Post Christmas Visit North 2016

Gabe had to work the few days after Christmas this year, so we were a bit later heading north to celebrate Christmas with family.  At Grampy and Grammy's Noah mastered driving the big snowmobiles and James, Ben and Audrey mastered the little snowmobile.  In fact, Audrey loved it so much there was lots of crying each time her turn ended.  She was quite proud of her "Darth Vader helmet". Along with the snowmobiling the kids had a blast ice fishing with Grampy.

We headed to Nannie's after, where we faced yet another first of not having Dad there. I know he was there in spirit, but his quiet presence and the joy he felt when all of his kids and family were at his house "making a mess" was definitely absent. We did have a great time visiting and playing with everyone at least:)  The kids also enjoyed some fast sledding at the high school with Nannie, Aunt Amy, Trey, Lily, Elizabeth, Hillary and Cody.

While we were north there was a bit of a snowstorm (28 inches in Wilton).  We are so thankful for our wonderful friends and neighbors!! One friend plowed our driveway (which is a terrible driveway for plowing), another shoveled all the paths to get to the animals and more still took care of the pigs and chickens the entire time we were gone.  It really does take a village!

Christmas Day 2016

Merry Christmas!!  What an exciting/eventful few days it has been!  Nannie drove to our house in a snowstorm in the evening on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas Day with us.  Gabe backed out of the garage later on Christmas Eve (to deal with some santa things) and backed directly into my mom's car... We eventually laughed about it;)

Santa came during the night, but before everyone got up the power went out (I am pretty sure my mom wished she hadn't come at this point;))... So, we made the most of it.  The first pictures are only light because of the camera flash and our lantern.  Thankfully it was sunny out so after everyone checked out the Santa gifts we moved to the front room where we almost passed out from the heat.  Noah and Audrey both asked Santa for an ice cream/hot dog cart, James an ant farm and Ben wanted a ninja turtle. This one is still a mystery because Ben has never seen the show or really knows what they are, but he insisted on this one named Leonardo because we have been studying Leonardo DaVinci in school... I guess that is a win;)

After some gifts we pulled out the propane camping stove and cooked eggs, bacon and hash browns.   Thanks to our solar panels we do have the ability to plug small things into the current electricity being produced.  We were able to make hot cocoa and toast in the basement.  The pigs enjoyed some leftover (stale) sugar cookies and couldn't have been happier.  Overall, an fairly memorable Christmas to be sure!  Merry Christmas!                                      

Christmas Eve 2016

A few days ago Ben lost his first tooth.  He had been wiggling it a lot, so I asked him if he wanted me to try and pull it out.  He said yes, so I went upstairs to get a gauze pad. When I came back down stairs this is what I saw.  He reached in and just yanked it out all by himself! I felt a little disappointed that he robbed me of being able to pull out a tooth, but I was mostly proud that he wasn't afraid to do it himself;)

We have enough snow for sledding this week.  Last year, the day before Christmas the kids also had the sleds out, but they weren't wearing coats and were trying to sled on the grass!

Gabe had to work part of the day on Christmas Eve, but made it home in time to make some soups and practice to sing in the choir with the boys at the Christmas Eve church service.  For the first year, Audrey was finally old enough to participate in setting the treats out for Santa and opening the Christmas Eve gift.  In years past she has been a complete mess needing to go right to bed after church, but she is growing up to handle it better now:)

Christmas Preparations Part 2

More Christmas!! We held our annual family Christmas party complete with more cookies to decorate and a visit from Santa.  We love seeing all of our friends come together for this.  This year there was a significant snow storm the night before and morning of the party, but, like all good Mainers, it didn't stop anyone from coming out and joining us.  It did make parking a bit interesting and we got the snow removal done minutes before the party started, but we all had fun just the same:)  

The day after our party was the annual Children's Christmas Pageant Sunday at our church.  I am sure I have stressed this point before, but we love our church.  Every year it seems that one of our children decide they want to do something quirky as part of the pageant and every year, no one bats an eye.  This year James played Joseph (he now holds the distinction of the only kid to play both Mary and Joseph in different years) and Noah was a narrator.  The pageant took on a bit different part of the birth story to include King Harrod, played by Ben.  Ben has a history of claiming he wants to be part of the pageant, but backs out at the last minute.  This year he practiced his part, both being very angry and his death scene, and did such a great job! Audrey refused to wear any costumes offered in the weeks leading up to the pageant. The day before she agreed to be a lamb. That morning she refused to be a lamb, but still wanted to be part of the pageant.  The only thing I got her to agree to was the unicorn costume... this year the story of the birth of Jesus included a unicorn;)