Christmas Eve and Day

We usually spend Christmas Eve at my mom and dad's with my sisters, but since Dema and Grampy T are in St. Augustine (or thereabouts), and Kristin and Brian were visiting his parents in Indy, we decided to join the Christmas Eve celebration at Mamo's. We started the morning decorating the house and Christmas tree. Mary decided that she had to be a blue nun for Christmas decorating.

Apparently headdresses are contagious in our house.

The kids are old enough this year that they didn't really want any help with the tree. I pointed them to the ornament boxes and they went for it.

This worked out well because Gussie was napping at the time. And they did a good job - the tree looks great (even after a couple days of Gussie making adjustments to the ornament placement).

Peek a boo, Gus! I see you sneaking in to get those ornaments.

After a chill day of decorating we went to Mamo's for food and presents. 

Gussie loves all Christmas trees.

Michael Jr loves all presents.

Hi Mamo! Gussie also loves all cell phones. And Uncle Chris.

Gussie had a pretty good time opening presents, although it took him a while to get into it.

Olivia helped Grandma.

And Uncle Chris helped Gussie (or maybe the other way around - I'm not entirely sure).

Hi Aunt Heather!

A few months ago, I conspired with Mamo to get a big set of Tegu blocks for all the kids while they were on sale. We have been having Tegu block building marathons since they opened them on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was just our little family of six. Would you like to see how it went? Sorry, I didn't take a single picture. I know, terrible! But I was having too much fun watching the kids - I totally forgot. Staying true to our trend for the last few years, we didn't buy the kids any presents. Christmas morning was all presents that they made for each other. Catherine started some sewing and made embroidered bags for Mary and Michael Jr; she drew the designs to embroider and everything. She also made a pipe cleaner necklace for Mary's teddy bear. Mary was so happy about her gifts that she couldn't even say thank you; she circled around Catherine with her chin tucked in shyly and her eyes wide and finally managed to accept a hug. I love her.

Mary sewed and embroidered a fabric road for Michael Jr to drive his cars on, and crafted a neat pipe cleaner crown for Catherine. The girls also made a batch of real food instant hot cocoa for Daddy. 

Gussie didn't have anything wrapped under the tree, and he didn't care a bit. He just spun around the room with wrapping paper.

The kids all wore their special Christmas outfits to Mass and loved singing all the Christmas hymns. Gussie and Michael Jr nearly managed to drown out all the other singing with enthusiastic (but nonsensical) lyrics.

Then it was off to Grandma's house for Christmas dinner. Again, almost no pictures, but I did get this one of our family twins (separated by a few decades).

So far, it has been a lovely Christmas. For the third day of Christmas today, we're headed off to bowling at church, and we have several more Christmas celebrations and eight more days of activities to go (and I promise, I'll try to do better with pictures!).

Ahoy The Boat

Merry Christmas Eve! We usually spend Christmas Eve celebrating with my family, but since Dema and Grampy T are floating in the wild blue we won't make it out to see them this year. Still, the kids wanted to send Christmas greetings:

Just in Time for Christmas

Phew, last week was rough. Kompass botched a new web site launch a couple weeks ago so I've put in about 20 extra hours of work so far this month. Basically we've had an extended school break for Christmas. 

Then last Sunday (a week ago) Catherine threw up at church and was sick the rest of the day. She was fine by Monday morning and no one else got sick Monday or Tuesday so I thought maybe we were going to avoid it running through the whole family.

Ha. I know. I'm so naive.

Michael Jr threw up all night Tuesday and was fine by late Wednesday afternoon, at which point Mary and I both went down at about the same time. Gussie had it for a few hours overnight Wednesday and we were all on the upswing by Thursday morning. Daddy was fine all this time, and fine all day Thursday, so we thought maybe he would sneak by untouched.

Ha. I know. We are so naive.

He woke up with it Friday morning and we saw nothing of him until Saturday morning. But now I think we're all through it; I really do contribute the fact that we almost never have an illness last more than 12 hours largely to our diet, and hopefully that means we'll all be good for the next couple weeks of Christmas celebrations.

We also have transportation again! The Windstar was beyond fixing (warped/cracked head gasket i.e. needs a new engine) so St. Vincent de Paul towed it away last weekend; it served us well and hopefully its final act will do someone else a bit of good also. Some friends were selling their 2004 Honda Odyssey for a good price, so we snatched it up and are now mobile once more. We were going to wait until after the new year, but the Camry is having problems of its own and we figured being entirely carless was going to be very inconvenient.

And now just a few catch-up pictures from the last couple weeks. 

This kid? He is not a baby anymore. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's going to be escaping toddlerhood long before I'm ready. His only words are still Mama, bye-bye, Dada, and please, but he has a million ideas and just as many ways to make you understand what he wants you to do. He has no problem participating in the oft complex make-believe games his siblings create. He loves music and wrestling, and is very good at antagonizing his chosen target until they agree to engage. He's also a big fan of food. 

This is totally random, but the other day is started to snow from one half of the sky while the other half was bright sunshine. We liked it.

The girls are in hardcore Christmas crafting mode. Yesterday Mary was rifling through the craft supplies in the basement and came screaming up the stairs with a large handful of randomness yelling that she had the *best* idea for a Christmas present for Catherine. She sat down at the table and an hour later came in with this: a pipe cleaner wreath crown with feathers and a line of jingle bells in the front.

She was SO pleased with the result, but she made the mistake of trying it on and looking in the mirror. She loved it so much that she decided it would not be (and never was) a gift for Catherine, but something she simply made for herself. I asked her where she got the idea for it and she told me, "I saw one in a science book." Before you think we might need to evaluate the books we're using for homeschool, it turns out that was she saw was a picture of a Native American headdress with feathers, and then she admitted that the jingle bells were just her own special decoration.

So... who wants a jingle bell feather crown for Christmas?

Piano Man

Gussie loves loves loves the piano right now. For a while Daddy tried to make the big kids keep the lid down over the keys because Gussie kept running over there to play with sticky fingers, but he has now figured out how to lift the key lid by himself, and he has enough arm strength to haul himself up onto the piano bench, so there's no stopping him. And since between Catherine and Mary someone is at the piano about eight hours a day, he is constantly reminded that he wants to play also.

It's always adorable, but when he's wearing his jacket and bow tie, and he looks so serious about it, and he tries to use individual fingers instead of just hammering on the keys with his fists or palms, it's pretty much the best thing ever.

And he knows it. (Yes, sorry, from an edited picture to unedited ones. Now you know that I don't actually take good pictures in camera at all. But if I wait to edit all these he's going to be performing actual concerts before you see them.)

Back to work.

Brothers

The girls decided to dress extra fancy for Gaudete Sunday, so of course the boys had to have ties to keep in step. Gussie could not have turned more heads if he had been glowing neon orange.

No, this is not an artistic choice, shooting through the railing. This was before I made it around the railing and I snapped one in case they got tired of snuggling before I got to them, and of course it turns out to have the best smiles of the bunch. I need a magic railing eraser.

Goodness. Just goodness.

Snow Feast and Penguin Slide

This last snow was so heavy and sticky - it's the first time I've ever seen someone roll a snowball down a hill and it actually collects snow and grows as it rolls. The kids had a lot of fun playing outside but the snow was so wet all their mittens were soaked in minutes. If this winter is going to keep this up, they might need actual snow gloves.

We went out in the morning when the snow was still fresh and Mary sat on the ground and ate fistfuls of it for a good fifteen minutes.

Sophia had a sled that they were sharing on the little hill in the front.

But as soon as the sled had smoothed a path, they quickly switched to penguin slides.

Gussie watched the madness intently for a few minutes.

Then he did his best to scramble up the hill and flopped down on his belly, ready to go! He needed a little help to get going straight down the hill, but he loved it.

It still surprises me how much he understands and how strong his opinions about some things are already. He's certainly no baby any longer.

Tooth Two

Mary lost her second tooth last week! She is very pleased to be losing teeth and likes to make up fake speech impediments that are "caused" by her missing teeth so that she has a good excuse for explaining to everyone that it's only because she recently lost a tooth.. It cracks me up.

Christmas Kickoff in Branson

We made our annual trip to Branson with Grandma and Grandpa last week. This year instead of staying in town we stayed at Big Cedar Lodge, which is kind of like a wilderness resort complete with hotel, restaurants, coffee shop, stable, lake, marina, gift shop, trails, crafts, mini golf, and more right on the grounds, and a herd of shuttles to take you wherever you want to go.

And every single inch of the place was decorated for Christmas!

Tuesday when we arrived we got settled and the girls played some bingo with Grandpa. Wednesday was a beautiful day and very busy. We played some mini golf... Grandpa must have taught Mary how to hold the golf club.

And Gussie's favorite part was running in and out of this giant fish.

And we walked all around. Catherine and Mary did a great job helping Grandma keep track of Olivia since we didn't have Chris and Sunny with us.

Michael saw this picture and immediately recognized that these are two boys who are looking for some way to get into trouble.

Then we drove into town for lunch and a show on a big boat. Michael Jr was most excited about this event I think, but all the kids loved it.

It was a big paddle wheel boat (is that what it's called?) and Michael Jr and Gussie could have stood at the back rail and watched the wheel churn the water for the entire ride.

Catherine and Mary enjoyed climbing up to the roof top level so they could see all around.

And I kind of almost got a not ridiculous picture of all four kids. Well, representative ridiculousness at least.

Inside the boat we had lunch while watching a Christmas variety show of sorts. First there was a magician on stage when we went in. He might have noticed us come in and sit down at our table because shortly after we sat down he asked for a volunteer kid helper and I'm pretty sure we had the only kids in the audience. I was prepared to let him know he was going to come up empty in that hunt, but Catherine raised her hand and marched right up on stage with him.

Keep in mind, the last time she braved a stage was several years ago, and she lasted only a few seconds before bolting.

But she did great! She answered all his questions, I think shocking him a little bit when he asked what she likes to do for fun and she replied "read books", and then he asked what she wanted to be when she grows up and she replied, "restaurant owner". She helped him with a trick, pulling a coin out of thin air, and even managed to smile once.

And she was richly rewarded with a gummy bear from the candy machine on stage and a free fruit smoothie with lunch, in a cup she got to keep! 

Mary didn't have much time to be bummed about missing out on the smoothie because the rest of the show held her full attention. There was a lady who played violin and piano, and sang Christmas songs in a booming soprano voice, and THEN she climbed a set of those fabric ropes and did a bunch of aerial tricks and played violin while she was up there. And she had so many sparkly outfit changes that each time she would go backstage and come back on in a new outfit Michael Jr would ask, "Is that the SAME princess?!"

They could not have been more impressed.

When the show and the boat ride were over and we were back at the dock the kids explored this sleigh.

I don't know where the others ran off to.

Sorry, I think Gussie's face is so cute in this picture that it trumps Mary's bottom being in it.

Then we headed back to Big Cedar and visited the horses at the stable. Michael Jr and Mary would not get within ten feet of a horse under any circumstances. Granted, they were mostly draft horses for pulling wagons so they were quite big, but Catherine braved coming in close when the resident cowboy asked her if she wanted to help brush Willy the horse.

And eventually Grandma got Olivia close enough to help.

We couldn't leave the stables without a quick jaunt up a path into the forest to find a geocache.

After dinner (and dark) we got to take a ride around the grounds in a horse-drawn wagon (not Willy, but a couple of his friends). It was chilly by that time but the kids really enjoyed it.

Now, did you notice how Catherine and Mary are occasionally only wearing t-shirts in some of those pictures? Like I said, it was a beautiful day. Then this happened.

This is the reason why we spent all day Thursday making ornaments, playing board games, decorating cookies, and watching The Sound of Music instead of going to Silver Dollar City. It is also the reason the 4-hour drive home took 7 hours on Friday. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the fun trip and for getting us home safely!