Newest Member of the family, and other things...

Meet Fireball...Bay's pet Betta fish. Actually it's his 3rd fish, 2 others already died, but so far, so good with this one. It's now been over a week and he's still breathing! He loves his pineapple house, and when you come into the room, he swims out of his house and up to the edge of the tank as if to see what's going on! This was Bay's Christmas present...he has been asking for a fish for a long time. He's very happy with his new companion.

One of my favorite Christmas presents this year was this book...and when we got home from our trip, both Bay and Leah already had projects picked out for me to get started on. I was happy to oblige them!
This is Piggy Pie

And here is Bay's Space Man..not sure if that's an actual name or just a description, but either way it fits him well!

Christmas was...

...focusing
...baking

...resting

...gifting

...boarding

...crafting

...skiing

...driving

...knitting

...bundling

And so much more!

Crafts and Experiments

We spent the afternoon doing a couple of crafts. None of which were my original idea, but they did come together very nicely. Sometimes you find craft ideas, but they turn out to be flops. I don't think either idea was a flop. They can be linked her for the fabric covered styrofoam balls, and the recycled Christmas cards.

They are now hanging nicely from the curtain rod in front of our sliding doors in the living room.

I think they look very elegant.

Completely unrelated, but happening on the same day, is the following surface tension experiment performed by Eric. We went to the Walter Wick exhibit at the Walter's Art Museum in Baltimore last week, and there were some photos of things like below. Eric wanted to try this one out and was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Cool, huh!

Advent

I have seen many posts lately about Advent...my good friend Sarah has a link on her blog to some wonderful Advent ideas, many of which we will use this year. For our family, we have traditionally used Advent as a time to keep our focus on Christ during the Christmas season. It is so easy to get caught up in busyness and activities, so the daily Bible reading centered around the Christmas story, and some activity that encourages us to think beyond ourselves really helps us to celebrate Christmas in a meaningful way.

We started one new advent activity this year, and I wasn't really sure how it would go over with the kids. Though it has only been 2 days, I am quite impressed. The idea is called "Stocking Stuffers". The rules are this: Each person has to write one note each day, and you have to rotate to whom you write. Write a note that is encouraging to one of the members of our family, fold it and put it in their stocking. The note can be short or long, and can say anything you want, as long as it is encouraging. Christmas morning, when stockings are opened, each person will have a handful of notes to read from each other.

The reason we decided to do this activity this year was because our children struggle (and oftentimes we do as parents) with finding positive things about each other. It is so easy to focus on the negative. Instead, they will be looking for those little things about each other which they love and will be writing them down.

So, as I said, I wasn't sure how it would go over. This morning, without any prompting, after breakfast, each of the kids got out their little slip of paper from the basket and wrote their note, and slipped the notes into the stockings on the mantle.

December Camping Tour

Post #2

Christmas Eve at the beach

We spent Christmas Eve with Heather's cousin, Laura, at Bonita Beach in Bonita Springs. It truly was "bonita" (beautiful!). What a totally different feeling to be at the beach this time of year. Very foreign to me. I am used to much the opposite, in fact, normally I would choose to be snow skiing over being at the beach, but we had a wonderful time. The weather was perfect, not typical hot and muggy summer beach weather, but in the 70's and breezy. The water was quite chilly, but we all managed to actually swim in it (why come all the way to Florida and not swim in the Gulf?). The kids made sand castles, sand snowmen, collected more shells than we will take home, ate lunch at a beach cafe, and played in the water. An added bonus was that this beach is the home of the Gopher Tortoise Preserve, so we got to see lots of these tortoises throughout the park.
Heather and Laura....our dads are brothers

Eric found a live hermit crab in this shell

Our family

eric working on his sand castle

Bay and Leah looking at the gopher tortoise

December Camping Tour

Post #1

We are in the middle of our December Camping Trip and I finally have time to post some highlights of the trip. We left the week before Christmas and drove down to Florida...brought along the camper, bikes, car-top carrier...loaded to the hilt. Everyone is having a great time.

First stop was Faver-Dykes State Park near St. Augustine. We drove down to Daytona Beach after we settled in to visit with Dennis' step-dad, Sam. Took Elsa to a local d0g-park to let her run, and the kids to a playground to let them run! We love the abundance of the live oak trees with all of the spanish moss here...so pretty. We also drove on the beach for a bit, but couldn't get out to walk...no dogs allowed on the beach in Daytona.

The state park we found is a hidden gem I think. It is very small (only 30 sites) and extremely well maintained. It was well secluded and also gated at sunset, so we felt very safe. Here is the view of the marsh from the playground area. We were told to watch out for the local wildlife: armadillos, alligators, snakes and racoons. Never saw any, but heard many things in the brush at night. Not to worry...there is much to be seen further on in our trip!

Visited old St. Augustine and enjoyed the town very much. The kids enjoyed all of the cannons on the fort, Castillo de San Marcos. It was a really neat fort. We didn't do any tour, just ran through the fort at kid-speed! We also walked through the shops in the town and did the Holly Jolly Christmas Trolly to see the Christmas lights...the whole town and many of the bed & breakfasts go all out to decorate everything!

Here we are at the fort with the sun sinking in the background. We are used to the sun setting at about 4:30 pm this time of year at home, so we have enjoyed the full extra hour of daylight while down here. Same time zone, so we figure it must be because we are a bit further west, as well as much further south.

Look for the next post to be from Ft. Myers on the Gulf Coast. So far we've logged over 1500 miles on the truck!

Christmas Surprise for Leah & a dissappointment
"Kit"

I am so excited about my handmade Christmas present for Leah. One of the things that is so surprising to me about her is her lack of interest in baby dolls; but on the flip side, her extreme interest in animal dolls and how she treats them as if they are baby dolls. She dresses them up, feeds them bottles, and all of the things that little girls do with baby dolls, except she wants nothing to do with human babies! Anyways, in this interest, I found a cute pattern for a handmade baby doll here and the alterations to make it into a kitty (she loves kitty cats), plus outfits to go with it.

I've never sewn anything like this before, and was wondering how it would be to work with tiny garments and such. The whole thing took me just one afternoon, kitty and 2 outfits. It was very fun to do, and I sure hope she likes it!

"Kit" in her little pink dots pintucked dress


"Kit" in her birthday suit
Reversible jumper and shirt

the other side of reversible jumper

On another note, I also got a new foam cushion for Elsa's bed and sewed a nice fleece cover for it with a zipper so it could be removed and washed. The one she had previously was super thin, falling apart, and smelled horrible as well. I got her a nice 3" cushion for her to cuddle up on. I thought it turned out very nicely.

However she was very wary of it from the start, and wouldn't even get in her bed unless I physically put her in. So I thought it just smelled funny to her since it was new, and it would take her a little while to get used to it. Well, she had other plans. yesterday when we got home from church, she had ripped the fabric apart at the seams and chewed up the foam! I guess she was telling me that she really didn't like it after all! We got a good laugh out of it, and now she's sleeping on the floor of her crate with no cushion for the time being. She seems to like that just fine! So much for appreciation from the dog!!!

Advent Already!
Wow, I can't believe it is quickly approaching Christmas already! The kids are excited to be decorating the house, are drawing pictures of idyllic Christmas tree and snow scenes at every chance they get, and the preparations have begun with gift shopping, baking, etc.

We usually do a family advent devotion throughout December each year, and so when a friend sent this link, I was excited for something new! There is a daily scripture, devotion and prayer (standard devotional fare), but also very soothing music that continues to play in the background even when you are done with the reading.

Following the Star (click to follow link)

It is fun to see what types of questions arise from the kids out of our conversations about God and heaven with them. After a reminder discussion about Jesus' birthday, Bay asked Dennis and me,

"Since Jesus is God, do you think that when Jesus died on the cross, he really actually died? Or do you think he was faking it?"

What wonderful windows into their hearts. We are often reminded to be thankful for these little souls God has entrusted us with and what great opportunities we have been given to share with them this eternal hope from the very beginning.

Have a wonderful Advent Season!

Christmas List

We told the kids that they could make up a Christmas wish list. The boys quickly sat down together to corroborate on what they each wanted to ask for to make sure each thing worked with the others' requests...no repeat legos or DS games...

Leah promptly went off into her own space and got her paper and marker and made up her own list. No help from her brothers, no input, other than the 4 years of brainwashing she has endured from them! See if you can't find the brotherly influence in her list. We think it is adorable. I have translated her writing below the picture of the list if you can't figure it out yourself :)

It reads, "Leah's Christmas List"

legos. cat. leapster barbie game. horsey (meaning horse). tinker bell book. scooby doo game. racetrack (she explained this to mean one like Bay's that he never lets her play with)