Christmas Eve

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We always go to mass on Christmas Eve and this year Kim and Sarah sang in the choir and Nate was a server. Steve didn't have usher duty which was a good thing because somebody had to sit with Natalie! It was a beautiful mass and Natalie really enjoyed all the music, instruments, and streamers. After mass we came home and had a dinner of "snacks'. The kids always want cheese and sausage with crackers, shrimp cocktail (for Nate), and this year we had some fresh Polish sausage that our neighbor gave to Steve. We opened our traditional present of pajamas and enjoyed a family game of Trivial Pursuit.

This year we came home from mass to find a not so pleasant surprize....I'm sad to say that Sarah's guinea pig, Smore, died on Christmas Eve. Sarah got her in Kindergarten for her birthday and misses hearing her squeek in her room. It was a tough Christmas Eve for Sarah - excited about Christmas, but very sad to lose Smore.

A New Tradition?

My good friend Carolyn makes gingerbread houses with her 4 children every Christmas and had leftover dough this year which she gave to us. We decided we'd give it a try and downloaded the patterns off of Bob Villa's "This Old House" website. We tried 2 different designs - Sarah's house is the Saltbox and Nate's house is the Twin Gabled. Friday night Steve and I made all the pieces and then Saturday morning we decorated. Steve even made a miniature house for Natalie. The kids really enjoyed building their houses and came up with some great ideas for decorating using their leftover Halloween candy. Natalie was more interested in trying all the candy than decorating her house. Will this become a new tradition for our family? I think the kids would vote YES!

Baking Christmas cookies

Both Nate and Sarah have always enjoyed helping me in the kitchen. This year was no different and they each picked out a cookie/treat to make for the holidays. Sarah had a cookie exchange with her Girl Scout troop so she had to make 5 dozen cookies. She choose Peppermint Snowballs which are butter cookies dipped in white chocolate and then in crushed candy canes - Yum! For the third year in a row Nate chose Cookie Dough Truffles which he was able to make pretty much by himself. This is a no bake recipe of chocolate chip dough dipped in chocolate and is very rich, but good.

Christmas decorating

We spent a fun couple of days getting our Christmas decorations up. We always put up 2 trees - one big, real tree in the living room and one smaller, fake tree in the family room. The smaller tree is totally for the kids. They decorate it all by themselves with ornaments that they have made and others that have been given to them. Sarah especially enjoys crafting new ornaments every year that can be used on her tree. This was Natalie's first year helping and as you can imagine she spent as much time taking ornaments off as Nate and Sarah spent putting them on! This is where Santa leaves his presents.....wonder what he will bring this year?

Orchestra Concert

After exploring band, choir, and orchestra the first 6 weeks of school, Nate has chosen to join the orchestra and plays the violin. We went to his first concert a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed hearing how much he has learned. They played a variety of music including "Jaws" which was really fun. Nate seems to really enjoy learning the violin and practices almost every day. He likes to bring home the worship aid from church to play the songs we sing during mass.

Natalie gets a haircut

It was finally time.....I've been trimming Natalie's bangs off and on, but it was time to have a "real" haircut so off we went yesterday morning. She did pretty well until she saw the squirt bottle and scissors. I ended up holding her in my lap once she got upset and everything was OK. Natalie's got a little wave in her hair like me and Sarah so the stylist is predicting that it will get more curly the longer it grows. We'll see....she kind of gets little wings on the side after her bath....it's very cute. She also got her first balloon after the haircut...I forgot what cheap entertainment that is for a toddler! She played with it all day and found it again this morning - of course we had to keep it away from her big brother and sister - it's great entertainment for them too!

Pheasant Hunting

Steve and his friend Brian took Nate and Brian's nephew pheasant hunting on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. As you can see, it was a very successful day!