Juhzee and Pesselfaya

Well, we travelled afar starting on Christmas day, to see Peter's sister (& family) in NJ and my brother (& family & parents & Laura & Chris) in PA. We were ever so thankful for our portable DVD player on the 6 hour drive. It was so nice to see family and watch Bryn and Cal play with their cousins.
My favorite part about this picture is that Calvin's cousins had decked that horse out like it had just one the triple crown.
In PA we decided to help with a bathroom that needed a bathtub wall put in. Unfortunately, to fit it in, we ended up knocking out a wall. But don't worry; this is the new wall we're making to go in it's place. Notice anything different about me? I frame and drywall.


Chipping out the remnants of the wall

Snow Fliers

We spent a day sledding. Peter and I enjoyed it, Bryn liked it but was terrified by it, and Calvin did not like walking or standing in the snow (he was very tired). Eventually I fashioned a pull for the sled from a broken stick, and he fell asleep laying down in the sled going for a more horizontal ride.

Merry Christmas!

What's wrong with this picture?

That's right, Calvin actually snapped a DVD in half. If you've ever tried doing this yourself, you'll know it's pretty hard. That's my boy. Don't worry, it's a library DVD, so they're going to charge us 25 bucks to replace it instead of the $0.62 it would cost us at Amazon marketplace to buy a new one. We hadn't even watched it yet (and boy, doesn't it look like a winner). Grrrr....

Hibernating toys?

I'm not sure who the culprit is here, but imagine my surprise when I go to step into my shoe, only to be greeted by a cast-iron train. It seems to be a growing trend in our household.

Laura's Dang Snowman Already

The View

It's nice to wake up to this (much better than waking up to gray clouds and dirty ice yesterday).

Christmas Tags

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping paper. I also enjoy a good tablecloth wrapped bike every now and then.
2. Real tree or artificial?
Artificial. Save the conifer trees!
3. When do you put up the tree?
The day after Thanksgiving. Christmas Deco was always a huge event while I was growing up. We had a flocked artificial tree that was kept in my Grandma's warehouse, so after the tree was taken out we all (7 kids) climbed in the box and dusted ourselves with flocking sheddings and spiders.
4. When do you take the tree down?
January. My wreath? There have been years it's celebrated the 4th of July.
5. Do you like eggnog?
Yes, with milk or sprite to dilute it. I especially like the song Grandma Got Ran over by a Reindeer, which mentions eggnog.
6. Favorite gift received as a child?
A bike (I named it Thunder) wrapped in a table cloth when I was ~7. My younger sister also got an identical one, and we spent a few months riding them indoors and in the garage before we were able to take them out.
7. Do you have a nativity scene?
I have 2 complete sets, if you count the baby Jesus that Calvin ate.
8. Hardest person to buy for?
My dad who is far ahead of everyone when it comes to techno-gadgets, so anything I get him is soooo 10 years ago (he made himself a speaking car-navigation GPS system 12 years ago)
9. Easiest person to buy for?
Calvin. Basketballs. Done.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
I don't have one, so I'll make a hypothetical answer: what's worser than worse? A swimming pool of lemon juice with a diving board made of razor blades.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards?
This is a boring question, so I'll confess now that Calvin didn't actually eat baby Jesus; he just tried to. I fished it out before he got it swallowed.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
The Nightmare before Christmas and While You Were Sleeping (you know you like that movie, too)
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
December the 24th. Actually, I just did 80% of mine today.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Do you count recycling the box and the paper to the waste management facility?
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
My weight in chocolate.
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
CLEAR. Even though I bought 1?,2?,3?,no, 4 boxes of green lights at Rite-Aid by mistake.
17. Favorite Christmas song?
How can you pick? The Christmas album I've listened to the most this year is Harry Connick Jr.'s.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Stay at home until Christmas morn, and then travel.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
Yes, can you?
20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Angel. But my favorite was the year my psycho cat named Batty (short for Batman) scaled my mother's tree and perched near the top. He was happy; my mother was not.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Morning. Except one year I made matching pjs for the whole family, and we opened those Christmas Eve. It was my first and only affair with a sewing pattern.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
The dust on the Christmas Decorations at department store because they've had them up since September.
24. Do you buy gifts for your pets?
No, they prefer home-made knit presents. I'm picturing a wee scarf for Chippy (our outdoor self-replacing chipmunk), a cute micro-hat for Shelob (our outdoor spider who's in Florida for the winter) and booties for Mr. Grasshopper (I hope I don't have to explain him). Bryn has found and maintained all of these pets herself.
25. Have you ever been Christmas caroling?
Yes. Last night I went with a group to a retirement home that was so cool they even had a small water-feature complete with a live turtle in the front foyer.
26. Hot chocolate or hot apple cider?
The former. Once I dropped a fiver for a hot chocolate in Harvard square (they ground the cocoa beans after I ordered). It was quite delicious and I was satisfied after 3 sips.
Tag: Laura, Diana, Lesa

Where do they think they're going?

We live on a dead end street. There is even a sign (not the sign below) that says "Not a Through Way," and yet, several times a day we watch people come down our street, turn around at the end, and peel away frustrated. So when I saw this sign on my one of my iGoogle gadgets, I had to laugh.

A Sunday Morning without Peter

After leaping off the gray plastic bin about a hundred times, Bryn proclaimed, "I'm really learning to fly, mom! I'm like a Bryn bird!"


Other Bryn proverbs uttered today:
Reading the title of a book: "holley bibblah" (can you guess what it really was?)
After drinking a glassful water: "I put it down my drain Mom!"


Calvin: "help me!" (meaning he wants to help me do the dishes. I didn't want him to get wet, so...

You better not pout

Jingle Bells, anyone?

You gotta love the glamour of the church Christmas party.

Homemade Dates

In effort to adapt to a student lifestyle (budget) again, Peter and I have decided to have stay-at-home dates every other Friday (after the kiddos are in bed). Coming up with activities that fit our criteria (try to spend less than $10, and stay at home) was kind of fun, so I'll post some of things I came up with. We take turns planning the date Monday evening for the following Friday. And if you have any more ideas, let me know!

Stay-At-Home Date-ish Activities:

Movies:

• Rent a movie (to make it extra special, splurge for a new-release)
• Have a "progressive" movie night. I was envisioning renting something like Cast-a-way and watching it on our portable DVD player, starting in the warm living room, then at the plane wreck scene moving to the bathroom into the running shower (with clothes on), and then on the island moving out to the balcony with some raw food (husking a coconut is in order), and then back inside for some gourmet food when Tom Hanks gets rescued. This also transfers nicely to go-out dates (like watching Jaws while floating in tubes in the ocean). My other idea was to watch Arachnophobia in our basement (a place many a spider calls home).

Cooking Dates:

• Try something new (we made hazelnut/coconut covered Chocolate Truffles a couple of weeks ago)
• Make something traditional (we always make orange rolls during the holiday season)
• Make something and Doorbell-Ditch someone with it
• Have a fancy dinner

Shopping Dates:

• Google Gifting (Find something online for each person for under $5)
• Google Charity Gifting (Find something online for someone else for $10)

Theater Dates:

• Learn a scene together from a play
• Learn funny monologues and present them to each other
• Do a poetry reading in character (if I were reading a poem by Poe I'd dress all in black and act drunk)
• Read a book out loud together (we've plowed through several book series this way)
• Speed Writing (spend one night starting and finishing a short story, then have a reading)

Games:

• Play a board game or a card game
• By 2 Extra Fancy Nice Pens and do a crossword together
• Play a board game in costume (e.g. play Mall Madness dressed as teenage girls, play Clue with a group in character and have a life-sized game board)

Dancing/ Music

• Learn to swing dance (that's what we're probably doing this Friday- I've got my library DVD "How to Swing Dance" on Reserve)
• Learn a duet on the piano
• Buy a new classical CD, buy a super fancy sound system from Bose (they happen to have a fabulous 30-day return policy) and dress up like we're at the symphony and listen to the new CD in our Conservatory

Projects:

• re-upholster your dining room chairs
• sew some fancy ribbons onto your shower curtain to make it match your theme
• paint a picture together
• Watch a movie while doing any project you have on your to-do list

Brrrrr

I'm cold. We had a lovely weekend in NYC visiting with some friends, but when we returned home last night at 11pm, we discovered our heat was not working. We put our exhausted children to bed with many many blankets, tried to solve the problem. After calling half a dozen oil service companies, my dad, my sister, and my brother with no help in sight, we bundled ourselves up and went to bed with hats on.

This morning we lit a fire in our fireplace with hopes that would warm us up, but it didn't make much of a dent. And our poor little space heater never had a chance. I have a new appreciation for those who came before and had to live like this all the time through the winter. Hopefully we'll have a nice ending to this story, but for now, be grateful you are (hopefully) warm. On the upside, it turns out I'm terrific at typing with gloves on.