nutcracker date

On Sunday Annie and I had our 3rd annual date to see the Nutcracker. It's the one time of the year we get both get dressed up and it's something we look forward to for months. Annie seemed to enjoy it more than ever this year, whispering "Oooh! I love this part!" each time a new dance started. Maurice Sendak designed the set and costumes and every year I am so awestruck by how beautiful it all is. This really is one of my favorite things to do, especially since I get to go with my favorite girl.

christmas brunch

Our small group had a brunch last Saturday with a gift exchange for the kids and a white elephant exchange for the grown-ups. We LOVE our small group and had the best day eating, laughing, eating, and crashing on Steve & Michelle's couch for the afternoon while we continued to eat.


Annie and and her good buddy Dylan. He looks worried.


My white elephant gift. The Survivair courtesy of fireman Steve. It's awesome. However, I am slightly jealous that I didn't get the framed wedding photo of Charles & Diana that Doni walked away with.


Putting on a "little show."


All the kids minus Marcus. Soren is very focused on her lip gloss. Luka seems to have had enough with the whole thing.

random jonah pics

I don't know why I thought it would be OK to let him around with a package of cocoa mix.


Please, please don't make me eat this donut!


He was upset because we wouldn't give him a new donut. He decided he was done with this one because all the frosting was gone.

...and we're back

Between fevers, croup, colds, December craziness and another internet outage, we're a bit behind on the blogging.

Lots of pictures to come...

jonah's first bad dream

At 3:00 this morning we heard Jonah sobbing hysterically in his room. Joel went into investigate.
Joel:
"Jonah, what's wrong?"
Jonah:
"It's off! It's off!"
Joel:
"What's off?:
Jonah:
"Mommy turned off Pink Panther because there was a monster!"
Joel:
"Oh, I'm sorry buddy. It sounds like you had a sad dream."
Jonah:
"I sleep in mommy's bed now!"

it's raining, it's pouring

So, we found out yesterday what happens when it rains. A lot. It all comes into the garage. From there it enters the basement. I'm not sure I would have even gone down to check if a friend hadn't told me at the bus stop that another neighbor's house was flooding. Genius' that we are, we had the plastic tubs sitting up high off the ground while the cardboard boxes of books and CD's were sitting on the floor. Well, yesterday they were sitting in 3 inches of water. My poor husband was in a meeting when I called him and launched into full panic attack mode because I was standing in water and completely overwhelmed by what was happening. Have I mentioned that the volume on his phone is typically loud? Add to that my half yelling/half sobbing voice and at least two of his co-workers got to experience me in all my crazy glory.

The good part? I was reminded once again how thankful I am for our amazing neighbors. Janet sent her daughter down the street right away to watch the kids. She also dropped off cookies and plastic tubs for us in the evening. My friend Caroline showed up with another neighbor (whom I had never even met) bearing a sump pump which he got going while she started helping me with the boxes. She even had us over for dinner after that.

The pump ran all night and the water was finally out this morning. Joel stayed home so we could sort piles for trash, recycling, and things to hopefully be salvaged. We are so tired. At least when this is over we'll finally have a clean garage!


This was the worst of it - right after I found it and the rain was still pouring down.


If you look closely, you can see water coming out of the corner of the top right box.


Wet boxes in the basement.


I find it somewhat ironic that the kids swimming pool was sitting in the middle of all the water.


The lovely decorations we now have adorning our living room. Who needs carpet when you can walk on books? This isn't even all the books we're trying to dry - we ran out of room in here.

advent

Our first Sunday of Advent got off to a rocky start when Jonah spent 15 minutes crying hysterically about the candles. "I don't want it to be Jesus' birthday! I want it to be my birthday!" Hanging the Advent calendar on the wall didn't go over to well either. "I want my game! I don't want my game to be on the wall!" On the other hand, it's great to see how focused Annie is on Advent this year, instead of on Santa and presents - not that those aren't in the equation for her. But, she's much more excited to light the candle and read our story every night at dinner and she's talking a lot about how we are waiting for Jesus. After dinner on we popped popcorn and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas.

tree

Jonah spent 20 minutes playing with the Boba Fett ornament. Who can blame him?


Putting the star on top.


Showing off the new Christmas jammies.


Jonah is all about grouping like objects together.

snow!

christmas tree cutting

The thought of giving up our search for a tree and buying a fake one actually crossed our mind as we trudged all over the fourth place we stopped to look for a tree. (The first place didn't even have any trees yet.) Luckily, we found the perfect tree hiding in the bottom corner right when we were about to leave. The kids even got to help cut it down.