an ornament every Christmas; we try to find one that has some special meaning for the year. I love that each of our ornaments tells a story or reminds me of a special memory. It's fun unpacking the boxes of ornaments with the boys and telling them stories about them. {it's not all sunshine and roses, part of the unpacking involves lots of "no-no William" or "oops, William just broke another one"!}

We got this ornament on our first family vacation to Destin, Florida in October 2006.

I love this cute coffee mug my mom gave me last Christmas; it reminds me of my favorite coffee place. :-)

I gave the heart box ornament to Patrick for our first Christmas together, in December 2002. And he gave me the one to the right of the boy and girl sitting together. {Clearly that was him remembering my "natural" hair color"!}

We got this as a gift in December 2004, when I was only weeks pregnant with Henry.

Henry made this snowflake frame ornament when he was only two and in his first year of preschool. He was still such a baby! Homemade ornaments like it are my favorite kind. My mom made the adorable wooden block ornament for Henry when he was 1, December 2006.

This picture and the lighting is terrible, but I love these little trees. They're next to our armoire in our living room and add to the cozy glow in the room.

about mermaids

On the way to drop Henry off at school this morning we had a conversation about how fortunate we are to have the things we have. It started because as we backed out of the driveway I was scrambling around looking for my sunglasses; I noted how thankful I was to see the sun and said to the boys, "there's always something to be thankful for." This is while thinking to myself how much I dislike the winter cold. As we drove up the street I mentioned how fortunate we are to have such a warm house on these cold, cold days and I said that some people would be thankful to just have that.
Henry: But mommy, all I'm thankful for is new toys for Christmas.
Me:{thinking wow, my mini-lecture was just lost on him}
Well, it's only human to want to have nice, new things.
Henry: Mermaids don't want toys?
Me: {completely lost for the moment, then realized that he's asking that since I said it's "only human"}
No, I guess mermaids don't want new things.

I love these

the kids can
COLOR on the windows!

Go ahead, it's really okay.




Henry's Christmas trees with stars.

And when the window is full and you're ready to start over,
it washes off with Windex.
I'm telling you, these markers are so much fun. And perfect for cozy, winter days inside.

is it just me?

Is it just me or is putting on snow gear a huge
pain
in
the
butt?
{Am I allowed to say butt?}
Sure in the summer there's sunscreen that needs to be applied, but now there's spray on sunscreen.
When will they invent spray on snowpants, puffy coats, mittens, hats and boots?
Yesterday we woke up to the first real snow fall of the year. The boys were so excited. At 7:15 {a.m.}we started the painstaking  super fun process of gearing up to play in outside in the freshly fallen snow. They couldn't wait any longer. Really once we're out there, it is a joy to watch them play. Henry takes such pride in shoveling the driveway and William loves sitting in our big red sled and going for rides up and down the sidewalk.
It's just the snowpants zippers getting jammed, and the cotton gloves getting stuck to the velcro on the bottom of the snowpants and the having to chase William around the table waving his snowpants at him and waiting for him to stop to get in them and the breaking a sweat while doing it.
But the joy once we're outside,
it makes it all worth it.




welcome winter!

hey, Santa!

On Saturday we went to a nursery to buy our Christmas tree. We browsed the trees outside for a few minutes and then we went inside to find out the process of choosing, buying and taking home a tree. When we walked inside, Santa, a real-live Santa, was sitting right there. I glanced at him and thought he was fake and then to my surprise he said
 
This is how William felt about it.

He was just as surprised as me.
But not Henry, he marched right up to Santa.





oh no!
You'll shoot your eye out.

it's never good

It's never good when Patrick says,
"Hey hun, if I show you something, promise you're not going to freak out."
I can guarantee if he says that, I AM going to freak out.
Today was no exception. We were happily taking out Christmas decorations, listening to Christmas music and decorating our Christmas tree {which happens to be big and fat, more on that later}.
That's when he said it.
He had just gone down to the basement to check on the water pipes and to turn off the valve for the outside water spigot.
I didn't promise not to freak out.
And it's a good thing.

A snake on a sticky trap.
From MY basement.
Would you freak out?

A snake!!

Seriously? A snake?
I definitely freaked out!
But here's the weird part, I'm so happy to see a snake instead of a mouse. Is that weird?

gingerbread houses

On Tuesday I got to {leave William with a babysitter and} go to school with Henry to be a helper. It was gingerbread house day. His teachers had all of the supplies out and ready and I got to help the children decorate their houses. So adorable.
Best part?
helping Henry, he got to be the first one called to my table :-)
hearing all about Samantha's neighbors Christmas lights and music and blowup Santa on their garage :-)
And Madyson telling me that her favorite color is "shiny ones" :-)
Worst part?
eggs in frosting making houses unedible for the drooly children :-(

 
The kids singing their "Welcome to school" song, just before starting their gingerbread houses. How cute is his teacher? She's so sweet and enthusiastic and was dressed festive, too, which the children really always love.


Some of the decorating supplies. There were three tables, each one had a huge variety of candy and other decorative things like m&m's, gumdrops, skittles, fruit loops, pretzel sticks, cotton balls, marshmallows, and Christmas tree Peeps. Miss.Jill made the frosting for the houses herself. She used a mixture of egg whites, cream of tartar and one other thing I'm sorry I can't remember to made a {unedible, but}sticky frosting that once dry holds fast like glue.

The children "built" their houses on Monday, allowing time for everything to dry. His teachers used a milk carton as a support inside each one. Brilliant idea!

This is an action shot. Don't know why I look mad? Tired? Super focused? Pointed-nosed? Not my best picture, but either way, cute things are going on.



The houses on display for all to see. So adorable!

William checking out the display. In awe of the candy!
Can I just reiteratate how much I love this program? They give the children so many different experiences (among some fall ones, making chili and applesauce as a class!). This year it's made me really miss teaching preschool!

a new tradition

I am super excited about this idea.

This year will be the start of a new tradition in our home, and it's thanks to Sara and this post. The picture {above} and the original idea came from this blog.

{as a sidenote, it's a lovely little blog; I followed Sara's link to it and stayed for an hour clicking through her posts.}
The idea is to simplify gift giving, yet still be thoughtful and generous, but in a meaningful and simplified way. This Christmas we're going to shop for Henry and William according to these four categories: want, need, wear, read. That means that each of them will get something they want, something they need, something they wear and something they read. In addition they will each get a gift from Santa and of course we couldn't survive without stockings! But other than that we're going to scale back and get just one gift for them in each of these categories.

Patrick and I usually spend a night out together doing {frantic, last-minute}Christmas shopping for the boys. I always have this internal struggle of wanting to do so much (why not surprise them with a pony on Christmas?) and realizing at the same time that they need so little. I also want them to grow up being thankful for the things they have and I don't want to teach them by my giving, or my emphasis on bigger and better gifts, to be materialistic and to have an insatiable appetite for things. Afterall, things never satisfy. Children are such gracious receivers though, and giving is one of the greatest joys at Christmastime. I am already excited for Christmas morning when the boys will race down the stairs and find presents, for them, under the tree.

I'm so excited to shop for them now. I think shopping in terms of these categories not only helps give me direction and helps to simplify my shopping, but it also makes the gifts we give them more meaningful. The something they wear will most probably be new pjs that they can open on Christmas Eve. {having an internal struggle; we always get them pjs for Christmas Eve, so should that really count as "something they wear"? I think yes, but see how I struggle?! Simplify, simplify, simplify!}

I told Henry about this new tradition and he said he didn't really want something to wear because clothes are "boring". The classic boy answer. Other than that he seemed excited thinking about what book he might get or what thing he might need. I hope this new idea takes root and becomes a tradition in our family. For me paring down helps to shift the focus back to what this season and Christmas is about.

Dear Santa,

Today before lunch I helped the boys write letters to Santa. William is still at that very sweet age where he is happy and content with everything that he has. His list is primarily what Henry thinks he would want. Henry had several ideas, with the exeption of a Venus fly-trap, they're mostly all things that have been consistently on his wish list for the past month or two. Speaking of the Venus fly-trap, Henry has been picking up all kinds of interesting vocabulary from the other children at school. Luckily, not interesting like 4-letter words interesting. Just things like "Bakugan", apparently the hottest new toy trend for boys in the 4's class. Here's a conversation from last week:
Henry:"I'm going to buy Jack a Bakugan for his birthday and then he's going to get me one for my birthday."
Me: "What's a Bakugan?"
Henry: "Umm, I don't know but I have to get Jack one for his birthday so he gets me one for mine."
I still don't know what a Bakugan is. But I know that Kale (another friend from school) has one and Jack is getting one from us for his birthday (whenever that is). 
Today after school he chomped me with an empty diaper box and told me it was a Venus fly-trap. Again, he wasn't sure what it was, but it's all the rage in his class. He added it to his Christmas letter as a "p.s.". Then when I explained that it's a real plant that eats things, he crossed it off.






We're planning to bring the letters to the post office to mail. They have a special box this month for Santa.