Tis The Season

A rare Sunday morning at home for all the Waters; the preacher excluded, obviously. Coughs and slight fevers are slowing us down quite a bit. 

It's been a busy season of Christmas preparations and concerts for all but the littlest of the bunch.

The girls had their Christmas program at Veritas.

The younger boys took their first church choir concert very seriously.

Toddzilla also in on the action.

Buckeye basketball, a behind-the-scenes tour at the zoo, cookie baking, ice skating, and the Jingle Ball at Veritas...

Hitting the Highlights of the Holidays

The lead up to Christmas was full of the usual...

The four oldest participated in our church's Night in Bethlehem:

The two youngest made all kinds of mischief as they waited for Santa:

Elbow sang in the annual Christmas choir concert:

I had my annual Christmas Eve cry (no picture, sorry)

And we managed to survive!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us

Count Down to Christmas

The decorations are up, the Advent chocolates are asked for first thing in the morning, Jotham's Journey is being read in the evenings, and our classes are winding down. So begins the countdown to Christmas.

The oldest and the youngest ready for Christmas card pictures

The boys' science reports

Crockett and his buddy at science co-op

Bobo reading to little brothers in the tree house,
still jacketless in December!

I'm so thankful for freshly painted walls in our playroom (above),
kitchen, and entryway. Thank you, Hubby, for my early Christmas present!

Elbow and Toddzilla had their belt tests for Tae Kwon Do on Monday. Two boards for both of them:

O Come, O Come, Immanuel!

One Forgets...

... how much joy a little piece of chocolate brings every morning in an Advent calendar! You'd think it was Christmas morning itself when some of these children wake up. (Of course there's also the residual "can I open another day?" from the smallest ones who don't quite understand the whole concept of waiting). 

My posting is light as the season heats up. It's a busy weekend which will hopefully bring pictures soon. Tomorrow we're headed to "The Shot" to see the Buckeyes play some basketball. Sunday my oldest daughter reprises her role as Mary in the Nativity Pageant - last time she was six!

The Village People

Bobo and buddies as village children in A Night in Bethlehem

Elbow as the same

Not Exactly Traditional...

But it's what we're studying for our Advent devotions. We're finding verses from Proverbs about what makes a person a "fool" in God's eyes, and what makes him "wise." These almost life size guys are adorning our kitchen walls, waiting for their verse for the day.

Weekend Review

A busy but very productive weekend around here. I managed to get all my shopping done in one fell swoop on Saturday. It's a rare luxury for me to have time to run around on Saturdays; usually Hubby is in the trenches wrestling out the sermon. Thanks to one of our missionaries being back from Haiti and in the pulpit, Hubby was more or less off duty.

Toddzilla completed his orange stripe in his junior Tae Kwon Do class:

(The trophy was earned by the boy holding it for completing his junior black stripe)

The big three had their annual church choir Christmas concert yesterday:

Cookies and fun post concert 

Moving on today with school work, some sewing projects with the girls (Christmas related, sshhh!), and violin lessons and Tae Kwon Do this evening. Plus lots of traveling through the woods with sleds in the beautiful, fresh snow. This means my dryer will get an extra workout today - it's hard keeping up with wet hats and mittens...

The Halls Are Decked

I'm feeling quite behind on the whole Advent experience around here since we were away for the first week of it. Last night we managed to get the tree and decorations up. Current projects include working on the picture for our Christmas card, cooking for friends with a brand new baby boy, and doing some holiday baking. And, of course, hitting the books - always a challenge after a long break!

Quick, Quick Takes

Doing: Advent devotions, school work, choir concerts...

Reading for school: Little Britches (together), Old Yeller (Bobo), Little House in the Big Woods (Elbow), Phonics books (Toddzilla)

Reading for pleasure: The Good Earth (me), A Christmas Carol (Bobo), various and sundry non-Spiderwick books (Elbow - she decided the Beyond Spiderwick books had things that were "inappropriate" so she's off of that kick???)

Hoping: for some snow! We're not yet used to a green Christmas...

Week in Review, Again

Another week with nary a post. We've been busy "preparing the way:" baking cookies, sculpting Jesse Tree ornaments, getting lessons done, and now enjoying a rare weekend when Hubby doesn't preach. That being the case, we'll cram the weekend full of fun things we don't generally get to do because he's busy preparing.

Hubby was the substitute teacher at Living Waters Classical Academy on Thursday, as I went out to breakfast with a friend (and he goes into church after lunch on Thursdays). He hadn't done that since Bobo was in kindergarten. (We still laugh about that day - her spelling book asked her to put her words in ABC order. He told her to put the letters in each word in ABC order, sort of missing the whole point of alphabetising and spelling.) Things went much better this time around. When I called to check in, he said, "there's just one math problem I can't explain - she's doing like 12th grade math!" (Just so you know, it's Saxon 5/4 - not exactly 12th grade math - but we won't tell him that).

Weekend Snapshots

All wrapped up and ready for bed.

Son of a preacher man.

He's all about preaching these days and likes to look the part.

I remember Toddzilla would walk around with a little Bible at this age too

and would say he was "off to work."

No pictures of TZ today, (he's gotten plenty of press here lately), but a sweet story

I don't want to forget. He threw us all for quite a loop tonight as the

girls discussed their plans to be engineers one day

(this is due primarily to the book we're reading, see below).

"What do you want to be, Toddzilla?" they asked. We were all expecting the usual: soldier, warrior, truck driver, ATV operator... He looked up with those big brown eyes and said,

"I think I'll sing for the Lord."

Elbow lost another tooth this weekend so she's looking like somewhat

like a left over jack-o-lantern from Halloween. She doesn't seem to mind.

We're reading The Great Wheel right now for history - it's about a young man from Ireland who comes to America and works on the first Ferris Wheel at the Chicago Expo.

Bobo worked on her own miniature version with her dad during the first chapters of the book.

Advent One tomorrow. The calendars await.

A Night In Bethlehem

We spent the fourth Sunday in Advent in "Bethlehem..."

Making bread at the market bakery

Pounding out copper to make jewelry with the locals

And running from the Roman soldiers!

It's All Very Confusing

St. Nicholas came to us on Sunday morning, rather than Saturday, because one of my daughters was supposed to be at an overnight. We got the dreaded middle of the night call to come get her when she got sick. (This is why I'm opposed to slumber parties, but that's a whole different post).  

So the children were all excited for their gold coins and dollar bills. But then we had to remind them that most Lutheran children don't celebrate the saints so how 'bout not mentioning your good fortune in Sunday School? I can just imagine the rumors, "the pastor's kids worship the saints! Scandal!"  

On a serious note, we do love the saints around here. We love their stories of faith and sacrifice. Martin Luther loved the saints too, so it's not like we're out of line. 

Advent Lapbooks

I mentioned these before, but they're worth repeating. So far, this has been a great afternoon project for us. Especially if we can get to it before Crockett wakes up from his nap.

Almost Advent

Thanksgiving's come and gone; we're preparing for Advent around here. We usually wait until the second Sunday of Advent to begin decorating, mainly because a fresh tree can only last so long. But since we're going artificial this year, I think we'll put it up on Sunday.

Lots of plans are in the works, most of them centering around our church. It's our first Advent with this congregation and there are many wonderful opportunities planned for the whole family.

One thing we'll be doing at home will be working on this great Advent lapbook. There's enough in there to last through the season; we'll probably do a little each day.

The children were sneaking around their ornament boxes this afternoon, knowing I didn't want them out until tomorrow. It's always so much fun to see how excited they get re-discovering their special treasures after a year's absence.

This, however, is one treasure we're hiding away. 

Crockett started taking the toilet seat in the car with him - and then even to bed! (It's thoroughly clean; no one's used it in years). The final straw though was when it became his preferred reading chair. You gotta draw the line somewhere...

A Dream Come True

Remember this? Elbow's dream of playing Mary in the church pageant will be realized on Sunday. She's been practicing holding the baby Jesus for days!

The Tree That Became a Bowl

Our Jesse tree was a drooping, dilapidated mess. We cut a branch from one of our pines and plunked it into a vase, which obviously was not going to cut it. After only four days, the Sculpey ornaments were causing the branches to drag along the counter. It was not a pretty sight.


Enter the Jesse Bowl. I decided to scrap the whole tree concept and keep our ornaments in a bowl. It's not quite as symbolic, but much more functional. It's a great talking piece, considering it's fairly difficult for Hubby to figure out what some of the symbols are. This requires the children to retell the bible story while they explain their masterpieces to their doting dad.


We're getting our symbols and related bible verses here. I was hoping to buy Geraldine McCraughrean 's The Jesse Tree, but never got it ordered in time. Next year. And maybe we'll have an actual tree by then too.