Merry Christmas!

We wish you a very Merry Christmas.

I've just started "The Irrational Season" by Madeleine L'Engle. It's really good and really deep, so reading is really slow. Here is a beautiful poem that she includes, written from Mary's point of view. She writes, "But because I, too, am woman and mother, it is my joy and privilege to identify with this young girl who contained within her womb the Power of the universe."

"O thou who bears the pain of the whole earth,

I bore thee.

O thou whose tears give human tears their worth,

I laughed with thee.

Thou who, when thy hem is touched, give power,

I nourished thee.

Who turns the day to night in this dark hour,

Dayspring for me.

O thou who held the world in thy embrace,

I dandled thee.

Whose arms encircle all men with thy grace,

I once held thee.

O thou who laughed and ate and walked the shore,

I played with thee.

And I, who with all others, thou died for,

I now hold thee."

Christmas morning

Christmas came early around here - this morning, Dec. 22. It was the best and most relaxed Christmas we have had in years. Just the five of us. I think I'll do this every year. The kids loved sharing the gifts they bought for each other. Such delight in giving and receiving gifts. Derrick and I loved giving our gifts to them and having time to watch them play with them all day. No hectic schedules. No overload of gifts from extended family. Just time to enjoy our family of five.

I'm pretty excited in this picture about my new kitchen scale, but was even more excited by Sweet Andrew's gift. He found a plastic jewel and wanted to make me a ring. The kids and Derrick worked hard last night to put it together. It is beautiful...especially since I know it was given with so much love.



We gave Amanda some hand-me-down babies clothes and accessories - from herself! These were all clothes she wore as a newborn that I've saved for her dolls.

Here is Amanda as a baby...

And here is her baby, Merry, today wearing the same dress. It was one of my favorites. Amanda loves it also because it is pink and has "dot-dots."

Both boys enjoyed opening their new tool kits...plenty of real tools to help around the house. They even used the wire cutters to open their next gift...

Nerf guns. These really were the big hit for the boys. I did not see them today without weapons in hand. We have a few near-accidents and several "teachable" moments, but we went to bed with nothing broken.

We completed our Christmas morning with Breakfast Casserole that was made in the Crock Pot overnight. Delicious and easy!

It was such a fun day, full of great memories.

really, really close

We are close to finishing and I'm excited. We are so pleased with our cabinet shop - Classic City Cabinets. Henry Fitzpatrick is the owner. Not only does he do beautiful work, but he was so patient with my many changes throughout the process. Without blinking, he took my crazy ideas and made them work. Here are some updated pictures.

Installation began Monday and this are the Monday evening pictures:



Installation continued on Tuesday, Wednesday and today. Today was the most wonderful day because the finishing touches were put on the cabinets (like crown molding and shelves installed.) I told Henry that those touches made beautiful cabinets look gorgeous.

The granite guys (GSS Granite - also GREAT to work with) came later in the afternoon and installed our beautiful countertops.


Here are some of my favorite features of our new kitchen:

I saw a spice cabinet in a mass-produced cabinet catalogue at Lowe's, showed it to Henry and he made me one. We pulled a bunch of my spices and set the shelves at the right levels - you can't get more custom than that. I can't wait to have my spices so accessible. The rear shelves are half-depth, so I can store honey, vinegar, etc.

This stair-step from our refrigerator to the microwave to the normal cabinet depth is beautiful. We spent hours trying to decide where to put the microwave and this solution surprised me yesterday by being so beautiful.

Our breakfast circle/homework circle/friends to tea circle. My good friend Cindy, who loves to enjoy a cup of tea with me and dream of ideas for our husbands to work on, had this GREAT idea. She saw it on HGTV...who knew I would ever have an HGTV idea in my home!

Amanda and I ate dinner here tonight, since we were snacking for dinner. She was giddy the entire meal...too excited about her location to focus on her dinner. I'm sure the giddiness will die down, but I'm dreaming of spending many hours at this spot...playdoh, homework, cookie decorating, visiting, coloring, snacking...so many hours.

(You can also see another favorite spot in the background - open shelving. It's a spot to display all of the art treasures that the kids bring home from school.)



Here is the view from the pass-through window. I sat on my couch today pretending to read, but really watching the finishing touches of the installation. I enjoyed every minute of it.

It's beautiful, but not a kitchen yet. We need appliances, power, and water. Maybe you can come and visit in a couple of weeks? I would love to make you some tea and serve you some homemade cookies, bread, pizza, and spaghetti - all items that have been requested by Derrick and the kids to make AS SOON AS we have a kitchen. We are all craving good food.

As we ate at a restaurant last night, I remarked that it would be a shame to be without a kitchen for a month and get so used to eating out that you never actually cook in your new kitchen. Derrick gave me a strange look and emphatically said, "No. That has not happened to us." I agree that there isn't much food (at least in our budget) that tastes as good as what comes out of a home kitchen.

Christmas Cookies

Christmas creeps ever closer and I realized yesterday that I could not go an entire Christmas season without baking Christmas cookies. Derrick has already made a list of cookies to make in January, but it didn't seem right to save all baking until then.

Luckily for us, one of our favorite Christmas cookies are pizzelles. They don't involve a stove top or oven. All you need is a pizzelle maker (or in our case, a waffle cone iron that we bought a few years ago at a super discount price.) I pulled our anise extract as I packed the kitchen a few weeks ago, so all the ingredients were ready to go. The hardest part was finding an outlet that worked, allowed us enough space to set up our card table and was not over carpet. Our only option was the laundry room. So we set about making Christmas cookies while wedged between the washer and dryer.

The kids and I mixed the batter, but Derrick is our resident waffle maker, so I decided that he would also be good at pizzelles. Here is everyone waiting patiently for them to cook - one at a time.
We ate almost every single one of them as they came hot off the iron. We saved a few and have been munching on them throughout the day. Boy are they good. And, just a taste of the goodies to come when we have an oven again.

Meanwhile...Scott was bored with waiting, so he found a new hiding place. Too bad that will be closed in when we have countertops.

making progress

We are making progress! Here is a picture from last week when our sheetrock was installed. If you live in our area, I HIGHLY recommend our sheetrock guys. They patched our ceiling and you can't even tell where it was patched. They also mopped my floors for me before they left. It was the best clean-up job of any workers so far.


I spent the early part of this week painting. The painting is finished, but it looks half-finished. We only painted the areas that would be exposed. Derrick removed the pass-through counter top last night. All we have left on our list is to caulk around the vent pipe.


Installation of our cabinets begins Monday! We are so excited. I stopped by the shop earlier this week and they look beautiful.

We also have a new idea for our "breakfast/homework" area. I cut the cardboard template this morning and our cabinet guy just came to give his seal of approval. Now all I need is our granite guy to say it is OK.

More updates next week!!

kitchen renovation - demolition

We are renovating our kitchen! I've had several friends ask for pictures. Here they are:

Before:
(Do you see all those little cabinets on top? We had 54 door knobs! We won't have so many in our new kitchen.)
It's too bad that you can't see the coffee stains on the white cabinets just below the coffee pot. We won't have white cabinets either. Leslie & white just don't mix very well.

You can see that the door frame had already been removed at the far end of the picture. Derrick was so excited to demolish, that he started before I even took the "before" pictures.


Same view without cabinets or sheetrock. It took Derrick about two days to get everything out and into our carport. I helped a little and watched children a lot. They LOVED watching and "helping."
You should have seen us removing the long cabinets. Derrick used his old skateboard to prop one end of the heavy cabinets and "skated" them out the door and into the carport. (He knew it would be eventually good for something. Good thing we saved it all these years.) We only had to cut two cabinets - the refrigerator cabinet and the wall oven cabinet.

The best part was that Habitat for Humanity came and took ALL of it away to reuse or sell! Yay for saving space in a landfill!! Yay for saving our budget from having to rent a dumpster!! We still have eight bags of sheetrock sitting out there, but better than a carport full of stuff. We can haul them in a truck.

This is the BEST part of the demolition. We are opening a bit of wall space to make a little seating area. Unfortunately I don't have a great "before" picture of this view, but you can see where the wall used to be. In order to see what was going on in the dining room, I'd have to walk all the way around the corner. Now, I'll just be able to peep through the door. Great for keeping tabs on conversations between little ones.


The same view now that the studs are down. You can see our little Christmas countdown chains on the right (one is our family chain and the other is Kindergarten curriculum - Andrew made it at school.) That's the extent of our decorations in the main area of the house. It makes me sad not to have a big tree, but I know sheetrock dust covers everything. We set a little tree in the boys' room and our manger scene on Derrick's dresser.


The boys checking out what it will be like to eat at our new bar. You can see the tape outlines on the floor. You can also see that the electricians came in and wired last week.

Our floor guy is here today patching the floor. He installed the hardwoods six years ago and is having a hard time tearing up his own work. But I'm confident that he will make it look beautiful again.

We have our sheetrock guy coming later in the week and then I get to start painting!! Anyone want to come help? :)

Running Tradition

Traditions...its what Thanksgiving is all about. After all, there is no other day that I even allow green bean casserole on my dinner table, but I wouldn't do without it on the fourth Thursday of November.

So a big tradition in our family is running on Thanksgiving morning. I first ran the Thanksgiving Half marathon when I was in high school and have either run it or volunteered at the start line almost every year since.

Things change and traditions change...This year we decided to pass the torch to the next generation. (Yes, I know I'm a bit young to pass torches, but I did it anyway. I ran with Farley in my parent's neighborhood, so I also earned my turkey even if I did not earn a shirt.)

We shared with our little runners all of the traditions of race morning (except the 4AM wake up call).

Here they are patiently waiting for the race to start, as we arrived way too early.

A little warm up jog...


And stretching, of course...


Andrew even managed a smile as he stretched.


And, of course, lying down in the middle of the road as we waited for the race.


Andrew and Amanda ran the "Gravy Gallop," a 50 yard dash. They ran it by age groups. Here is Andrew's start.


You can barely see little Amanda in the center of the picture, just to the left of the lady in the blue sweatshirt. She galloped at full speed. She was so fast that my camera didn't have time to recover before she sped past me.

Scott ran the "Mashed Potato Mile."

The best part of any race is the post-race snack.


And the post race water.


You can see that everyone received a medal because they ran with smiles on their faces. :)

leaves

The kids and I had a great time raking leaves yesterday afternoon. The huge oaks in our neighbor's yard started dropping their leaves last week and our driveway was full. I raked the piles to the center of the driveway and the boys took turns zooming the leaves down with the snow shovel and a push broom. Andrew pretended he was riding a roller coaster.

Of course the most fun was playing the the huge pile when we were finished.











Even Farley joined in on the fun. He kept burying his ball in the pile and then digging to find it again.

Looking up at the remaining leaves on the trees, I'd say we have at least one more big raking day for the driveway in a few weeks. Derrick will cover the rest with his lawnmower.

Home for the Holidays

I'm quite sure this isn't as exciting as a child coming home from college, but we have some creatures who are home for the holidays...our roaches. Yes the kids were quite excited when Derrick brought them home last week.


The biggest question is where to store them...I mean, where to let them live.

I don't want them in the kitchen...or the dining room...or my bedroom...or really anywhere in the house. They are currently in the living room, but a little too low for my comfort. I just know a child or dog could easily lift the lid and let them go. Yuck.


And, Derrick brought home a heating pad. We read somewhere that they only mate when it is over 80 degrees. He wants little roach babies (since they have a limited life and he wants to keep them for a while), so he plans to warm their cage a bit. Ewwwww.

Best buddies

This was the scene at lunch today. Amanda insisted on having a picnic. Farley posted himself nearby in hopes of catching a crumb or two. He was successful in his efforts with at least one carrot and a few crackers.

The day before Halloween...

How did you spend your Sunday afternoon? When I awoke this morning, I planned to read, take a walk, and do a little computer work after church. Oh, and I wanted to pull out the costumes that the kids had selected for Halloween. Do you remember the cool Ninja costumes that we bought after Halloween last year? I thought we had settled that the boys would wear those.

All I thought I had to do was make a set of Minnie Mouse ears. Yesterday, I purchased a black headband and some fabric - 7 inches to be exact to get the correct width. I wasn't sure what I would do with the rest of the length.

So, after church, I was about to dive into the costume box to fish out all of the Ninja pieces when Andrew announced that he wanted to be a pumpkin. And Scott decided to be Cat in the Hat (with a hat Aunt Stephanie made a few years ago.)

I was determined not to fight the crowds today. Everything had to be something we already have in the house. Luckily, I have a good craft supply (and that extra black fabric that I purchased yesterday...I used it in all three costumes.) Here are the results:

I have to sew the face on the pumpkin (recognize the orange fabric?) I think I'll also put a piece of elastic on the bottom and stuff Andrew with balloons. He's pretty excited about that.

So, we'll be wearing original costumes made from things we already had at home. Just needed a little sewing, glue gun action and some time. (And I may have to venture to the store in the morning...we don't keep colored hair spray at this house. I think Andrew needs orange hair. Or, I may just fashion a hat with a stem...any ideas?)

Disney World!

Guess where we spent Fall Break...



Disney World!! We had a wonderful trip. It truly is the Happiest Place on Earth. Magical. Fun. Special. I loved it and can't wait to return in a few years.

I've just sifted through 300 pictures and wanted to share some highlights here.

My parents joined us on the trip and we all stayed in a really cool place that had a little water park. The kids loved playing on it the first day we arrived. I thought it was a little cold, but joined in on the action a little.

We spent one full day at Magic Kingdom. Here we are as we arrived!! (The ears were just for the picture...they stayed in the car the rest of the day.)

One of the boy's favorite rides was Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. You shoot the bad guys with these laser guns and get points. At the end of the ride, you can see who had the most points. Once Derrick won and the other time my Dad collected the most points. It was fun for all ages!!




The other favorite ride was Space Mountain, of course. The boys rode it four times. It was great fun!


Amanda's highlight was meeting the princesses. They were wonderful and spent so much time with each little girl. Cinderella won Amanda's heart with her kindness.


Belle taught Amanda how to twirl.


And Aurora wore pink...what more could you ask of her?



Amanda's other favorite ride was "riding the elephant." She loves elephants, so was thrilled to ride one.

The second day was a bit more hectic. We hopped between parks. The boys wore their Mater shirts and the cast members called them "Mater" all day.


We saw the stage show of Beauty and the Beast and that sealed it for Amanda that Belle is her favorite princess. She was entranced with the entire 30 minute performance.



Here are Andrew and I getting ready for Star Tours. It was the end of the day and certainly one of the best rides.


Each child picked out a souvenir to bring home.