Christmas

Christmas with my extended family. We had a great time!

Opening gifts

Playing cards later in the evening

CHRISTmas

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel - which means 'God with us.'"

Remember that the reason for the season - is a celebration of HIS birth.

Merry CHRISTmas

family pictures from Christmas 2009

Our boys

cousins

cousins

Cub Scouts - Christmas party

The Tiger cubs den served the dinner that night. Chips and subs.

JJ got to sit on Santa's lap. Plus Santa gave him an early Christmas gift.

zoo class - creatures of the night

It was a special time for JJ as Dad had the day off work - and he took JJ to his zoo class. The topic was creatures of the night. JJ had a great time hanging out with Dad.

Circle time

They got to pet a live chinchilla. JJ loved that!

They made a craft project - which was a paper bag owl. Very cool!

The making of the gingerbread house

We had fun making a gingerbread house. Great lesson in working together.

Bethlehem Market Place

A local church re-enacts Bethlehem Market Place - at the time that Christ was born. It really give the children (and adults) a great visual of the events of the times. At the end they always have Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. They also always have live animals - goats, geese, lambs, a camel.

Above JL is watching the metal worker.

Hubby, JJ and JL

the pottery maker

How appropriate! - my oldest is at the place where he can get apples to eat. All that child does is eat!

Here is the breadmaker - the kids could get pita bread with honey. Very tasty!

Art Class - based on the work of Keith Haring

Our art class this time was based on the work of Keith Haring (note - if you go out and look at some of his work - please be aware that some of his work is totally inappropriate for children - of course our art class did not utilize those for our project). He does some great figure sculptures with bold colors.

Above I am cutting out some of the shapes that will then be used to make the body of the figure. My middle one was able to do his own cutting but my youngest needed help - as it required the use of an exacto knife.

The art teacher is helping my son to assemble his pieces.

My other son is assembling his pieces.

Here you can get an idea of the finished figure - he does have it upside down as he is working on attaching the legs.

New roof

And to top of the busyness of the holidays - we also had a new roof, new gutters and new insulation installed in the beginning of December. It took several days but we are so glad it is done. We were noticing some issues with the old roof leaking. Plus there were 3 roofs up there and code is no more than 2. So now we are to code!! Below are pictures of the beginning of the process - just after the supplies were delivered.

Cub scout - field trip to firehouse

One of the Dad's of my youngest son's Cub Scout group is a firefighter. He gave the scouts a great tour of the fire station he works at. The scouts all had a great time.

Above is the group - posing - plus the firefighters.

The scouts got a chance to climb through one of the engines to see what the inside looked like. Here is my youngest - all smiles - he really enjoyed being able to be up in the fire truck.

One of the firemen put on his equipment to show the scouts what he wears when fighting a fire.

They pulled out all the various equipment on the trucks to show the kids.

Thanksgiving Pies

Well, sad as it is - a whole month has almost gone by and I haven't had time to blog. I was so busy doing the preparations for the family to come on Thanksgiving. It turned out to be a wonderful time. Below are two pictures of some of the desserts I made. The first is an apple pie and the second is an apple cranberry crisp. I had also made a maple pumpkin cheese cake and a chocolate cheese cake. It all seemed to go over well as there was hardly any food left over. I had made a turkey and a ham - as my middle child had requested. He doesn't really like turkey and was thrilled that I was making ham, too.

Who knew

Apparently one can clean the stove better if one's shirt is off. Who knew!

Come to think if it - my husband might find cleaning a whole lot more fun if that was how I cleaned!

what is up with that

Okay so as we are cleaning

the dog decides

we aren't paying any attention to her

And so she throws up ----- just so we will have something more to clean up

how special!!

Christmas Music CD

I splurged and bought Casting Crowns new Christmas CD - Peace on Earth.

I decided to play it while cleaning. It is a very, very good CD. Wonderful way to get into the spirit of the holidays.

Prayers

Pray for Obama

Psalm 109:8

This is just so amazing to us. These are the two that tend to fight with each other but also can be most loving. The little one wanted no one else and curled up - he was so tired. I was reading to the kids and he promptly fell right asleep. It was just so cute we had to take a picture.

Art class - Vessels

We had a wonderful art class. They did two projects - mostly to have something to do while waiting. The main project was making a vessel but we could only go to the kitchen with the stoves in groups of 3 or 4. So the rest of the class worked on making snowflakes out of a CD.

Above Jt is shaping his vessel. We took records and heated them up in the oven at 250 degrees for a few minutes. They were put on top of a bowl so that they would start to bend in the shape of the bowl. Then the kids got to shape them by hand. They were slightly warm but still able to be handled.
Here JL and JJ are creating their snowflake designs on paper first. Then after they added the pipe cleaners - they took permanent pen and drew on the fun designs and shapes that would make up a snowflake.

JL is shaping his vessel.

After the vessels were shaped then they got to paint them. My youngest really LOVES the painting part. And the more paint used the better. It was challenging getting his creation home because there were so many layers of paint - that it did not have time to dry prior to leaving.

Above is a close up of JL's vessel.

Above is JL's snowflake and below is Jt's. Isn't it interesting to see how creatively different they can be, even if utilizing the same materials.

Mrs. Roosevelt Re-enactment

A local lady does historical re-enactments of various famous women. She did a fabulous re-enactment of Mrs. Roosevelt - lots of great information. The timing was perfect as we are currently studying the Roosevelts and the Great Depression.

Book review - White Christmas Pie

By Wanda E. Brunstetter

This was a very heartwarming story that takes place around the Christmas holidays. The main characters are Amish. It is a story about finding forgiveness and healing.

Will is left as a boy with an Amish couple. His mother had died and his father promised to come back for him - but never does until he is already grown. Will is a few weeks away from getting married and his long, lost father shows up.

It is just a nice story with good Christian values.

Black Bean Chicken

I tried a new recipe for dinner tonight. It smells really good and looks fabulous!

2 cans black beans (I used one as that is all I had in the house)

16 oz. jar salsa

1/2 cup brown rice (uncooked)

1 lb chicken breast

Place frozen chicken breasts in slow cooker

Pour beans, rice and salsa over chicken

Cook low 8-10 hours and serve.

the new chair

Our dearest neighbor who is just an amazing women offered my son a desk chair. He is so thrilled as he did not have one and either was standing to do his work or took the time to move a kitchen chair to his room. He usually didn't like to take the time to do that and just stood. I always thought he looked uncomfortable but we just didn't have money for a chair when all he had to do was move a kitchen chair.

Our neighbor's son is moving back in with her and therefore she was making room. The chair is in perfect condition! Below you can see the proud new owner of the chair. He is thrilled.

science in action

Our science was on Mercury and the Moon --- we were learning how craters are made. Both the moon and Mercury are very dusty and have no atmosphere to prevent objects like rocks from hitting their surface. When a rock hits a crater is formed. We put flour in a bowl and practiced making craters. We started out inside but decided that 'some of us' like to hold the rock from great heights thereby causing flour to go everywhere. A lesson that the dog did not learn as quickly as he came in covered in flour!!

Tanner (the dog) is helping! Ya think!

food savings

Our local grocery store had meats on sale. If you bought the ham (which was a bit of money) then you got the turkey, breakfast sausage and eggs free. That is a savings of $13.94. The ground round was also on sale - and due to my husband's cholesterol issues we only get the better cuts of ground beef - either ground round or ground sirloin. So when it is on sale I buy several of them. Those are all roughly 3 pound packages and I got 5 of them. In the end I ended up spending $84.01 but I saved $47.99. Interestingly enough I saved so much that they needed a manager to come okay the order. For the most part I had only bought things on sale.

Funniest thing - I had also bought bagels and when I came in my oldest wanted to dive into the bagels. I wouldn't let him. He was totally confused - why wouldn't I let him eat them. Were they for something special? Nope!! I told him to put them on the table. He watched me in disbelief. What on earth are you doing, Mom? Well, I have to take a picture.

Next came the "you're going to blog about what food you bought??? No way! I gotta call Dad and tell him this one! He's just not going to believe it!"

Okay - ya know you are over the top with blogging when there is no eating until the picture is taken!!