A White Christmas

     It snowed here, early and a lot.  We got over 8 inches at our house by our ruler.  Then we got around four inches a few days later.  The girls had so much fun sledding!  Our yard is very steep so it makes for some awesome sledding, as long as they remember to roll off before they go off into the woods.  

     We also walked down to the river which was really beautiful in the snow.  Parts of the water were iced over and there were deer tracks all around.  We also climbed up to some boulders and found a "cave" and long icicles.  Tink went with us, even though I had to carry her most if the time because the snow was too deep.

     The snow was so pretty the second time it snowed because it stuck to all the trees.  It really was a winter wonderland!

     We've been lighting our Advent candles one more each week.  The girls fuss over who gets to light them, and blow them out, but all-in-all they're pretty good about it.  I like the reminders of Christmas coming and the focus on Christ each night at dinner.

     I took the girls to see the train display at the Kenilsworth Mall in Towson.  It wa really cool!  There are little buttons that control parts of the display all around it.  It's also full of every sort of cartoon characters, from Minnie Mouse to Ironman.  I even found the Tardis!  The girls really enjoyed looking for what the buttons controlled and finding all the different characters.

     It snowed again.  This time only a dusting, but I'm getting lots of snow shoveling practice after a years' respite.

     Jason and I celebrated 13 years of marital bliss on the 16th.  The traditional gift for 13 years is lace, so Jasongot creative and found me this pair of lacey mouse flats.  So cute!  We celebrated with a candlelite dinner in the dining room.  The waitresses in this restaurant are a little pushy and prone to eaves dropping, but it was a lovely dinner.

     Out of the blue Lula decide she wanted her ears pierced.  I already had the gun, so we stopped at Sally's and got the earrings and did it at home.  It was NOT fun.  I have sworn off ear piercing.  It's a good thing we don't have any more kids - if they want some other holes in ears, they can do it themselves. But, Lyla's ears did get pierced and she is proud of them.  I think they're pretty cute looking too.

     The rest of the week we were busy getting ready to go home for Christmas, finishing up school, cleaning, and finishing up some home-made Christmas presents.  I was able to get enough sourdough starter made to give to some friends and neighbors.  I love to give people stuff like this!  

     This was perhaps the first Chriatmas that I haven't been finishing some project or taking something in the car to finish on our way home for Christmas.  It all got done with time to spare!  Woohoo!  So now we can head south and relax and enjoy our family and Christmas.  

Celee is 10!

     I can't believe my second daughter is 10!  When did this happen?!  Celee did indeed turn 10 though, and as is our custom, we gave here a trip of her choosing with just me for the weekend as her gift.  (Thankfully, she chose somewhere within driving distance!)
     On her actual birthday, we happened to be having History Club at our house, so we also had a little celebration for Celee's birthday then.  She wanted a cannoli cake for her cake this year.  We made the cake, filling and frosting, and then I found the cannolies at a little specialty grocery/bakery in Glyndon.  I was fretting a little about the cannoli's because I knew I couldn't make them right and most places you have to place an order to get them.  But Thank You Santoni's!  You have cannolies ready to go in the case!

     Celee did get a gift from her sisters, and the cards from family to open on Thursday morning.  She is so funny!  I love how excited and easy to please she is with gifts!  She really loves just about anything she ever receives - even the candy bars that Gwyn and Lyla picked out for her.  I'd love a candy bar too!

   
     I love hanging up the Happy Birthday sign each year.  I printed it out, colored it, and hung it for Celee when she turned 3 and somehow this paper sign has made it this far!  On the other kiddos birthdays we just leave off the Celee part.  :)

     I must say that it took Celee around 8 or 9 huffs to blow out all the candles.  Gwyn and Lyla were then teasing her that she was going to have 9 children when she grows up!  She finally got all 10 out though.

     Because Celee's birthday is in the winter, many of the things she might have chosen had the weather been warm were out.  But she chose to go to Massanutten Resort, which has an indoor waterpark and a snow tubing hill.  It's also a ski resort, but she wanted to go tubing.  We didn't actually stay at the resort, but in the nearby city of Harrisonburg, VA which was only a 15 minute drive away.
     The water park was super fun.  I don't have too many pictures because we were too busy riding the slides and playing to take pictures. Our favorite things there were the 3 slides that you can ride double tubes down.  It is a testament to how much I love Celee that I lost count of how many time we climbed the 4 flights of stairs to get to the top and ride the slides. I lost count after 20.   I did get some pictures of Celee trying the surfing simulator.  She did pretty good!  The life guards shout out to the kids (and adults) what to do and Celee was doing really good until the guard wanted her to throw the board forward and then catch it.  That's when the "wave" took her.

     I just had to take a picture of Celee eating this brownie.  It was so thick and chewy that it got stuck in the roof of her mouth.  We were laughing so hard because she kept trying and trying to get it out and it just wouldn't.  :)  Again, she is so funny because she kept saying she couldn't wait to tell Gwyn and Lyla how much junk food we were eating, and for dinner too!

     The next day we headed out for the tubing hill.  We had to wait a little bit for our time slot, so Celee got to do the kid's ropes course in the meanwhile.  She was the only one there so she got to go twice and the guy at the end let her go back and forth on the zip line a few times.

     The tubing hill was great!  There is a long escalator that takes you and the tube up.  Then there were about 5-6 lanes open a the top.  It was snowing by this time and the lanes were getting too fast. (which made it even more fun)  The guys that work there ended up putting mats out at the bottom to try to slow people down.  But we figured out that if you rode in the 4th lane, you could get some air on the last bump before the bottom.  It was crazy cold though and we headed inside twice to warm up before going back out to tube again.  Finally the cold got to us and Celee was done.

     We headed home in the crazy winter storm that came through on that Sunday.  We had some scary moments.  The car skidded around and ended up backwards twice even though I was only going 30 mph.  Thankfully no one else happened to be on the road where we were when that happened both times and no damage was done.  Celee passed the time watching Planes, which her aunt had given her for her birthday.  She was either doing that or praying out loud with me while we skidded.  :)  We did make it home, after getting stuck on a road about 2 mi. from home. Only after finally backing down the hill to try again after the plow came by did we make it.

     I'm so glad that I got to spend this special time with Celee.  She is such a funny, smart, creative, thoughtful, and beautiful girl!  I'm so proud of her!  She has really worked hard this year overcoming some of her math anxiety.  She is also my most introspective daughter.    She often appears very serious and is in deep thought over something that has caught her attention.  She works hard and is very helpful to me around the house, or in the yard, or with whatever I happen to be doing.  We love you Celee!  Happy 10th Birthday!

Advent is here!

     Advent is here!  We couldn't wait to go get our Christmas tree!  No small carpeted apartment living room, so we could get a real tree again this year.  We went to a small Christmas Tree farm that is near our house called Davidson's.  We ended up walking the whole place before the girls found the perfect one.  Then we had to drag it in a cart all the way to the front to pay for it.  It was quite heavy!  We all took turns though.

     We've also gotten into the spirit by making some pasta angel ornaments.  The intention is for the girls to sell them at a craft bazaar that our field trip group is having, but if no one buys them we'll keep them!  It's so funny how excited my girls get when I let them use the hot glue gun.  It's a very special treat I guess.

    Speaking of the girls being excited, they ALWAYS beg to get on the roof any time Jason or I have to do something on the roof.  They have always done this since they were itty bitty and I never would have let them up there.  But I was putting the lights on the roof and they kept begging so I gave in.  I remember getting on the roof of my grandparents' house when I was little with my Papaw.  I thought it was the coolest thing.  And the girls thought it was the coolest thing too!  No worries though - I told them they had to stay on their bottoms and they could not get anywhere near the edge.  And no one got hurt.  Yay!  They were so excited they were waving and yelling at passing cars.  They even got one honk out of it.

     We've started lighting our Advent wreath.  The girls have those chocolate Advent calendars too that you open a little door each day and get a little chocolate to eat.  I love the visual reminders of counting down until Christmas!!  We also discovered a super fun game that I had bought years ago.  No one ever wanted to play it before, but Big Fish Little Fish is a really fun card game.  The girls get so excited they start squeeling and laughing until they can't breathe!

     All the trees are decorated.  The real one ended up looking a little huge once we got it home, but that's ok too.  The tiny one I've had since I lived in a dorm room my freshman year in college is up too - even though it drops so many needles every year I don't see how it even still looks like a tree.  And the old hand-me-down fake tree is up too!  If I had my druthers (is that a real word?  Or one Southerners made up?)  I'd have a tree in every room.  I may have to work on that next year.   We also put out our nativity that my parents made for us.  I love it!  And the tree they made up many years ago.  I've had several neighbors compliment it so I'm glad that other people can enjoy our decorations too.

     So we're trying to finish up our school semester, buy or make the gifts that still need doing, keep everyone fed and clothed in clean clothes.  Sometimes those last two can overwhelm me!  But we're looking forward to all the holiday fun - parties, decorations, events, traveling, gifts, music.  I love the fact that people that don't know Jesus still give him worship unknowingly at this time of year.  I know we also do a lot of things that are not worship at this time of year, but I love that God is bigger than a Christmas tree or a list of songs.  He is good and Christmas is when I'm reminded just how good.  God Himself as a little baby, living among us, to bring us His mercy and grace.  I love it!