Christmas Preview

I've been busy with my Christmas projects, advent projects, etc...

Here's a peek:
It is not easy to get both of your children to smile at the same time- especially when one is 4months old, and the other is rather obstinate :)

Oh, and aren't these adorable shoes? $1, yes just $1. If anyone needs a personal shopper, I'll send you my portfolio :)

Decorating the Tree

Sorry for the blurry pictures- the iPhone 4 let us down. We listened to classic Christmas carols and hymns and put up our tree. I love having a house where we can display the tree in front of our living room window. It is so fun to come home and see it lighting the night. Luke thinks that the Christmas Tree is the most beautiful thing ever.

Lights!

Last night we drove to a really nice area of town and looked at lights with Luke. He LOVED it and yelled "Christmas lights, real Christmas lights!" Which made me wonder what fake Christmas lights might look like.

Here are some pictures taken by an iPhone in a moving vehicle. They don't hold a candle to the real thing!

Announcement and Thanksgiving Weekend in Pictures

For those of you who haven't heard, we are having another baby! He/she/they are due around the end of June/ first of July. We are very excited!

This is pretty much why it has been a while since I updated our blog. Usually, when Luke naps, I have a little time to do things. Usually, after he goes to sleep for the evening, I also have some time. Right now, most of my extra time is going to sleeping or just laying down. Morning sickness hit with a vengeance at week 6, but has been improving a little each week since then.

I am very grateful that this time I am at home. With Luke I was working 10-12 hour days for much of the pregnancy. Now, I get to control my day a bit more.

So, now onto Thanksgiving. We went to Nathan's sister's house and had a few other families Join us for a lovely meal. The turkey was smoked again this year and was quite tasty:


I brought this (the toasted almond, cranberry, citrus spinach salad and the fall M&M's):

And this:

Nothing that required too much cooking this year. :) Finally, my rolls turned out well. I nixed the use of whole wheat this year. No more dense rolls. My favorite was definitely the mashed potatoes. They were fluffy and buttery.

The kids all enjoyed playing with one another inside and outside and all around. Luke definitely loved spending soo much time with his cousin! This year, Luke was able to say Happy Thanksgiving in a way that we could understand.

On Friday, Bethany and I took baby Jane shopping (briefly and later in the day), while Nathan and Evan took the older kids to lunch and to play in the back yard. We all had a great time and pretty much finished up Christmas shopping.

Last night, Nathan, Luke and I all helped putting up the Christmas tree and decorating it. I wanted to wait a while, because we are really in the Advent season, but since we are leaving for CA in less than 2 weeks, I thought it would be ok this year. We do have our advent wreath out too. We turned on some beautiful Christmas music and got to work. Luke ran around saying "Christmas tree! Christmas tree!" and tried to pull all of the bells off of the tree. I was afraid that he was going to pull the tree down on himself- he doesn't know his own strength!

Luke has also been saying "Baby Jesus is born!" It is really a gift to watch him this year. He doesn't know anything about all the presents and hype of the Christmas season yet. he loves the simple things, the manger, the tree with lights, listening to Christmas songs with mommy and daddy. I want to preserve this as much as we can. Being a grown-up, I know how hard it is to keep the real meaning of Christmas alive when the world at large pushes glitz and gifts.

An add for a local store came in this week with an ad that said, "Bring the Joy home!" How about that? For just $19.99 plus tax you can bring joy to your own house. Not that giving gifts is bad. Really, it is one way that I can tell people that I love then the best. But the love that comes with the gift is the real gift, just as God's great gift to us was given in love.

Enough of my soap box. As I end this post, I will give you a glimpse of this year's photo Christmas card. This was one of the photos in the running, and is not cropped (note the boxes on the shelf in the background):

Cowboy Luke and Thumbelina

Bethany and I took Clara and Luke to the All Saints party at our church last night and we all had a great time. Clara was Thumbelina and designed her costume all by herself. Luke was a cowboy- and a very cute one I might add. :) They played games and decorated cookies and danced to the music.
We stayed at the carnival for about an hour and then took them out in the neighborhood for about one block. The kids enjoyed trick-or-treating, and Bethany and I kept our eyes out to make sure that we only went to the friendly looking houses(!).


Hope you all enjoyed Halloween!

Preparations for Pascha

We have been very busy as of late, but wanted to update the blog with some of the events from the past week.

Last Sunday, Grammy and Papa came to town. We have had a wonderful time seeing them and get to enjoy there company for one more week!

On Tuesday, I got go to go church ALL BY MYSELF. I love taking Luke, but once in a while it is nice not to have my Mr. Wiggly, Mr. Talkative toddler sitting/standing next to me. The Orthodox Services for Sunday- Tuesday night of Holy Week are called the Bridegroom Matins. The theme of these services is watchfulness- we are reminded that the "Bridegroom (Christ) comes in the middle of the night," and our lamps should be lit. These have long been some of my most favorite services to attend.

Wednesday, we dyed eggs with Grammy, Aunt Bethany, Clara and the Hemati's. Luke loved coloring the eggs with a white crayon and watching the eggs go in and out of the dye.We made some for our egg hunt on Sunday afternoon and some for our Pascha basket. Here we all are:
Our red Pascha egg:
All of our dyed eggs. Notice Luke's artwork on the blue egg in the middle? He can even say blue, green and purple (bu, green, and pupple) now.The pascha (easter) basket traditionally includes red eggs, cheese, a sweet bread, and several other items and is taken to church and blessed at the Easter service.

Yesterday and today, Luke and I went to more services. We also made kulich-a traditional Easter bread. Kulich is a traditional Easter bread that will also go in our pascha basket. Luke received a little table and chair set from his godparents and has already logged many hours sitting at it. Here he is with Daddy, playing with some plastic eggs that we will also use for our Sunday hunt. I am not sure yet if I will put any candy in them- he seems to like them enough as they are. Also, he and grammy have been pretending that they are cups and have been drinking juice out of them. :)

The egg tea party:
Video at the little table with Daddy:

Catching Up

I know it has been a while since I posted, so here are a few snippets from our past week:


-Luke loves the book "Doggies" by Sandra Boynton. In fact, he loves pretty much anything by Sandra Boynton, but "Doggies" is his favorite. He loves it so because of the great noises that I make when I read it to him. I bark, yelp, whimper, and howl- yep, all the things doggies do. Spontaneously, while playing around the house, he will begin to howl, "Aaahh-ooooooh." It is very cute.

-I have been telling Luke things without showing him what I am talking about for the past week, and he amazes me with what he understands. For example, I say, "Luke, go get your shoes." He then goes into the box of shoes in the foyer and brings me his favorite little white shoes. He also understands when I tell him that we are going outside, going to eat, and going to see Clara.

-New words for Luke this week are cheese and juice. They actually sound very similar.

- We are in another screaming phase and I am going nuts. I think I am trying to hard to make him stop. When he screams, I pick him up and set him in another room and tell him "No screaming, that is not ok." Sometimes it helps, sometimes not.

-Luke has slept through the night 4 nights in a row. I almost am worried to write this in case I jinx myself for tonight (if it is even possible to do such a thing).

-I am so excited about going home for Christmas that I just want to keep doing things to get ready- present making, plan making, etc.... I love this time of year!


That is all for now. I hope to have more pictures or video up soon. We had a really great one that would not load. There are benefits to having a powerful camera, but it does make videos very large and hard to post.

Pumpkin Patch and Our Little Lion

I am tired, and don't have much energy for writing so here are some photos of our last few days:



1. Trick or Treating with friends from church

2. On a Skype call with Grammy and Papa, showing off the outfit.

3. The little lion in full gear.

4. At the pumpkin patch.

5. Cousins on pumpkins.